Wealth, commerce, and philosophy : foundational thinkers and business ethics / edited by Eugene Heath and Byron Kaldis ; with a foreword by Deirdre N. McCloskey.
Foreword: "While conforming to ... Law and ... Ethical custom": How to do Humanomics in business ethics / Deirdre N. McCloskey -- Introduction / Eugene Heath and Byron Kaldis -- Wealth and commerce in archaic Greece: Homer and Hesiod / Mark S. Peacock -- Aristotle and business: friend or foe? / Fred D. Miller, Jr. -- Confucian business ethics: possibilities and challenges / David Elstein and Qing Tian -- The earthly city and the ethics of exchange: spiritual, social, and material economy in Augustine's theological anthropology / Todd Breyfogle -- Thomas Aquinas: the economy at the service of justice and the common good / Martin Schlag -- The ethics of commerce in Islam: Ibn Khaldun's Muqaddimah revisited / Munir Quddus and Salim Rashid -- Hobbes's idea of moral conduct in a society of free individuals / Timothy Fuller -- John Locke's defense of commercial society: individual rights, voluntary cooperation, and mutual gain / Eric Mack -- As free for acorns as for honesty: Mandevillean maxims for the ethics of commerce / Eugene Heath -- "Commerce cures destructive prejudices": Montesquieu and the spirit of commercial society / Henry C. Clark -- Hume on commerce, society, and ethics / Christopher J. Berry -- The fortune of others: Adam Smith and the beauty of commerce / Douglas J. Den Uyl -- Why Kant's insistence on purity of the will does not preclude an application of Kant's ethics to for-profit businesses / Norman Bowie -- Tocqueville: the corporation as an ethical association / Alan S. Kahan -- J.S. Mill and business ethics / Nicholas Capaldi -- Karl Marx on history, capitalism, and ... business ethics? / William H. Shaw -- Friedrich Hayek's defense of the market order / Karen I. Vaughn -- The power and the limits of Milton Friedman's arguments against corporate social responsibility / Alexei Marcoux -- Beyond the difference principle: Rawlsian justice, business ethics, and the morality of the market / Matt Zwolinski -- Commitments and corporate responsibility: Amartya Sen on motivations to do good / Ann E. Cudd.
Summary:
The moral dimensions of how we conduct business affect all of our lives in ways big and small, from the prevention of environmental devastation to the policing of unfair trading practices, from arguments over minimum wage rates to those over how government contracts are handed out. Yet for as deep and complex a field as business ethics is, it has remained relatively isolated from the larger, global history of moral philosophy. This book aims to bridge that gap, reaching deep into the past and traveling the globe to reinvigorate and deepen the basis of business ethics. Spanning the history of western philosophy as well as looking toward classical Chinese thought and medieval Islamic philosophy, this volume provides business ethicists a unified source of clear, accurate, and compelling accounts of how the ideas of foundational thinkers - from Aristotle to Friedrich Hayek to Amartya Sen - relate to wealth, commerce, and markets. The essays illuminate perspectives that have often been ignored or forgotten, informing discussion in fresh and often unexpected ways. In doing so, the authors not only throw into relief common misunderstandings and misappropriations often endemic to business ethics but also set forth rich moments of contention as well as novel ways of approaching complex ethical problems. Ultimately, this volume provides a bedrock of moral thought that will move business ethics beyond the ever-changing opinions of headline-driven debate.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.