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Markets as Processes of Moral Discovery

Originally published in Studies in Emergent Order

The Genesis and Ethos of the Market makes the assertion that virtue is not inconsistent with economic liberty. This raises the question about the relationship between virtue and economic liberty addressed in the "Civil Economy" tradition of the Neapolitan Enlightenment. We explore this question by analyzing the parallel emphases of two related schools of thought. One examines the role of practical reason in the Aristotelian ethical tradition. The other examines the role of entrepreneurship in the Austrian school of economics. Both provide insights into the institutional conditions in which practical reason and entrepreneurship are linked and flourish as discovery processes.

The Genesis and Ethos of the Market makes the assertion that virtue is not inconsistent with economic liberty. This raises the question about the relationship between virtue and economic liberty addressed in the "Civil Economy" tradition of the Neapolitan Enlightenment. We explore this question by analyzing the parallel emphases of two related schools of thought. One examines the role of practical reason in the Aristotelian ethical tradition. The other examines the role of entrepreneurship in the Austrian school of economics. Both provide insights into the institutional conditions in which practical reason and entrepreneurship are linked and flourish as discovery processes.

Read the article online at SSRN or at Studies in Emergent Order. 

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