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Adam Smith’s Bourgeois Virtues in Competition

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 January 2015

Thomas Wells  and
Johan Graafland
Thomas Wells
Affiliation:
Erasmus University, Rotterdam
Johan Graafland
Affiliation:
Tilburg University
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Abstract:

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Whether or not capitalism is compatible with ethics is a long standing dispute. We take up an approach to virtue ethics inspired by Adam Smith and consider how market competition influences the virtues most associated with modern commercial society. Up to a point, competition nurtures and supports such virtues as prudence, temperance, civility, industriousness and honesty. But there are also various mechanisms by which competition can have deleterious effects on the institutions and incentives necessary for sustaining even these most commercially friendly of virtues. It is often supposed that if competitive markets are good, more competition must always be better. However, in the long run competition enhancing policies that neglect the nurturing and support of the bourgeois virtues may undermine the continued flourishing of modern commercial society.

Keywords

Adam Smithcompetitionvirtue ethicsbusiness ethicsbourgeois virtues
Type
Special Issue: Reviving Traditions: Virtue and the Common Good in Business and Management
Information
Business Ethics Quarterly , Volume 22 , Issue 2 , April 2012 , pp. 319 - 350
Copyright
Copyright © Society for Business Ethics 2012

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