The Market for Virtue

The Market for Virtue
Author: David Vogel
Publisher: Brookings Institution Press
Total Pages: 246
Release: 2007-05-01
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0815790783

In the highly praised The Market for Virtue, David Vogel presents a clear, balanced analysis of the contemporary corporate social responsibility (CSR) movement in the United States and Europe. In this updated paperback edition, Vogel discusses recent CSR initiatives and responds to new developments in the CSR debate. He asserts that while the movement has achieved success in improving some labor, human rights, and environmental practices in developing countries, there are limits to improving corporate conduct without more extensive and effective government regulation. Put simply, Vogel believes that there is a market for virtue, but it is limited by the substantial costs of socially responsible business behavior. Praise for the cloth edition: "The definitive guide to what corporate social responsibility can and cannot accomplish in a modern capitalist economy."—Robert B. Reich, Brandeis University, and former U.S. Secretary of Labor "Vogel raises a number of excellent points on the present and future of CSR."—Working Knowledge, Harvard Business School "A useful corrective to the view that CSR alone is the full answer to social problems."—Business Ethics "The study combines sound logic with illustrative cases, and advances the sophistication of the CSR debate considerably." —John G. Ruggie, Harvard University, co-architect of UN Global Compact

Markets in Vice, Markets in Virtue

Markets in Vice, Markets in Virtue
Author: John Braithwaite
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 262
Release: 2005
Genre: Competition
ISBN: 9780195222012

This sweeping, comparative study of taxation in the United States and Australia shows that even as governments in the Western world have become increasingly sophisticated tax collectors, a competitive and ruthless market in advice on tax avoidance has developed. The same competitive forces in the late twentieth century which have driven down prices and sparked efficiencies in the production of fast food or computer parts have helped stimulate the markets for "bads" like tax shelters and problem gambling. Braithwaite draws the surprising conclusion that effective regulation could actually flip markets in vice to markets of virtue. Essential reading for anyone involved in policy, governance, and regulation, Markets in Vice, Markets in Virtue provides a blueprint for restoring the equity of Western tax systems and a breakthrough theory of how regulators can support markets in virtue and curtail markets in vice.

Virtue and Economy

Virtue and Economy
Author: Andrius Bielskis
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 264
Release: 2016-03-09
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1317001516

Interest in Aristotelianism and in virtue ethics has been growing for half a century but as yet the strengths of the study of Aristotelian ethics in politics have not been matched in economics. This ground-breaking text fills that gap. Challenging the premises of neoclassical economic theory, the contributors take issue with neoclassicism’s foundational separation of values from facts, with its treatment of preferences as given, and with its consequent refusal to reason about final ends. The contrary presupposition of this collection is that ethical reasoning about human ends is essential for any sustainable economy, and that reasoning about economic goods should therefore be informed by reasoning about what is humanly and commonly good. Contributions critically engage with aspects of corporate capitalism, managerial power and neoliberal economic policy, and reflect on the recent financial crisis from the point of view of Aristotelian virtue ethics. Containing a new chapter by Alasdair MacIntyre, and deploying his arguments and conceptual scheme throughout, the book critically analyses the theoretical presuppositions and institutional reality of modern capitalism.

The Market of Virtue

The Market of Virtue
Author: Michael Baurmann
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 192
Release: 2002-08-31
Genre: Law
ISBN: 9789041118745

The Market of Virtue - Morality and Commitment in a Liberal Society is a contribution to the present controversy between liberalism and communitarianism. This controversy is not only confined to academic circles but is becoming of increasing interest to a wider public. It has become popular again today to criticize a liberal market society as being a society in which morality and virtues are increasingly being displaced by egoism and utility maximization. According to this view the competition between individuals and the dissolution of community ties erode the respect for the interests of others and undermine the commitment to the common good. The present book, however, develops quite a different picture of a liberal society. An analysis of its fundamental principles shows that anonymous market-relations and competition are by no means the only traits of a liberal society. Such a society also provides the framework for freedom of cooperation and association. It gives its citizens the right to cooperate with other people in pursuit of their own interests. Just as the rivalry between competitors is a basic element of a liberal society so is the cooperation between partners. Thus not only self-centred individualism is rewarded. The main part of the book explains how the freedom to cooperate and to establish social ties lays the empirical foundation for the emergence of civil virtues and moral integrity. It is the basic insight of this analysis that it can no longer be maintained that a liberal society is incapable of producing moral attitudes and social commitment. If a civil society can develop under a liberal order, then one can reckon with citizens who voluntarily contribute to public goods and who commit themselves of their own accord to the society, its constitution and institutions. However this book not only develops further arguments for the current debate between liberalism and communitarianism by explaining the emergence of morality and virtue in a market society. It also provides new aspects for the present theoretical and methodological controversies over the fundaments of the social sciences and contributes to the advancement of the modern individualistic approach in social theory. In this context it aims especially at an improvement of a sociological model of behaviour.

Seeking Virtue in Finance

Seeking Virtue in Finance
Author: JC de Swaan
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 249
Release: 2020-09-17
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1108692141

Since the Global Financial Crisis, a surge of interest in the use of finance as a tool to address social and economic problems suggests the potential for a generational shift in how the finance industry operates and is perceived. J. C. de Swaan seeks to channel the forces of well-intentioned finance professionals to improve finance from within and help restore its focus on serving society. Drawing from inspiring individuals in the field, de Swaan proposes a framework for pursuing a viable career in finance while benefiting society and upholding humanistic values. In doing so, he challenges traditional concepts of success in the industry. This will also engage readers outside of finance who are concerned about the industry's impact on society.

Political Virtue and Shopping

Political Virtue and Shopping
Author: M. Micheletti
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 262
Release: 2003-09-05
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1403973768

Political consumerism is turning the market into a site for politics and ethics. It is consumer choice of producers and products on the basis of attitudes and values of personal and family well-being as well as ethical or political assessment of business and government practice. In the face of economic globalization and a regulatory vacuum, consumers increasingly take responsibility in their own hands, making the market an important venue for political action through their decisions of what to purchase. This book opens the readers' eyes to a new way of viewing everyday consumer choices and the role of the market in our lives, illuminating the broader theoretical and historical context of concerns about sweatshops, responsible coffee, and ethical and free trade. Contemporary forms of political consumerism - boycotts, labelling schemes, stewardship certification, socially responsible investing, etc. - are described and evaluated. Individual actions are shown to be important in the complexity of globalization.

The Structures of Virtue and Vice

The Structures of Virtue and Vice
Author: Daniel J. Daly
Publisher: Georgetown University Press
Total Pages: 256
Release: 2021-02-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 164712039X

A new ethics for understanding the social forces that shape moral character. It is easy to be vicious and difficult to be virtuous in today’s world, especially given that many of the social structures that connect and sustain us enable exploitation and disincentivize justice. There are others, though, that encourage virtue. In his book Daniel J. Daly uses the lens of virtue and vice to reimagine from the ground up a Catholic ethics that can better scrutinize the social forces that both affect our moral character and contribute to human well-being or human suffering. Daly’s approach uses both traditional and contemporary sources, drawing on the works of Thomas Aquinas as well as incorporating theories such as critical realist social theory, to illustrate the nature and function of social structures and the factors that transform them. Daly’s ethics focus on the relationship between structure and agency and the different structures that enable and constrain an individual’s pursuit of the virtuous life. His approach defines with unique clarity the virtuous structures that facilitate a love of God, self, neighbor, and creation, and the vicious structures that cultivate hatred, intemperance, and indifference to suffering. In doing so, Daly creates a Catholic ethical framework for responding virtuously to the problems caused by global social systems, from poverty to climate change.

Virtue and the Quiet Art of Scholarship

Virtue and the Quiet Art of Scholarship
Author: Anne Pirrie
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 218
Release: 2018-10-03
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1351044338

Virtue and the Quiet Art of Scholarship offers a fresh perspective on what it is to be a ‘good knower’ in a social and educational environment dominated by the market order. It explores how narrowly conceived epistemic virtues might be broadened out by seeing those who work and study in the university in their full humanity. In an era characterized by deep and enduring social and cultural divisions, it offers a timely, accessible and critical perspective on the perils of retreating behind disciplinary boundaries, reminding readers of the need to remain open to the other in a time of increased social and political polarization. Drawing on the work of Leonard Cohen, Ali Smith, Italo Calvino and Raymond Carver, the book seeks to move across disciplines and distort the line between the humanities and the social sciences as a way of bringing them closer together. It explores virtue in the context of scholarship and research, particularly how the ‘virtues of unknowing’ challenge traditional notions of the ‘good knower’. The book offers the framework within which to bridge the gap between ‘us’ and ‘them’ in relation to developments in the university sector, addressing the urgent need for a form of language that promotes unity over division. Virtue and the Quiet Art of Scholarship will be vital reading for academics, researchers and postgraduate students in the fields of philosophy of education, sociology of education, research methods in education and education policy.

The Bourgeois Virtues

The Bourgeois Virtues
Author: Deirdre Nansen
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 637
Release: 2010-03-15
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0226556670

For a century and a half, the artists and intellectuals of Europe have scorned the bourgeoisie. And for a millennium and a half, the philosophers and theologians of Europe have scorned the marketplace. The bourgeois life, capitalism, Mencken’s “booboisie” and David Brooks’s “bobos”—all have been, and still are, framed as being responsible for everything from financial to moral poverty, world wars, and spiritual desuetude. Countering these centuries of assumptions and unexamined thinking is Deirdre McCloskey’s The Bourgeois Virtues, a magnum opus that offers a radical view: capitalism is good for us. McCloskey’s sweeping, charming, and even humorous survey of ethical thought and economic realities—from Plato to Barbara Ehrenreich—overturns every assumption we have about being bourgeois. Can you be virtuous and bourgeois? Do markets improve ethics? Has capitalism made us better as well as richer? Yes, yes, and yes, argues McCloskey, who takes on centuries of capitalism’s critics with her erudition and sheer scope of knowledge. Applying a new tradition of “virtue ethics” to our lives in modern economies, she affirms American capitalism without ignoring its faults and celebrates the bourgeois lives we actually live, without supposing that they must be lives without ethical foundations. High Noon, Kant, Bill Murray, the modern novel, van Gogh, and of course economics and the economy all come into play in a book that can only be described as a monumental project and a life’s work. The Bourgeois Virtues is nothing less than a dazzling reinterpretation of Western intellectual history, a dead-serious reply to the critics of capitalism—and a surprising page-turner.

Adam Smith and the Character of Virtue

Adam Smith and the Character of Virtue
Author: Ryan Patrick Hanley
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 225
Release: 2009-06-22
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1139477390

Recent years have witnessed a renewed debate over the costs at which the benefits of free markets have been bought. This book revisits the moral and political philosophy of Adam Smith, capitalism's founding father, to recover his understanding of the morals of the market age. In so doing it illuminates a crucial albeit overlooked side of Smith's project: his diagnosis of the ethical ills of commercial societies and the remedy he advanced to cure them. Focusing on Smith's analysis of the psychological and social ills endemic to commercial society - anxiety and restlessness, inauthenticity and mediocrity, alienation and individualism - it argues that Smith sought to combat corruption by cultivating the virtues of prudence, magnanimity and beneficence. The result constitutes a new morality for modernity, at once a synthesis of commercial, classical and Christian virtues and a normative response to one of the most pressing political problems of Smith's day and ours.