The world has seen several financial and economic crises in the past few years. Psychological, ethical and philosophical levels of causal analysis have been discussed, and in this context, an interest in classical thinkers has emerged. The work of Aristotle has influenced writers from Marx and Menger to Amartya Sen. This book introduces us to Aristotle’s thought on 'the economic' and on its influences on economists. First, it focuses on Aristotle ́s ideas, situating Aristotle in his historical context, describing his positions on the economic and analysing what kind of reality the economic is, its relation with ethics and with politics. Then, it determines what kind of science is concerned with the economic. Later, it analyses related topics and shows the influence of Aristotle’s ideas on contemporary economists. It concludes by highlighting the Aristotelian contributions to today’s economy. This scholarly volume offers important new insights into the Aristotelian approach to the economy itself, as well as to the idea of economics as a science, bringing Aristotle’s views to bear on the modern economy.

The world has seen several financial and economic crises in the past few years. Psychological, ethical and philosophical levels of causal analysis have been discussed, and in this context, an interest in classical thinkers has emerged. The work of Aristotle has influenced writers from Marx and Menger to Amartya Sen. This book introduces us to Aristotle's thought on 'the economic' and on its influences on economists. First, it focuses on Aristotle ́s ideas, situating Aristotle in his historical context, describing his positions on the economic and analysing what kind of reality the economic is, its relation with ethics and with politics. Then, it determines what kind of science is concerned with the economic. Later, it analyses related topics and shows the influence of Aristotle's ideas on contemporary economists. It concludes by highlighting the Aristotelian contributions to today's economy. This scholarly volume offers important new insights into the Aristotelian approach to the economy itself, as well as to the idea of economics as a science, bringing Aristotle's views to bear on the modern economy.

This study argues that although Aristotle developed a coherent theory of value, wealth, exchange and money, the metaphysical foundations of his theory make it impossible to assimilate to neo-Classical economics or any other kind of economic thought.

'This is an important and timely work that addresses the moral crisis of contemporary economics. Alvey not only provides an excellent narrative of classical Greek economics, but his arguments are aimed at restoring the central role that ethics played in the long tradition of economic thought. This is an invaluable scholarly resource for academics and students of political economy as well as the history of political thought.' Benjamin Wong, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore Arising from a disenchantment with mainstream economics a dissatisfaction that is widespread today A Short History of Economics and Ethics sketches the emergence and decline of the ethical tradition of economics and the crisis of modern economics. In doing so, James Alvey focuses on four of the leading ancient Greek thinkers: Socrates, Xenophon, Plato and Aristotle. The author uses insights from Amartya Sen's Capabilities approach as well as other sources to retrieve the ethical tradition of economics. Five aspects of this tradition which seem to lie outside of mainstream economics are identified: an ethical methodology; some notion of a just price; an understanding that ethical motivations are relevant to human action; a rich understanding of human well-being; and some notion of distributive justice related to human well-being. Creating a forum for further debate and research opportunity, this book will appeal to students, scholars and historians of economic thought, as well as to all those interested in the intersection of ethics with economics.

This book develops a philosophical analysis of economic reality and economic science from an Aristotelian point of view. It is the result of many years of thinking and philosophical study about these topics. It differs from other philosophy of economics books as it also deals with economic reality (not only the science) and approaches its subject from an Aristotelian perspective. It differs from other Aristotelian studies about economics as it covers the whole of philosophy of the economy. This book argues why Aristotle’s thinking guarantees an appropriate interdisciplinary synthesis.

This book presents an original theory of the just price, and it is a welcome addition to scholarship on a radically underdeveloped field. This work reassesses the age-old idea that there is a just price of things, one that goes beyond the Scholastic tradition of the just price and its exclusive concern with commutative justice. There is more to just price theory than the concern for keeping equality of value between goods exchanged. Modern concerns over efficiency, autonomy, and distributive justice, can also find a place within a theory of the just price. The book: - Presents a new approach to just price theory through a broad analysis of different values and the incorporation of those conceptions into a wider normative framework - Argues that these different values ground varied conceptions of the just price, and - Promotes a virtue-based approach to price justification as an adequate framework for meeting the challenges that stem from each conception Perfect for scholars and students in the fields of jurisprudence, philosophy of private law, contract law, and political theory, this book makes a significant contribution to legal theory and the emerging field of the philosophy of economics.

What is the nature of economics? How does economics relate to politics? Readers searching for the Ancient Greeks’ answers to these questions often turn to Aristotle, focusing on small portions of the Politics and Nicomachean Ethics that relate to money-making, exchange, and household management. While this approach yields some understanding of economics and politics, it fails to account for how Aristotle’s theoretical inquiry into these practical matters reflects the character of his political philosophy. According to Aristotle, the Ethics and Politics together form “the philosophy concerning the human things.” All human things begin with choice, an intellectual desire and need for the good. Aristotle’s care for this desire is the heart of his political philosophy. Through a close, literal, and careful reading of Aristotle’s political philosophy, readers discover the natural boundaries to economic and political life. Simultaneously theoretical and practical, Aristotle’s political philosophy offers readers a perspective of economics and politics that provides them the experience of the knowledge they need to desire and live within the limit of the good.

Pluralism has become the defining characteristic of modern societies. Individuals with differing values clamor for equality. Organizations and groups assert particular interests. Social movements flourish and fade. Some see in this clash of principles and aims the potential for a more just human community, while others fear the erosion of enduring culture. Yet beneath this welter stand powerful and pervasive institutions, whose distinctive norms profoundly shape our moral commitments and character—notably the family, the market, the media, and systems of law, religion, politics, research, education, health care, and defense. Drawing on scholarship from five continents, many disciplines, and diverse religious perspectives, this series examines the impact of these various institutions on moral education, character, and values. As globalization carries the shifting dynamic between individuals and institutions into every part of the globe, the contributors hope that this conversation will help address the increasing challenges confronting our pluralist societies and our world. In the theoretical, empirical, and historical contributions to this volume, theologians, economists, and market practitioners discuss the many tensions between market economics, ethics, and the Christian religion, thus adding to the fruitful and much needed dialogue between economics and theology. With contributions by Jason Brennan, Michael J. Broyde, Ginny Seung Choi, Samuel Gregg, Peter Lampe, Manfred Lautenschläger, Frank J. Lechner, Klaus Leisinger, Katrin Gülden Le Maire, Piet Naudé, Paul Oslington, Stephen Pickard, William Schweiker, Virgil Henry Storr, Jürgen von Hagen, Michael Welker, Kaja Wieczorek and John Witte. Contributions by Peter Carnley, Gregor Etzelmüller, Johannes Eurich, Jennifer Herdt, Admiel Kosman, Piet Naudé, Waihan Ng, Friederike Nüssel, Bernd Oberdorfer, Martin Percy, Stephen Pickard, Raja Sakrani, William Schweiker, Philipp Stoellger, Milton Wan, Renee Ip, Michael Welker and John Witte, Jr.

This electronic version has been made available under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-ND) open access license. Commerce, finance and statecraft charts the emergence of new approaches to England's economic history in the historical writing of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The book explores the work of the period's most influential historians – among them Francis Bacon, William Camden, Paul de Rapin-Thoyras and David Hume – and shows how these writers, and their contemporaries, were engaged in a series of hotly contested, politically–charged debates concerning the management of England's commercial and financial interests. This book will be essential reading for historians and literary critics working on Restoration and eighteenth-century historical writing, and historians, economists, political scientists, and philosophers interested in historiographical theory.

Aristotle's work on money was the backbone of medieval thinking about commerce, and it is still the foundation of Catholic teaching about market behaviour. Marx's theory of economic value was based on it, and so was much of the economic analysis of money into the present century. In the past hundred years the interpretation of Aristotle's work on money has become chaotic. Economists claim Aristotle as the father of economics, while classical scholars hold that Aristotle had no economic theory at all. It is argued here that Aristotle does develop a coherent theory of economic value, wealth, exchange, and money, but that this theory cannot be assimilated to what we call 'economics', because its metaphysical foundation is incompatible with the Humean metaphysics on which economics is built. From an Aristotelian standpoint, ethics and economics are competitors over the same ground, as rival sources of reasons for decision-making in the public realm, and they cannot be reconciled.