Morality and the Market

Book excerpt: Morality and the Market is a business ethics anthology unlike any other. The book covers the foundations of markets, their operations, and their effects by incorporating most traditional business ethics topics while introducing new ones as well. The result is a text with genuine diversity of opinion, philosophical depth, and breadth of topic, accompanied throughout by a knowledgeable and sympathetic account of the traditional issues in business ethics.Morality and the Market places special and distinctive emphasis on virtue and its applicability to the contexts of commerce. Each of the traditional topics of business ethics is related to particular virtues. For example, the virtue of honesty is related to advertising and sales; integrity is related to whistle-blowing; social responsibility is related to business profit; and courage is related to entrepreneurship. Morality and the Market explores the moral foundations of markets, their moral consequences, and considers the effects of commerce on the arts, culture, the environment, and technological progress.