IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/jbuset/v172y2021i1d10.1007_s10551-020-04521-5.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

In Adam Smith’s Own Words: The Role of Virtues in the Relationship Between Free Market Economies and Societal Flourishing, A Semantic Network Data-Mining Approach

Author

Listed:
  • Johan Graafland

    (Tilburg University)

  • Thomas R. Wells

    (Leiden University)

Abstract

Among business ethicists, Adam Smith is widely viewed as the defender of an amoral if not anti-moral economics in which individuals’ pursuit of their private self-interest is converted by an ‘invisible hand’ into shared economic prosperity. This is often justified by reference to a select few quotations from The Wealth of Nations. We use new empirical methods to investigate what Smith actually had to say, firstly about the relationship between free market institutions and individuals’ moral virtues, and secondly about the further relationship between virtues and societal flourishing. We show with more quantitative precision than traditional scholarship that the invisible hand reading dramatically misrepresents both the nuance and the sum of Smith’s analysis. Smith paid a great deal of attention to a flourishing society’s dependence on virtues, including the non-self-regarding virtues of justice and benevolence, and he worried also about their fragility in the face of the changed incentives and social conditions of commercial society.

Suggested Citation

  • Johan Graafland & Thomas R. Wells, 2021. "In Adam Smith’s Own Words: The Role of Virtues in the Relationship Between Free Market Economies and Societal Flourishing, A Semantic Network Data-Mining Approach," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 172(1), pages 31-42, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:jbuset:v:172:y:2021:i:1:d:10.1007_s10551-020-04521-5
    DOI: 10.1007/s10551-020-04521-5
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10551-020-04521-5
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10551-020-04521-5?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Johannes Abeler & Daniele Nosenzo & Collin Raymond, 2019. "Preferences for Truth‐Telling," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 87(4), pages 1115-1153, July.
    2. Hirschman, Albert O, 1982. "Rival Interpretations of Market Society: Civilizing, Destructive, or Feeble?," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 20(4), pages 1463-1484, December.
    3. Dominic Burbidge, 2016. "Space for virtue in the economics of Kenneth J. Arrow, Amartya Sen and Elinor Ostrom," Journal of Economic Methodology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 23(4), pages 396-412, October.
    4. McCloskey, Deirdre Nansen, 2006. "The Bourgeois Virtues," University of Chicago Press Economics Books, University of Chicago Press, number 9780226556635, September.
    5. Matthias P. Hühn & Claus Dierksmeier, 2016. "Will the Real A. Smith Please Stand Up!," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 136(1), pages 119-132, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Ballandonne, Matthieu & Cersosimo, Igor, 2022. "Towards a “Text as Data” Approach in the History of Economics: An Application to Adam Smith’s Classics," OSF Preprints mg3zb, Center for Open Science.
    2. Elena G. Popkova & Bruno S. Sergi, 2021. "Dataset Modelling of the Financial Risk Management of Social Entrepreneurship in Emerging Economies," Risks, MDPI, vol. 9(12), pages 1-20, November.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Niclas Berggren & Therese Nilsson, 2013. "Does Economic Freedom Foster Tolerance?," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 66(2), pages 177-207, May.
    2. Rick Wicks, 2012. "Assumption Without Representation: The Unacknowledged Abstraction from Communities and Social Goods," The American Economist, Sage Publications, vol. 57(1), pages 78-95, May.
    3. Jackson, Jeremy & Beaulier, Scott, 2023. "Economic freedom and philanthropy," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 214(C), pages 148-183.
    4. Benistant, Julien & Galeotti, Fabio & Villeval, Marie Claire, 2022. "Competition, information, and the erosion of morals," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 204(C), pages 148-163.
    5. Rick Wicks, 2011. "Markets, Governments—," Challenge, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 54(4), pages 65-96.
    6. Johan Graafland, 2023. "On Rule of Law, Civic Virtues, Trust, and Happiness," Applied Research in Quality of Life, Springer;International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies, vol. 18(4), pages 1799-1824, August.
    7. Khadjavi, Menusch & Sipangule, Kacana & Thiele, Rainer, 2016. "Social capital and large-scale agricultural investments: An experimental investigation in Zambia," Kiel Working Papers 2056, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    8. Wicks, Rick, 2008. "A Model of Dynamic Balance among the Three Spheres of Society – Markets, Governments, and Communities – Applied to Understanding the Relative Importance of Social Capital and Social Goods," Working Papers in Economics 292, University of Gothenburg, Department of Economics, revised 01 Jan 2009.
    9. J. Graafland, 2010. "Do Markets Crowd Out Virtues? An Aristotelian Framework," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 91(1), pages 1-19, January.
    10. Matthias P. Hühn, 2019. "Adam Smith’s Philosophy of Science: Economics as Moral Imagination," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 155(1), pages 1-15, March.
    11. Menusch Khadjavi & Kacana Sipangule & Rainer Thiele, 2021. "Social Capital and Large-Scale Agricultural Investments: An Experimental Investigation [Implications of the presence of large scale commercial farmers on small scale farming in Nigeria: the case of," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 131(633), pages 420-449.
    12. Wicks, Rick, 2011. "Assumption without representation: the unacknowledged abstraction from communities and social goods," MPRA Paper 51674, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    13. Johannes Abeler & Armin Falk & Fabian Kosse, 2021. "Malleability of Preferences for Honesty," CESifo Working Paper Series 9033, CESifo.
    14. James Swaney, 1990. "The environmental imperative of socio-economics," Forum for Social Economics, Springer;The Association for Social Economics, vol. 20(1), pages 45-58, September.
    15. Bjørnskov, Christian, 2015. "Does economic freedom really kill? On the association between ‘Neoliberal’ policies and homicide rates," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 207-219.
    16. Andrew Lynn, 2022. "Ethics, Economics, and the Specter of Naturalism: The Enduring Relevance of the Harmony Doctrine School of Economics," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 178(3), pages 661-673, July.
    17. Sorravich Kingsuwankul & Chloe Tergiman & Marie Claire Villeval, 2023. "Why do oaths work? Image concerns and credibility in promise keeping," Working Papers hal-04209489, HAL.
    18. Jacquemet, N. & Luchini, S. & Malézieux, A. & Shogren, J.F., 2020. "Who’ll stop lying under oath? Empirical evidence from tax evasion games," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 124(C).
    19. Marie Claire Villeval, 2019. "Comportements (non) éthiques et stratégies morales," Revue économique, Presses de Sciences-Po, vol. 70(6), pages 1021-1046.
    20. De Geest, Lawrence R. & Kingsley, David C., 2021. "Norm enforcement with incomplete information," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 189(C), pages 403-430.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:kap:jbuset:v:172:y:2021:i:1:d:10.1007_s10551-020-04521-5. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.