Virtue and Commerce in Domingo de Soto’s Thought: Commercial Practices, Character, and the Common Good

Governance and Virtue: The Case of Public Order Policing

“…Of 36 highly cited papers on 'virtue' in the Journal of Business Ethics, only eight use primary empirical data (Batson et al 2006;Beadle 2013a, b;Chun 2005;Lau and Wong 2009;Murphy 1999;Robinson et al 2013;Shanahan and Hyman 2003). Most discussions of virtue are conceptual (Alves and Moreira 2013;Arjoon 2000;Chismar 2001;Dierksmeier 2013;Gowri 2007;Hartman 2011;McAdams and Koppensteiner 1992;Melé 2009;Nicholls 2010;Parkan 2008;Sethi 1994;Whetstone 2001). Two papers analyse secondary data using recognizedly systematic methods: econometrics (Cai et al 2011) and content analysis (Chun 2005), most either review secondary data or use it more illustratively (Crossan et al 2013;Hadreas 2002;Jennings 1991;Koehn 2013;Limbs and Fort 2000;McCracken et al 1998;Marchese et al 2002;Parkan 2008).…”

“…In other words, what does it mean as a citizen, a parent, a friend, or simply a human being, to act in the right way, over time. Virtue ethics is the oldest, most well-established approach to questions of appropriate action that we have, yet it remains of contemporary, indeed growing, interest within business ethics (Alves and Moreira 2013;Beadle 2013a, b;Fontrodona et al 2013;Koehn 2013;Morrell 2012;Robinson et al 2013). Partly because there are many varieties of virtue ethics (Slote 1997), it is of wider relevance than other normative ethical systems in the sense it can be considered as compatible with both deontological and consequentialist approaches (Dierksmeier 2013;Morrell 2004), and an ethics of care (Slote 1997), in a way that is unlike the basic tension between Utilitarianism and Kant (Crisp and Slote 1997).…”

“…Virtue ethicists face the problem that no one virtue is super-ordinate, and nor is there a possibility of ranking virtues, or rendering them commensurate because in considering what constitutes virtuous action, context, and the development of character (Solomon 1992) are all important. Virtue ethics is focused, 'not so much on how to resolve problems as it is on how to live one's life ' (McCracken et al 1998, p. 26), a central idea being flourishing (Alves and Moreira 2013;Morrell 2012;Sison and Fontrodona 2012). Even flourishing is context sensitive though since it depends on a relation between the citizen and the state: Spartans can flourish, as can Athenians but they do it in different ways and in different contexts.…”

Business Culture and Corporate Social Responsibility: An Analysis in the Light of Catholic Social Teaching with an Application to Whistle‐Blowing

“…Furthermore, it allows him to show how the latter takes precedence over the former. Given that in itself commerce as an activity is morally indifferent, it will be the specific ways in which merchants conduct themselves and their business that will largely determine the fulfillment of commerce's potential to contribute both to the material and the formal parts of the common good.In this context, for Soto the material parts of the common good are associated with the mutual advantage derived from voluntary commercial transactions, which in turn are dependent and subordinate to the formal parts of the common good, whose fulfillment depends on the (to some extent self‐cultivated) character on the part of the agents engaged in those commercial transactions …”

“…In this context, for Soto the material parts of the common good are associated with the mutual advantage derived from voluntary commercial transactions, which in turn are dependent and subordinate to the formal parts of the common good, whose fulfillment depends on the (to some extent self‐cultivated) character on the part of the agents engaged in those commercial transactions …”