Moral Values and Markets

Discussion about moral values and markets evolves around key questions: Should markets be free of values, or are values intrinsic to economic exchange? What is the nature of the relation between moral values and markets? Can economic exchange be influenced positively by moral values, or do moral values deteriorate in confrontation with markets? Although economics in its origins used to be considered a moral science, and specifically a part of ethical philosophy, modern developments of economic theories seek to explain the behavior of economic agents through self-interested, rational, and egoistic motives divorced from ethical considerations and moral reasoning. This is how the notion of Homo economicus was born. It is only because of the empirical advancement of neuroscience and the behavioral economics of recent decades ...