Debating the Merits and Morality of Trade

We have moral language for three of the four possible combinations of intent and outcome. Vice and virtue are easy enough, as they are our common terms for discussing the morality or desirability of our actions when the outcomes match our intentions. But what about when they don’t? We have the category of “negligence” when we cause negative outcomes we did not intend, such as failing to set the brake on a car that rolls down a hill and damages property. But we do not have a word for the unintentional doing of good! That missing box is filled in by economics and good social science as they explain how, under the right institutional framework, the pursuit of self-interest leads to unintended benefits for society as a whole.”

http://www.thefreemanonline.org/featured/unintended-consequences/

“Are Economists Basically Immoral?” and Other Essays on Economics, Ethics, and Religion

Posted: March 13, 2010 | Author: Daniel J. Smith | Filed under: Ethics, Morals, Unintended Consequences | Leave a comment »

“…if everyone focused on the needs of others, the results would be disastrous: the system would “come to a halt, at enormous cost to all participants if they were to act consistently on the principle of advancing the welfare of the most needy or most worthy—rather than focusing on the accomplishment of their own personal goals” (p. 33).”

http://www.independent.org/publications/tir/article.asp?a=772

On the Ethics of Charging to Shovel Snow

Posted: February 11, 2010 | Author: Daniel J. Smith | Filed under: Ethics, Markets, Morals, Uncategorized | Leave a comment »

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On the Ethics of Charging to Shovel Snow

Lord Acton was, and is, correct

Posted: January 5, 2010 | Author: Daniel J. Smith | Filed under: Democracy, Ethics, Government, Power | Leave a comment »

http://mungowitzend.blogspot.com/2010/01/lord-acton-was-and-is-correct.html

New York Most Polite City

Posted: December 3, 2009 | Author: Daniel J. Smith | Filed under: Capitalism, Doux Commerce Thesis, Ethics, Markets, Uncategorized | Leave a comment »

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13452608/

Daniel J. Smith
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Homo Moralis

Posted: November 13, 2009 | Author: Daniel J. Smith | Filed under: Ethics | Leave a comment »

“…liberalism is justified for having a certain suspicion of ethics while on the other hand is the political and social theory most encouraging of it.”

http://www.springerlink.com/content/a16h312717qupn6t/

Daniel J. Smith

Assistant Professor of Economics, Manuel H. Johnson Center for Political Economy, Troy University

Debating the Merits and Morality of Trade

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