America’s Economic Moralists: A History of Rival Ethics and Economics

(SUNY Press) This book traces two schools of economic morality from colonial times to the present. One ethic makes the freedom, or autonomy, of the individual its central norm, and defines virtues, rights, and obligations by how they contribute to that freedom. The other morality defines economic ethics in terms of obligations and rights defined by human connectedness. The author concludes that a major failing of the morality of autonomy is its inability to define boundaries for economic behavior, leading ultimately to economic excess. Frey is professor of economics at Wake Forest University.