Legitimating Market Egoism: The Availability Problem

It is a common enough view that market agents are self-interested, not benevolent or altruistic – call this market egoism – and that this is morally defensible, even morally required. There are two styles of defence – utilitarian and deontological – and while they differ, they confront a common prob...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Lynch, Tony (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Springer Science + Business Media B. V 2009
In: Journal of business ethics
Year: 2009, Volume: 84, Issue: 1, Pages: 89-95
Further subjects:B market egoism
B Deontology
B Utilitarianism
B availability problem
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Summary:It is a common enough view that market agents are self-interested, not benevolent or altruistic – call this market egoism – and that this is morally defensible, even morally required. There are two styles of defence – utilitarian and deontological – and while they differ, they confront a common problem. This is the availability problem. The problem is that the more successful the moral justification of self-interested economic activity, the less there is for the justification to draw upon. Religious justifications of market egoism at least make a stab at dealing with the problem; secular accounts typically do not.
ISSN:1573-0697
Contains:Enthalten in: Journal of business ethics
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1007/s10551-008-9675-6