REVIEW ARTICLE UNFETTERED OR TEMPERED CAPITALISM? HOW BEST TO PROMOTE VIRTUOUS CHARACTERS Earl W. Spurgin The Bourgeois Virtues: Ethics for an Age of Commerce Deirdre N. McCloskey University of Chicago Press, 2006; 616 pages, 0-226-55663-8, $32.50 In the book's preface, McCloskey explains that it is the first of a planned four- volume set that asks us to make "a fresh start in our atdtudes . . . toward how we eam a living.'" She asks us to embrace unapologetically our capitalist society. We should neither scom nor feel guilty about the reladve luxury capitalism affords most of us since it is necessary to develop the full, virtuous life that the ancient Greeks, most notably Aristotle, advocated. Business ethicists should read this book. It is good, delightful, and filled with wit and charm. McCloskey has provided us with one of those rare opportunities to read an academic deadse that both addresses an important topic well and actually makes us smile and laugh. The book's wit and charm is both its greatest sdength and its main weakness. McCloskey tells her story in a way that keeps the reader tuming the book's many pages with a smile, but, atfimes, her wit and charm subsdtute for developed arguments. The book, however, is not merely a series of funny one-liners, nor is it lacking substantial argumentadon. Often, McCloskey defends her claims quite well. More importantly, she has provided us with an excellent and dmely work. Just a few years after several well-publicized corporate scandals shook our society's faith in business is a perfect dme to examine capitalism's influence on our character daits. © 2007. Business Ethics Quarterly, Volume 17, Issue 3. ISSN 1052-150X. pp. 573-584 BUSINESS ETHICS QUARTERLY Structure of the Book The volume begins with two secdons that essendally summarize the posidons that McCloskey adopts and develops throughout the book. In the first, "Apology: A Brief for the Bourgeois Virtues," McCloskey idendfies her opponents and summarizes her central argument. Her opponents fall into two groups. The first group consists of those she terms the "clerisy." These are the academicians, artists, and others who, in an unthinking, uncridcal, and unsupported manner, claim that capitalism has alienated, fragmented, and cormpted us. The second group consists of those economists, including herself at one dme, and others who believe in what she terms "Pmdence Only." This is the view that "capitalism is a matter of Pmdence understood as mthless self-interest."^ According to this view, our market acdvides should be motivated solely by radonal self-interest. This modvadon is jusdfied because it is successful in terms of creating societal wealth and efficiency. Both of these groups, she explains throughout the book, have it wrong. The central argument she sketches in this section begins with the view many hold that capitalism both makes us better off and is consistent with a virtuous life that involves more humanity than Pmdence Only allows. She takes this point a step further than most, however, by claiming that it actually promotes virtuous characters. In the next secdon, "Appeal," McCloskey addresses the virtues more direcdy by idendfying seven virtues (love, faith, hope, courage, temperance, pmdence, and jusdce) and by using them to summarize her argument that market activides do not hinder our development of virtuous characters, but, rather, promote that development. In this secdon, however, she stakes out an even stronger position. She argues that capitalism is necessary to develop the full, virtuous life advocated by philosophers such as Aristode. After the two sections that summarize the positions McCloskey advances throughout this volume, the book tums to four parts that address the seven virtues in tum. Part 1 addresses love, part 2 addresses faith and hope, part 3 addresses courage and temperance, and part 4 addresses pmdence and jusdce. McCloskey's goal in these parts is to give a more thorough account of the virtues and their relationship to capitalism. One matter of particular importance in these parts is her cridcism of the view of love provided by Samuelsonian economics, what she terms "the main sort at American Universides today."^ This criticism is noteworthy because it is representadve of McCloskey's distaste for how advocates of Pmdence Only tend to reduce all values to self-interest. She writes, "The only way it can acknowledge love is to reduce it to food for the implicitly proud and male lover, on a par with 'other' goods he consumes, such as ice cream or apartment space or amusing gadgets from Brookstone.'"* She adds, "A Samuelsonian economist will say, 'It's easy to include "love" in economics. Just put the beloved's udlity into the lover's udlity funcdon.'"' McCloskey rejects such reducing of love to utility calculadons in part on Kandan REVIEW ARTICLE means/ends grounds.* She writes, "Udlity is the measure of an ends-means logic. .. . Loving an end goes beyond means."^ If we do not see this, she tells us, we need only look at our own parents and friends or most parents and friends in general. The love such people have is not merely part of a udlity calculadon. More important to McCloskey, however, is the fact that love is necessary for capitalism. She writes, "Lovefigures in any human group, even a capitalist group. . . . Disinterested sohdarity is necessary for any human acdvity."* She adds, "1 mean by ' solidarity,' besides the intense engagement of tme love, the mere tmst, good humor, neighborliness, respectfulness, cooperadveness, decent intendons of our daily lives."' Self-interest alone does not drive our interacdons with others. A failure to recognize this is a failure to recognize the full spectmm of human values. This is no less tme for our market acdvides than it is for odier aspects of our lives. Similarly to how we must tmst and cooperate in order to Hve with a friend or lover, we must tmst and cooperate in order to make market exchanges or enter contracts. McCloskey does not deny, however, that self-interest plays some role in love, and, thus, in our lives more generally. She appeals to Aristotle to claim that, without a failure in our characters, we can walk away from interactions or even relationships if they become bad enough. The more deep the reladonship, the more virtue requires us to work to mend it when it turns bad, but virtue does not require us to tolerate continually bad behavior no matter how deep the relationship. The point is that since self-interest is merely one part of the value of love, not its sole value as advocates of Pmdence Only tend to believe, it is merely one of the values that drive our interacdons with others. This leads to another matter of particular importance in these parts of the book: McCloskey's acknowledgement that pmdence is a virtue. She writes, "Pmdence as practical know-how is a virtue. This was once a commonplace, in Aristotle, for example, the obligadon to self-development."'° The problem is what economists and other advocates of Pmdence Only have done with pmdence. They are not wrong to value it, but, instead, they are wrong when they promote it in isoladon from the other virtues. They do not recognize that pmdence is not the only virtue, but, rather, is one among many. They have fallen victim to "[t]he inclination to demoralize pmdence."" McCloskey believes this is a mistake of the modem world that began most notably with Niccolo Machiavelli and Thomas Hobbes. She wants those who make this mistake to move away from Pmdence Only, the mere placing of all things in udlity calculadons, and to view pmdence through the lens of morality. This is accomplished by placing pmdence where it belongs: among the virtues. After the parts that address the virtues in tum, McCloskey systematizes the virtues in part 5. She pursues two primary goals in this part of the book. The first is to demonsdate how the virtues interrelate and work together. The second is to demonstrate that, since the beginning of the modem era, our culture has been marked by the loss of the virtues and we need to recover them. Along the way, McCloskey advocates a kind of ethical realism. She claims that there are "things that we assert BUSINESS ETHICS QUARTERLY together we should believe in."'^ She not only denies the tmth of ethical relativism, but, also, suggests that our own behavior denies it." To those who advocate ethical relativism, she would point out that our interactions demonstrate that we do not accept the idea that it is perfectly acceptable for one person to judge X to be moral while another judges it to be immoral. We do not merely accept such disagreement, and we should if we are ethical reladvists, but, rather, we address moral matters in ways that suggest we think we ought to obtain an understanding of them that will allow us to agree. In part 6, the book's last part, McCloskey seeks to reinforce her claim that capitalism promotes the virtues. Once again, she argues that pmdence, although an important virtue, is merely one among many. Near the beginning of this part, she appeals to Adam Smith to make this point. She writes, "he embedded it among the other virtues, such as justice and especially temperance.""* This is a familiar refrain throughout the book. McCloskey frequendy uses Smith against advocates of Prudence Only. Similarly to Patricia Werhane, she recognizes that the operation of self-interest and the invisible hand merely is one part of the robust theory Smith provides.'^ McCloskey relishes in pointing out that advocates of Pmdence Only rely on just part of a theory when they appeal to Smith. On the other hand, McCloskey does not spare the clerisy in this part. She claims their attitudes toward advertising and consumption are especially troublesome. She writes, "The American clerisy's hostility to advertising is puzzling. . . . Why would a country adoring of free speech in its higher intellectual circles have such a distaste for commercial free speech?"'* One's advocacy of free speech should not come and go according to what one feels about the messages being delivered. McCloskey acknowledges that American consumption is significant, but argues that it is jusdfied. She writes, "Americans do have a great deal. They have a great deal . . . because they produce a great deal.'"^ Rather than feel guilty about our consumption as the clerisy thinks we should, McCloskey asks us to consider the fact that, although we use much of the world's resources, we supply the world's population with much of their goods and services. The clerisy, McCloskey believes, fails to see the importance of this in part because they understate the value of capitalist work by not recognizing that it is a creative activity. "Making and selling steel or hamburgers is not the most prestigious field among intellectuals. Writing long books is. Or among ardsts, installing artworks or making movies is. But mnning a fmit stall with energy and intelligence shares in the exhilaradon of creadvity.'"^ McCloskey thinks that, if the clerisy saw capitalist work as the creative enterprise that it is, then they might not have such a difficult dme understanding that American production justifies its consumption. REVIEW ARTICLE Analysis of the Central Argument of the Book McCloskey's view that capitalism makes us better off is not new, and, in my mind, is rather uncontroversial. Many have objected to it by pointing out that those persons who are at the bottom mngs of the socioeconomic ladder are not made better off by capitalism. Doing so, however, mns into at least two difficuldes. First, it merely begins the seemingly endless debate over whether even those persons who are the worst off in a capitalist society are better off than they would be in a society with some other kind of economic system. To see how endless that debate can be, we need only consider how many have argued that John Rawls's difference principle supports capitalism because it makes the least advantage better off, while many others have argued that the same principle rejects capitalism because it does not make the least advantaged better off.'' Second, and perhaps more importantly, the objecdon misses the real point of the view. McCloskey and others do not hold the view that capitalism makes every single person better off, but, rather, they hold the view that it makes the society in total better off by creadng greater progress in goods and services. Of course, objectors then can quesdon whether that is the proper way to measure whether a society is better off or they can claim, following Jean-Jacques Rousseau, that despite such merits capitalism is not jusdfied because it produces inequalides that uldmately enslave us.^° I am unwilling to lodge such objecdons, however, because I agree with McCloskey that the concems in quesfion are no more tme of capitalism than they are of any other economic system. The claim that the capitalist life is consistent with a virtuous life also is not new, and, again in my mind, is rather uncontroversial. It is obviously tme that one can pursue profit and goods in the marketplace without losing one's humanity. There was a comer grocery at the end of the sdeet on which I lived as a child. I remember once accidentally handing the owner too many $1 bills when I was paying for some candy. He handed the exda back to me and said, "son, you might need this later." He obviously pursued profit through his store, but doing so did not cost him his humanity. He had enough left to be kind to me. Likewise, Aaron Feuerstein clearly sdll had his humanity when he chose to keep 3,000 employees on the payroll with full benefits for three months after a fire desdoyed Maiden Mills. His desires for profits had not led him to ignore the needs of those who worked for him and the needs of the community at large. Nor, had desires for profits led Ray Andersen, the CEO of Interface Carpedng who decided to start moving his company toward full sustainability, to ignore the impacts of his business on the environment and future generations. In none of these cases has capitalism led the persons in quesdon to ignore values and daits that give us humanity. McCloskey's view that capitalism actually promotes the virtues and is necessary to develop the full, virtuous life, however, is more novel and controversial. This view requires demonsdadng not only that one can have a virtuous character while BUSINESS ETHICS QUARTERLY living the capitalisdc Ufe, but, also, that such a life pushes one toward the virtues in a way that no other economic system can. This is a daundng task that McCloskey undertakes with various levels of success. With respect to demonstradng that capitalism promotes the virtues better than other systems, McCloskey is rather persuasive. This is most clearly the case when she criticizes the clerisy for romandcizing the past. She makes a sdong case that life before capitalism was no picnic. She demonstrates several ways in which life is better for most people today under capitalism than it was in the past when capitalism was beginning to replace feudalism. Each of those ways plays a role in developing the virtuous life. At that dme, goods and services were much harder to come by and the lives of average people were not conducive to moral growth and development. McCloskey writes, "The amount of goods and services produced and consumed by the average person on the planet has risen since 1800 by a factor of about eight and a half."^' She adds. An Irish peasant woman digging pratties in her lazybed in 1805 or a Norwegian farmer of thirty acres of rocky soil in Dimmelsvik in 1800 or the American daughter of poor English people in 1795 Massachusetts had brutish and short lives. Many of them could not read. Their horizons were narrow. Their lives were toilsome and Such people clearly had little time or opportunities to develop their understanding of the world and the people around them. Without that kind of development, however, it is hard to see how they could be any better positioned to develop virtuous character traits than we are today. They had little opportunity to improve their lives or the lives of those around them. This is not to say that they could not live virtuous lives. Surely, many people lived virtuous lives prior to capitalism. The point, though, is that the clerisy often suggests that life prior to capitalism was an idyllic life that allowed people to live more virtuously than we can today. Given how difficult their lives were, McCloskey is correct to quesdon why the clerisy holds this view. Life is longer and healthier today. McCloskey writes, "Clean water, inoculadon, better food, and penicillin purchased with the higher income raised the expectation of life at birth in the world from roughly 26 years in 1820 to 66 years in 2000."^' Longer and healthier lives are at least as conducive, and probably more so, to developing virtuous characters than are shorter, unhealthy lives. One need only think about how much more the typical 45- or 55-year-old understands about people and the world than does the typical 25-year-old to see the relevance of longer lives to virtues. Likewise, one who lives a healthy life that is not spent constandy fighdng disease is better posidoned to develop one's life than is one who is unhealthy. Again, this does not mean that those who live short or unhealthy lives cannot be virtuous, but, rather, it means that they are no better posidoned to be so, and probably have a more difficult dme in many ways, than those with long and healthy lives. REVIEW ARTICLE McCloskey, however, occasionally lapses into her own romandcizing of capitalism. She writes, A little fanner's market opens before 6:00 a.m. on a summer Saturday at Polk and Dearborn in Chicago. As a woman walking her dog passes tbe earliest dealer setting up a stall, tbe woman and tbe dealer excbange pleasantries about tbe early bird and tbe worm. The two people here are enacting a script of citizenry courtesies and of encouragement for prudence and enterprise and good relations between seller and buyer. Some bours later tbe woman feels impelled to buy $1.50 worth of tomatoes from him. But that's not the point. The market was an occasion for virtue, an expression of solidarity across gender, social class, ethnicity.^" Although the story is charming, it romandcizes capitalism in a way that is just as problemadc as how the clerisy romandcizes die past. Moreover, it plays into die hands of McCloskey's opponents. Both die clerisy and advocates of Pmdence Only can claim diat it does not paint a realisdc picture of the market acdvifies we face on a daily basis, and, thus, does not respond to the points diey make in favor of dieir own visions of capitalism. This does mean that there are no farmer's markets, nor does it mean that the kind of events McCloskey describes do not happen. I have gone to die farmer's market at Shaker Square in Cleveland many dmes and I have had encounters similar to that McCloskey describes. When I do, however, it feels like I am leaving our modem, capitalist society for a short while. Clearly, die farmer's market falls widiin die definidon of capitalism McCloskey provides: "private property and free labor widiout cend-al planning, regulated by die rule of law and by ethical consensus."^' The farmers and customers engage in acdvides diat fall widiin diis or any other definifion of capitalism. The problem is that such farmer's markets are far from the typical setdng for our market acdvides today. They consdtute an extremely small percentage of die capitalist encounters the vast majority of us have. The typical capitalist encounter is far less idyllic. Not all go badly or unpleasantly, but diey are more likely to involve something like standing in a cashier line for several minutes only to be hardly acknowledged once you get to the end of die line undl die cashier says somediing like, "that'll be $107.32. Cash or credit card?" Or, you have to tell the cashier several dmes that you do not need scratch remover to go with the CD you purchased and diat you do not want yet another points card diat you cannot fit in your wallet or ever remember to take widi you to die store. Or, diey involve something like being on the phone on hold for several minutes only to find out that die corporadon from which you bought your defecdve DVD player wants to weasel out of its warranty. The point is that the capitalism most of us know today is not the capitalism in McCloskey's farmer's market story. Nor, is it die capitalism of the earlier example of the comer grocery store in my hometown. That comer grocery no longer ex ists. Most people in Ardmore, Oklahoma, now buy dieir groceries in die Wal-Mart BUSINESS ETHICS QUARTERLY Supercenter. My interacdons in diat Wal-Mart have been like those I describe far more often dian they have been like diat in McCloskey's farmers' market story. All diis is not intended as a cridcism of Wal-Mart or any other corporadon, but, rather, as a plea that we be more realisdc about die actual features of the capitalist society in which we live when we are cridcal of those who romandcize the past. The fact diat capitalism is not like the idyllic picture of die farmer's market leads to die issue of whether the kind of capitalism McCloskey advocates actually best promotes die virtues she has in mind. She writes, "an unsubsidized capitalism works, and... state socialism, or a subsidized and regulated capitalism, does not."^^ I do not quesdon McCloskey's claim about socialism, but I do quesdon her claim that unfettered capitalism best promotes virtues. Undoubtedly, it is true that excessive reguladon sdfles progress and economic growdi. That does not mean, however, diat no tempering of capitalism in the form of reasonable reguladon and prodding can be jusdfied. Whereas McCloskey argues against such tempering, I argue that it is necessary both to produce a desirable world and to promote the very virtues McCloskey thinks capitalism promotes. Without such a tempering, those in the market would be driven by Pmdence Only even more dian they already are and McCloskey's virtues would become even more difficult to find. The progress McCloskey points to dme and again has occurred during a period in which capitalism has been regulated and prodded. In order to demonstrate how capitalism has promoted civic engagement, McCloskey writes, "Look at the 'civic engagement' of Howard Dean's Intemet-based campaign for die Democradc presidendal nominadon in 2003-2004, or die new unionism built on e-mail mobilizadon."" Issues about how much govemment was involved in the development of die Intemet and e-mail aside, McCloskey's own example shows diat reguladon has not prevented a cmcial area of progress. Given diat, it is not clear why she diinks we need to leave capitalism unfettered in order to bring about the progress in goods and services she admires. More importandy, the moral progress that capitalism has given us is, in part, die result of die fact that we have tempered it. Clearly, McCloskey does not think that one should do anything one wishes to do in order to succeed in die marketplace. As we should expect from someone who advocates virtue ediics, she thinks diere are virtuous and vicious ways to succeed and one should opt for die virtuous ways. Without a tempering of capitalism, however, diere is litde to keep us from falling into a kind of Pmdence Only diat ignores die virtuous ways. Reasonable reguladon and prodding serve die important funcdon of delineadng the boundaries of what we should and should not do in order to succeed in our market acdvides. The posidon I am adopdng is consistent with the virtue ethics McCloskey espouses, especially with ideas found in Aristode. Aristotle argues that we do not come into die world widi eidier virtuous or vicious characters, but, radier, we acquire our characters through pracdce. He writes, "Virtue of character . . . results from REVIEW ARTICLE habit.. . . [T]he virtues arise in us neither by nature nor against nature, but we are by nature able to acquire diem, and reach our complete perfecfion through habit."^'* Aldiough we develop our characters dirough what we do, Aristode does not believe we are left alone in diis process. Society's systems of rewards and punishment and praise and blame play die important role of providing us widi incenfives to pracdce the virtues and avoid the vices. He writes, "they impose correcdve treatments and penaldes on anyone who does vicious acdons... and diey honour anyone who does fine acfions; diey assume diat diey will encourage die one and resdain die odier."^' This is exacfiy what the tempering of capitalism should do. Through reasonable reguladon and prodding, it should provide us with the incentives to pursue our market activides in ways that conform to virtue rather than vice. This is not to suggest, however, diat all die reguladon and prodding of capitalism that we see is reasonable. Often, it is unreasonable and fails to provide a jusdfiable delineafion of die boundaries of what we should and should not do in order to succeed in our market activides. Recendy, the state in which I live, Ohio, passed a referendum that bans smoking in all bars and restaurants. I am not a smoker and I have an extremely negadve view of the acdvity that is no doubt driven in part by die fact diat my father, a smoker, died of lung cancer at age 59. My life will be better with the ban as I no longer will have to avoid particularly smoky locadons. Nevertheless, I quesdon this reguladon. Govemments should not tell competent adults what risks diey can take widi dieir lives, nor should diey tell businesses to what clientele they can cater. Moreover, McCloskey is correct to claim diat govemment involvement in die marketplace in die form of spending often does not go to the right people. She writes, if modem government were in fact effective in giving a band up to the deserv ing poor, if most of its expenditure were on behalf of sucb people, I would be very mucb more bappy witb it. But as it stands in the United States the typical govemment program is more like road building than Head Start. It benefits politically well-connected construction unions and the owners of paving firms, not little kids from the inner city.'" Like McCloskey, if I could reallocate government spending I would have more of it go to the deserving poor. This issue illuminates two ways, however, in which I disagree with McCloskey. First, govemment programs like Head Start do provide effecdve help for at least some people. I was a Head Start kid and I would not have become a university professor had it not been for the skills and love of learning that I acquired in diat program. It provided me widi exactly die helping hand I needed. I cannot provide any evidence to support this claim for diose who might call for it. I can offer only anecdotal evidence. It is interesdng that I am the oldest of diree brodiers and die only one who attended college. This is interesdng because I also am die only one who attended Head Start. My family no longer qualified for the program by die dme die next brodier was old enough. Of course, these facts prove BUSINESS ETHICS QUARTERLY nodiing and diere are many odier possible explanadons for diem besides Head Start. Neverdieless, my feelings about what die program provided me should be given at least some weight when we consider the merits of govemment spending. Second, McCloskey seems to think diat funds going to the wrong people is a necessary outcome of govemment spending. Although it often is die case, it need not be so. To the extent that it is at any given dme, we should use our power at die ballot box and our power of protest to change it. McCloskey's correct claim that govemment spending often goes to die wrong people does not argue for doing away widi all tempering of capitalism. It argues for changing govemment spending in ways that will posidon more people for success in market acdvides. A view McCloskey advances early and often throughout the book actually supports die kind of tempering of capitalism that I suggest. In connecdon widi die undesirable outcomes of capitalism to which many people point, she writes, "die bad diings in a capitalist world are not all tesdmony to the badness of capitalism. Much of human good and evil arises from our fallen natures, and has nothing to do with die circumstances in which we are put. . . . [W]e must in our moralizing not mistake human failing for specifically capitalist failing."^' McCloskey is correct diat we must blame people for the wrong diey do within a system rather dian blame die system itself. Just as we blame a football player, not the NFL, when he throws a punch or spits in die face of an opponent, we should blame people, not capitalism, when they are involved in wrongdoing in the marketplace. The pressing quesdon, however, is why, given that she recognizes people will somedmes do wrong, McCloskey does not accept a capitalism tempered by reasonable reguladon and prodding. After all, die NFL insdtutes mles to regulate what players can do on thefield precisely because players will do more wrong without mles to guide dieir behavior. Reasonable reguladon and prodding provides, in a manner consistent widi Aristode's views on die role of the systems of rewards and punishment and praise and blame, a similar guide to behavior in market acdvides. Although I believe the views McCloskey adopts on the virtues throughout die book actually support my posidon here, this is most apparent in die chapter dded "Love and die Bourgeoisie." There, McCloskey argues that capitalism, like any human acdvity, requires a kind of solidarity. She writes, "An economic actor must have a social stage, since no contract can be explicit about every aspect of a complex transacdon, or even of a simple transacdon."^^ She adds, "You can't mn human groups on Pmdence Only, not well. And 'well' means not merely pmdendy and profitably."" Capitalism promotes die virtues because diey are necessary for acdvides that consdtute die system. This, however, is precisely why we need a tempered, radier dian an unfettered, capitalism. We must regulate and prod diose who do not pursue market acdvides in virtuous ways on their own. We know diere are such people. McCloskey acknowledges as much. In die end, die differences between my views and McCloskey's lie in a disagreement over the kind of capitalism diat is necessary to promote virtuous character REVIEW ARTICLE traits. We both reject the posidons of the clerisy and advocates of Pmdence Only. The remedy for McCloskey is an unfettered capitaUsm, while for me it is a capitalism tempered by reasonable reguladon and prodding. Even if I am correct, however, McCloskey has provided us with an ambidous, charming, and excellent work that deserves considerable attendon from business ethicists. I hope that this review performs the service McCloskey deserves of helping to promote that attendon. Notes 1. Deirdre N. McCloskey, The Bourgeois Virtues: Ethics for an Age of Commerce (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006), p. xiv. 2. Ibid., p. 7. 3. Ibid., p. 108. 4. Ibid. 5. Ibid. 6. See Immanuel Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals, trans. H. J. Paton (New York: Harper & Row, 1964), pp. 95-98. 7. McCloskey, The Bourgeois Virtues, p. HI. 8. Ibid., p. 126. 9. Ibid., p. 127. 10. Ibid., p. 254. 11. Ibid. 12. Ibid., p. 333. 13. For discussions of relativism, see Harry J. Gensler, Ethics: A Contemporary Introduction (London: Routledge, 1998), pp. 10-20; and James Rachels, The Elements of Moral Philosophy, 4th ed. (Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2003), pp. 16-31. 14. McCloskey, The Bourgeois Virtues, p. 407. 15. See Patricia H. Werhane, Adam Smith and His Legacy for Modem Capitalism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991). 16. McCloskey, The Bourgeois Virtues, p. 452. 17. Ibid., p. 453. 18. Ibid., p. 469. 19. See John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1971), pp. 60-117. 20. See Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Discourse on the Origin of Inequality, in The Basic Political Writings, trans. Donald A. Cress (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1987), pp. 60-81. 21. McCloskey, The Bourgeois Virtues, p. 16. 22. Ibid., p. 17. 23. Ibid., p. 18. 24. Ibid., p. 4. 25. Ibid., p. 14. BUSINESS ETHICS QUARTERLY 26. Ibid., p. 48. 27. Ibid., p. 143. 28. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, trans. Terence Irwin (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1985), pp. 33-34. 29. Ibid., pp. 66-67. 30. McCloskey, The Bourgeois Virtues, p. 43. 31. Ibid., p. 29. 32. Ibid., p. 128. 33. Ibid., p. 131.