Economic Choice Revisited: Lessons from Pre-modern Thinkers

Abstract

This paper explains why economics needs a better understanding of human moral agency. It argues that more thorough conceptualisation of economic choice as human choice exposes what is missing in the neoclassical account of the economic agent. The view of human agency presented here is derived from Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas and Adam Smith. It is a view rooted in the virtue ethics tradition, one that highlights the concept and value of practical reason for agency.