Like nature itself, modern economic life is driven by relentless competition and unbridled selfishness. Or is it? Drawing on converging evidence from neuroscience, social science, biology, law, and philosophy, "Moral Markets" makes the case that modern market exchange works only because most people, most of the time, act virtuously. Competition and greed are certainly part of economics, but "Moral Markets" shows how the rules of market exchange have evolved to promote moral behavior and how exchange itself may make us more virtuous. Examining the biological basis of economic morality, tracing the connections between morality and markets, and exploring the profound implications of both, "Moral Markets" provides a surprising and fundamentally new view of economics - one that also reconnects the field to Adam Smith's position that morality has a biological basis."Moral Markets", the result of an extensive collaboration between leading social and natural scientists, includes contributions by neuroeconomist Paul Zak; economists Robert H. Frank, Herbert Gintis, Vernon Smith (winner of the 2002 Nobel Prize in economics), and Bart Wilson; law professors Oliver Goodenough, Erin O'Hara, and Lynn Stout; philosophers William Casebeer and Robert Solomon; primatologists Sarah Brosnan and Frans de Waal; biologists Carl Bergstrom, Ben Kerr, and Peter Richerson; anthropologists Robert Boyd and Michael Lachmann; political scientists Elinor Ostrom and David Schwab; management professor Rakesh Khurana; computational science and informatics doctoral candidate Erik Kimbrough; and business writer Charles Handy.
Foreword by Michael C. Jensen
Introduction by Paul J. Zak
Preface: Free Enterprise Values in Action? by Oliver R. Goodenough and Monika Gruier Cheney
Pt. I Philosophical Foundations of Values
1 The Stories Markets Tell: Affordances for Ethical Behavior in Free Exchange by William D. Casebeer 3
2 Free Enterprise, Sympathy, and Virtue by Robert C. Solomon 16
3 The Status of Moral Emotions in Consequentialist Moral Reasoning by Robert H. Frank 42
Pt. II Nonhuman Origins of Values
4 How Selfish an Animal? The Case of Primate Cooperation by Frans B. M. de Waal 63
5 Fairness and Other-Regarding Preferences in Nonhuman Primates by Sarah F. Brosnan 77
Pt. III The Evolution of Values and Society
6 The Evolution of Free Enterprise Values by Peter J. Richerson and Robert Boyd 107
7 Building Trust by Wasting Time by Carl Bergstrom and Ben Kerr and Michael Lachmann 142
Pt. IV Values and the Law
8 Taking Conscience Seriously by Lynn A. Stout 157
9 Trustworthiness and Contract by Erin Ann O'Hara 173
10 The Vital Role of Norms and Rules in Maintaining Open Public and Private Economies by David Schwab and Elinor Ostrom 204
11 Values, Mechanism Design, and Fairness by Oliver R. Goodenough 228
Pt. V Values and the Economy
12 Values and Value: Moral Economics by Paul J. Zak 259
13 Building a Market: From Personal to Impersonal Exchange by Erik O. Kimbrough and Vernon L. Smith and Bart J. Wilson
