Fifteenth International Conference on Interdisciplinary Social Sciences

Abstract

When talking about human cooperation, modern thinkers emphasize usually the role played by mutual self interest in the interpersonal economic exchanges. Instead, for ancient thinkers, human cooperation is grounded on definite moral values and virtues. For instance, when Aristotle analyze the phenomenon of exchange this is carefully circumscribed to the members of a community who share common beliefs, values and even common goals, who are virtuous or righteous (dikaios) and who are in friendly relations (philia). The concept used by Aristotle for such a community is koinonia. What is gained and what is lost in the modern approach? Are the ancient thinkers wrong when they insist so much on virtues and moral values when they analyze economic phenomena? Or are the modern thinkers wrong when they talk of trade, exchange and prices, taking for granted the subjacent moral values or even considering them unimportant? The objectives of the present research are: (1) to explain that the ancient authors focus on the role of ethics and virtues in society was perfectly justified and meaningful, but that this intense focus on ethics and virtues precluded them from thoroughly analyzing economic phenomena and elucidating economic questions; (2) to emphasize that the tendency of modern economic thought of treating economic issues as if moral values and virtues are either self-evident or unimportant is not desirable if the task of economics is to give a truthful account of economic phenomena and relevant guidance in solving problems of human society.