Economic Liberty as Self-Authorship

The first key good is self-authorship, where this is partially constituted by economic liberty (Tomasi, Reference Tomasi2012; see also Macedo, Reference Macedo1990: 198). Self-authorship is the “capacity to develop and act upon a life plan” (Tomasi, Reference Tomasi2012: 40–41), or simply to be a moral agent (Rawls, Reference Rawls1980: 525), that is, to identify objectives as valuable and pursue them. Raz (Reference Raz1986: 370) links self-authorship to autonomy, saying, “The autonomous person is part author of his life.” In other words, self-authorship is a form of autonomy, involving the ability to critically evaluate one’s desires and actions, to live according to norms and values that one can appreciate as valuable from one’s own perspective, and for the sake of goals that one can understand to be worth pursuing (Dworkin, Reference Dworkin1988: 29–33). From a liberal perspective, this is a distinct value that is uniquely realizable within capitalist institutions (Hegel, Reference Hegel2008: 180–86; Macedo, Reference Macedo1990: 198; Tomasi, Reference Tomasi2012: 78, 112–15),Footnote ³ such that economic liberty is partially constitutive of self-authorship. The exercise of economic rights is a unique and privileged way to realize freedom as self-authorship because it gives the individual greater scope to choose the structure of her life, to determine which actions to perform on a daily basis, and even to decide who to become (Tomasi, Reference Tomasi2012: chapter 3). Hegel (Reference Hegel2008: 196–97), for example, highlights the unique opportunities for freedom provided by modern societies that allow their members to choose their professions and pursue their interests within markets.

Economic liberty includes rights to private property; rights to freedom of contract, especially the rights to choose one’s occupation and to negotiate the terms of one’s employment; and the right to employ productive property, both in entrepreneurial endeavors and as investments (Tomasi, Reference Tomasi2012: chapter 3). From a liberal perspective,Footnote ⁴ economic rights have an “intrinsic or fundamental moral value” (Tomasi, Reference Tomasi2012: xvi; see also Macedo, Reference Macedo1990: 198) because they are partially constitutive of the capacity of self-authorship. The exercise of economic liberties within capitalist institutions has a twofold connection with self-authorship. First, the exercise of economic liberties promotes freedom, expanding one’s opportunities for choice (Wyma, Reference Wyma2015: 237), as when the sale of property gives one resources needed for future choices. Second, the exercise of economic liberties is itself a determinate expression of freedom (Tomasi, Reference Tomasi2012: chapter 3), directly realizing self-authorship, as the decision to purchase a particular house or engage in some entrepreneurial endeavor gives concrete determination to one’s sense of what is valuable in life.

Thus, from a liberal perspective, self-authorship expressed through the exercise of one’s economic rights is not merely instrumentally valuable. Rather, economic liberty and its exercise are intrinsically valuable constituents of a life of self-authorship (Tomasi, Reference Tomasi2012: 112–15; Wyma, Reference Wyma2015: 237; see also Dworkin, Reference Dworkin1988: 29–33; Raz, Reference Raz1986: 409). Raz (Reference Raz1986: 393) gives a fitting illustration of the distinct value of self-authorship, saying, “Even though the skills and technology involved in certain crafts and professions may be identical in two societies, the significance of pursuing any of them differs greatly in a society in which everyone follows in his parent’s footsteps from one in which there is free mobility of labor.” Thus, from this perspective, autonomy or self-authorship is a distinct value that is not reducible to the value of the goods that are chosen (Dworkin, Reference Dworkin1988: 111–12). As such, the exercise of economic liberties in pursuit of self-interest need not be justified in terms of its instrumental promotion of other goods but is generally good as long as it does not violate others’ rights (Macedo, Reference Macedo1990: 258–59). This is not a valorization of greed or license (see Tomasi, Reference Tomasi2001: 39) but rather an appreciation of the distinct value of autonomy. This is a key point of contrast between the liberal and MacIntyrean perspectives (see also Wyma, Reference Wyma2015: 237).

Economic liberties comprise a range of rights that give self-authorship concrete specificity. The right to personal property, for example, provides a basic “space” for free agency, as Kant (Reference Kant1996: 43) and Hegel (Reference Hegel2008: 57–58) recognized, literally giving one scope within which to act, in the absence of which freedom is nonexistent. But it also gives concrete determinacy to one’s “style” or aesthetic, the way one manifests oneself in the world, exemplified in one’s choice of, for example, a particular car or outfit (see Taylor, Reference Taylor2016: 228). Similarly, contractual agreements are also concrete expressions of one’s freedom to structure one’s life in very specific ways, achieving recognition from others in this very process of self-determination (Hegel, Reference Hegel2008: 84). Thus the sale of a family home may manifest the fact that one does not identify with the house or town, just as retaining legal counsel may show that one “means business” about some matter. In doing this, contracts also expand one’s opportunities for freedom by allowing one to use property that has been purchased or money received from a sale.

The expressive aspect of economic liberty, the sense in which it realizes self-authorship, is especially apparent in the choice of a profession or place of employment or the launching of an entrepreneurial endeavor. The right to choose one’s profession and place of employment or to own and employ productive property gives one the ability to determine one’s place in the world, deciding who one will be, what issues will matter, and how one will spend much of the day. Likewise, the exercise of these rights gives concrete expression to judgments concerning the relative value of work, as compared with leisure, and the value of greater discretion, as compared to more managerial direction. Entrepreneurial endeavors are very often tied with the entrepreneur’s sense of identity, providing an outlet to express, shape, and determine this identity through the novel ways that her company creates and captures value (Fauchart & Gruber, Reference Fauchart and Gruber2011). Similarly, investments give individuals the ability to exercise responsibility for themselves and their families, to plan for the future, and to be prepared for unexpected situations (Tomasi, Reference Tomasi2012: 111), or to live more in the moment, again expressing individuals’ judgments regarding the specific values of these concerns and further determining the contours of their lives. From a liberal perspective, what matters in these varied situations, involving the exercise of economic liberties, is not merely the objectives that are chosen but also the fact of choice (Raz, Reference Raz1986: 395). Of course, some choices are more reasonable than others and, thus, are more valuable (Raz, Reference Raz1999: 22). And yet, from this perspective, the value of choice is not reducible to the value of the end chosen (Raz, Reference Raz1986: 395).

Thus economic liberties both promote and concretely realize, or give expression to, freedom as self-authorship. Because these rights are meaningless if they are not exercised effectively, individuals have standing reasons to exercise their economic rights effectively, that is, to pursue financial success, the acquisition of lucrative investments, beneficial contractual agreements, profitable entrepreneurial endeavors, and so on, without justifying these actions in terms of their promotion of other goods, as long as they do so without violating the rights of others (Macedo, Reference Macedo1990: 258–59). Tomasi (Reference Tomasi2012: 130), focusing on the state, contends that this account of economic liberty has far-reaching political implications, but I argue in what follows that it has important implications for organizations, providing, more specifically, the basis of a liberal account of the virtues within a business context.

Mutual Benefit

A second key liberal good embodied within capitalist institutions is the ideal of mutual benefit (Bruni & Sugden, Reference Bruni and Sugden2013; Otteson, Reference Otteson2019: 17). Mutual benefit is the notion that voluntary exchanges are privileged loci of value because they make both parties better off (Moller, Reference Moller2019: 126–27). Adam Smith (Reference Smith2003: 572) notes the distinct role of markets in institutionalizing this value. Markets allow for (partially) self-interested actors to pursue their interests in a way that benefits others, leading to growing societal wealth. Hegel (Reference Hegel2008: 227; Reference Hegel2019: 248) goes further than Smith, arguing that market societies allow individuals to intentionally pursue mutual benefit, making the pursuit of self-interest compatible with the pursuit of the common good (see Siep, Reference Siep2014: 181). Bruni and Sugden (Reference Bruni and Sugden2013: 143) express a similar idea, saying, “For a virtuous market participant, mutual benefit is not just a fortunate by-product of the individual pursuit of self-interest: he or she intends that transactions with others are mutually beneficial” (see also McCloskey, Reference McCloskey1994; Sugden, Reference Sugden2015).

Regarding mutual benefit, two points should be noted. First, the liberal claim is not that mutual benefit justifies the pursuit of self-interest through the exercise of economic liberties. This condition would be too strong. As explained earlier, from a liberal perspective, the pursuit of self-interest within markets, as a way of realizing self-authorship, is an intrinsically valuable good, though, of course, not the only good (Tomasi, Reference Tomasi2012: xvi). Rather, the claim is that individuals act virtuously insofar as they limit their exercise of economic liberties (see Tomasi, Reference Tomasi1991) to contexts where shared value is created, consciously limiting their pursuit of self-interested financial gain to opportunities for mutual benefit within voluntary exchanges (Bruni & Sugden, Reference Bruni and Sugden2013; Hegel, Reference Hegel2008: 227; Otteson, Reference Otteson2019: 17; Sugden, Reference Sugden2015). As such, mutual benefit is a key value embodied within capitalist institutions because it makes the pursuit of self-authorship through the exercise of economic liberties compatible with the pursuit of other valuable goods, especially the well-being of other members of society (Hegel, Reference Hegel2008: 227; Otteson, Reference Otteson2019: 17). Second, within a market context, mutual benefit is closely linked to self-authorship, in an additional way, insofar as the promotion of mutual benefit is often the best way to promote one’s own economic interests (see Schmidtz & Brennan, Reference Schmidtz and Brennan2010: 84–85; Vilks, Reference Vilks2018: 145). Thus, by purposely seeking to benefit others, individuals may exercise self-authorship, taking responsibility both for the structure and direction of their lives and for their needs and burdens by not unduly imposing them on others (Moller, Reference Moller2019: 9), that is, by receiving compensation for providing useful goods and services to others

Accordingly, self-authorship and mutual benefit represent, on the liberal account, the key goods at stake within the context of capitalist economic structures. I argue in what follows that these values are uniquely realized within the practice of business (Moore, Reference Moore2002: 24; see Foss & Klein, Reference Foss and Klein2012: 125), where individuals consciously integrate different resources, forms of knowledge, and business functions to create excellent products and services that are also profitable, but before doing this, I highlight the distinctiveness of this liberal account in comparison with the neo-Aristotelian/MacIntyrean approach.

Internal Goods, External Goods, and Liberal Values

This section contrasts the liberal account of self-authorship and mutual benefit with the MacIntyrean account of the two focal types of goodsFootnote ⁵—internal and external—at stake within firms operating in markets, in order to bring out the distinctiveness of the liberal approach. And as is the case with any engagement between rival traditions, these two perspectives are partially incommensurable, asking and answering somewhat different questions and making an engagement between these perspectives challenging (MacIntyre, Reference MacIntyre1988, Reference MacIntyre1990b; see Beadle & Moore, Reference Beadle and Moore2006: 326; Burton & Sinnicks, Reference Burton and Sinnicks2022). However, two key points of difference are worth noting. The first concerns the value of self-authorship as it is expressed through the exercise of economic liberties (see Wyma, Reference Wyma2015: 237), and the second involves the relationship between financial success and self-authorship. From the liberal perspective elaborated herein, self-authorship is an intrinsically valuable good internal to the practice of business, and within this context, financial success is a partially constitutive element of this good, which is to say that some degree of success is needed to realize self-authorship in a market context. As a result, this account conflicts with MacIntyre’s (Reference MacIntyre2007: 196) view, in which internal goods and external goods are necessarily distinct; as such, it is worth comparing these perspectives in greater depth.

A core claim of the MacIntyrean approach to business ethics is the notion that organizations are practice–institution combinations (Beadle & Moore, Reference Beadle and Moore2006; Moore, Reference Moore2017: 68; Moore & Beadle, Reference Moore and Beadle2006). Practices are “any coherent and complex form of socially established cooperative human activity through which goods internal to that form of activity are realized in the course of trying to achieve those standards of excellence which are appropriate to, and partially definitive of, that form of activity, with the result that human powers to achieve excellence, and human conceptions of the ends and goods involved, are systematically extended” (MacIntyre, Reference MacIntyre2007: 187). Institutions, by contrast, which can be thought of as comprising formal organizational structures and roles, are typically focused on external goods in order “to sustain not only themselves, but also the practices of which they are the bearers” (194). As MacIntyre says, “they are involved in acquiring money and other material goods; they are structured in terms of power and status, and they distribute money, power and status as rewards” (194). The contrast between practices and institutions brings into focus the contrast between internal and external goods as two key types of goods at stake within a contemporary economic context.Footnote ⁶

From a MacIntyrean perspective, external goods are goods that can be achieved in a variety of ways and that, as a result, are not specific to a particular practice. Primary examples of external goods are money, power, and status (MacIntyre, Reference MacIntyre2007: 194). Internal goods, by contrast, are specific to particular practices. As such, specific types of internal goods can be achieved only by participating in specific practices. For example, the goods or excellence to be achieved in chess cannot be attained by writing poetry or fishing (see MacIntyre, Reference MacIntyre2007: 188). Moore (Reference Moore2017: 57) argues that internal goods are of two types, “the good product or, we may add in an organizational context, the good service” and “the perfection of the practitioners engaged in the craft or practice.” What is especially important, for the purposes of this article, is the claim that there is a proper ordering between internal and external goods, such that “internal goods are ultimately more important than external goods because it is only internal goods which enable us to achieve our telos in life” (59). Moore says that internal goods “are goods which we should pursue for their own sake” (59, emphasis removed). By contrast, external goods “are those which we should pursue for the sake of some other good” (59; emphasis removed). This is not to say that for the MacIntyrean, external goods are not genuinely good or that they should not be pursued; rather, it is to say that they should be pursued only insofar as they facilitate the achievement of intrinsically valuable goods, that is, they are instrumental goods.

Although more could be said about these two types of goods, this is enough to bring out two important contrasts with the liberal perspective. First, from a liberal perspective, the MacIntyrean approach fails to sufficiently value the pursuit of external goods as partially constitutive of self-authorship (Macedo, Reference Macedo1990: 198; Tomasi, Reference Tomasi2012: xvi). As such, this leads to a constraint on the pursuit of external goods, namely, “that we are pursuing these external goods only, and only in so far as, we can then realize internal goods” (Moore, Reference Moore2017: 59)—that, from a liberal perspective, is too strong. From the liberal perspective, the pursuit of external goods is not merely instrumentally valuable, because the effective exercise of economic liberties is partially constitutive of individuals’ capacities to lead ‘“self-authored lives” (Tomasi, Reference Tomasi2012: xvi), which is viewed as intrinsically valuable (Raz, Reference Raz1986: 395).

Rather, the pursuit of external goods through the effective exercise of economic liberties is a good that need not be justified in terms of its instrumental link with other goods (see Macedo, Reference Macedo1990: 138). It is, simply, the actualization of one’s capacity for freedom, involving, in an economic context, the acquisition of property and financial resources, the structuring of one’s life in terms of one’s view of what is most important through the choice of a profession or place of employment, and even the development of one’s identity. Instead of the MacIntyrean constraint that external goods, like financial gain or profitability, be pursued only insofar as they further internal goods, such as excellent products or the development of participants’ characters, the liberal view puts forward a weaker constraint: external goods, including self-interested financial gain, may be pursued as long as doing so does not violate the rights of others (Macedo, Reference Macedo1990: 258–59).Footnote ⁷ This does not mean that financial success is identical to self-authorship, not only because it may involve the violation of others’ rights but also because individuals may pursue financial success simply because they feel compelled to do so as a result of the expectations of family, friends, or society at large. Likewise, although a degree of success may be necessary to realize freedom in a market context, for some, financial gain may become an obsession manifesting a lack of freedom. As such, financial success can be pursued and achieved in ways that do not realize self-authorship.

Second, the liberal can agree that under normal conditions (Moller, Reference Moller2019: 126–27), the pursuit of financial gain should lead to the promotion of internal goods, especially excellent products and services (Moore, Reference Moore, Akrivou and Sison2016), but from the perspective of mutual benefit, she will also highlight the importance of the reciprocal requirement: the pursuit of internal goods, especially excellent products and services, should also lead to financial success. Moore (Reference Moore2012: 380) notes that there is often an “essential but complex circularity between internal goods and external goods,” such that the achievement of external goods is likely to make it easier to pursue internal goods and the achievement of internal goods is likely to lead to financial gain. But the liberal goes further in viewing these reciprocal requirements—where the pursuit of excellence leads to financial success, and vice versa—as a normative ideal, that is, as constituting the key value of mutual benefit (Bruni & Sugden, Reference Bruni and Sugden2013). Thus it is not the case that excellence should be given priority over success; rather, at least in an economic context, both should be recognized as important goods that are independently valuable (see Wyma, Reference Wyma2015: 237), and efforts should be directed toward mutual benefit rather than merely toward prioritizing excellence.

Summing up, from a liberal perspective, the MacIntyrean approach puts forward ethical conditions for economic activity that are both too strong and too weak. First, the claim that external goods should be pursued only insofar as they promote internal goods (Moore, Reference Moore2017: 59) is too strong because it does not take account of the independent value of economic liberties (Macedo, Reference Macedo1990: 198) and their exercise in the constitution of individuals’ capacities for self-authorship (Tomasi, Reference Tomasi2012). Second, the claim that the pursuit of external goods should further the achievement of internal goods is too weak. Instead, the reciprocal demand is also necessary: the pursuit of internal goods, especially excellent products and services, should also further the achievement of external goods, that is, financial success, resulting in mutually beneficial exchanges (Bruni & Sugden, Reference Bruni and Sugden2013: 203; Otteson, Reference Otteson2019: chapter 1). After having established the distinctiveness of the liberal view, in the following section, I outline the implications of this view for a liberal approach to virtue ethics within business.

Business as a Practice

How can the liberal values of self-authorship and mutual benefit be embodied (see MacIntyre, Reference MacIntyre2007: 225) within contemporary organizations and, more generally, in a market society? Moore’s (Reference Moore2002) early work on business as a practice offers a promising perspective in this regard. Subsequent research developing the MacIntyrean framework typically conceptualizes firms as bearers of a “core practice,” focused on distinct internal goods, contrasting this with the firm’s institutional side, which is typically linked with the pursuit of external goods (Beadle & Moore, Reference Beadle and Moore2006; Moore, Reference Moore2012, Reference Moore2017; Moore & Beadle, Reference Moore and Beadle2006). By contrast, in his earlier work, Moore (Reference Moore2002) argued that business itself was a distinct practice with its own internal goods. While this view has been criticized (Beadle, Reference Beadle2008), and ultimately rejected by Moore (Reference Moore2005b, Reference Moore2012, Reference Moore2017), liberals have often viewed business within a free market economy as a particularly important social practice that plays a crucial role in inculcating and sustaining liberal values (Hegel, Reference Hegel2008: 224–28; Macedo, Reference Macedo1990: 198; Otteson, Reference Otteson2019: chapter 1; Tomasi, Reference Tomasi2012). In this section, I fuse Moore’s (Reference Moore2002) early account of business as a practice with the account of liberal values developed previously to explain how these values are concretely embodied within firms operating in markets.

Moore (Reference Moore2002: 24, citing MacIntyre, Reference MacIntyre2007: 187) gives an insightful example of this view of business as a practice, applied to retail, saying, “Retailing involves all of the usual functions of business—purchasing stock, employing staff, purchasing or renting premises, out-of-store advertising, displaying and selling goods, tracking stock with computer systems, recording sales and feeding the information into the accounts, accounting, financial control, and so on. Retailing involves the integration of all of these elements into a holistic activity. And it is when we consider the holistic activity that it accords fully with MacIntyre’s definition of a practice as a ‘coherent and complex form of socially established cooperative human activity.’” Generalizing Moore’s example, we can say that business is a practice involving the holistic integration of various business functions, cospecialized resources, and forms of knowledge (see also Adler, Reference Adler2015; Barnard, Reference Barnard1975; Grant, Reference Grant1996; Lindenberg & Foss, Reference Lindenberg and Foss2011) to facilitate mutually beneficial transactions (Bruni & Sugden, Reference Bruni and Sugden2013; Otteson, Reference Otteson2019: 17), thereby concretely realizing self-authorship. This could also be referred to as the practice of entrepreneurship (see Foss & Klein, Reference Foss and Klein2012).

Beadle’s (Reference Beadle2008: 234) critique of Moore’s (Reference Moore2002) early account of business as a practice hinges, in large part, on the claim that there are “no specific activities that are internal to business qua business” or that it lacks internal goods. But this claim has long been disputed by the liberal tradition, which views business in a market society as a distinct and privileged practice (Hegel, Reference Hegel2008: 224–28; Macedo, Reference Macedo1990: 198; Otteson, Reference Otteson2019: chapter 1; Tomasi, Reference Tomasi2012: 109) that cannot be simply equated with a technique of production or an instrumental means of shifting resources to more beneficial uses. From a liberal perspective, these reductive views do not adequately take account of the goods made available within business, specifically self-authorship and mutual benefit, or the unique manner in which they are realized. Business is a distinct activity focused on combining various resources and forms of knowledge (Foss & Klein, Reference Foss and Klein2012: 125) to facilitate mutually beneficial exchanges (Otteson, Reference Otteson2019: 17). And because self-authorship and mutual benefit are realized in a unique manner through commerce, these goods are internal to the practice of business in the context of a competitive market. In short, while one may be able to attain money in a variety of ways, the effective exercise of one’s freedom and ingenuity to do this in a business context is a distinct good that is specific to the practice of business.

Of course, aspects of autonomy or self-authorship can be realized in many different areas of life, but from a liberal perspective, self-authorship is truncated unless it is given expression through the effective exercise of economic liberties (Tomasi, Reference Tomasi2012: chapter 3), including especially those involving occupational choice and the use of productive property in an effective manner. As such, it is within a business context that this value is fully and adequately realized, enabling an individual to shape the fine details of her life and even her identity. In short, business provides a unique and privileged context for realizing self-authorship. Likewise, though forms of mutual benefit are possible within a variety of contexts, the distinct mode of mutual benefit made possible by the purposive integration of business functions and realized through free exchange is specific to business.

More generally, the manner in which these ideals are uniquely embodied within business can be compared to the way that the practice of chess embodies various ideals. MacIntyre (Reference MacIntyre2007: 188) says that the “goods specific to chess” include “a certain highly particular kind of analytical skill, strategic imagination and competitive intensity” (188). And while analytical skill might be found in contexts as different as engineering and accounting, strategic imagination in military contexts, and competitive intensity in other games, such as baseball or football, MacIntyre notes that as found in chess, these ideals are of a “certain highly particular kind.” In this sense, the liberal claim is that business concretely embodies “highly particular” forms of self-authorship and mutual benefit (Bruni & Sugden, Reference Bruni and Sugden2013; Otteson, Reference Otteson2019: chapter 1; Tomasi, Reference Tomasi2012: 109). As such, like chess, the particular mode by which the core ideals of the practice of business are realized cannot be achieved in other activities.

As such, business is a unique practice, and over time, practitioners learn new and better ways of achieving self-authorship through mutual benefit by reconfiguring complementary resources (Teece, Pisano, & Shuen, Reference Teece, Pisano and Shuen1997: 520–21) to better create and capture value. Likewise, in the process of pursuing these internal goods, participants are perfected as they develop business acumen and cultivate virtues (Maitland, Reference Maitland1997: 23; Moore, Reference Moore2002: 25–26). Business acumen, somewhat like chess, also involves distinct analytic abilities, strategic imagination, and a willingness to engage in intense competition (see MacIntyre, Reference MacIntyre2007: 188). And as I discuss in greater detail in the following pages, virtues are developed within business because they play an essential role in realizing the goods of self-authorship and mutual benefit. As such, business also represents a distinct form of life (see Beadle, Reference Beadle2008: 237) in which participants’ capacities for excellence are extended (see MacIntyre, Reference MacIntyre2007: 187), a life in pursuit of self-authorship, or autonomy, achieved by combining and reconfiguring resources and business functions (Foss & Klein, Reference Foss and Klein2012; Moore, Reference Moore2002: 24; Teece et al., Reference Teece, Pisano and Shuen1997) in ways that facilitate mutually beneficial exchange (Otteson, Reference Otteson2019: chapter 1). Thus, while a liberal perspective favors autonomy and gives a much wider scope to diverse conceptions of the good, it also prioritizes certain conceptions of flourishing (Macedo, Reference Macedo1990: 266), namely, those related to the pursuit of self-authorship and mutual benefit in business.

It should also be noted that although the account developed here shares a more optimistic stance concerning the role of institutions in facilitating the achievement of internal goods (see Sison & Fontrodona, Reference Sison and Fontrodona2012: 229), there remains the potential for tension between the practice of business and its institutional embodiment. In this regard, Selznick (1957/Reference Selznick2011: 146) speaks of the threat of “Opportunism,” which “displays itself in a narrow self-centeredness, in an effort to exploit other groups for immediate, short-run advantages.” In this context, opportunism involves an excessive focus on short-term opportunities, in a manner that harms both the firm’s core capabilities, that is, its unique way of creating value, and its stakeholders (Selznick, 1957/Reference Selznick2011: 144–46). This opportunistic focus on the short term, which is a constant threat to organizations, and their members, stands in tension with the full realization of the internal goods of business by pitting immediate financial gain against long-term success and mutually beneficial relationships with stakeholders. As such, a key role for the virtues concerns avoiding this type of opportunistic focus on the short term.

A further relevant point concerns the standards of excellence characterizing the practice of business. MacIntyre (Reference MacIntyre2007: 187–94; see also MacIntyre, Reference MacIntyre and Hoffman1977: 101) is clear that the standards of excellence partially constitutive of practices should be defined by practitioners, not by the demands of the market. But others have suggested that this conception of standards of excellence does not fit productive practices, arguing that consumer preferences must figure centrally within standards of excellence in this context (Keat, Reference Keat2000: 128–29). Moore (Reference Moore2017: 57) is somewhat ambivalent about this issue, noting the need to take account of customers’ preferences without clearly endorsing this claim, whereas Sinnicks (Reference Sinnicks2019: 110–11) is more emphatic about the need to be responsive to customer demand. Similarly, Tsoukas (Reference Tsoukas2018: 332) notes a role for stakeholders in shaping conceptions of excellence within practices without clearly specifying a role for customers. With this debate in mind, the liberal virtue-based account of business ethics developed in this article sides with Keat (Reference Keat2000), at least in terms of the proper understanding of the role of standards of excellence within the practice of business (Moore, Reference Moore2002). Business is the practice of integrating different functional specialties to create value for customers, in specific ways, while also making a profit. As such, customer needs, preferences, or interests must figure centrally within the self-conceptions of businesspersons, that is, into the standards of excellence by which they understand and evaluate their actions in business contexts. This need not be based simply on market research focused on extant demand but may involve creativity and anticipation of likely customer responses to new products and services (Foss & Klein, Reference Foss and Klein2012: chapter 4). That said, from this perspective, one cannot engage in business excellently without a fastidious concern for customer preferences (see Bruni & Sugden, Reference Bruni and Sugden2013: 155).

This issue relates to a brief debate between MacIntyre and David Miller, a prominent liberal political theorist. Miller (Reference Miller, Horton and Mendus1994: 259) argues that practices should be distinguished into two types: those that are valuable in themselves and those that are valuable primarily in terms of their contribution to the well-being of others. Miller notes that MacIntyre does not make this distinction, but, he argues, doing so would shift the focus from virtues to principles of just distribution. In response, MacIntyre (Reference MacIntyre, Horton and Mendus1994: 284–86) reiterates his rejection of Miller’s dual conception of practices, arguing that activities that are primarily instrumental are not practices, in the sense that he uses this term, and he claims further that all practices should benefit the broader community. This exchange helps to clarify the liberal position defended here. According to the liberal view developed here, unlike in Miller’s view, business is a practice that is not merely instrumentally valuable. Instead, it is a privileged site for directly realizing the key values of self-authorship (Tomasi, Reference Tomasi2012: 109) and mutual benefit (Otteson, Reference Otteson2019: 17). That said, business is different from other practices because it is centered especially on mutual benefit (Bruni & Sugden, Reference Bruni and Sugden2013: 143). As such, the view developed here is distinct from Miller’s (Reference Miller, Horton and Mendus1994) in viewing the practice of business as intrinsically valuable, but it is also distinct from MacIntyre’s (Reference MacIntyre2007) position in viewing business as a practice that is focused especially on meeting the needs and satisfying the preferences of persons who are not directly involved in the practice. In this sense, business is a practice that not only benefits the broader community, as all practices must do (MacIntyre, Reference MacIntyre, Horton and Mendus1994: 284), but is focused directly on identifying new and better ways of benefiting community members by integrating different forms of knowledge, skill, and resources (Foss & Klein, Reference Foss and Klein2012: 125; Moore, Reference Moore2002: 24) for this purpose. This is a key implication of the claim that the standards of excellence characterizing the practice of business should be informed by customers’ needs, preferences, and/or interests.

Why focus on business as a practice? In short, this account challenges a widespread misconception about the nature of business, that is, the notion that business is driven solely by self-aggrandizement, greed, or pleonexia (see MacIntyre, Reference MacIntyre2007: 137), such that its aims can be captured by the slogan “Greed is good.” This conception of business flies in the face of a long-standing tradition of liberal thought that not only highlights the morally salient aspects of economic liberties (Tomasi, Reference Tomasi2012: chapter 1) but also emphasizes the importance of commerce as a social context that facilitates mutually beneficial exchange, making the pursuit of self-interest compatible with a concern for social welfare (Bruni & Sugden, Reference Bruni and Sugden2013; Otteson, Reference Otteson2019: 17). The normative significance of this account is more apparent when considering the role of specific virtues in realizing these key liberal values. Before I address this issue in the following section, note that I have drawn on Moore’s (Reference Moore2002) account of business as a practice to explain how the key liberal values of self-authorship and mutual benefit are concretely embodied within organizations. As such, I do not intend to suggest that this account coheres with MacIntyre’s (Reference MacIntyre2007) broader claims about practices, capitalism, or liberalism; rather, I intend to show that a liberal, virtue-based approach offers a distinct perspective concerning the nature of business.

Liberal Virtues in Business

Critics and defenders alike often assume that liberalism has little or nothing to say about questions of character (Rawls, Reference Rawls1971: 7–11; Sandel, Reference Sandel1996: 7ff.), but this is not the case. Liberal values extend beyond the political concerns of equality and impartiality (Tomasi, Reference Tomasi2001: 12). Likewise, it is possible to speak of an ethos of liberal capitalism (McCloskey, Reference McCloskey1994: 186) and articulate an account of flourishing within a liberal society (Macedo, Reference Macedo1990: chapter 7; Tomasi, Reference Tomasi2001: 67). It is in this context that a discussion of the virtues is essential. Moreover, the account of business as a practice focused on the goods of self-authorship and mutual benefit gives this issue further focus, raising the question of which virtues sustain this practice and, in the process, facilitate participants’ flourishing. As noted earlier, my account focuses on individual-level virtues exercised in the context of the organization-level practice of business.

First, the same virtues that MacIntyre (Reference MacIntyre2007: 191) and others (Beadle, Reference Beadle2013: 680–82; Tsoukas, Reference Tsoukas2018: 328–32) highlighted are relevant in the context of the practice of business, in some cases taking on additional importance. Problems concerning cross-functional interactions, stemming from attempts to maintain power and, in some cases, willful misunderstandings, have long been noted by organizational theorists, with these tensions creating substantial problems for organizations (see Burns & Stalker, Reference Burns and Stalker1994: part 2). As such, the virtues have an important role to play in this regard. Without justice, organization members are likely to disregard the opinions and concerns of fellow organization members, especially those from different units or departments (see Burns & Stalker, Reference Burns and Stalker1994: chapter 9), not treating them according to the standards of excellence, that is, those involving salutary ways of integrating business functions (Adler, Reference Adler2015; Moore, Reference Moore2002: 24; see also Kocienda, Reference Kocienda2018). Without honesty, participants may withhold information from fellow organization members or misrepresent themselves when it is to their own advantage (see Miller, Reference Miller1992: chapter 5), to the detriment of the organization. And without courage, participants may not speak up when those with more power, status, or authority within the organization fail to understand a problem correctly or propose a solution that is detrimental to the firm or its stakeholders (see Detert & Bruno, Reference Detert and Bruno2017). As such, these virtues contribute to collaboration and integration between different business functions within the organization (see Adler & Heckscher, Reference Adler, Heckscher, Ringel, Hiller and Zietsma2018: 93–95).

And in a business context, where self-authorship (Tomasi, Reference Tomasi2012) and mutual benefit are central concerns (Bruni & Sugden, Reference Bruni and Sugden2013; Otteson, Reference Otteson2019: 17), these virtues take on further importance. First, the virtues are essential to self-authorship in an organizational context, where excellent work, successful projects, and a rewarding career will often require abilities to collaborate with others, learn from representatives of different business functions, and adapt oneself to the needs and interests of different stakeholders (Adler, Reference Adler2015; Tsoukas, Reference Tsoukas2018: 332; see also Kocienda, Reference Kocienda2018). Second, justice is necessary to ensure that the pursuit of self-interest includes respect for others’ rights and does not become an occasion to unfairly harm others (Macedo, Reference Macedo1990: 258–59). Similarly, courage may be necessary to blow the whistle when corporate malfeasance threatens the rights of other stakeholders (for relevant examples, see Rhodes, Reference Rhodes2016; Robison, Reference Robison2021). As such, these virtues ensure that the exercise of economic liberties as a way of realizing self-authorship does not devolve into mere license (Tomasi, Reference Tomasi2001: 39). Likewise, a focus on mutual benefit also gives further scope to the virtue of honesty. Mutual benefit requires an absence of relevant asymmetric information between exchange partners (Bruni & Sugden, Reference Bruni and Sugden2013: 155; Heath, Reference Heath2014b: 199). Thus the virtue of honesty facilitates mutual benefit when it leads organization members to inform customers of relevant information about a product or service, even when this may make it less appealing or decrease the amount that customers are willing to pay.

Other virtues, such as humility, respect, industriousness, and zeal, are crucial to ensuring that the practice of business remains centered on mutual benefit. Humility enables practitioners to learn from one another and acknowledge when other business units or firms have better resources and/or abilities to integrate them in a manner that avoids potentially costly or disastrous endeavors that are not mutually beneficial (Foss, Klein, Lien, Zellweger, & Zenger, Reference Foss, Klein, Lien, Zellweger and Zenger2021: 315). The virtue of respect, in the context of the practice of business, involves an unwavering commitment to customers’ preferences and a willingness to go above and beyond the minimal requirements for a transaction (Harrison, Bosse, & Phillips, Reference Harrison, Bosse and Phillips2010), to ensure that customers are satisfied, as far as is feasible, within specific transactions (Bruni & Sugden, Reference Bruni and Sugden2013: 155). It is opposed to a paternalistic stance that is dismissive of customers’ preferences, where there may be a refusal to make feasible accommodations simply because “that is not how things are done.” Bruni and Sugden, in the context of a discussion of MacIntyre’s claims, note that this virtue may conflict with “professional and craft standards” (155) requiring businesspersons to adapt their products to customer needs, potentially disregarding prevailing ideals of excellence within specific productive practices. This further illustrates the contrast between the liberal view of business as a practice and the neo-Aristotelian approach centered on core practices within organizations (Moore & Beadle, Reference Moore and Beadle2006), and it further emphasizes the role of customers in shaping the standards of excellence within the practice of business (Keat, Reference Keat2000: 128–29). Another virtue, industriousness (MacIntyre, Reference MacIntyre1999: 126), stands opposed to indolence and laziness and prevents one from focusing on short-term satisfaction (see Foss & Lindenberg, Reference Foss and Lindenberg2013: 92) at the expense of both mutual benefit and long-term self-interest. It ensures that one takes steps to realize self-authorship, attaining the necessary resources in the present to be able to pursue feasible opportunities for mutual benefit when they arise in the future.

A final virtue that is essential within the practice of business is entrepreneurial zeal or alertness (Bruni & Sugden, Reference Bruni and Sugden2013: 154; Teece, Reference Teece2007: 1323), the virtue that directs persons to pursue success with practical wisdom, respecting obligations stemming from the virtue of justice. As Moore (Reference Moore2017: 125–26) notes, “zeal will be relevant in the pursuit of both excellence and success, but perhaps with zeal the emphasis will be appropriately directed more towards success, while requiring practical wisdom to help retain the proper balance between excellence and success.” Zeal is evident in prominent figures like Steve Jobs as well as in more mundane entrepreneurs who develop novel modes of value creation (Felin & Zenger, Reference Felin and Zenger2009). Zeal, or alertness, focuses attention on “discovering and anticipating what other people want and are willing to pay for,” thus creating new opportunities for mutual benefit (Bruni & Sugden, Reference Bruni and Sugden2013: 154), while also taking care that the rights of other stakeholders are not violated.

Thus, although a liberal perspective acknowledges the fact of disagreement and the potential for rival conceptions of the good, it is not neutral; rather, liberal institutions, including especially for-profit firms within relatively free markets, make some ways of life and, thus, some forms of flourishing more feasible than others (Macedo, Reference Macedo1990: 266). As MacIntyre (Reference MacIntyre2007: 227; see also Robson, Reference Robson2015) rightly notes, craft-based modes of production, with their associated virtues and notions of flourishing, are made more difficult, though certainly not impossible (Beadle, Reference Beadle2013; Dobson, Reference Dobson2009; Moore, Reference Moore2017; Moore & Beadle, Reference Moore and Beadle2006; von Krogh, Haefliger, Spaeth, & Wallin, Reference von Krogh, Haefliger, Spaeth and Wallin2012), to sustain within modern society. By contrast, business, as a distinct practice (Moore, Reference Moore2002) focused on integrating knowledge and resources to facilitate mutually beneficial transactions (Otteson, Reference Otteson2019: 17), is made more feasible within a modern, market-based society. As such, the virtues have a distinct role to play in this context, facilitating self-authorship and mutual benefit.

One final point should be noted. Some have argued that the fundamental role of competition and, more generally, the adversarial nature of the market entail a minimal, not to say truncated, morality of the market (Heath, Reference Heath2007; see also Sinnicks, Reference Sinnicks2022) that excludes ordinary morality (Hsieh, Reference Hsieh2017) and the virtues (Sinnicks, Reference Sinnicks2023). This claim is somewhat puzzling, as Aristotle (Reference Aristotle1999) developed his account of the virtues in the highly competitive context of Athenian democracy (see MacIntyre, Reference MacIntyre1988) and gave courage, a virtue particularly appropriate for soldiers in battle, a prominent place in his theory. More generally, the institutional context of the market, like that of the military, changes the reasons for action that may be salient at any given time (McDowell, Reference McDowell1979), making some moral considerations less relevant but also making others more important.

The account of the virtues developed here makes this increased salience apparent, highlighting the role of virtues within the firm and in relationships with various external stakeholders. As such, the centrality of competition provides no reason to think that the virtues are unnecessary in a market context; rather, it suggests that specific virtues are particularly important in this context. Accordingly, the pursuit of self-authorship and mutual benefit will often involve competition, that is, efforts to underbid a competitor to gain a new customer, but realizing these values requires a range of virtues, not least of which is justice to ensure that the rights of competitors and others stakeholders are not violated. Likewise, competition will typically call into play various collaborative virtues within the firm. Thus market competition, far from making the virtues irrelevant, gives them, rather, a distinct role in ensuring that competition results in mutually beneficial outcomes.

The Common Good in Market Society

As with questions of character, critics and defenders alike have often assumed that liberalism has little to say about the notions of community or the common good (Macedo, Reference Macedo1990: 52ff.; MacIntyre, Reference MacIntyre1990a; Sandel, Reference Sandel1996: 5), but this is not the case (see Gaus, Reference Gaus1996: 173–74). Liberal capitalist society brings into focus a distinctive notion of community and, thus, the common good, which centers on mutually beneficial relationships of exchange. Tomasi (Reference Tomasi2012: 169; see also Schmidtz & Brennan, Reference Schmidtz and Brennan2010: 22–23) characterizes this notion of community in terms of “the spontaneous development of unimaginably complex webs of cooperation … [which] bring people into contact with one another peacefully, creating the supply of goods and opportunities people need if their formal freedoms are to become real.” These are webs of relationships between stakeholders of various sorts that facilitate ongoing forms of value creation and exchange (Barney, Reference Barney2018: 3308; Maitland, Reference Maitland1997: 23). These relationships typically span specific organizations, uniting business practitioners from different firms with each other and with customers of various sorts.

From this perspective, community is viewed first of all as involving relationships of exchange, but these should not be seen as amoral or merely instrumental interactions. Instead, the values of self-authorship and mutual benefit are implicated, in complex ways, within these relationships, as are the virtues. First, because ongoing relationships of exchange are voluntary, they are typically mutually beneficial (Maitland, Reference Maitland1997: 26; Moller, Reference Moller2019: 126–27). And, as noted previously, these relationships are often best sustained through an intentional commitment to mutual benefit (see Schmidtz & Brennan, Reference Schmidtz and Brennan2010: 84–85; Vilks, Reference Vilks2018: 145). Doing this provides an opportunity to exercise the virtues and realize a commitment to the common good—that is, to the intrinsic value of one’s communal relationships—directly within ongoing relationships of exchange (Bruni & Sugden, Reference Bruni and Sugden2013).

As Santori (Reference Santori2021: 128) notes, “the good of the other can be pursued intentionally during the market transaction alongside one’s individual good.” The intentional pursuit of mutual benefit involves an intention to engage in a joint activity, specifically a transaction (see Rödl, Reference Rödl2014), for the purpose of realizing an outcome that benefits both participants (see also Milbank & Pabst, Reference Milbank and Pabst2016: 143), thereby creating and sustaining relationships constitutive of the common good. What is “common” about this liberal account of the common good? First and foremost, the commonality of the common good involves relationships that are brought about for the express purpose of making both parties better off, relationships that are thereby not treated merely as means to one’s own ends. As such, the intended end is not merely individual gain. Accordingly, participation in this sort of common good means that an individual limits her pursuit of financial gain to contexts in which her exchange partner is also made better off (see Sugden, Reference Sugden2015: 157–63), for example, by refraining from exploiting asymmetric information (see Heath, Reference Heath2014a: 37) or engaging in ex post opportunism (Williamson, Reference Williamson1993).

When individuals intentionally pursue mutual benefit (Santori, Reference Santori2021: 128; Sugden, Reference Sugden2015), relationships of exchange include an ethical dimension, an intrinsic commitment to the well-being of the exchange partner and the relationship itself, beyond its instrumental benefit (Bruni & Sugden, Reference Bruni and Sugden2013: 151–53). But as Sugden (Reference Sugden2018: 276) says, “the picture of a market in which all transactions are carried out with intentions for mutual benefit is not a description of the world as it is; it is an expression of a liberal ideal of market ethics.” As such, individuals can always choose to pursue self-interest rather than mutual benefit; however, the market provides an opportunity to pursue the latter and, in doing so, to realize a distinctively liberal conception of the common good.

Second, self-authorship is often facilitated by, and concretely realized within, ongoing relationships of exchange with specific persons. As Maitland (Reference Maitland1997: 23) argues, in “real markets, the parties’ identities often do matter, and the capacity to engage in repeated transactions with the same partners may be a source of significant economic advantage.” This typically stems from the “co-specialized investments” of transaction partners, including especially their human and social capital, where, as a result, it “becomes irrational for either side to try to squeeze the most advantage out of a particular transaction, or to drive a hard bargain, if the relationship would thereby be jeopardized” (Maitland, Reference Maitland1997: 24). In this case, fostering genuine, or uncalculated, relationships with exchange partners can be value creating. As Milbank and Pabst (Reference Milbank and Pabst2016: 143) say, “you might lower [the] price to help your neighbour because you did not want to destroy her and it would never even make economic sense to do so.”

Cospecialized investments may include specialized knowledge or skills that are more valuable within specific contexts of exchange, for example, when an employer owns customized equipment and an employee has experiential knowledge about how best to operate it, or when a firm makes specialized products and customers have cultivated abilities to appreciate their value. In contexts like this, ongoing relationships of exchange are sustained when individuals exercise the virtues, especially justice, by refusing to take advantage of their exchange partners. For example, the firm may be tempted to reduce the quality of its products, knowing that its customers will not be able to find similar products elsewhere, or the employer may seek to lower wages for the employee with specialized skills, knowing that her skills are not needed in other firms because they lack the specialized equipment. These tactics may pay in the short run but will be detrimental in the long run by decreasing the willingness of exchange partners to continue cooperating by making relation-specific investments. In this context, individuals may realize self-authorship and attain long-term financial success by treating their exchange partners fairly, ensuring that they remain committed to the relationship (Bosse & Phillips, Reference Bosse and Phillips2016; Maitland, Reference Maitland1997: 24; Stoelhorst, Reference Stoelhorst2023: 1509). In these ways, relationships of exchange may involve virtues and more robust commitments to the well-being of exchange partners, thereby transcending purely instrumental relationships.

This liberal conception of the common good highlights the complexity of networks of exchange that present opportunities for individuals to exercise their economic liberties in a mutually beneficial way. But just because of this complexity, these networks may also present a danger to ongoing cooperative relationships. More specifically, the aggregate impact of economic exchange on the environment, which serves as both a source of resources used in exchange and, more fundamentally, the context in which these relationships are situated, may be irrevocably harmed as a result of climate change, stemming from economic activity. Thus, beyond the virtues noted previously, which have an important role to play in sustaining ongoing relationships of exchange both within firms (Moore, Reference Moore2002: 25–26) and in markets (Bruni & Sugden, Reference Bruni and Sugden2013; Maitland, Reference Maitland1997: 23–26), the common good requires a concerted effort by all participants to promote and implement sustainable modes of production and consumption, thereby cultivating the virtue of sustainability (Hartman, Reference Hartman and Kawall2021) or harmony with nature (Jordan & Kristjánsson, Reference Jordan and Kristjánsson2017). This is essential to preserving not only the natural environment for future generations but also the viability of ongoing, mutually beneficial networks of exchange.

Thus the common good in a liberal capitalist order is realized within ongoing relationships of exchange that are sustained by a commitment to mutual benefit and the virtues (Bruni & Sugden, Reference Bruni and Sugden2013; Otteson, Reference Otteson2019: chapter 1; Maitland, Reference Maitland1997: 24), thereby enabling participants to effectively exercise their economic liberties, to realize freedom as self-authorship (Tomasi, Reference Tomasi2012: 169). As such, this conception of the common good is not merely an aggregate of individual welfare (Sison & Fontrodona, Reference Sison and Fontrodona2012: 211) or a set of instrumental interactions but, rather, comprises a dynamic network of mutually beneficial relationships.

Exploitation in the Market

In this article, I have sought to articulate the two key liberal values of self-authorship and mutual benefit that are linked with the market economy. As such, this account treats the market as an ideal type (see Bernacchio, Foss, & Lindenberg, Reference Bernacchio, Foss and Lindenbergin press; Finnis, Reference Finnis2011: 9; Hekman, Reference Hekman1983), focusing on the way that market society makes these values available to participants. That said, the market does not always lead to enhanced freedom and mutually beneficial relationships. Rather, in some cases, it is the reverse, leading to exploitation, domination, or even slavery (Crane, Reference Crane2013; Gourevitch, Reference Gourevitch2018). However, the reality of exploitation within the market does not undermine the account of liberal values developed here, not least because proposals to do away with free markets (i.e., Adler, Reference Adler2019) ignore the unique mode of freedom that market society provides (Hegel, Reference Hegel2008: 180–86; Tomasi, Reference Tomasi2012). Instead, the fact that these values are imperfectly realized points to the need to change the discourse surrounding capitalism from one of “greed is good” to an account highlighting the potential for realizing mutual benefit made possible by the market (Freeman, Reference Freeman2018; see also Siep, Reference Siep2014: 181).

Moreover, the account of self-authorship developed here presupposes a wide range of opportunities to exercise successfully one’s economic rights (Tomasi, Reference Tomasi2012: 277). Yet, in some cases, opportunities are limited as a result of “cronyism,” which Klein, Holmes, Foss, Terjesen, and Pepe (Reference Klein, Holmes, Foss, Terjesen and Pepe2022: 13) define as a “system in which firms receive advantages over rivals from their influence with government officials, rather than a superior ability to create value for consumers.” Cronyism not only limits the opportunities available to others, especially opportunities for new-venture creation that are essential to self-authorship, but also “violates capitalist principles” (Klein et al., Reference Klein, Holmes, Foss, Terjesen and Pepe2022: 11). In other words, market economies, at times, limit self-authorship because powerful actors ignore its main tenets, especially its focus on mutually beneficial transactions (Otteson, Reference Otteson2019). This points to the need to design “institutions that are less prone to cronyism,” as well as highlighting “the role of media and society [in] holding business leaders accountable to refrain from seeking special privilege from state actors.” This may result in more opportunities for self-authorship, insofar as powerful actors refrain from erecting artificial barriers to entry (see Heath, Reference Heath2014a: 37), as well as more mutually beneficial transactions, insofar as firms will be required to compete based on their ability to create value efficiently.

However, the loss of freedom within market society is not only a result of cronyism or corruption but also results from contingencies stemming from market processes (Hegel, Reference Hegel2008: 225). As such, there is a need for institutions that enable individuals to cope with these contingencies (Herzog, Reference Herzog2013: 57). These could include unemployment insurance, education, and training to promote human capital development, or health care, among other services, and could extend to a universal basic income (Pettit, Reference Pettit2008; Zwolinski, Reference Zwolinski, Cholbi and Weber2019). Nothing within the account of liberal values developed here precludes the need for such institutions. That said, there are different ways of implementing government programs providing for contingencies, some more compatible with free markets than others (Bergh, Reference Bergh2020; Thelen, Reference Thelen2014). Accordingly, efforts should be made to ensure that government support for individuals facing contingencies resulting from market processes does not undermine the distinct mode of freedom made available within markets (Tomasi, Reference Tomasi2012) or lead to more cronyism (Klein et al., Reference Klein, Holmes, Foss, Terjesen and Pepe2022).

Theoretical Implications

Several related debates have concerned the role of the virtues within liberal institutions. The account developed here extends these perspectives and highlights new opportunities for future research. First, whereas Wicks (Reference Wicks1996: 525) challenges MacIntyre’s interpretation of modern capitalist institutions as inherently immoral, saying that “business can understand its basic activities (the ‘business’ stuff) in ways that are morally rich and still be successful,” Dobson (Reference Dobson2009: 49) argues that “MacIntyre’s critique might be better used as a source of direction for this evolutionary process, rather than—as MacIntyre himself tends to use it—as a ‘call-to-arms’ for capitalism’s destruction,” suggesting the potential for a fusion between the liberal and the Aristotelian traditions. By contrast, critics like Boatright (Reference Boatright1995: 355–56) have argued that Aristotelian approaches have not taken sufficient account of the extent of conflicting interests within business. Future research may attempt to tease apart motivations linked with self-authorship and mutual benefit from those related to excellence within core practices (see Beadle, Reference Beadle2013; Conroy, Reference Conroy2009; Crockett, Reference Crockett2008; Kempster, Jackson, & Conroy, Reference Kempster, Jackson and Conroy2011; Robson, Reference Robson2015; Robson & Beadle, Reference Robson and Beadle2019; Wilcox, Reference Wilcox2012), considering both the specific role of the distinctive liberal values noted here in sustaining value-creating relationships with stakeholders (see Uzzi, Reference Uzzi1997) and the extent to which individuals consciously integrate these ideals with values more at home in the Aristotelian tradition, related to excellent work.

Sison and Redín (Reference Sison and Redín2021: 629) address a related point, noting similarities between the sixteenth-century Thomist Francisco de Vitoria and later liberal views, highlighting specifically the “mutually beneficial” nature of trade. Despite points of convergence, the authors note sharp contrasts between these traditions, saying, “Unlike Enlightenment liberals,” Vitoria “thinks freedom is not absolute and self-justifying” (Sison & Redín, Reference Sison and Redín2021: 634). Although the brevity of their discussion of this point makes unclear the exact nature of the liberal position they are considering, the contrast between the view of self-authorship defended here and Vitoria’s pro-commerce Thomism is apparent. Sison and Redín (Reference Sison and Redín2021: 635) frequently appeal to substantive goods to justify economic liberty. This contrasts with the liberal position outlined herein, in which economic liberties are viewed as intrinsically valuable elements of an autonomous life (Dworkin, Reference Dworkin1988: 80; see also Tomasi, Reference Tomasi2012: chapter 3). Future research may consider further the value of autonomy within the Thomist tradition (see MacIntyre, Reference MacIntyre1999: 9), specifically in economic contexts.

Likewise, Santori (Reference Santori2021) has argued that there are significant differences between the values and ethos of capitalist markets in different nations, claiming specifically that “Mediterranean” as opposed to Anglo-American forms of capitalism more fully embody the ideal of mutual benefit. Interestingly, Santori argues that this difference stems from the Thomistic roots of Mediterranean communities. Future research may further investigate historical links between Thomism, liberalism, and heterogenous capitalist traditions, especially as they shape organizations in different regions, for example, Continental Europe versus North America. It would be particularly salutary to consider these questions in the light of MacIntyre’s (Reference MacIntyre1988: chapter 17) claim that liberalism is itself a tradition, considering the extent to which various approaches to liberalism and Thomism share historical roots and the possibilities this may provide for merging these traditions.