The Morality of the Market and the Medieval Schoolmen

Abstract

Recently amongst analytic political philosophers there has been a considerable revival of interest in the normative evaluation of the market and of economic processes more generally. Whilst not rejecting markets in toto, philosophers such as Elizabeth Anderson and Amartya Sen, have raised questions about the proper range of the market, explored the role of normative considerations in economic decision-making and raised doubts about the view that normative constraints are never legitimately placed on economic activity. In this paper I explore the relevance to such explorations of the economic casuistry of the Medieval Schoolmen.