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Hobbes, Rawls, Nussbaum, Buchanan, and All Seven of the Virtues

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  • McCloskey Deirdre N

    (University of Illinois at Chicago)

Abstract

Virtue ethics proposes a set of seven—four pagan virtues and three Christian—as a roughly adequate philosophical psychology. Hobbes tried to get along with one virtue, prudence, to which Rawls added a veiled virtue of justice. Nussbaum’s Frontiers of Justice adds the virtue of love. But in criticizing Rawls, she enunciates a “Nussbaum Lemma,” that is, a good society is unlikely to arise from over-simple models of ethical life. Since virtuous, flourishing societies are what we wish, we had better insert the virtues, as she puts it, “from the start.” James Buchanan's constitutionalism, for example, solves moral hazards in a Nussbaumian world, but leaves hanging the ethical start. To start a project ending in constitutional citizenship—or human capabilities, or justice as fairness, or a Leviathan state, or the categorical imperative, or the greatest happiness of the greatest number—we need already an ethical actor, embodying the seven principal virtues.

Suggested Citation

  • McCloskey Deirdre N, 2011. "Hobbes, Rawls, Nussbaum, Buchanan, and All Seven of the Virtues," Journal des Economistes et des Etudes Humaines, De Gruyter, vol. 17(1), pages 1-30, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:bpj:jeehcn:v:17:y:2011:i:1:n:2
    DOI: 10.2202/1145-6396.1249
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Buchanan, James M, 1978. "Markets, States, and the Extent of Morals," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 68(2), pages 364-368, May.
    2. Vivian Walsh, 2000. "Smith After Sen," Review of Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 12(1), pages 5-25.
    3. McCloskey, Deirdre Nansen, 2006. "The Bourgeois Virtues," University of Chicago Press Economics Books, University of Chicago Press, number 9780226556635, December.
    4. James M. Buchanan, 1987. "Justification of the Compound Republic: The Calculus in Retrospect," Cato Journal, Cato Journal, Cato Institute, vol. 7(2), pages 305-312, Fall.
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