Economics and the Moral Theology of Mutual Benefits

This paper discusses how in the British tradition, political economy, which partly emerged out of discourses in natural theology, ethics, and jurisprudence, casts some light on the content of our moral obligations. Drawing on Hutcheson, Hume, and Smith, I illustrate how commerce came to be depicted as a mode of cooperation—either literally with God or metaphorically with our fellow human beings—through which we serve the common good. That depiction energized the emerging authorization of commercial enterprises, helping to illustrate the virtue of the “bourgeois virtues,” an understanding which contributed to what Deirdre McCloskey calls the Great Enrichment. The depiction continues to edify business as a calling and elaborate how freedom serves the good of humankind