Book Review: Andrius Bielskis and Kelvin Knight (eds), Virtue and Economy: Essays on Morality and Markets
| Date | 01 February 2017 |
| DOI | 10.1177/1478929916676948 |
| Published date | 01 February 2017 |
| Author | Billy Christmas |
| Subject Matter | Book ReviewsGeneral Politics |
Book Reviews 121
Islamophobic attacks on Muslims have sub-
stantially increased in the West following the
Charlie Hebdo incident, and a book such as this
is crucial for understanding how this is a con-
tinuation of institutionalised Islamophobia in
Western countries. The various chapters pro-
vide sound evidence that the ways Muslims
have been treated in the wake of the Charlie
Hebdo incident is a continuation and repetition
of the scapegoating and discriminatory treat-
ment that Muslims have long been subject to in
Western societies.
Additionally, to the extent that this book
analyses the Charlie Hebdo incident from the
point of view of the impact on Muslims, it
offers an original contribution to the field,
since most literature produced post-Charlie
Hebdo focuses on counter-terrorist tactics and
security issues in Europe. The only less attrac-
tive aspect of the book is that it is not entirely
academic. Instead, some chapters have a more
journalistic tone. To conclude, however, this is
a highly recommendable book that could have
been better if it had engaged in a more aca-
demic approach to the topic.
Luis Cordeiro Rodrigues
(University of Fort Hare, South Africa)
© The Author(s) 2016
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DOI: 10.1177/1478929916674587
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Virtue and Economy: Essays on Morality
and Markets by Andrius Bielskis and Kelvin
Knight (eds). Farnham: Ashgate, 2015. 251pp.,
£65.00 (h/b), ISBN 9781472412560
This collection of papers brings together a
diverse range of critiques of economic theory
and practice from the perspective of MacIntyrean
virtue ethics. The collection is separated into
three sections; however, there are two clear
themes which shine through which evidently
have intriguing overlap.
The first of these themes is the relationship
between the economy and social practices or
what Alasdair MacIntyre calls external and
internal goods, respectively. Some of the
entries claim that the subordination of our
social practices to merely economic ends by
the market economy means that intrinsically
valuable internal goods are subordinated to
extrinsically valuable external or economic
goods. MacIntyre argues that this is particu-
larly the case with certain financial institu-
tions; although, as Dixon and Wilson plausibly
suggest, this may be a contingent effect of the
divorce of ownership and control. Ongun,
Noponum and Machura, respectively, argue
that the shift from personal exchange to
impersonal exchange discussed by Karl
Polanyi is responsible for the degradation of
valuable social practices. However, the reader
is left wondering why we should think that
this disruption is necessarily damaging to the
internal goodness of social practices, as
Sehgal claims. Keat offers a comparative
framework for examining institutional inter-
action between external and internal goods so
as to come to a scientific conclusion about
which ones best protect social practices.
Keat’s ‘Critical Ethical Economy’ represents
a highly promising research project grou-
nded in MacIntyrean concerns regarding the
economy.
The second theme is a critique of economic
theory’s deployment of a model of instrumental
rationality. The volume reflects a worry that if
economists treat agents as merely instrumentally
rational, then agents are morally alienated. This
is a worry because agents are moral beings, and
their ends (not merely their means) are subject to
moral evaluation. Brecher and McMylor argue,
in different ways, that neoliberalism is both a
theory and a practice, and that under neoliberal-
ism agents thus alienate their natural propensity
to evaluate their ends ethically. It is not clear,
however, what the carry-over from economic
theory to social practice is. The fact that econ-
omists qua economists are not evaluating
agents’ ends in no way stops their subjects
from doing so.
What appears to underline both strands of
critique is an underlying endorsement of the
‘crowding out’ thesis: that once the possibility
of economic gain is introduced to a social prac-
tice, all other ends become increasingly dis-
placed by it. Sadly, this idea is not discussed,
although perhaps its empirical nature places it
beyond the scope of the volume.
Billy Christmas
(University of Manchester)
© The Author(s) 2016
Reprints and permissions: sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: 10.1177/1478929916676948
journals.sagepub.com/home/psrev
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