Fall 2016
The Bourgeois Virtues: Ethics for an Age of Commerce (The Bourgeois Era, vol. 1)
Are capitalism, globalization, and the middle class evil? A good many artists and intellectuals in the West since 1848 have thought so. Deirdre McCloskey, an internationally known economist, historian, and critic, shows why they have been mistaken. In The Bourgeois Virtues: Ethics for an Age of Commerce (University of Chicago Press, 2006) she puts forward a new approach to commercial life, neither country-club arrogance or centralizing imprudence. Prudence came to be viewed around 1800 as an all purpose ethical guide. Yet the new commercial economy then flourishing required in fact a full set of "bourgeois virtues." McCloskey argues that these are simply the virtues exercised in a commercial society — love and courage, prudence and justice, hope and faith and temperance. A critic from the inside of modern economics and its reduction of virtues to one, McCloskey participates in the revival of an Aristotelian and rhetorical social science — without giving up mathematics and number. Her talk ranges from Adam Smith to Babbitt, Plato toDeath of a Salesman.
Monday, Sept 19, 2:00-3:00
- Activity: Introduction, refreshments served
Friday, Oct 7 12:00-2:00
- Reading:
- Apology: A Brief for the Bourgeois Virtues
- Appeal
- A light lunch will be served
Location: CHN 1137
Friday, Oct 21, 12:00-2:00
- Reading:
- Part I: The Christian and Feminine Virtues: Love
- Part II: The Christian and Feminine Virtues: Faith and Hope
- A light lunch will be served
Location: CHN 1137
Friday, Nov 4, 12:00-2:00
- Reading:
- Part 3 - The Pagan and Masculine Virtues: Courage, with Temperance
- A light lunch will be served
Location: CHN 1137
Friday, Nov 18, 12:00-2:00
- Reading:
- Part 4 – The Androgynous Virtues: Prudence and Justice
- A light lunch will be served
Location: CHN 1137
Friday, Dec 9, 6:00-9:00
- Reading:
- Part 5 - Systematizing the Seven Virtues
- Part 6 - The Bourgeois Uses of the Virtues
- Dinner meeting
Location - TBA