Public lecture: “Why Markets Actually Require Morality to Function Efficiently”

Paul Hurley

Abstract: “There is commonly taken to be a fundamental tension between morality and markets.  The cost-effective, efficient, profit maximizing course of action and the right course of action often diverge, and it is inefficient and costly to do the right thing, placing such actors at a competitive disadvantage.  The suggestion is that markets are spheres that mandate purely self-interested interaction – there is no place for morality within markets.  I will argue that such a picture is profoundly and dangerously misleading; indeed, that markets can only function efficiently if morality is integrated into market interactions at the most fundamental level.”