A History of Homo Economicus: The Nature of the Moral in Economic Theory

With new analyses of the work of Hobbes and Smith, Dixon and Wilson offer a fresh approach to the debate surrounding economics and morality with a novel discussion of the self in economic theory. This book calls for a change in the way that the relation between economic behaviour and morality is understood – from an understanding of morality as a kind of preference that informs certain types of other-regarding behaviour (the way that modern economics understands the relationship), to an idea of morality as a competence that enables or, rather, conditions the possibility of all forms of human behaviour, other-regarding or not.

Offering a new insight on homo economicus, this book will be of great interest to all those interested in the history of economics and of economic thought.