Adam Smith and Stuart Mill on the vanity of homo oeconomicus

Vanity underlies human behavior and can be expressed in various forms in the social, moral, aesthetic, and economic fields. It is an emotional complex that encompasses narcissism and histrionics as character traits, as well as other functions, such as memory, imagination, cognition, and instinctive...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autor: Rela, Nara Lucia de Melo Lemos
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Estado:Versión publicada
Fecha de publicación:2023
País:Brasil
Institución:Universidade Federal de Pernambuco (UFPE)
Repositorio:Perspectiva Filosófica (Online)
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:oai.periodicos.ufpe.br:article/254658
Acceso en línea:https://periodicos.ufpe.br/revistas/perspectivafilosofica/article/view/254658
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:vanity
wealth
Adam Smith
Stuart Mill
homo oeconomicus
vaidade
riqueza
HomoOeconomicus
Descripción
Sumario:Vanity underlies human behavior and can be expressed in various forms in the social, moral, aesthetic, and economic fields. It is an emotional complex that encompasses narcissism and histrionics as character traits, as well as other functions, such as memory, imagination, cognition, and instinctive drive. This study focuses on homo oeconomicus using an economic-philosophical approach to detail vanity in a situation of social interaction between an agent who shows off and a spectator who observes when the topic is a mutual comparison in the face of external signs of wealth. To that end, Adam Smith’s thoughts on vanity in the Theory of Moral Sentiments and Stuart Mill's studies on disturbances in economic models is used. In conclusion, we intend to demonstrate that the thoughts of these two economist-philosophers remain relevant in determining the vanity of the contemporary homo oeconomicus.