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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Detalhes bibliográficos
Autor: Rela, Nara Lucia de Melo Lemos
Formato: artículo
Estado:Versión publicada
Fecha de publicación:2023
País:Brasil
Recursos:Universidade Federal de Pernambuco (UFPE)
Repositorio:Perspectiva Filosófica (Online)
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:oai.periodicos.ufpe.br:article/254658
Acesso em linha:https://periodicos.ufpe.br/revistas/perspectivafilosofica/article/view/254658
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palavra-chave:vanity
wealth
Adam Smith
Stuart Mill
homo oeconomicus
vaidade
riqueza
HomoOeconomicus
Descrição
Resumo: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.