Toward a Thomistic Account of the Virtues of the Entrepreneur: Moral, Intellectual, and Theological Strengths for Flourishing

Abstract

Although entrepreneurs are a driving force of a free market economy, most of the research on entrepreneurship has focused on the economic outcomes rather than on the flourishing of the entrepreneurs themselves. To understand which strengths of character, mind, and spirit help entrepreneurs to flourish, I propose a Thomistic hierarchy of all the virtues and focus on those that are particularly salient in helping entrepreneurs to excel. This research synthesizes previous research into a framework of moral, intellectual, and theological virtues, and this account resonates qualitatively with the experience of over thirty practicing entrepreneurs. This research breaks new ground by treating the infused cardinal virtues—investigating how the life of faith can impact entrepreneurial endeavors—and it casts virtue ethics into a wider framework of the more recent science of human flourishing, approaching eudaimonia. Finally, it brings the Thomistic virtues of the entrepreneur into dialogue with contemporary Austrian economic theories of entrepreneurship.

Paul J. Radich, "Toward a Thomistic Account of the Virtues of the Entrepreneur: Moral, Intellectual, and Theological Strengths for Flourishing," Journal of Markets & Morality 27, no. 1 (2024): 31-56.