Senior research fellow and director of publishing at Acton, Jordan Ballor, has joined the “What Good Markets Are Good For: Towards a Moral Justification of Free Markets” project as a postdoctoral researcher in theology and economics.
The project is a multiyear, multifaceted endeavor, focusing on the idea that “societies with freemarket economies flourish because and in so far as states, businesses and individuals respect morality, and act virtuously.” The project is headed by Govert Buijs at the VU University Amsterdam and includes partner institutions from across the Netherlands.
The project includes a variety of subprojects, and Ballor be working primarily on the “Human Flourishing” initiative, specifically the question, “How do various religions and worldviews define human flourishing in relation to the market and what are their views on virtues, vices, human weakness and responsibility in this regard?”
Ballor will also be involved to a lesser extent with another aspect of the project focusing on the theological and sociological contexts of Adam Smith’s work.
Ballor will be stepping down as executive editor of the Journal of Markets & Morality, with the Spring 2017 being his final issue. He will remain director of publishing and a senior research fellow at the Acton Institute.
You can follow the progress of the project at the newly launched website, www.moralmarkets.org.
