Examine The Ethics Of Economic Behavior

The thought of the Economic Man was first advanced by Adam Smith in 1776. Adam systematically dealt with the hypothesis of the Economic Man, taking into account the individual motives and conduct to pursue self-interest in economic analysis. Even in today's advanced market civilization, the thought of the Econom-ic Man is still reasonable to some extent. What must be noticed is that there is some improper and partial conduct in the Economic Man that is not fit for the main theme of the construction of the socialist spiritual civilization, which affects greatly the hu-man civilization and the ecological environment. Meanwhile, this kind of improper and partial conduct is opposite to the moral implication and the values of the socialist market economy. Therefore, the issue as to how to regulate the conduct of the Eco-nomic Man becomes an very important problem. And it is against this kind of back-ground that we choose man's economic conduct as the object of our study. What we will do is to discuss the character, features, quality and the way of regulation of e-conomic conduct and activities in order to find the moral system and moral means that are suitable for the ethical spirit of the socialist market economy. Our purpose is to provide some assistance to help the regulation of economic conduct, especially that of the enterprise. In the history of the thought of the Economic Man and that of the conduct of the Economic Man, Marx Weber also has a remarkable position. He explored the origin and development of the capitalist civilization of the West and put forwarded the concept of "capitalist spirit", on the basis of which he explained some important theoretical questions such as why the capitalist civilization first appeared in Western Europe. According to Weber, the so - called capitalist spirit is nothing but the spirit of working earnestly and pursuing riches persistently. When Weber affirmed the Protestant ethic and the capitalist spirit, he was affirming people's occupations and secular labor from a moral point of view. It is without doubts that there are defects and weaknesses in the theories of both Adams and Weber. Generally speaking, the conduct theories of both Adam and Weber is not scientific.Nevertheless, the developing history of the market economy tells us that the theo-ries of the above ?mentioned two thinkers have contained reasonable elements from the start. Based on this understanding, this thesis will start with the analysis and exploration of the conduct theories of both Adams and Weber. Then the conduct of the Economic Man and the implication of the reasonable behavior of the Economic Man will be examined from a moral point of view.What must be noted is that in the market economy, partial conduct of the Eco-nomic Man is prevailing, which is marked by the extreme pursuit of the maximum of profit, the exaggeration of human instrumental rationality and which does great harm to both the society and nature. When the analysis is furthered, we' 11 find that there do exist value root causes for the appearance of the unreasonable and im-proper conduct of the Economic Man. In order to effectively regulate the unreason-able conduct of the Economic Man, we must earnestly probe into these causes from an ethical perspective. In the course of exploration, we may find that such things as extreme rationalism, the theory of almighty economy etc. are the value root causes for the partial conduct of the Economic Man. The existence and prevailing of ex-treme rationalism has intensified the relations between man and man as well as those between man and nature. The emergence and spreading of the theory of almighty economy has made man the slave of substance or the machine struggling for profit. For the two reasons, human civilization and the sustainable development of social economy are threatened and harmed. Therefore, it is urgent to establish the idea of sustainable development of the conduct of the Economic Man. Extreme rationalism and the theory of almighty economy have created a gap of develo...