PUB - Publikationen an der Universität Bielefeld

One can distinguish two ways of a critique of capitalism: a structural critique on the one hand, and a critique by means of virtue ethics on the other. Going back to Aristotle, the long tradition of central themes of ethical critique of capitalism becomes evident. The other mode of capitalism critique goes beyond certain individual behaviour and focuses on certain structural characteristics of capitalism. The article argues that this second, structural mode of critique is superior to the ethical one, because it doesn't take into account only misled individual behaviour, but also structural undesirable developments. In explicating this, I refer to Ferguson and Hegel who have given important impulses to it in the history of ideas.