Foundations of Economic Personalism is a series of three book-length
monographs, each closely examining a significant dimension of the Center
for Economic Personalism's unique synthesis of Christian personalism and
free-economic market theory. In the aftermath of the momentous
geo-political and economic changes of the late 1980s, a small group of
Christian social ethicists began to converse with free-market economists
over the morality of market activity. This interdisciplinary exchange
eventually led to the founding of a new academic subdiscipline under the
rubric of economic personalism. These scholars attempt to integrate
economic theory, history, and methodology with Christian personalism's
stress upon human dignity, humane social structures, and social justice.
This volume presents the methodological and theoretical foundations for
economic personalism through a detailed investigation of human action
from two different, yet complementary perspectives: from the personalist
perspective of Karol Wojtyla in the Acting Person (1969), and the
free-market perspective of Ludwig von Mises in Human Action (1949). By
comparing and contrasting the viewpoints of Wojtyla and Mises, the
authors develop a comprehensive praxeology (i.e., a theory of human
action) capable of analyzing human action from moral and economic
perspectives. Beyond Self-Interest illustrates how a unified praxeology
could encourage more sustained analysis of the moral dimensions of
economic activity while simultaneously softening the utilitarian
prejudice of contemporary economic analysis.
