The Eclipse of Morality: Science, State, and Market (Sociological Imagination & Structural Change Series)

Using the works of Bacon, Hobbes, and Adam Smith as well as historical examples drawn from the last two centuries, Busch shows how the ideas initially proposed by these thinkers became reified as scientism, statism, and marketism— systems of belief that a single mode of ordering could solve the riddle of society, and thereby supplant moral responsibility. Busch contrasts this approach with concrete examples of successful attempts to extend democracy into these areas—to create multiple orderings— so that moral responsibility is neither crushingly heavy on individuals nor unbearably light on society.