The Bourgeois Virtues: Ethics for an Age of Commerce

40not by p aloneHumans live through both P and S. That is to say, a good person is motivatedby prudence, but also by other virtues, such as love, faith, courage,temperance, justice, and hope. Michael Novak observes that in the modernworld “a strictly economic, business language has grown up without includingwithin itself the moral, religious, even humane language appropriate toits own activities.” 1 That’s the problem.I know a woman with exquisite taste, whose home is full of gracefulobjects meaningful in her life—a reproduction of a sculpted head fromGreece, in honor of her study years ago of the ancient Greek language;a black abstract painting owned by a dear friend who died too young;numerous books of poetry, which she studies to set a standard for her own.Her home is a temple to Memory. Her possessions are not mere corrupting“consumption,” so many bags of Fritos or cases of Coke. Her objects are aspecies of worship, a touch of transcendence. They are reminders of the loveand pain that anchor most women’s lives.And yet this woman can remember the price of everything she owns,every deal she has made since girlhood, and is prudent in other ways as well,saving money, making it with care and courage. She does both P andS. Bourgeois people do.Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, in her biography of Martha Ballard, wife of amiller and surveyor, mother of nine children, but especially a midwife deliveringover eight hundred babies in the Maine of the Early National period,reflects on why Martha did it: “What took Martha Ballard out of bed in thecold of night? Why was she willing to risk frozen feet and broken bones to