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On Sinai an anthropological, cultural, social and epochal revolution took place. There, humanity has reached a new stage in its process of humanization, thanks to a religious experience that was radically different from that of the other peoples, with their simple gods or dumb idols of wood. But at the foot of that mountain there also took place what was the biggest crisis of the people that had come out on a journey to the promised land, and it contains an extraordinary teaching on the most serious disease of every religious experience or ideal: its reduction to idolatry. The transformation of YHWH in a golden bull is a strong message addressed to all those people, communities, institutions that are given a “charisma”, all those that were once reached and inhabited by a voice that called them to a task and announced them a different and larger promise. In these experiences and in these people there is always a powerful appeal to resize and normalize the call and the promise, to reduce the mystery to trivial evidence. It is a charm-temptation that acts and operates throughout life, and becomes particularly tenacious in the last phase of it.

Moses, the deliverer from slavery, the one who revealed to the people the name of Elohim and his Law, the only man who spoke with God ‘mouth to mouth’, dies outside of the promised land. YHWH shows it to him from a distance, but he cannot reach it. The Patriarchs of Genesis had died otherwise, surrounded by their wives, sons, daughters, grandchildren, by the many ‘stars’ promised on the day of the call. They die at home, many of them are buried in the same cave of Machpelah, which was the only piece of the promised land owned by Abraham. Moses dies alone with no one to accompany him on the last trip, without the consolation of affections. He dies as he lived, in that lonely and continuous dialogue with the voice that had called him from the bush as he was herding, alone, the flock of Jethro his father-in-law at Horeb; the same voice that spoke to him again on the mountain, in the tent of the meeting, in solitude. We do not know if on that last trip to Mount Nebo the voice continued to talk to him, if it accompanied him or retired as it happened to many prophets who have died in the silence of the voice. Because, the most important happiness is not ours, but that of our children, that of the children of all.

Moses has the extraordinary privilege to see God. But he saw just YHWH’s back, not the face. The presence of God in the world is in his goodness, in the goods that he gives us, in the ‘milk and honey’ of his – our land, in all his gift-and-creation. So, the only true exercise of those in search of the “face” and presence of God in the world is to be able to recognize it in his goods, but without transforming them into a god. Idolatries are always in front of us because in the goods of the world (people, things) there really is something divine – the contemplation of the Bible is a great help for those who do not want to commit this fatal mistake. Idolatry is easy because we prefer the great pyramids to the small and fragile mobile tents, and we like the gods that we can use and possess. That different God instead shows himself to us while passing fast, putting a hand over our eyes, rushing across our tent. All ‘tents of the meeting’ scattered over this world tell us about a real presence of God and not of an idol if they manage to cherish an absence in the pain-and-desire of waiting without wanting to fill it with the easy presence of idols. The access to the good mystery of life is a void of faces in an abundance of words.

In the cycle on Isaac the nature and power of the words come from the tension between Rebekah’s “subversive” plan and Isaac’s will. The alliance of JHWH and Abraham continues with the story of the twins who are presented to us as rivals and being in conflict ever since they left their mother’s womb. For understanding this complex episode we should suspend “ethical” judgement and resist political analysis as well as the psychological opining about Jacob and Rebekah’s behaviour – and concentrate on Isaac mainly, and the logic of the Alliance and of the word. Isaac is Abraham’s son who was given and then re-given. He is the one to continue the Alliance of his father and of Noah’s rainbow, the inheritor of the Pact with the Voice that had created the world by uttering it, pronouncing it. The same Word that had called Abraham, talked to him and later also to Isaac. They had entered into dialogue with the God of the Creating Voice and believed the power of those words. The words that made a promise were forceful, they were words uttered for eternity.

In the beginning, there is no Cain. There’s something ‘good and beautiful’ instead, that, on the sixth day, with Adam became ‘very good and beautiful’. It is the blessing that hovers over the created world. The beginning of the earth, the living beings and humans is goodness and beauty, which tells us what is the deepest and truest vocation of the earth, the living. It also tells us that the earth is alive because it is located within a relationship of love and mutuality. For the mountains, rocks and rivers are also living things, otherwise those other beings we call the living would be surrounded by death, and the little life that would be left would be just too sad. The first chapter of Genesis is a sublime hymn to life and creation, with Adam, the human being as its climax. And all these creatures are good, very good, beautiful and blessed because they were called to life by an overflow of love.

The types of humanism that have shown themselves capable of a future have flourished thanks to non-predatory relationships with time and with the earth. Time and the earth are not our creation; they can only be received, kept, cared for and managed by us, as a gift and a promise. And when we don’t act like this and use time and land for profit, the future horizon of all gets cloudy and smaller. We are not the masters of the world. We live on it, it loves us, nourishes us and gives us life, but we are guests and pilgrims here, residents and owners of a land that is entirely ours, and entirely foreign to us, where we feel at home and as travelers at the same time. The earth has always been a promised land, a goal that is in front of us and is never reached. And it is also the land on which we built our house, where our neighbourhood is, where the crops grow in our field.

The blessing of Moses is a blessing to the mind and hands of work, which are two instances of the same intelligence and the same soul, the one at the service of the other. The real work is only one: hands at the service of intelligence and intelligence at the service of the hands. The body that becomes our works; the mind, the soul and the hands that give, together with those of others, shape the world. The artists are the great masters and witnesses of this incessant and essential dialogue of the mind, the soul, the hands, the hands that become the soul, the soul that turns into hands, the hands that become works. By praising and blessing the work of the hands, too, the Bible represents innovation with respect to the whole ancient culture that considered the work of the hands as impure activities, and therefore worthy only of slaves and servants. The value of this chapter of Exodus is still great, as it places the work of the hands at the centre of the new covenant, the subject of a specific blessing of Moses. Just as the tabernacle, the ark and the sanctuary.

The second part of the cycle of Joseph is a wonderful lesson on the process of the reconstruction of denied fraternity, especially of the broken brotherhoods where there is a victim, an innocent man who succeeds in reaching forgiveness and reconciliation after a long and painful journey. After the first 7 years of abundance, the ‘fat cows’, there came a harsh famine, but in all the land of Egypt there was bread. The famine reached Canaan, too. Jacob-Israel learned that there was grain for sale in Egypt, and he sent his sons to the land of the Nile. The sons left, except Benjamin, his last born by Rachel. Jacob kept him home, because he feared that harm might happen to him. The same harm that had happened years before to Joseph who now awaited them, having become “visir” in Egypt. It is not uncommon that it is a “famine” that makes us reconcile after many years of conflict. Joseph, still as a young boy, was sold into slavery by those brothers whom now, as an adult, he is saving by giving them grain.

The first time that the word “market” appears in Genesis is in the selling and buying of a tomb, the down payment for the Promised Land. The first part of the land of Canaan to become Abraham’s property is a field he buys to bury his wife Sarah. God had promised him property of the promised land, but the only land he manages to make his “property” is a tomb. It happens often to those who follow a voice and set out on a journey in good faith – and the promised land appears, they live on it, they even love it but it does not become their property. Sarah dies in the land of Canaan, but she dies as a stranger and guest in that land. This first sepulchral property is telling us a lot about Abraham’s call, but also about the adventures of those who try to follow a voice, a call in their lives: being strangers, walking the lands of others, the mobile tent of the wandering Aramean are all essential parts of the condition of those who respond to a call or try to do so. It is very interesting and revealing about the entire ancient Middle Eastern culture and about its contractual practice (the signs of which are completely lost in the suq of Damascus or Teheran) to see the process of closing a contract between Abraham and the owner of the field.

After the flood and after Babel, the fortified city in which humanity had sought the wrong type of salvation without diversity and dispersion on the fertile land, the covenant and salvation are continued with the calling of Abram, who leaves his father’s house and starts out on a journey, trusting a voice that is calling him. Faith and trust: because every faith is trust in a promise. Noah had saved us by building an ark, remaining in detention in the company of his family and the animals, waiting for the withdrawal of the waters. Abram, however, responds to the call of that same voice by starting a journey to a promised land. Even in the call of Abram we can find a universal grammar of religious as well as civil, professional, artistic, and entrepreneurial vocations. Abram arrives in the land of Canaan and finds the Canaanites there: the promised land is populated by others.

We have reached a key episode of the Genesis and to the whole Bible: Jacob and the angel in the river Jabbok. In contrast to the ways of our consumer society, in the Bible the names of people and places are very serious things. They are always chosen to indicate, symbolically, a vocation or a destiny. But when the first name is changed by an event or a special encounter, the name becomes also a call to a special and universal task. This is how after the Alliance Sarai and Abram become Sarah and Abraham, and after his night struggle Jacob becomes Israel. Once reconciled with Laban, Jacob now knows that he is awaited by a more difficult encounter, with his deceived brother Esau. But Jacob did not know that before he can meet Esau again, another special encounter was waiting for him in the ford of the Jabbok, a tributary of the River Jordan. After 20 years of exile, Jacob is afraid to return to the land of his brother. The blessing stolen 20 years earlier has accompanied him during his exile, and now he fears that Esau has not forgotten the deceit.

On the earth, mixed in a sea of providence and goodness, there are also the enemies of the weak and the poor crossing the desert to the promised land. These enemies attack suddenly, sometimes for no reason. Many poor, yesterday and today, can be saved because someone is holding their hands up, praying, calling, crying with them, for them or in their place. And because there are those that stand beside the prophets and support them when they are exhausted by the length and hardness of the battle and their arms start to give in. However powerful and cunning evil is not as deep and true as the good is: this is a great message of biblical humanism. Life is greater and stronger than death. This is the word that anyone who fights for life and for good can still place their hope in, and their hope cannot be in vain. After hunger, thirst makes a return to Massah and Meribah and with it return the protests as well.

In the unfolding of the ten plagues there is not only the role of YHWH; there is, essentially, also that of Moses and Aaron who, notwithstanding the hardened heart of the pharaoh, continue to ask him to convert. If we keep to the basic logic of the Bible, we should think that Moses and Aaron would have been probably struck after each plague. They knew that the pharaoh’s heart was hard but they couldn’t possibly know how far his obstinacy could take him. His stubborn inconvertibility is revealed again and again as they go to see him after each plague. And they had to assist to and resist through all this, up until the death of the children, a death they would not have wished to see. YHWH, their God of life, was the one who had blessed the midwives of Egypt years before, and in them, all the children of the Hebrews, the Egyptians...all the children in the world. The death cry of the firstborn that seems to annul the cry of life of the newborn saved by God and by the women from the hands of another homicidal pharaoh makes us dig deeper into this until we find a more profound trace.

We cannot understand today the extraordinary success that the capitalist market has had over the past three decades unless we pay close attention to its primary mechanism: the destruction of free non-market goods. These goods are increasingly replaced by merchandise, which try to compensate for the famine of free non-market goods – and, in their own way, they succeed.

Cesare Beccaria's pamphlet, On Crimes and Punishments (Dei delitti e delle pene) of 1764, takes us back to the School of Milan, the core of the Lombard Enlightenment during the latter half of the eighteenth century. This is the only work of the whole School of Milan that almost immediately achieved worldwide fame. Its treatment of the fundamental issues of penal law is one of the main pillars of the age of rights from the Enlightenment down to the present day. To understand the work properly it must be set in context within the utilitarian view of public happiness which was the key element of the whole Italian School at the time.

The paper discusses the work of Giacinto Dragonetti, a disciple of the Neapolitan Antonio Genovesi, founder of the Economia Civile tradition. Dragonetti’s short book, A Treatise on Virtues and Rewards, appeared in Naples in 1766, shortly after Beccaria’s On Crimes and Punishments (1764). In the Treatise, Dragonetti advances a theory of action based on awards for virtues. The idea of awards relies on the hypothesis that good or virtuous citizens act for intrinsic reasons. Modern economics has followed the path of incentives (and “punishments”), not that of awards. The paper argues that Dragonetti’s contributions remain relevant not only for the history of economic thought, but for contemporary economic theory, as well.

The paper warns that a significant body of philosophical work in virtue ethics is associated with a critique of the market economy and economics. The market depends on instrumental rationality and extrinsic motivation; market interactions therefore fail to respect the internal value of human practices and the intrinsic motivations of human actors. By using market exchange as a central model, mainstream economics normalizes extrinsic motivation, not only in markets but also in social life more generally; therefore economics appears as an assault on virtues and on human flourishing.

contrast, virtue ethics —the study of moral character—has been an important strand in moral philosophy for literally thousands of years, but has received little strand in moral philosophy for literally thousands of years, but has received little attention from contemporary economists. That neglect has not been reciprocated. attention from contemporary economists. That neglect has not been reciprocated. A signifi cant body of philosophical work in virtue ethics is associated with a radical A signifi cant body of philosophical work in virtue ethics is associated with a radical critique of the market economy and of economics. Expressed crudely, the charge critique of the market economy and of economics. Expressed crudely, the charge sheet is this: The market depends on instrumental rationality and extrinsic motisheet is this: The market depends on instrumental rationality and extrinsic motivation; market interactions therefore fail to respect the internal value of human vation; market interactions therefore fail to respect the internal value of human practices and the intrinsic motivations of human actors; by using market exchange practices and the intrinsic motivations of human actors; by using market exchange as its central model, economics normalizes extrinsic motivation, not only in markets as its central model, economics normalizes extrinsic motivation, not only in markets but also (in its ventures into the territories of other social sciences) in social life but also (in its ventures into the territories of other social sciences) in social life more generally; therefore economics is complicit in an assault on virtue and on more generally; therefore economics is complicit in an assault on virtue and on human fl ourishing. We will argue that this critique is fl awed, both as a descriphuman fl ourishing. We will argue that this critique is fl awed, both as a description of how markets actually work and as a representation of how classical and tion of how markets actually work and as a representation of how classical and neo classical economists have understood the market. We will show how the market neo classical economists have understood the market. We will show how the market and economics can be defended against the critique from virtue ethics. and economics can be defended against the critique from virtue ethics. Crucially, our response to that critique will be constructed Crucially, our response to that critique will be constructed using the language and logic of virtue ethics. In this respect, it is fundamentally different from a response . In this respect, it is fundamentally different from a response that many economists would fi nd more natural—to point to the enormous benefi ts, that many economists would fi nd more natural—to point to the enormous benefi ts

The transformation of wealth into well-being has been a central point in some of the main protagonists of the economic tradition. In particular, from Malthus to Sen, the Cambridge economic tradition paid special attention to non-economic domains important for human happiness, and to the effects of economic choices over general well-being. Marshall was the bridge between the classical reflection on happiness in the eighteenth century and the recent debates on the ‘paradoxes of happiness’, where we find again some of the issues of classical and neo-classical economics, which have been forgotten by the mainstream.

Offering a thorough assessment of the recent developments in the economic literature on happiness and quality of life, this Handbook astutely considers both methods of estimation and policy application. The expert contributors critically present in-depth research on a wide range of topics including culture and media, inequality, and the relational and emotional side of human life. Accessible and far-reaching, it will prove an invaluable resource for students and scholars of welfare and economics.

In recent years, debates on the economics of happiness have shown that, over the long-term, well-being is influenced more by social and personal relationships than by income. This evidence challenges the traditional economic policy paradigm that has emphasized income as the primary determinant of well-being. This volume brings together contributions from leading scholars to ask: What should be done to improve the quality of people's lives? Can economic and social changes be made which enhance well-being? What policies are required? How do policies for well-being differ from traditional ones targeted on redistribution, the correction of market inefficiencies, and growth? Are there dimensions of well-being that have been neglected by traditional policies? Is happiness a meaningful policy target? The volume presents reflections and proposals which constitute a first step towards answering these questions. Contributors to this volume - Stefano Bartolini Ennio Bilancini Luigino Bruni Joshua Chen-Yuan Teng Andrew Clark Bruno S. Frey Carol Graham John F. Helliwell Tim Kasser Richard Layard Vittorio Pelligra Pier Luigi Porta Maurizio Pugno Francesco Sarracino Alois Stutzer Robert Sugden

The world economy these past few years is facing the most serious crisis since 1929 and all the protagonists of the economic community are called to a new greater responsibility and commitment in order to overcome this crisis, as well as finding new sustainable ways for the market economy. In this context, the main challenge of the Economy of Communion − both at theoretical and practical levels − is to show that it is possible, here and now, to build businesses and communities oriented towards authentic relationships, where reciprocity has the right to exist, also within the economic domain. The Economy of communion (EoC), comprising about 800 businesses which dispersed hundreds of scholars, thousands of labourers and citizens in the five continents, is one of the concrete hopes for seeking altogether new cultural signs/indications and concrete ways for the new paradigm of market economy. This is what humanity is searching for in this age of crisis, sustainable in the new globalization era, which is faced with new environmental challenges, growing poverty and exclusion, as Pope Benedict XVI has underlined by mentioning the EoC (n. 36) in his Encyclical letter Caritas in Veritate, as well as in other official messages.

Giacinto Dragonetti: the central role of civil virtues and rewards in the Neapolitan and European enlightenments. Giacinto Dragonetti, a contemporary of Cesare Beccaria, published in 1766 an anonymous pamphlet on virtues and prizes. He moved from the observation that human beings made countless laws to punish villainies and vices, but not a single one to reward virtues. His proposal was to have, alongside the criminal code, a kind of code for rewards. The pamphlet was a tremendous success, but, differently from Beccaria’s work on crimes and punishments, it ended up being completely forgotten. Attempts by later scholars to revive its fame (such as the one by Melchiorre Gioja in the early nineteenth century) were not successful. Dragonetti is being rediscovered nowadays in the context of the drive towards a new understanding of the relationship between law and economics, a field to which he rightly belongs alongside Beccaria.

Giacinto Dragonetti č l'autore di un piccolo libro, Delle virtů e de' premi (1766) che associato al piů celebre Dei delitti e delle pene (1764) di Cesare Beccaria, ebbe un significa- tivo successo nell'Europa dei lumi pre-rivoluzionaria. Il libro č costruito attorno all'idea che alle pene per i delitti, un Paese civile debba affiancare i premi alle virtů. Benedetto Croce, nel 1947, mise in dubbio che la paternitŕ di tale opera fosse di Giacinto Dragonetti. Il saggio ha un duplice scopo: riproporre agli studiosi di oggi l'opera di Dragonetti; chiudere - grazie ad alcuni documenti d'archivio - la questione aperta da Croce sulla paternitŕ di Delle virtů e dei premi.

1. Introduction In the late 19th century, neoclassical economics (the economics of rational choice and maximisation) developed. Originally, neoclassical economics was grounded on utilitarian psychology – the assumption that there exists a one-dimensional, interpersonally comparable measure of mental states (‘pleasure’), and the hypothesis that rational individual choice was maximisation of this measure. But some embarrassment about the fact that this measure had never been found: not clear wh...