Virtue, wisdom, and inequality: A response to David Lay Williams’ The Greatest of All Plagues

Abstract

This essay explores the distinctive humanist method through which The Greatest of All Plagues investigates the presence of economic inequality in the history of political thought. It then follows the various thinkers in the book—from Plato to Marx—and observes that a vocabulary of virtue and wisdom not only accompanies but often underwrites criticisms of inequality deep into the 19th century. In conclusion, Williams’ book implicitly allows his readers to perceive how virtue ethics and criticisms of inequality have only become separated in the late modern period. In the 21st century, their rapprochement will deepen and energize inquiries into virtue ethics and egalitarian approaches to political economy alike.