Honorable Merchant - Between Modesty and Risk-Taking

This volume explores the concept of the honest merchant, taking a broad perspective and covering a wide range of aspects. It looks at the different types of "honest merchant" conceptions originating from different cultures and literary traditions. The book covers Japanese, Islamic, Scandinavian, Russian, German, Spanish, as well as other aspects, and studies different disciplinary backgrounds of the honest merchant, such as philosophical, economic, neuroethical, sociological and literary ones. The concept of the honest merchant has a long tradition in businessethics. In the Hanseatic League and inmedieval Italy, the ideal of the honestbusinessman was taught since the late Middle Ages. It originated during atime whentravelling merchants were often regarded with a sceptical eye. The honestmerchantsof their timehowever held clear principles in their business and took responsibility for their community. In later times,the religiousnotions of the concept lost their pivotal place to reason and morality.This book goes beyond the tradition of discussing business ethics in association with concepts from the Hanseatic League and medieval Italy, and puts the central concept of business ethics in a much greater perspective.