Does Humanomics Need a Moral Anchor?

This is a guest essay by Dr Edward W. Younkins, Professor of Accountancy and Business at Wheeling University, and Executive Director of its Institute for the Study of Capitalism and Morality. Ed is author of a trilogy of important books on freedom and flourishing: “Capitalism and Commerce”, “Champions of a Free Society”, and “Flourishing and Happiness in a Free Society”. He also has numerous other publications, including several published on this site. (Please see them listed after the end of this essay.) 

 

 

Modern economics, particularly in its dominant neoclassical form, is often characterized by models that treat human beings as Homo economicus—rational utility maximizers responding predictably to incentives and constraints. This idealized abstraction enables precise mathematical modeling but, as critics argue, collapses the rich complexities of human behavior into a narrow calculus of preferences and payoffs. Homo economicus assumes coherent pref­erences, consistent rationality, and a reduction of social life to instrumental choices. But this framework struggles to account for trust, social norms, feelings of fairness, moral judgment, learning, culture, and meaning—features of economic life that we observe every day. 

 

 Enter Humanomics, a burgeoning intellectual movement that seeks to re-ground economic inquiry in the realities of human experience. At its core, Humanomics aims to integrate moral and social dimensions into the scientific study of economic behavior, recapturing insights from Adam Smith that have been marginalized in mainstream economic theory. Rather than reducing humans to narrow maximizers of utility, Humanomics treats them as sentient, social, purposeful, learning agents whose actions are shaped by sentiments, norms, ethical commitments, and reflective judgment.

 

The longest part of this essay reviews the work on this growing movement conducted by Nobel laureate Vernon L. Smith and experimental economist Bart J. Wilson. That portion of the essay is followed by a discussion of distinguished interdisciplinary economic historian Deidre Nansen McCloskey’s alternative, bur compatible, vision of Humanomics. This is followed by a discussion of neo-Aristotelian philosopher Douglas B. Rasmussen’s proposal that the traditional concept of homo economicus be replaced by dual concepts pf homo agens (acting man) and homo moralis (moral man).  An argument is then made that the neo-Aristotelian framework developed by Rasmussen and Douglas J. Den Uyl called Individualistic Perfectionism may provide a philosophical grounding for Humanomics.

 

 Adam Smith’s Philosophical Vision

 

To understand Humanomics, we must revisit Adam Smith (1723–1790) not merely as the author of The Wealth of Nations (WN)—often oversimplified as the father of free market economics—but also (and arguably even more importantly) as the author of The Theory of Moral Sentiments (TMS). Smith’s intellectual project embraced both economic systems and moral psychology. For Smith, markets emerge not in a vacuum but within networks of interpersonal relations guided by sympathy, propriety, and shared language. The often-quoted “invisible hand” metaphor in WN can only be read in full context when seen alongside his moral philosophy; humans are not egoistic automatons but social beings whose moral sentiments play a foundational role in shaping institutions and behavior.

 

Humanomics begins with this fuller Smithian anthropology: humans act purposefully, learn from experience, and are motivated by both self-interest and social sentiments like gratitude, resentment, trust, and fairness. Experimental evidence in economics, particularly from the works of Vernon L. Smith, shows that in simple game environments humans often behave cooperatively and reciprocally, even when self-interest alone would predict otherwise. These findings are hard to square with narrow neoclassical models but fit comfortably with a Smithian understanding of human nature as complex and multifaceted. 

 

Like Aristotle, Adam Smith focused on the cultivation of virtues and character building. Smith extended Aristotle’s ideas into modern commercial society. In turn, Humanomics builds on the connection between Aristotle’s eudaimonia and Smithian flourishing.

 

Humanomics as a Synthesis of Sentiments and Markets

 

In contemporary economic language, the dominant paradigm is sometimes referred to as Max-U: maximizing utility subject to constraints. Humanomics challenges this by asking a deeper question: What should the subject of economic theory be? If economics is a science of human wellbeing and prosperity, then it cannot abstract away the human condition; it must account for how people actually think, feel, communicate, and form norms.

 

In their 2019 book Humanomics: MoralSentiments and the Wealth of Nations for the Twenty-First Century, Smith and Wilson articulate a framework grounded in Adam Smith’s combined insights from TMS and WN. They argue that conventional economics has “lost sight of the full range of human feeling, thinking, and knowing in everyday life,” and that re-centering economics on sociality and sentiments enriches its explanatory power. Humanomics thus defines economics as a “science of human beings,” not simply a calculus of utility functions.

 

The core thesis of Humanomics is that economics must be re‑founded on a “model of sociality” that captures the full range of human feeling, thinking, and knowing. Smith and Wilson argue that the prevailing “maximize utility” (Max‑U) paradigm is inadequate because it reduces all action to outcome‑based preferences, ignoring the origins of action in moral sentiments and the context‑dependent rules that guide human conduct. In contrast, Smith’s model explains why people often act in ways that cannot be reduced to narrow self‑interest—for example, why subjects in anonymous laboratory games display high levels of trust and cooperation.

 

Humanomics thus proposes a paradigm shift: from utility maximization to a “science of human beings” that integrates insights from TMS and WN into contemporary empirical analysis. This shift is not merely theoretical; it is driven by decades of experimental economics. Vernon Smith’s own Nobel‑winning work revealed that in market‑like settings, individuals often behave as narrowly self‑interested agents, while in personal social‑exchange games they exhibit strong other‑regarding tendencies. The Humanomics model reconciles these seemingly contradictory findings by appealing to Smith’s distinction between impersonal exchange (where anonymous rules of justice suffice) and personal social interaction (where fellow‑feeling and moral sentiments are paramount).

 

Key to the Humanomics approach is its focus on rule‑following adaptation. Smith and Wilson emphasize that human beings are not merely preference‑satisfiers; they are rule‑followers who learn from social experience. We develop “rules of conduct” through observation, imitation, and the feedback of gratitude and resentment. These rules allow us to navigate both social and economic domains.

 

Extending Adam Smith’s Vision: Vernon  Smith and  Bart Wilson’s Contributions

 

Smith and Wilson extend several core ideas from TMS into contemporary economic analysis:

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  Fellow feeling (the capacity to enter into the emotions of others): Smith’s notion that we naturally project ourselves into the situations of others, sympathizing with their joys and sorrows, becomes a foundation for understanding cooperation and norm compliance in experiments;

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  Beneficence and justice: Smith calls beneficence (voluntarily doing good)  the “ornament” of society and justice its “main pillar”; Humanomics uses this to distinguish nonobligatory kindness from the strict norms whose violation calls for demands for redress; and

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  Impartial spectator (an imagined neutral observer): People internalize a standpoint from which they judge their own conduct. Humanomics treats this internalized judge as an explanatory mechanism for behavior that adheres to norms even when no external enforcement exists.

 

These themes allow Humanomics to construct non‑utilitarian models of choice in which rules, sentiments, and perceived propriety are primary, and utility is not reduced to felt pleasure or material payoff.

 

Humanomics does not discard markets or rational choice altogether; it reinterprets them within a broader framework where market interactions are embedded in social relations. Markets are not mechanical devices for exchange but arenas where trust, reputation, norms, and sentiments actively shape outcomes. A simple market price is not just a number; it is a signal embedded in social practices and meanings. Similarly, cooperation in a trust game, or generosity in a dictator game, cannot be fully explained by narrow self-interest but makes sense when one accounts for gratitude, fairness, loyalty, and moral sentiment

 

Smith and Wilson develop Adam Smith’s ideas in several crucial directions. First, they operationalize Smith’s moral psychology for experimental economics. They design games that test predictions derived from TMS, such as the role of gratitude and resentment in triggering reward and punishment. This provides empirical grounding for Smith’s often‑overlooked psychological insights.

 

They develop a positive alternative to Max‑U. Instead of assuming that actions are driven solely by preferences for outcomes, Humanomics models action as rule‑governed and rooted in human relationships that involve what Smith called fellow‑feeling. This alternative framework not only explains anomalous experimental results but also offers predictive power about how people will behave in various social‑economic contexts.

 

In addition,  they re‑center economics on human flourishing. In their 2024 interview, Smith and Wilson connect Humanomics to the broader goal of human flourishing, which they describe as “discovery as a process that is adaptive and that anticipates new forms of knowing”. By restoring the moral‑social dimension to economic analysis, Humanomics seeks to inform policies and institutions that promote genuine human well‑being, not merely material efficiency.

 

A central insight of Humanomics is its emphasis on learning as a fundamental process. Unlike the static optimization models of neoclassical economics, Humanomics views human behavior as evolving through trial, error, reflection, and adaptation. Individuals do not come equipped with fully formed preference ordering; they learn who they are, what they value, and how their actions affect others. Experimental economics plays a crucial role here, providing empirical evidence about how people behave in controlled settings that approximate various institutional arrangements.

 

The result is a form of economics that is not just about equilibrium states but about processes of discovery. It recovers Smith’s method—humans are curious, puzzled by anomalies, and constantly refining their understanding. When models fail to predict observed behavior, Humanomics asks whether the underlying assumptions about human nature are the problem, not just whether the parameters are mis-estimated. 

 

Because Humanomics insists on incorporating social norms, sentiments, culture, and context, it naturally becomes interdisciplinary. It invites insights from psychology, anthropology, sociology, philosophy, and history into economic inquiry. This stands in contrast with an overly reductionist economics that isolates variables analytically while ignoring how human context shapes meaning and action. In real policy contexts—such as education, public health, public choice, or charity—Humanomic insights can lead to different conclusions than narrow cost-benefit analyses. Analysts must ask not merely whether a policy is efficient but whether it respects real human motivations, social norms, and institutional contexts. 

 

Bart Wilson’s contributions to Humanomics focus on the moral ecology within which economic behavior takes place. Drawing on Smith, Wilson argues that human beings inhabit a world structured by rules — not only formal laws but informal norms of propriety, fairness, and respect. These rules are not arbitrary; they emerge from social interaction and are sustained by shared moral sentiments.

 

Wilson’s concept of “moral ecology” refers to the environment of norms and expectations that make cooperative behavior possible. Just as biological organisms depend on ecological systems, human beings depend on moral systems that support trust and reciprocity. Markets, in this view, are not self‑sustaining mechanisms but institutions embedded in a moral ecology.

 

Wilson also emphasizes the importance of language and grammar in shaping social rules. He argues that moral rules function like grammatical rules: they guide behavior without requiring explicit calculation. This analogy echoes Adam Smith’s observation that moral norms arise spontaneously from social interaction, much like language. Humanomics thus extends Smith’s insights into the contemporary study of rule‑governed behavior.

 

 Experimental Evidence and Field Applications

 

Humanomics has a strong empirical foundation in experimental economics. Laboratory games have repeatedly shown that people often act cooperatively and reciprocally in ways that standard Max-U models do not predict. In market experiments, trading behavior often approximates neoclassical predictions, but in social exchanges and repeated interactions, people reveal trust, fairness, and punishment behaviors inconsistent with narrow rational self-interest. Humanomics treats this not as noise to be explained away but as central phenomena that any reliable theory must account for.

 

Field applications extend this logic: for example, blood donation behavior and charitable giving often occur without direct material incentives but are driven by moral sentiments, social identity, and reciprocal expectations—patterns Humanomics explains in a unified framework rather than as anomalies. 

 

Vernon Smith’s experimental work especially provides empirical grounding for Humanomics. His experiments consistently show that individuals behave in ways that reflect moral sentiments rather than pure self‑interest. For example, in trust games, participants often send money to strangers even when there is no guarantee of return. In ultimatum games, individuals frequently reject unfair offers even at personal cost. These behaviors contradict the predictions of standard economic models but align closely with Adam Smith’s account of moral judgment.

 

Vernon Smith interprets these findings through the lens of TMS, arguing that individuals care about fairness, propriety, and the approval of the impartial spectator. Humanomics thus bridges the gap between experimental results and classical moral philosophy. It shows that Adam Smith’s insights remain relevant for understanding real human behavior.

McCloskey’s Vision of Humanomics

 

In Bettering Humanomics: A New, and Old, Approach to Economic Science (2021), Deirdre Nansen McCloskey offers a spirited critique of the dominant currents in contemporary economics and proposes an alternative vision she also calls Humanomics.  McCloskey, a distinguished economic historian trained across economics, history, rhetoric, and the humanities, argues that modern economics has become overly narrow in its methods and impoverished in its understanding of human agency. Her work is rooted in the conviction that economics should advance as a science of human betterment that integrates quantitative analysis with a deep appreciation of human motives, language, ethics, history, and culture. 

 

McCloskey’s project is both a critique of modern economics and a revival of an older, richer tradition that traces back to Adam Smith. Her Humanomics emphasizes humans as purposeful agents embedded in moral worlds of meaning, speech, and persuasion rather than merely isolated utility maximizers reacting to incentives. This perspective challenges what she sees as the prevailing behaviorist and neo-institutionalist frameworks that dominate economics. 

 

In addition to drawing on Adam Smith, McCloskey acknowledges debt to work by experimental economists Smith and Wilson. However, while their approaches overlap in their broad aim to re-humanize economics, they differ in focus and methodological commitments.

 

At the core of McCloskey’s Humanomics is the claim that economics should be a discipline that genuinely takes human action seriously. For McCloskey, this means moving beyond the narrow positivism and behaviorism that treat human beings as reactive entities whose behavior is only meaningful insofar as it can be observed and statistically quantified. Rather, she calls for a science that recognizes humans as speaking, thinking, persuading, valuing, and moral beings. Human action, in this view, cannot be fully understood without acknowledging the roles of language, narratives, ethics, and culture. 

 

Her critique is directed both at neo-institutional economics (which stresses the role of rules and institutions but tends to treat individuals as passive units responding to institutional constraints) and behavioral economics (which often focuses on systematic deviations from rational choice without adequately theorizing autonomy, meaning, and moral agency). McCloskey contends that these frameworks, in privileging observation over interpretation, fail to capture the why behind human actions and preferences. 

 

A central move in McCloskey’s project is to reclaim the tradition of Adam Smith  as a thinker deeply attuned to moral sentiments, rhetoric, and the narrative dimensions of human life. McCloskey argues that classical political economy—and especially Smith’s work—treated human beings as ethical and rhetorical creatures. In her view, this older tradition offers a template for a more holistic economics that respects human complexity. 

 

McCloskey also situates her Humanomics within a broader narrative: the Great Enrichment of the last few centuries, during which material living standards rose dramatically across much of the world. For her, understanding this transformation requires a focus on ideas, language, and values—the very realm that conventional models tend to marginalize. Material incentives alone are insufficient explanatory tools; instead, human rhetoric, ethics, and innovation are central drivers of economic progress. 

 

McCloskey’s Humanomics calls for an interdisciplinary methodology. She argues that economics should retain the tools of mathematical modeling and empirical analysis, but also incorporate insights from history, philosophy, literature, and rhetoric.

 

At a broad level, McCloskey and Smith and Wilson share a commitment to re-humanizing economics by restoring attention to moral, social, and rhetorical dimensions of human life. All three thinkers draw inspiration from Adam Smith’s holistic perspective and reject the narrow positivist view of human action. They agree that humans cannot be understood merely as reactors to incentives or as mathematical objects in maximization problems. 

 

Both approaches emphasize interdisciplinarity and contextual richness rather than strict behaviorist reductionism. McCloskey’s Humanomics is particularly expansive in its inclusion of the humanities—language, history, rhetoric, and ethics—alongside economics. Smith and Wilson Humanomics, while acknowledging moral sentiments and context, tends to stay closer to an economic framework that can be operationalized in experimental and theoretical work. 

 

Rasmussen’s neo-Aristotelian Contributions

 

While Vernon Smith and Bart Wilson ground Humanomics primarily in a reinterpretation of Adam Smith and empirical findings, Douglas B. Rasmussen brings a philosophical depth that complements and extends the project.

 

In his recent work (2024), Rasmussen proposes replacing the abstraction of Homo economicus with the paired concepts of Homo agens (acting man), and Homo moralis (moral man). In this view, human beings are purposeful actors (Homo agens) who choose means to achieve ends, and they are also moral agents (Homo moralis) who evaluate not only the effectiveness of their actions but whether the ends themselves and the means to attain them are good for a human life. Unlike Homo economicus, which reduces behavior to utility calculations, this dual conception captures the ethical and purposive dimensions of human action. 

 

Rasmussen’s homo agens comes from Austrian economics and Ludwig von Mises’s “action  axiom” especially as interpreted by Murray Rothbard which holds that human action is purposeful behavior involving the use of scarce means to attain ends. Homo moralis adds the further question of whether the ends chosen and means employed are genuinely good for a particular human being (i.e., tying economic agency to the ethics of individual human flourishing).

 

Rasmussen maintained that neo-classical economists’ grounding of economics in universal self-interest and revealed preference is arbitrary and tautological (i.e., any consistent pattern of behavior can be interpreted as ‘utility maximization”), Rothbard’s homo agens avoids this by characterizing human beings as agents who pursue ends through chosen means, the content of which can be altruistic, egoistic, and so on. This supports a version of Humanomics that does not need homo economicus as a foundational assumption yet preserves economic theorems such as diminishing marginal utility as implications of purposeful action rather than hedonistic psychology.

 

Rasmussen’s framing resonates with Humanomics by emphasizing the agent’s reflective choice, not just behavioral regularities. It anchors Humanomics in a philosophical anthropology that recognizes human beings as rational, moral, and teleological—that is, oriented toward ends that are remembered, evaluated, and integrated within a larger conception of the good life. This aligns with classical and neo-Aristotelian notions of human flourishing, where economics cannot be fully separated from ethics and politics. 

 

Rasmussen’s broader philosophical work on human flourishing situates economics within a normative framework: economics is not just a positive science predicting behavior but a moral inquiry into conditions that enable humans to live well. Drawing on Aristotelian and natural law traditions, Rasmussen argues that flourishing involves exercise of reason, moral judgment, and substantive choice—aspects that narrow economic models often neglect. These philosophical foundations enrich Humanomics by giving it a normative anchor: preferences and choices are not just given but evaluated in terms of their contribution to a fulfilling human life. 

 

Rasmussen’s contribution to Humanomics is best understood through his broader neo-Aristotelian framework of individualistic perfectionism and his sustained work on human flourishing, moral agency, and political philosophy. Rasmussen does not approach Humanomics primarily as an economist, but as a philosopher concerned with the nature of human action, practical reason, and the ethical conditions necessary for individuals to flourish. His work provides Humanomics with a deeper normative and anthropological grounding that complements the empirical and Smithian recovery undertaken by Vernon Smith and Bart Wilson.

 

Rasmussen’s individualistic perfectionism holds that there is an objective standard of human flourishing grounded in human nature, but that flourishing must be achieved through the self-directed activity of individuals rather than imposed collective ends (Den Uyl and Rasmussen [2016]). This view aligns closely with Humanomics’ insistence that economic behavior cannot be reduced to mechanical optimization. Preferences are not merely given; they are formed, revised, and evaluated through practical reasoning over time. Economic choice, on this account, is inseparable from ethical self-authorship.

Under this view, policies or institutions that optimize efficiency but undermine agency, community, or moral sentiments may be judged inadequate. Humanomics, when infused with Rasmussen’s perspective, becomes not just a descriptive science of human behavior but a critically engaged social science that judges economic arrangements in terms of how they contribute to individual flourishing.

 

 Conclusion

 

Humanomics represents a significant intellectual shift toward a human-centered economics rooted in the full breadth of Adam Smith’s thought and enriched by contemporary philosophy. By privileging social relations, moral sentiments, and purposeful action, Humanomics provides a more holistic framework for understanding economic life. The contributions of scholars like Vernon Smith and Bart Wilson reorient economics toward a science of human beings, while philosophical thinkers like Douglas B. Rasmussen deepen its conceptual foundations by restoring moral agency and flourishing to the center of inquiry.

 

In an age where economic science faces criticism for its abstraction and detachment from lived experience, Humanomics offers a compelling alternative: one that holds onto the analytical rigor of economics while honoring the complexity of what it means to be human. In reviving Adam Smith’s unified vision of moral sentiments and economic life, Humanomics challenges the reductionism of modern economics and opens new pathways for interdisciplinary research. It invites economists, philosophers, and social scientists to reconsider the moral foundations of markets and the narrative structures that shape human action. In doing so, it honors Adam Smith’s legacy while extending his insights into the twenty‑first century.

 

Recommended reading

 

Bates, Winton. (2021) “Why Should Economists Practice Humanomics?” Freedom and Flourishing. October 4, 2021.

Den Uyl, Douglas J., and Douglas B. Rasmussen. (2016) The Perfectionist Turn: From Metanorms to Metaethics. Edinburgh University Press.

McCloskey, Deidre Nansen McCloskey. (2023) Bettering Humanomics; A New, and Old, Approach to Economic Science. University of Chicago Press

Rasmussen, Douglas B (2024), Homo Agens and Homo Moralis in Humanomics. The Independent Review.

Smith, Adam. (1759) 1982The Theory of Moral Sentiments.  Indianapolis: Liberty Fund.

Smith, Adam. (1776) 1981. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund.

Smith, Vernon L., and Bart J. Wilson. (2019) Humanomics: Moral Sentiments and the Wealth of Nations for the Twenty-First Century. Cambridge University Press, 2019.

Smith, Vernon L. and Bart J. Wilson. (2024) “Humanomics: An Interview with Vernon Smith and Bart Wilson.” 2024. Profectus Magazine. October 14, 2024.

 

Some other essays by Ed Younkins

Younkins, Edward W (2025) “What Contribution did David L. Norton Make to our Understanding of Ethical Individualism?” Freedom and Flourishing. January 18, 2025.

Younkins, Edward W. (2025) “How can dialectics help us to defend liberty?” Freedom and Flourishing. July 8, 2025.

Younkins, Edward W. (2025) “How can Austrian Economics be reconciled with the Neo-Aristotelian philosophy of Freedom and Flourishing?” Freedom and Flourishing. October 24, 2025.

Younkins, Edward W. (2025) “Can Polarized Moral Politics be Bridged by a Neo-Aristotelian Philosophy of Freedom and Flourishing?” Freedom and Flourishing. December 13, 2025.

Source: https://www.freedomandflourishing.com/2026/01/does-humanomics-need-moral-anchor.html