Knowledge, Liberty, and Entrepreneurial Judgment: A Comparative Analysis of Luis de Molina and Max Weber

Abstract

This paper offers a comparative analysis of Luis de Molina and Max Weber through the lens of knowledge, liberty, and entrepreneurship. Molina’s scholastic theory of the communis aestimatio (common estimation) anticipates modern insights into spontaneous order and market coordination, while Weber’s sociology of capitalism reveals how moral vocation and institutional rationality shape entrepreneurial judgment. Both thinkers converge on the view that social and economic order emerge from dispersed human action rather than centralized design. Yet their frameworks differ in epistemological scope: Molina’s metaphysical voluntarism emphasizes divine liberty and moral prudence, whereas Weber’s Protestant ethic and rationalization theory link vocation with worldly discipline and calculability. By integrating these perspectives, the paper reveals a deep continuity between early modern scholasticism and modern social theory, suggesting that the roots of entrepreneurship and liberal order lie in the moral and epistemic autonomy of individual judgment.