Is realism in political theory compatible with utopianism? This article shows that it is, by reconstructing a highly restrictive realist approach to political theory for guiding legislation and public policy, drawn from the work of Adam Smith, and showing how it can accommodate Piketty’s utopian proposal for a global tax on capital. This shows not only that realism and utopianism are compatible; but how realist and utopian political theory can be carried out in concrete cases. This moves debates to more (...) interesting questions of which forms of utopianism are permissible within which forms of realism; contributes to moving the contemporary realism debates from a Methodenstreit to questions of how it can and ought to be done; and contributes to an important contemporary debate about the permissibility of utopian proposals for political and economic reform in general and Piketty’s proposed global tax on capital in particular. (shrink)

A recent wave of scholarship has challenged the traditional way of understanding of self-command in Adam Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments as ‘Stoic’ self-command. But the two most thorough alternative interpretations maintain a strong connection between self-command and rationalism, and thus apparently stand opposed to Smith’s overt allegiance to sentimentalism. In this paper I argue that we can and should interpret self-command in the context of Smith’s larger sentimentalist framework, and that when we do, we can see that self-command is (...) ‘sentimentalized’. I offer an interpretation of Smithian self-command, arguing that self-command has its motivational basis in the natural desire for the pleasure of mutual sympathy; that self-command is guided by the sentimental standard of propriety; and that self-command works through the psychological mechanism of the ‘supposed’ impartial spectator. And I show that Smithian self-command is a home-grown, sentimentalist virtue and not an awkward rationalistic transplant. (shrink)

Adam Smith sought to explain the persistence of slavery as an institution in Wealth of Nations and Lectures on Jurispridence. In order to accomplish this he also drew on arguments he had developed in the Theory of Moral Sentiments. The result was a sophisticated explanation which bridged economic, psychological, and moral considerations. After presenting Smith’s explanation I will consider a discussion of the moral wrong of slavery in Ottobah Cugoano, the author of the incisive criticism of the slave trade Thoughts (...) and Sentiments on the Evil of Slavery (1787). I will suggest that Cugoano’s account of what is morally wrong in slavery shows an important lacuna in Smith‘s views. (shrink)

(2005). Wonder in the face of scientific revolutions: Adam Smith on Newton's ‘Proof’ of Copernicanism. British Journal for the History of Philosophy: Vol. 13, No. 4, pp. 697-732. doi: 10.1080/09608780500293042.

It has been claimed that Adam Smith, like David Hume, has a ‘reflective endorsement’ account of the authority of morality. On such a view, our moral faculties and notions are justified insofar as they pass reflective scrutiny. But Smith's moral philosophy, unlike Hume's, is also peppered with references to God, to divine law, and to our being ‘set up’ in a specific way so as to best attain what is good and useful for us. This language suggests that there is (...) another strategy available for accounting for the authority of morality, one that would align Smith with teleological accounts of human nature and theological accounts of morality. The authority of Smith's impartial spectator would, on such an account, be derivative – it would be derived from the supreme authority of God. Such a view poses a serious challenge for contemporary interpreters of Smith who seek to read him as an empiricist, naturalist, and sentimentalist moral philosopher. This paper examines the textual evidence for this view, focusing on the role of the explicitly religious language found in a key section of Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments. I argue that this language should neither be interpreted as merely ornamental, nor as providing a theological justification of morality. Rather, it is part of Smith's illustration of the psychological influence of religious beliefs, especially the beliefs in an all-seeing judge and in a just afterlife where all human actions will be accounted for and appropriately rewarded or punished. (shrink)

As late twentieth-century discourses of modernity and postmodernity invoke their Enlightenment heritage in a search for the origins of their present achievements and predicaments, Adam Smith's works are still seen as a canonic representative of that heritage. Smith has long been evoked as the ‘father’ of economics and the original proponent of laissez-faire capitalism, but the political changes in recent decades have reconstituted his iconic status. With the full range of Smith's published and unpublished writings and lectures now widely available, (...) there has been a huge growth in the scholarly literature on Smith which has subjected this traditional view to searching questions. The overwhelming conclusion to emerge is that Smith's works display a subtlety and complexity that is at odds with the received image of Smith as the spokesman of modernity, but the diversity of interpretation raises some difficult methodological issues. (shrink)

The moral psychology of sympathy is the linchpin of the sentimentalist moral theories of both David Hume and Adam Smith. In this paper, I attempt to diagnose the critical differences between Hume's and Smith's respective accounts of sympathy in order to argue that Smithian sympathy is more properly suited to serve as a basis for impartial moral evaluations and judgments than is Humean sympathy. By way of arguing this claim, I take up the problem of overcoming sympathetic partiality in the (...) construction of a moral point of view, acknowledged by both writers, as my primary platform. My contention is that Humean sympathy is too mechanistic to actually deliver an impartial adjudicatory perspective, and that Smithian sympathy, with its evaluative, imaginative components, succeeds where Hume's account falls short. The paper is comprised of six sections: (i) introductory remarks, (ii) a discussion of Humean sympathy, (iii) a discussion of Smithian sympathy and its distinctness, (iv) a critical analysis of Hume's attempt to correct for sympathetic partiality in the construction of the judicial spectator's general point of view, (v) a critical discussion of sympathetic partiality in Smithian sympathy & (vi) a critical analysis of Smith's construction of the impartial spectator perspective as a moral point of view. (shrink)

Here is an appealing position: one reason to pursue interaction with people from backgrounds that differ from our own is that doing so can improve our moral judgment. As some scholars have noticed, this position seems pedigreed by support from the famed philosophers of human sociability, David Hume and Adam Smith. But regardless of whether Hume or Smith personally held anything like the appealing position, neither might have had theoretically grounded reason to do so. In fact, both philosophers explain moral (...) judgment in ways that seem to present obstacles to the acceptance of the appealing position. This paper entertains the possibility that either of their moral theories contains resources to overcome these obstacles and implies the appealing position. I argue that Smith's theory does so more straightforwardly than Hume's does. This difference, I also argue, reveals something important about the Hume-Smith philosophical relationship. I close by sketching a way to fit the source of the appealing position in Smith's moral psychology with his focus on the desire for mutual sympathy. (shrink)

Catholic Social Teaching takes a rather cautious view toward the value of the ideas of Adam Smith, due to his emphasis on negative political and economic liberty. Detractors of Smith within CST point to what they consider to be deficiencies within his works: an impoverished moral anthropology, a lack of concern for the common good, and markets untethered to human needs. Defenders of Smith within CST tend to emphasize the material benefits that derive from Smithian institutions, such as economic growth, (...) improvements in standards of living, and the new opportunities that arise from cultures focused on innovation. This paper argues that Smith’s ideas have real value for CST. However, this value primarily lies in his moral psychology. While not denying the dangers of business activity for our moral lives, Smith also helps us to understand the possibility of the moral corruption of those who wield political power, thus providing an indirect defense of political and economic liberty that coheres with important Christian ethical notions found in CST. This is the case even though CST does not consistently recognize concerns surrounding the dangers of wielding political power—and thus Smith’s arguments offer real challenges to CST as well. This paper further suggests that these basic insights are relevant regardless of one’s favored institutional arrangements. (shrink)

This essay has two purposes—first, to identify Adam Smith as intervening in the debate between Montesquieu and Hume regarding the nature, age, and robustness of English liberty. Whereas Montesquieu took English liberty to be old and fragile, Hume took it to be new and robust. Smith disagreed with both: it was older than Hume supposed, but not fragile in the way Montesquieu claimed. The reason for this was the importance of the common law in England’s legal history. Seeing this enables (...) the essay’s second purpose: achieving a more thorough and nuanced understanding of Smith’s account of liberty. This requires us to go beyond repeating Smith’s famous claim that modern liberty was the result of the feudal barons trading away their wealth and power for inane status goods. As I demonstrate, this is only one part of a much wider story: of liberty requiring, and also being constituted by, the rise of the regular administration of justice, and ultimately the rule of law. Although Smith’s history of the English courts and common law has been almost entirely neglected by scholars, it is indispensable to understanding both his reply to Montesquieu and Hume and his wider political theory of modern freedom. (shrink)

It is a commonplace that the writers of eighteenth century Scotland played a key role in shaping the early practice of social science. This paper examines how this ‘Scottish’ contribution to the Enlightenment generation of social science was shaped by the fascination with unintended consequences. From Adam Smith's invisible hand to Hume's analysis of convention, through Ferguson's sociology, and Millar's discussion of rank, by way of Robertson's View of Progress, the concept of unintended consequences pervades the writing of the period. (...) The paper argues that the idea of unintended order shapes the understanding of the purpose of theoretical social science that emerges from the Scottish Enlightenment. (shrink)

Philosophy was at the core of the eighteenth century movement known as the Scottish Enlightenment. The movement included major figures, such as Francis Hutcheson, David Hume, Adam Smith, Thomas Reid and Adam Ferguson, and also many others who produced notable works, such as Gershom Carmichael, George Turnbull, George Campbell, James Beattie, Alexander Gerard, Henry Home (Lord Kames) and Dugald Stewart. I discuss some of the leading ideas of these thinkers, though paying less attention than I otherwise would to Hume, Smith (...) and Reid, who have separate Encyclopedia entries. Amongst the topics covered in this entry are aesthetics (particularly Hutcheson's), Moral philosophy (particularly Hutcheson's and Smith's), Turnbull's providential naturalism, Kames's doctrines on divine goodness and human freedom, Campbell's criticism of the Humean account of miracles, the philosophy of rhetoric, Ferguson's criticism of the idea of a state of nature, and finally the concept of conjectural history, a concept especially associated with Dugald Stewart. (shrink)

This paper discusses Adam Smith's views of social justice. It first describes Smith's optimistic view of markets, for example with regard to the absence of negative externalities, which implies that he considered certain normative problems to be the exception rather than the rule. Then, Smith's views on redistribution are discussed: although he is sympathetic to progressive taxation, his main focus remains on free markets, which can partly be explained by his distrust of politicians. If one takes a closer look as (...) Smith's views of markets, however, it turns out that one of the reasons why he endorses them is their distributive features. He saw them as an antidote to the inequalities of the feudal age, offering all individuals an opportunity to work their way up to a decent standard of living and leading to more equality in the long run. Thus, Smith's account, while out-dated in certain ways, can serve as an inspiration for thinking about distributive justice not only as a question of redistributive taxation but also as a question of the institutional design of markets. (shrink)

The behavior of individuals currently living will generally have long-term consequences that affect the well-being of those who will come to live in the future. Intergenerational interdependencies of this nature raise difficult moral issues because only the current generation is in a position to decide on actions that will determine the nature of the world in which future generations will live. Although most are willing to attach some weight to the interests of future generations, many would argue that it is (...) not necessary to treat these interests as equivalent to those of the current generation. A common approach in this context is to use a system of discounting to evaluate future benefits and harms. This paper assesses the logic of discounting drawing on the writings of economists and philosophers. Much of the economic literature concerns the choice of an appropriate social discount rate. The social discount rate can be taken to reflect beliefs about the rights of future generations, a subject that has been extensively debated in the phioosophic literature. The writings of both economists and philosophers concerned with the weight to attach to the interests of future generations are reviewed and evaluated in this paper and the implications for environmental policy are discussed. (shrink)

In spite of the numerous occasions on which Adam Smith expresses his reservations regarding the morality of commercial societies, there seems to be an agreement that he believed such systems to be fundamentally just. To some, this is so because they attribute to Smith a concept of justice which is narrowly confined to the ‘right to have [one's] body free from injury, and [one's] liberty free from infringement’ . In a world where people have an interest in the fortune of (...) others regardless of how selfish their motives for action might be, injuring someone else's body or restricting someone else's liberty is unlikely to be the behavioural norm. To others, natural liberty in the sphere of economic activity is just not only because individuals behind the system naturally comply with justice in its commutative sense, but also because the system itself generates justice in the distributive sense. Such arguments are based on either the working of the invisible hand — which produces the ‘same distribution of the necessities of life, which would have been made, had the earth been divided into equal portions among all its inhabitants …’ — or on the approval of the ‘impartial spectator’ of the distribution which is associated with the natural price. (shrink)

Durante la Ilustración escocesa se legitimó la “perspectiva del espectador imparcial” como garantía de juicios morales imparciales. Esta escuela de pensamiento se ha considerado tradicionalmente como la antesala del utilitarismo. Sin embargo, actualmente se sostiene que, aunque Hutcheson y Hume sí son protoutilitaristas, la teoría de Smith es la primera gran crítica al utilitarismo. En este ensayo atribuyo esta diferencia a la posición desde la que juzga el espectador —tercera o segunda persona— de la que se derivan estructuras metaéticas distintas (...) que condicionan, entre otras cosas, el significado de la noción de imparcialidad. (shrink)

The conventional interpretation of Adam Smith is that he is a prophet of commercialism. The liberal capitalist reading of Smith is consistent with the view that history culminates in commercial society. The first part of the article develops this optimistic interpretation of Smith's view of history. Smith implies that commercial society is the end of history because (1) it supplies the ends of nature that he identifies; (2) it is inevitable; and (3) it is permanent. The second part of the (...) article shows that Smith has some dark moments in his writings where he seems to reject completely such teleological notions. In this more civic humanist mood he confesses that commercial society does not supply the ends of nature, nor is it inevitable, nor is it permanent. Both views exist in Smith and the commentator is forced to choose between passages in Smith's work in order to support a particular interpretation of the former's view of history. (shrink)

This paper examines how the concepts of utility, impartiality, and universality worked together to form the foundation of Adam Smith's jurisprudence. It argues that the theory of utility consistent with contemporary rational choice theory is insufficient to account for Smith's use of utility. Smith's jurisprudence relies on the impartial spectator's sympathetic judgment over whether third parties are injured, and not individuals' expected utility associated with individuals' expected gains from rendering judgments over innocence or guilt.

Both Adam Smith's epistemology and his politics head to a stalemate. The former is under the opposing pulls of an essentialist ideal of knowledge and of a pragmatist approach to the history of science. The latter still tries to provide a foundation for a natural law, while conceiving it as non-absolute and changeable. The consequences are (i) inability to complete both the political and the epistemological works projected by Smith; (ii) decentralization of the social order, giving rise to several partial (...) orders, such as that of the market. (shrink)

For the first time, in Hume and Smith, ‘sympathy’ occupies a central position as the principle of moral judgment. The key to solving the relationship between sympathy and economic thought lies in the theory of justice. Hume and Smith inherited Hutcheson’s criticism of the Hobbesian selfish system and considered humans selfish and social. For both, the relationship between selfishness and sympathy is neither a contradiction nor a subordinate structure in which selfishness ultimately dominates sympathy. In this joint project, Hume’s institutional (...) utilitarianism could justify Smith’s economic theories and provide Smith’s theory of government with a proper philosophical foundation. I argue that this is particularly significant because Smith himself failed to provide the foundation in areas where the idea of public utility plays a vital role, such as in the critical case of national defence and the decline of martial spirit. (shrink)

In the Theory of Moral Sentiments, Adam Smith observed that we live in a fundamentally conflictual world. Although he held that we are creatures who sympathize, he also observed that our sympathy seems to be constrained by geographical limits. Accordingly, traditional theories of cosmopolitanism were implausible; yet, as a moral philosopher, Smith attempted to reconcile his bleak description of the world with his eagerness for international peace. Smith believed that commercial intercourse among self‐interested nations would emulate sympathy on a global (...) scale, balancing national wealth and international peace without a coercive apparatus to enforce compliance with international law. (shrink)

. The modern interpretation of Smith as a retributive theorist of punishment is challenged in favour of a view of his work as containing a curious amalgam of retributive and utilitarian elements. This unsynthesised theoretical compound accounts for many of the contradictory positions assumed by him, examples of which are given in the article. At the level of “punishment” , the retributivehtilitarian dichotomy is observed in his discussions of merit and demerit and propriety and impropriety . At the level of (...) state punishment, the same dichotomy is seen in his juxtaposition of considerations of individual justice and the political ends of punishment. A final section locates Smith's “double cleft stick” theoretically in his position on the one hand in the Hobbesian materialist tradition and on the other in his historical stance half‐way between the individualism of the contractarians and the full blown utilitarianism of Bentham. (shrink)

Motivation crowding out can lead to a reduction of ‘higher’ virtues, such as altruism or public spirit, in market contexts. This article discusses the role of virtue in the moral and economic theory of Adam Smith. It argues that because Smith’s account of commercial society is based on ‘lower’ virtue, ‘higher’ virtue has a precarious place in it; this phenomenon is structurally similar to motivation crowding out. The article analyzes and systematizes the ways in which Smith builds on ‘contrivances of (...) nature’ in order to solve the problems of limited self-command and limited knowledge. As recent research has shown, a clear separation of different social spheres can help to reduce the risk of motivation crowding out and preserve a place for ‘higher virtue’ in commercial society. The conclusion reflects on the performative power of economics, arguing that the one-sided focus on models of ‘economic man’ should be embedded in a larger context. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This paper has three main aims. First, to make good on recent suggestions that Adam Smith offers a genealogy of the origins of religious belief. This is done by offering a systematic reconstruction of his account of religion in The Theory of Moral Sentiments, demonstrating that Smith there offers a naturalised account of religious belief, whilst studiously avoiding committing himself to the truth of any such belief. Second, I seek to bring out that Smith was ultimately less interested in (...) the truth of religious beliefs than in evaluating and understanding the place of religion in healthy ethical living. Third, I put Smith’s account into contrast with the more famous treatment offered by Nietzsche (as well as Bernard Williams’s later, Nietzschean, reflections), and suggest that Smith offers us the more plausible picture of both religion and morality, a finding of both historical and contemporary philosophical import. (shrink)

‘Universalist’ moral principles have fallen into disfavour because too often they have been pretexts for unilateral impositions upon others, whether domestically or internationally. Too widely neglected has been Kant’s specifically Critical re-analysis of the scope and character of rational justification in all non-formal domains, including the entirety of epistemology and moral philosophy, including both justice and ethics. Rational judgment is inherently normative because it is in part constituted by our self-assessment of whether the considerations we now integrate into a candidate (...) judgment have been integrated as they ought, so as to form a cogent, justifiable judgment. Constitutive of this self-assessment is that rational judgments must be based upon considerations which can be communicated to all others, such that they too can assess them as sufficiently cogent justification; also constitutive of this rational self-assessment is that we actually engage with others who do assess our judgments. Kant’s Critical principles rule out in principle any unilateral imposition upon others, whether in cognition or morals. Using Kant’s Critical principles and methods in connection with ‘practical anthropology’ and the enormously important domain of acquired rights and obligations shows how Kant had already justified fundamentally universal principles of justice which can be institutionalised in variously distinctive cultures, and which form the proper bases for our acquired, specifically social rights and obligations, including those of friendship and community. (shrink)

This article analyzes the relationship between competition and justice in Adam Smith in order to determine to what extent competition can promote and undermine justice. I examine how competition features in two basic motivations for human action, “the propensity to truck barter and exchange,” and “the desire of bettering our condition.” Both can be traced back to the desire for recognition, but they operate in very different ways. The former manifests itself in social cooperation, chiefly commercial exchange and the division (...) of labor, and while it can take a competitive form, competitive success produces benefits for everyone. In contrast, the latter may manifest itself in win‐lose social competition. Commercial society harnesses both motivations, and both have negative as well as positive effects. However, while Smith explicitly addresses the negative effects of excessive specialization in the division of labor, it is less clear how he thinks the negative effects of social competition can be addressed. I argue that competition can undermine justice when (i) it pits people against each other and (ii) leads to psychological corruption. I conclude with some reflections on what a focus on competition adds to our understanding of Smith's work. (shrink)

In The Theory of Moral Sentiments, Adam Smith recognizes that in certain occasions even the most impartial of all spectators experience an ‘irregularity of sentiment’ in judging the moral value of an action. An example of this irregularity can be found in cases where, under the influence of fortune, the consequence of the action does not follow directly from the design of the agent. Within this article, the problem presented will be addressed in order to seek the grounds for the (...) validity of the following thesis: the recognition of the natural equality of all moral agents is the objective basis in which all moral judgment must be grounded. Having indicated this, an important question arises: Why does the innocent, who is not unjust but who is the material cause of the factual injury of another, feels a kind of remorse facing the act and somehow feels “guilty”? (shrink)

La democracia del siglo XXI se enfrenta a nuevas imposturas: prácticas comunes en los extintos autoritarismos del siglo XX aparecen ahora como atributos de gobiernos que se declaran democráticos. Se trata, en realidad, de una crisis de identidad de la idea de democracia, que le obliga a reconocer su carácter intrínsecamente abierto y por ello mismo, incierto, lo que remite a su fundamento moral. La revisión de las distintas familias de teorías de la democracia revela que lo que la define (...) es la existencia de salvaguardas constitucionales y poderes limitados que permiten la emergencia de un agente moral autónomo. Pero entonces, se asoma una crisis del sujeto democrático: el régimen democrático, como sistema de separaciones, supone y exige sujetos moralmente comprometidos con la libertad, lo que a su vez peligra en tiempos de modernidad tardía. Palabras clave : incertidumbre; constitucionalismo; autonomía; separaciones; modernidad tardía. Theories of Democracy: Uncertainties and SeparationsDemocracy in the XXI century faces new impostures: practices that were common under the extinct authoritarianisms of the XX century appear now as attributes of self-declared democratic governments. The idea of democracy suffers an identity crisis, which obliges it to acknowledge its own intrinsically open, and thus uncertain, nature; in turn, this directs one to democracy’s moral foundations. The review of the different families of theories of democracy reveals that what defines the latter is the existence of constitutional safeguards and limited powers, which allow for the emergence of an autonomous moral agent. But then, a crisis of the democratic subject becomes visible: the democratic regime, as a system of separations, involves and demands subjects who are morally committed with freedom, which in turn is in jeopardy in times of late modernity. Keywords: uncertainty; constitutionalism; autonomy; separations; late modernity. (shrink)

RESUMEN: En su Teoría de los Sentimientos Morales Adam Smith propone una ética que concilia dos paradigmas habitualmente considerados como incompatibles: una ética de virtudes, con normas orientativas e ideales de excelencia, y una ética con reglas universales que se aplican en todos los casos sin excepción. Smith lo hace cambiando el punto de vista desde el que se realiza el juicio moral, a una perspectiva que llamaré "simpatético-imparcial", y que corresponde a "los sentimientos simpatéticos de un espectador imparcial y (...) bien informado". Este novedoso punto de vista le permite introducir características modernas a la ética clásica de la virtud para dar una nueva justificación a las virtudes positivas, así como cambiar el modo de entender las "reglas o principios universales". De este modo, Smith construye una ética capaz de dar cuenta, dentro del mismo marco teórico, tanto de los ideales de excelencia propios de la virtud, como de los imperativos universales modernos. ABSTRACT: In his Theory of Moral Sentiments, Adam Smith reconciles two moral paradigms that are usually considered incompatible: an ethics of virtue, with general guidelines and ideals of excellence, and an ethics with universal rules, which must be applied to all cases without exceptions. Smith makes this possible by shifting the perspective from which moral judgments are assessed to what I call the 'sympathetic-impartial' perspective, which stands for "the sympathetic feelings of an impartial and well-informed spectator". From this new standpoint, Smith is able to introduce some modern features into classic virtue ethics and provide a different justification for positive virtues, as well as to change the way 'universal norms or principles' are understood. Accordingly, Smith's theory accounts simultaneously, and within the same theoretical framework, for both ancient-like virtues and their ideals of excellence and for modern-like universal imperatives. (shrink)

This paper places Adam Smith within the long republican tradition, and offers an emancipatory reflection on the possible space of republican freedom within societies that harbour certain degrees of market activity. In doing so, it seeks to offer some criteria on the kind of political-institutional action that can be taken in modern societies in order to constitute markets that respect, and even promote, republican freedom. The paper is divided into four sections. Section 1 shows why Adam Smith's ethical-political analysis, which (...) was very influential in the shaping of classical political economy, can be presented as part of the broad republican tradition. Section 2 reflects on the possibilities for a realisation of republican freedom within markets. What I call 'commercial republicanism' is here analysed as a project for modern societies. Section 3 assesses the difficulties for commercial republicanism to unfold within capitalist societies, the structural features of which prevent individuals and groups from enjoying the kind of undominated social relations the republican tradition has always pleaded for. Finally, section 4 draws some conclusions on the epistemic and political meanings of commercial republicanism as an emancipatory project for contemporary societies. (shrink)

ABSTRACTIn this article, I explore the complex and unappreciated relationship between the moral and political thought of Cicero and Adam Smith. Cicero’s views about justice, propriety, and the selfish love of praise find new expression in Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments. I illustrate the important ways in which Smith adopts – often without attribution – Cicero’s precepts and moral judgments. I then go on to demonstrate how Smith strips those Ciceronian conclusions from their original justifying grounds in teleology and natural (...) law. In their place, Smith injects his own psychology based in sentiments as a new account of why it is that we prefer virtue and justice to their opposites. By exploring this relationship, I hope to shed light on an important dynamic whereby modern thought has creatively adapted classical moral and political concepts. (shrink)

Robert Nozick addresses the idea of egalitarian redistribution in an argument standardly considered original: the “Wilt Chamberlain Argument”. However, this argument is found in David Hume's An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals, first published in 1751. Placing this argument within a Humean and Hayekian, rather than a Lockean or Kantian, perspective radically changes its import for issues of economic justice. Rather than vindicating the radical individualism of Nozick and other libertarians, applied to our circumstances using Hume's conventionalist and evolutionary (...) account of justice, Hume's Wilt Chamberlain argument vindicates moderate redistribution constrained by the rule of general laws and the goal of fostering innovation and industriousness. (shrink)

Algunos autores han sostenido que es posible que en el pasaje de la mano invisible, en La teoría de los sentimientos morales, Smith esté contestando a Rousseau. Esta hipótesis se basa en una fraseología similar que usan tanto Smith como Rousseau en el Discurso sobre el origen de la desigualdad. En esta nota se mostrará que es posible realizar una distinción importante con relación al período histórico que Smith está analizando en el pasaje de la mano invisible de TSM IV: (...) 10 y el que Rousseau está analizando en el Discurso sobre el origen de la desigualdad, a pesar de la fraseología similar con relación a las rudas selvas de la naturaleza. Some authors have contended that it is possible that Smith is answering Rousseau in The Theory of Moral Sentiments. This hypothesis is based on a similar phraseology used both by Smith and by Rousseau in the Discourse on the Origin of Inequality. In this note, a clear distinction will be made. In the aforementioned works, Rousseau and Smith refer to different periods of time, in spite of the similar phraseology used in relation to "the rude forests of nature". (shrink)

Despite an initially warm reception, over the past two centuries assessments of the literary character of Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations have gradually but unmistakably turned negative. This transformation in the public reception of Smith’s text began during his lifetime and culminated in Heilbroner’s assertion that Smith wrote with ‘an encyclopedic mind, but not with the precision of an orderly one’. However, where Heilbroner and many of his predecessors saw obscurity and tedious attention to minor detail, recent scholarship has (...) begun to perceive remarkable literary subtlety and nuance. This article continues and builds upon that project. It commences with an assessment of three competing explanations of Smith’s literary style and settles on a philosophic and pedagogic explanation of The Wealth of Nations’ distinctive composition. In discerning a unique heuristic strategy and philosophic object in the text, the article places particular emphasis on Smith’s employment of syntactic complexity, stylistic juxtaposition and elliptical citation. The article concludes, somewhat ironically, with the observation that The Wealth of Nations itself succumbed to the maladies of the emerging commercial world-view, in classroom and market place, that its careful construction aimed to ameliorate. (shrink)

The fractious but potentially fruitful dialogue between legal history and legal theory has been the subject of much recent scholarly attention. Despite this, instances of meaningful engagement over the role of history in legal theorising remain scarce. This is particularly true in respect of normative theorising—the difficult but crucial tasks of critiquing and reforming law—where history is frequently considered to play a relativising role that threatens to destabilise strong evaluation. In this article, I argue that in order to advance the (...) dialogue it is essential to look beyond disciplinary differences and instead focus on the divide between immanence and transcendence, which arises within and also between legal history and legal theory. Reorienting our attention in this way discloses important sources of dissonance but also points towards significant opportunities for cooperation; it is therefore an essential first step in the pursuit of meaningful dialogue, either critical or collaborative. (shrink)

There is long-standing disagreement about how radical Adam Smith should be taken to be. Recently, Jonathan Israel’s work on the enlightenment situates Smith as a moderate enlightenment thinker. This article challenges that assessment. Smith sees aristocrats as largely devoid of competence, wisdom, and virtue and thinks they do not wield significant political power in commercial societies. He is also highly critical of their economic power; and uses a neo-Roman concept of liberty to provide a powerful critique of slavery and feudalism. (...) In so doing, he extends discussions of liberty and focuses them on economic relations in ways that prefigure labour republicanism. Finally, I show how these more radical commitments can be reconciled with his moderate proposals for political reform through his epistemology and realist anti-utopianism. These are aspects of Smith’s thought that are essential for understanding it correctly and have much to teach us today. (shrink)

This volume collects selected papers delivered at the 15th Conference of the International Society for Utilitarian Studies, which was held at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in July 2018. It includes papers dealing with the past, present, and future of utilitarianism – the theory that human happiness is the fundamental moral value – as well as on its applications to animal ethics, population ethics, and the future of humanity, among other topics.

Abstract Differing interpretations of the political thought of David Hume have tended to emphasize either conservative, gradualist elements similar to Burke or rationalist aspects similar to Hobbes. The concept of indirect utility as used by Hume reconciles these two approaches. Indirect utility is best illustrated by Hume's conception of justice, in contrast to his conception of benevolence, which yields direct benefits. This understanding of Hume's consequentialism also helps underscore certain egalitarian aspects of Hume's thought.

El presente trabajo se propone mostrar los puntos de contacto existentes entre el desarrollo de la noción de simpatía en La Teoría de los Sentimientos Morales y el desarrollo de la noción de valor en La Riqueza de las Naciones. En cada una de sus dos obras, Smith elige a la noción de simpatía y a la noción de valor como principios fundamentales para la armonía de la conducta social y del sistema de intercambio mercantil, respectivamente. Pero, en ambos casos, (...) esos principios rigen solamente en sociedades pequeñas y no en la sociedad de carácter universal que asomaba ya en la época smithiana, donde el individuo moderno ya no tiene lazos de afecto con todos los miembros de la sociedad y, asimismo, desconoce los esfuerzos necesarios para producir todas las mercancías necesarias para su vida cotidiana. (shrink)

Civil wars in England and America were catalysts in forming the jurisprudential views of Thomas Hobbes and Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. Holmes's pragmatism advances a fundamentally distinct view of order from Hobbes's analytical theory. Holmes replaced the Hobbesian analytical model of law with an endogenous model that assimilates conflict in a process of formal but communal inquiry into discrete types of dispute. Holmes rejected the analytical boundary around law in favor of a holistic fallibilism, which like Dewey's encompasses all inquiry, (...) legal, scientific, aesthetic, and philosophical, under one ontological roof. Holmes also provided a practical critique of ideology, best known from the words of his famous dissent in Lochner v. New York: “The fourteenth amendment does not enact Mr. Herbert Spencer's Social Statics”; or, more to the point, “General propositions do not decide concrete cases.”. (shrink)

Norman Kemp Smith in his article „The Naturalism of Hume“ formulated standard naturalistic interpretation David Hume’s philosophical project. According to Kemp Smith, the idea of ​​Hume as a skeptic is unsustainable. The first book of A Treatise of Human Nature should be understood as an introduction to the new naturalistic philosophy. However, such approach does not deny the presence of elements of skepticism and empiricism in Hume ‚s philosophy. Hume’s political theory can be viewed as either continuation or empirical confirmation (...) of his philosophy. His skepticism is expressed in his distrust of the rationalistic doctrines and by his unwillingness to adhere to political parties. Elements of empiricism are evident in his observation of human behavior in the present and also in the past. Skepticism and empiricism are an integral part of his naturalistic explanation in political philosophy. He introduced a political theory based upon the scientific methodology, which could be an inspiration for contemporary research in political science. (shrink)

In this thesis, I argue that David Hume’s political philosophy is centrally focused on the prospect of social reform. The conception of justice and politics he develops out of his theories of virtue and moral psychology stresses the pervasive effects of institutions on individuals’ abilities to live decent lives and provides criteria for determining the relative success of such institutions. While Hume’s political philosophy has been interpreted as justifying a society’s status quo, I demonstrate that the principles of merit, need, (...) and equality—commonly considered core principles of social justice—each play a vital role in his view of what constitutes a healthy, stable society. In particular, I contend that Hume’s emphasis on institutions guaranteeing equal protection of basic rights, the role of the common good in the moral justification of political institutions, and the material and social circumstances of equality that make the institution of justice possible, suggest that social reform is a central concern of his theory of justice and politics. (shrink)

In accordance to Adam Smith’s moral view, “sympathy” could be understood as a process of psychological and emotional empathy by which we reach to comprehend the other’s position. That process is moving from a position of subjective criteria to the maturity of an impartial perspective, respectful of the values implicit in human relations and we know through our feelings. Adam Smith’s contribution is fundamental for a new proposal of ethics of sympathy.