In his late unfinished work on aesthetic theory, Adam Smith develops the concept of rythmus to explore such arts as music, dance and poetry. Smith argues that rythmus communicates emotion in a very specific way. For Smith, narrative arts, such as drama or the novel, predominately seek to recreate or represent in the minds of their readership or audience the emotions of the characters that are portrayed. But what we experience through rythmus, by contrast, is an original, and not a (...) sympathetic, feeling. Rythmus is the communicative medium of a paradoxical mode of collective feeling in which each person feels his or her own emotions, and yet all feel the same thing; in which social being is at once non-fungible and shared. (shrink)

Scholars have sometimes argued that we should conceive of social research as a form of moral inquiry, at least in part, but none have made clear exactly how and why observational research can make a distinctive contribution to moral insight. Returning to an era before the modern distinction between social science and the humanities became entrenched, this article argues that Adam Smith provided a clear and forceful rationale for the moral role of social research, especially history. Smith believed that moral (...) understanding relies on emotional reactions to richly described cases, preferably where our own interests are not at stake. These meditations on particular cases, in turn, provide the basis for moral generalizations that can inform future encounters with particular cases. This perspective led Smith (along with his friend David Hume) to the view that historical writing makes a more important contribution to moral understanding than abstract philosophy does. This article reconstructs Smith’s arguments about the role of empirical observation in cultivating moral sensibility in The Theory of Moral Sentiments, his Lectures on Jurisprudence, and his Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres. It then connects his argument to contemporary ideas about the nature of moral understanding in philosophy and cognitive science. (shrink)

The Enlightenment regarded language as one of the most significant achievements of man. Consequently inquiries into the origin and development of language play a central role in eighteenth-century moral philosophy. This new science of man consciously adopts the method of analysis and synthesis used in the natural sciences of the time. In moral philosophy, analysis corresponds to the search for the basic principles of human nature. Synthesis is identified with the attempt to interpret all artificial achievements of man (arts, sciences (...) and institutions) as the effect of these principles and of man's physical and social environment - an attempt known as theoretical history. The type of explanation envisaged by theoretical historians is based on the principle of causality. It consists in a genetic reconstruction of the social phenomenon under investigation. Inquiries into the origin of language follow this pattern of explanation. They form part of theoretical history and thus represent a major aspect of the eighteenth-century scientific study of man. (shrink)

The invisible hand image is at the centre of contemporary debates about capacities of markets, on which discussion of many other topics in business ethics rests. However, its meaning in Adam Smith's writings remains obscure, particularly the religious associations that were obvious to early readers. He drew on Isaac Newton's theories of divine action and providence, mediated through the moderate Calvinism of the eighteenth century Scottish circles in which he moved. I argue within the context of Smith's general providential account (...) of markets, the invisible hand operates restrain inequality and capital flight, thereby stabilizing the market system. Such an understanding of the invisible hand raises questions for contemporary religious and secular discussions of the capacities of markets in the wake of the global financial crisis. (shrink)

The invisible hand image is at the centre of contemporary debates about capacities of markets, on which discussion of many other topics in business ethics rests. However, its meaning in Adam Smith’s writings remains obscure, particularly the religious associations that were obvious to early readers. He drew on Isaac Newton’s theories of divine action and providence, mediated through the moderate Calvinism of the eighteenth century Scottish circles in which he moved. I argue within the context of Smith’s general providential account (...) of markets, the invisible hand operates restrain inequality and capital flight, thereby stabilizing the market system. Such an understanding of the invisible hand raises questions for contemporary religious and secular discussions of the capacities of markets in the wake of the global financial crisis. (shrink)

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)

I attempt a reconstruction of Adam Smith's view of human nature as explicated in The Theory of Moral Sentiments. Smith's view of human conduct is neither functionalist nor reductionist, but interactionist. The moral autonomy of the individual, conscience, is neither made a function of public approval nor reduced to self-contained impulses of altruism and egoism. Smith does not see human conduct as a blend of independently defined impulses. Rather, conduct is unified, by the underpinning sentiment of sympathy.

By spelling out the affective dimension of admiration, this paper challenges the view of admiration as a trustworthy means of detecting morally desirable qualities in exemplars. Such a view of admiration, foundational for the current debate on exemplars in moral education, holds that admiration is a self-motivating emotion essentially oriented toward the good and the excellent. I demonstrate that this view ignores the affective aspects of admiration explored widely in the history of philosophy on which the debate on moral exemplars (...) substantially draws. Focusing on Spinoza, Smith, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche, I bring to light their largely skeptical views of the moral value of admiration. These thinkers indicate that admiration can be influenced by, and is often conflated with, other emotions, and can arise in us through behavioral mimicry; moreover, admiration is often oriented toward the mediocre and corrupt, is contagious, self-referential, collective, and has limited motivational power. Their remarks on the affective dimension of admiration call into question admiration’s applicability and usefulness in moral exemplarity. (shrink)

CST is widely disregarded in the academic and public discourse. This essay argues that this is the case for two related reasons. Firstly, CST is based on the pre-Enlightenment approach to moral philosophy, virtue ethics, while the mainstream in business ethics favours the rule-based approaches consequentialism and deontology and their variants. Secondly, mainstream approaches also have adopted a positivist epistemology where theories represent the Truth that must not be questioned: they have become ideologies. This paper argues that CST, mainly through (...) the virtue ethical doctrine of the mean, is saved from having become an ideology and is much closer to the ideal of science as a self-questioning system than the mainstream in business ethics. This essay explains this counter-intuitive conclusion by tracing the history of CST and embedding it in an epistemic discussion and then suggesting what business ethics could take from CST to regain the all-important discursiveness it once had. (shrink)

Formalization has led contemporary economics to turn its back on the study of capitalism as the social order to which it owes its origins and its intrinsic analytical focus. As a consequence, contemporary economics turns a blind eye to the empirical analysis of capital accumulation, the real‐world properties of markets, and the bifurcation of political power that endow capitalism with its unique historical properties. Instead, economics takes scientific, not social, analysis as its model, a view that gives an ideological cast (...) to its findings. (shrink)

Mandeville offers an evolutionary explanation of norms that pivots on the power of praise to affect individuals. Yet this sort of account is not mentioned by Hume or Ferguson, and only indirectly noted by Smith. Nonetheless, there are various similarities in the thought of Mandeville and these philosophers. After delineating some resemblances, the essay takes up the objection Hume poses to Mandeville: praise fails to motivate if individuals take no pride in moral conduct. To this challenge there is a Mandevillean (...) response that emphasizes how, in the evolutionary emergence of norms, the original praise need not be understood in moral terms. (shrink)

One of the more striking aspects of Adam Smith's moral theory is the degree to which it depends on and appeals to aesthetic norms. By considering what Smith says about judgments of propriety – the foundational type of judgment in his system – and by tying what he says in The Theory of Moral Sentiments to certain of his other writings, I argue that Smith ultimately defends an aesthetic morality. Among the challenges that any aesthetic morality faces is that it (...) seems to entail moral relativism. This problem is magnified by Smith's reliance on the judgments of the impartial spectator, which also seems to make his theory more vulnerable to a Euthyphro-type objection. I suggest that Smith can potentially get around these problems, given his presumption of aesthetic naturalism. While there is certainly some variation in our aesthetic judgments, Smith claims that we naturally find certain actions and sentiments odious, while others we find agreeable. The reason, he argues, is that any society that judged otherwise would not survive. (shrink)

This paper situates Hume's views on animals in the context of the Scottish Enlightenment by contrasting them with the views of Adam Smith. While Smith is more central to the philosophical establishment of the Scottish Enlightenment, their views on morals resemble each other greatly and both think that the analogies between humans and non-human animals are useful for thinking about morals. Their estimation of the nature and extent of those analogies, however, differ widely from one another. This has been historically (...) obscured by the fact that in no single work does Smith precisely detail what he thinks non-human animals are capable of. I argue that Smith thinks non-human animal minds are different in kind from human minds. This is evident from Smith's view of how language facilitates and co-creates certain aspects of human cognition. Hume, by contrast, seems to hold that non-human animal minds differ merely by degree from human minds. After reconstructing Smith's view, I contrast it with Hume's, providing historical context to show how Hume falls outside the mainstream on this issue and Smith within it. Their views on animals reflect, broadly, their standing with respect to the wider Scottish philosophical community. (shrink)

Increasing the “truth per dollar” of money spent on science is one legitimate long-run goal of the economics of science. But before this goal can be achieved, we need to increase our knowledge of the successes and failures of past and current reward structures of science. This essay reviews what economists have learned about the behavior of scientists and the reward structure of science. One important use of such knowledge will be to help policy-makers create a reward structure that is (...) more efficient in the future. (shrink)

La filosofía moral de Adam Smith se fundamenta en el papel de la imaginación para explicar el orden social en un nivel macro, y como mecanismo de identificación afectiva en un nivel micro. En ambos casos, el rol de la imaginación en nuestra psicología moral refuta la tesis de un homo economicus, o de que el ser humano está motivado a entrar en sociedad por su interés personal. Esto sirve de premisa para refutar la posición hobbesiana de un estado de (...) naturaleza histórico que está en la base de nuestros juicios morales que fundan la sociedad civil y la necesidad del magistrado. Adam Smith's moral philosophy is grounded in the role of the imagination in explaining the social order at a macro level and as a mechanism for affective identification at the micro level. In both cases, the role of the imagination in our moral psychology refutes the homo economicus thesis according to which human beings are motivated to enter into society due to personal interests. This premise serves to refute the Hobbesian position of a historical state of nature that underlies the moral judgments grounding civil society and the need for a magistrate. (shrink)

During the last few months of his life James Dundas, first Lord Arniston (c. 1620–79), wrote a monograph on moral philosophy. It appears never to have been mentioned in any work whether academic or otherwise. It includes a discussion promoting three doctrines against Hobbes. First, that something is simply good and something is simply bad, and that the first rule of morals is not self-love, but the glory of God. Secondly, the state of nature is not a state of war. (...) Thirdly, contra Hobbes, the chief point in natural law is not that each person has a right to use all ways and means to preserve himself. This paper probes Dundas's arguments for his three doctrines. (shrink)

Adam Smith's ethics have long been thought to be much closer to the Stoic school than to any other school of the ancient world. Recent scholarship however has focused on the fact that Smith also appears to be quite close to Aristotle. I shall attend to Smith's deployment of a version of the doctrine of the mean, shall show that it is quite close to Aristotle's, shall demonstrate that in its detailed application it is seriously at odds with Stoic teaching (...) on the passions, and particularly with their teachings on anger, and shall conclude that on a central issue of ethics Smith is a good deal closer to Aristotelian than to Stoic thinking. (shrink)

A la luz de la ética de Lévinas, donde la muerte es presente y central en el concepto de responsabilidad fundamental para salvaguardar la humanidad, se puede observar la incidencia de la muerte en la formación del sentimiento y juicio moral en los escritos de Smith. La valoración del papel de la muerte en la teoría de los sentimientos morales mediante este estudio comparativo permite poner de relieve la función del cuidado de sí y del otro que subyace en su (...) teoría y percibir sus aportes posibles en las reflexiones y los debates éticos relacionados con la muerte y la vida. (shrink)