Adam Smith's name has become synonymous with free market economics. Recent scholarship has given us a richer, more nuanced figure, steeped in the intricacies of enlightenment social and political philosophy. Adam Smith's Discourse develops this literature and gives it a radical new dimension. The first book on Adam Smith to deal with recent debates in literary theory, this interdisciplinary work examines Smith's major texts and places them within the context of enlightenment thought. It considers Smith's major writings--the Lectures on Jurisprudence (...) and On Rhetoric and Belles Letters as well as The Theory of Moral Sentiments and The Wealth of Nations --and places each within its own discursive context and with reference to its stylistic and rhetorical features. Adam Smith's Discourse debunks the view of Smith as a dogmatic free-marketeer. In its place, the book offers a portrait of a more skeptical, philosophical andpolitically focused figure. It shows that Smith's enthusiasm for the transition to a society based on trade and manufacturing was tinged with a more dispassionate recognition of the losses as well as the benefits derived from commercial society. (shrink)
We provide a new wrinkle to the Argument from Unfair Advantage, a rather popular one in the ethics of doping in sports discussions. But we add a new argument that we believe places the moral burden on those who favor doping in sports. We also defend our position against some important concerns that might be raised against it. In the end, we argue that for the time being, doping in sports ought to be banned until it can be demonstrated that (...) our concerns can be satisfied. (shrink)
We provide a new wrinkle to the Argument from Unfair Advantage, a rather popular one in the ethics of doping in sports discussions. But we add a new argument that we believe places the moral burden on those who favor doping in sports. We also defend our position against some important concerns that might be raised against it. In the end, we argue that for the time being, doping in sports ought to be banned until it can be demonstrated that (...) our concerns can be satisfied. (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 “Adam Smith problem” has traditionally been concerned with the issue of authorial integrity: the issue of how a single author, Adam Smith, could have written two such apparently dissimilar, even contradictory, works as The Theory of Moral Sentiments and The Wealth of Nations. As the problem to be resolved was the single authorial origin of two such works, the perceived incompatibilities between them were explained in terms of Smith's intellectual biography – for example, Smith's travels to France, Smith's meetings (...) with the physiocrats, or the mental incapacities of an aging man. The current consensus is that the Adam Smith problem is a “pseudo problem” and that Smith's works represent a unified project, but the same reference to authorial origins now provides thr opposite claim that “the same man” wrote both books. Here the postulate of authorial integrity, “of stable integrated character, not subject to deep intellectual doubts or fissures” provides an assurance that such a man is unlikely to have written two entirely different books, an assurance underwritten by a coherent authorial intentionality that guarantees the consistency of the two works. (shrink)
In May 2011, the clinical ethics group of the Center for Ethics at Washington Hospital Center launched a 40-hour, three and one-half day Clinical Ethics Immersion Course. Created to address gaps in training in the practice of clinical ethics, the course is for those who now practice clinical ethics and for those who teach bioethics but who do not, or who rarely, have the opportunity to be in a clinical setting. “Immersion” refers to a high-intensity clinical ethics experience in a (...) busy, urban, acute care hospital. During the Immersion Course, participants join clinical ethicists on working rounds in intensive care units and trauma service. Participants engage in a videotaped role-play conversation with an actor. Each simulated session reflects a practical, realistic clinical ethics case consultation scenario. Participants also review patients’ charts, and have small group discussions on selected clinical ethics topics. As ethics consultation requests come into the center, Immersion Course participants accompany clinical ethicists on consultations. Specific to this pilot, because participants’ evaluations and course faculty impressions were positive, the Center for Ethics will conduct the course twice each year. We look forward to improving the pilot and establishing the Immersion Course as one step towards addressing the gap in training opportunities in clinical ethics. (shrink)
Is choice necessary for moral responsibility? And does choice imply alternative possibilities of some significant sort? This paper will relate these questions to the argument initiated by Harry Frankfurt that alternative possibilities are not required for moral responsibility, and to John Martin Fischer and Mark Ravizza's extension of that argument in terms of guidance control in a causally determined world. I argue that attending to Frankfurt's core conceptual distinction between the circumstances that make an action unavoidable and those that bring (...) it about that the action is performed – a distinction emphasised in his recent restatement – provides a new route into an analysis of Frankfurt's argument by showing how it depends on a person's ‘decision to act’ involving the exercise of choice. The implicit reliance of Frankfurt's argument on this notion of choice, however, undermines his claim that the example of the counterfactual intervener strengthens the compatibilist case by providing a counter-example to the principle of alternative possibilities. I also argue that Frankfurt's reliance on the exercise of choice for moral responsibility is also evident in the Fischer/Ravizza argument, and that a close analysis of both arguments shows that such exercise of choice is not available if causal determinism is true. (shrink)
The Philosophy of Adam Smith contains essays by some of the most prominent philosophers and scholars working on Adam Smith today. It is a special issue of The Adam Smith Review, commemorating the 250th anniversary of Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments. Introduction Part 1: Moral phenomenology 1. The virtue of TMS 1759 D.D. Raphael 2. The Theory of Moral Sentiments and the inner life Emma Rothschild 3. The standpoint of morality in Adam Smith and Hegel Angelica Nuzzo Part 2: Sympathy (...) and moral judgment 4. Smith and Rousseau in dialogue: sympathy, pitié, spectatorship and narrative Charles L. Griswold 5. Adam Smith’s concept of sympathy and its contemporary interpretations Bence Nanay 6. Smith’s ambivalence about honour Stephen Darwall 7. Sentiments and spectators: Adam Smith’s theory of moral judgment Geoffrey Sayre-McCord 8. Smith’s anti-cosmopolitanism Fonna Forman-Barzilai 9. Resentment and moral judgment in Smith and Butler Alice MacLachlan Part 3: Economics, religion, aesthetics and value theory 10. Adam Smith’s problems: individuality and the paradox of sympathy Robert Urquhart 11. Scepticism and naturalism in Adam Smith Ryan Patrick Hanley 12. Adam Smith’s solution to the paradox of tragedy Arby Ted Siraki 13. Smithian intrinsic value Patrick Frierson Memoir on Adam Smith’s life 14. Adam Smith’s smile: his years at Balliol College, 1740–6, in retrospect Ian Simpson Ross. (shrink)
Current debates as to whether “republican liberty” is a negative or a positive concept of liberty take as their starting point the distinction between these concepts as outlined in Isaiah Berlin’s essay “Two Concepts of Liberty.” Berlin’s essay has stimulated a considerable debate about the precise nature of the distinction between the two concepts, whether there are indeed two concepts of liberty or only one, the triadic concept, and whether the two concepts are systematically connected to the foundational assumptions of (...) different traditions of political philosophy. Republican liberty has traditionally been placed under the positive heading as one variant of positive liberty, but this has been challenged by the argument that republican liberty is a form of negative liberty which is more extensive than the liberal form of negative liberty in incorporating the notion of freedom from potential as well as actual interference or constraint. According to this interpretation, therefore, the main distinction between the political traditions of liberalism and republicanism is to be found not in the distinction between negative and positive liberty, but in a distinction within negative liberty. (shrink)
Historiographic debates keep returning to issues of authorial intention in the interpretation of texts. This paper offers a response to these debates by differentiating between two versions of intentionalism, termed 'substantive intentionalism' and 'formal intentionalism', according to two different senses of 'identity' in the thesis that assigned meaning is identified with authorial intention, such that these two versions of intentionalism imply different ontological commitments to what are construed as the relevant authorial intentions. These distinctions and arguments are then related to (...) the 'historical intentionalism' of Quentin Skinner and Mark Bevir. The paper argues that in practice historical intentionalism ends up reproducing the arguments of formal intentionalism, and it concludes by raising questions about the value of intentionalism for historians. (shrink)
This paper presents the behavioral interview model that we developed to formalize our hiring practices when we, most recently, needed to hire a new clinical ethicist to join our staff at the Center for Ethics at Washington Hospital Center.
Current debates as to whether “republican liberty” is a negative or a positive concept of liberty take as their starting point the distinction between these concepts as outlined in Isaiah Berlin’s essay “Two Concepts of Liberty.” Berlin’s essay has stimulated a considerable debate about the precise nature of the distinction between the two concepts, whether there are indeed two concepts of liberty or only one, the triadic concept, and whether the two concepts are systematically connected to the foundational assumptions of (...) different traditions of political philosophy. Republican liberty has traditionally been placed under the positive heading as one variant of positive liberty, but this has been challenged by the argument that republican liberty is a form of negative liberty which is more extensive than the liberal form of negative liberty in incorporating the notion of freedom from potential as well as actual interference or constraint. According to this interpretation, therefore, the main distinction between the political traditions of liberalism and republicanism is to be found not in the distinction between negative and positive liberty, but in a distinction within negative liberty. (shrink)
Mentoring Away the Glass Ceiling in Academia: A Cultured Critique describes how women of diverse backgrounds perceive their mentoring experiences or the lack of mentoring experiences in the academy. This book provides a space for envisioning strategies and practices to improve mentoring practices and the collegiate environment.
This paper proposes a new interpretation of non-cooperative games that shows why the unilateralism of best-reply reasoning fails to capture the mutuality of strategic interdependence. Drawing on an intersubjective approach to theorizing individual agency in shared context, including a non-individualistic model of common belief without infinite regress, the paper develops a general model of a 2 × 2 simultaneous one-shot non-cooperative game and applies it to games including Hi-Lo, Stag Hunt, Prisoners’ Dilemma, Chicken, BoS and Matching Pennies. Results include High (...) as the rational choice in Hi-Lo, and Cooperate as a possible rational choice in the Prisoners’ Dilemma. (shrink)
Adam Smith’s contribution to economics is well-recognised but in recent years scholars have been exploring anew the multidisciplinary nature of his works. The Adam Smith Review is a refereed annual review that provides a unique forum for interdisciplinary debate on all aspects of his Adam Smith’s works, his place in history, and the significance of his writings for the modern world. It is aimed at facilitating debate between scholars working across the humanities and social sciences, thus emulating the transdisciplinary reach (...) of the Enlightenment world which Smith helped to shape. The fourth volume of the series contains contributions form a multidisciplinary range of specialists, including, Henry C. Clark, Douglas J. Den Uyl, Ryan Patrick Hanley, Neven B. Leddy, David M. Levy and Sandra J. Peart, Robert Mankin, Leonidas Montes, James R. Otteson, Andrew S. Skinner, and Gloria Vivenza, who discuss: the sources and influences of Smith’s work in the classics, the Scottish Enlightenment and eighteenth-century France the Glasgow Edition of Smith’s Works and the Wealth of Nations. (shrink)
In the 1990s and early 2000s, “cool’ received substantial scholarly attention, some influential studies claiming that cool was becoming the dominant ethic in contemporary consumer societies, with i...
RECENT DEBATES HAVE EXAMINED AGAIN whether the concept of individual natural “rights” is significant for Aristotle’s political philosophy and ethics. Fred D. Miller’s Nature, Justice, and Rights in Aristotle’s Politics is the most sustained recent attempt to argue that Aristotle’s Politics is centrally concerned with the issue of individual rights based on nature and that no anachronism is involved in arguing this. Aristotle’s Politics, it is argued, should thus be seen as the precursor of later theories of individual rights, although (...) it would be a mistake to infer from this that Aristotle employed a specifically liberal understanding of rights even though his work is foundational for those later theories. In a symposium in this Review devoted to discussing Miller’s arguments, a number of both supporting and critical responses were published. One result to emerge from this symposium was the fundamental lack of agreement on how to translate key Greek terms such as to dikaion/ta dikaia which Miller argues should sometimes be translated as “just-claim right.” This lack of agreement among the most authoritative classical scholars raises important methodological issues concerning the kind of criteria that may be appropriate in such a dispute. (shrink)
In his Comment ‘Adam Smith on the Morality of the Pursuit of Fortune’, Richard Arlen Kleer accepts much of the argument in my article ‘Signifying Voices’ but insists that I have ‘gone too far’. Kleer agrees that there is a moral hierarchy in Adam Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments where benevolence and self-command are ranked higher than justice and prudence, but he is uneasy with the conclusion that economic activity and the pursuit of gain are ‘amoral’ activities and insists that (...) they do have a significant moral standing. In addition, although Kleer accepts a good deal of the stylistic analysis, again he is uneasy with the results that are derived from it. This reply will take each of these aspects in turn. (shrink)
We examine the impact of employing a female, versus a male, leader on future donations and operating margin using a sample of 4387 unique nonprofit organizations between 2011 and 2014. Using two-stage and matched sample designs, we find that NPOs headed by female leaders report higher future operating margins but lower future donations. We interpret these findings to mean that female leaders are more focused on fiscal responsibility than fundraising. We also find that female leaders with past fundraising experience attenuate (...) lower future donations, and at commercial nonprofits, female leaders with prior for-profit experience contribute to even higher operating margins. Moreover, while female leaders identified as the founder of the organization increase future donations, they have no effect on future operating margins. Collectively, the results of our study should increase nonprofit boards’ confidence in hiring female leaders thereby narrowing the gender disparity in leadership in the nonprofit sector. This study expands the extant literature by providing initial evidence on the effects of female leaders in NPOs thereby contributing to research exploring gender, diversity, management, and nonprofit executives. (shrink)
This commentary centres around the system of human visual attention. Although generally supportive of the position advocated in the target article, we suggest that the detailed account overestimates the capacities of active human vision. Limitations of peripheral search and saccadic accuracy are discussed in relation to the division of labour between covert and overt attentional processes.
