Despite the differences, there is some convergence between Adam Smith's and Immanuel Kant's theories of moral motivation. Both rely on a peculiar feeling, respect, as the proper source of motive in moral matters. An analysis of Smith's and Kant's conception of respect shows that both recognize that it has a specific normative import and plays a decisive role in morality. This convergence offers some support to the idea that Smith's sentimentalism and Kant's rationalism are compatible, at least as far as (...) moral motivation is at issue. (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)

This essay argues that Adam Smith's political economy is premised upon a moral anthropology, and that greater attention to Smith from religious ethicists may both improve Smith scholarship and deepen dialogue on economic themes within the field of religious ethics. It does so first by surveying common readings of Smith and noting that engagement of his work within religious ethics and theology tends to rely on misconceptions prevalent in these readings. It then outlines the moral psychology that links Smith's Theory (...) of Moral Sentiments and Wealth of Nations and explains the importance of this moral psychology for Smith's ambivalent analysis of commercial society. Reflecting on the case of Smith's work, it concludes by arguing that attention from religious ethicists may also improve contemporary political economic debates, given that they are often premised upon latent assumptions about moral anthropology. (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.

Recent developments in philosophy and in criminology indicate that there are significant respects in which the two disciplines can be mutually informing. Many philosophers are increasingly interested in exploring empirical aspects of philosophical claims, and criminologists are finding their way past the alleged fact/value distinction and are rediscovering the moral significance of facts, especially regarding punishment and desistance. In some recent criminological studies there are implicit links to the British moralists such as David Hume and Adam Smith, and to Aristotle (...) as well. This paper explicates those links and some of the possibilities for philosophy and criminology to be mutually informing. (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)

Although a number of commentators have remarked upon the simi larities between aspects of George Herbert Mead's social psychology and Adam Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments, there has been no sys tematic attempt to document the connection. This article attempts to do precisely that. First, the legitimacy of the connection is established by showing the likelihood that Mead knew this particular work by Smith, and by bringing together the various treatments of the matter made by commentators. Since Mead himself does (...) not reference Smith's theory, however, the continuity can be demonstrated only on the level of ideas. Second, then, the movement of Mead's thought is recon structed through the terms 'individual' and 'social epistemology'. An account based upon the former posits self-consciousness as the pre condition for knowledge about others, while the latter makes the development of self dependent on a concept of community. Mead's div ision of the self into the 'I' and the 'me' is central in forcing the shift from the one to the other. Smith's account of moral action, it is then argued, rests upon the same logic. His ideas of 'changing roles in the fancy', the 'impartial spectator', and division of the self, parallel Mead's 'taking the role of the other' and discussion of the self. The 'ideal' spec tator corresponds to Mead's 'generalized other'. The article concludes by drawing a parallel between Mead and Smith on the universal facts of human nature and the moral community. (shrink)

Building on work by Popper, Schweber, Nozick, Sober, and others in a still-growing literature, I explore here the conceptual kinship between Adam Smith''s ''invisible hand'' and Darwinian natural selection. I review the historical ties, and examine Ullman -Margalit''s ''constraints'' on invisible-hand accounts, which I later re-apply to natural selection, bringing home the close relationship. These theories share a ''parent'' principle, itself neither biological no politico-economic, that collective order and well-being can emerge parsimoniously from the dispersed action of individuals. The invisible (...) hand operates on ''memes'' the way natural selection operates on genes. Like Darwin''s concept, it brings together traditional opposites, ''nature'' and ''selection,'' forming a saltation-mitigating transition between biological instinct and full-blown conscious design. Herschel''s criterion of confirmation, which Darwin long strove to satisfy, is itself an invisible hand-like meme – a ''Midas effect'' revealing and rewarding the fittest theories, Darwin''s and Smith''s emphatically among them. (shrink)

Adam Smith is usually thought to argue that the result of everyone pursuing their own interests will be the maximization of the interests of society. The invisible hand of the free market will transform the individual''s pursuit of gain into the general utility of society. This is the invisible hand argument.Many people, although Smith did not, draw a moral corollary from this argument, and use it to defend the moral acceptability of pursuing one''s own self-interest.

Resumen Los escándalos de corrupción dados a conocer durante los últimos tres años en Latinoamérica, además de reflejar el modo en que la corrupción mueve los engranajes de las instituciones y organizaciones empresariales, pueden considerarse como uno de los principales detonantes de la aporofobia y ceguera moral que aqueja a nuestras sociedades. Teniendo en consideración los resortes que activan ambos fenómenos, el presente artículo explora las posibilidades que tiene la simpatía smithiana para desactivarlos, así como el aporte social de ésta (...) en la lucha contra la corrupción que cualquier país pudiera emprender.The corruption scandals unveiled during the last three years in Latin America, in addition to reflecting the way in which corruption moves the gears of the institutions and business organizations, can be considered as one of the main triggers of the aporophobia and moral blindness that afflicts our societies. Considering the springs that activate both phenomena, this article explores the possibilities that smithian sympathy has to deactivate them, as well as its social contribution in the fight against corruption that any country could undertake. (shrink)

I propose a solution to a problem raised by E.G. West’s paper “Adam Smith’s Two Views on the Division of Labour.” Smith seems committed to the views that the division of labour makes people more and less intelligent.