Abstract

An invisible-hand explanation of a pattern of behavior endeavors to explain that pattern not as the result of deliberate design, explicit agreement or biological evolution but as an unintended outcome of social interaction. In the introduction we explain the difference between an invisible-hand and a functional explanation. Chapter one delineates the functional theories embedded within the social theory of F. A. Hayek and offers a reconstruction of one kind of Hayekian invisible-hand explanation of social rules. In the second chapter, we discuss how the English common lawyers, in opposition to Hobbes' conception of natural reason and social contract, forward a coherence theory of rational custom. Chapter three shows that Bernard Mandeville espouses an invisible-hand/functional-evolutionary moral theory in which pride and flattery account for the origin of self-denying virtue. The fourth chapter presents Hume's moral theory as an invisible-hand anthropology in which the sentiments which materially determine our individual moral judgments are brought into interindividual agreement through the mechanism of sympathy. The final chapter explores the weaknesses of Adam Smith's invisible-hand explanation of moral development, in particular, whether the pleasure of sympathy provides a sufficient motive to bring about a coordination of moral judgments