Search

In James Joyce's short story 'Araby', a copy of Walter Scott's novel The Abbot is left discarded in a pile of 'old useless papers'. Despite this rather negative association, Joyce himself found many uses for Scott's work. This article examines a number of significant references to Scott and his texts in Dubliners, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Ulysses , and Finnegans Wake. In Joyce's texts, readers of Scott are associated with incest and onanistic self-absorption, as well as familial and racial decline. However, both writers present models or structures of historical progress in their work. Scott's Smithian view of history is reflected in texts such as Waverley while Joyce's use of the theories of Giambattista Vico is demonstrated in Finnegans Wake. In addition to studying the function of references to Scott and his texts in Joyce's work, this article analyses the different configurations of history offered by Scott and Joyce, and considers how these models relate to the use of river imagery by the two authors. The article also charts Joyce's personal reading of Scott's work, from his encounter with Ivanhoe as a student in 1899 to his attempt to memorise The Lady of the Lake while recovering from an eye operation in 1924. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper focuses on the mutual interaction as well as the impact of the Scottish Enlightenment on the formation of the Enlightenment in Russia during the reign of Catherine the Great. It focuses on the relationship between the work of Adam Smith and Semyon Efimovich Desnitskii, who, thanks to Desnitskii's studies at the University of Glasgow, got to know each other as teacher and student. The central point of their interaction is the issues of the philosophy of history based on natural-law assumptions and focus on understanding the formation of history, culture, citizenship, and social transformations through morality and law. The paper examines Desnitskii's ideas on the stages of human coexistence in which Smith's concept is projected. The paper is not only an attempt to compare these concepts, but it also characterizes Desnitskii's interest in adapting the ideas of the Scottish Enlightenment to Russian reality and needs and using them in the environment of the advancing feudal empire, to which Desnitskii wants to contribute with his work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper engages Adam Smith's reflections concerning the moral and economic dimensions of business–society relations in the context of the Multinational Corporation (MNC). The paper argues that Smith formulates a pronounced moral criticism of prevailing corporate business practices, which emphasize profit while de facto undermining the moral underpinnings and social cohesion of commercial society. Rather than simply promoting selfish profit maximization by individuals, businesses, and society at large, Smith's work reveals a deeply entangled analysis of the complex interplay between material interests, moral aspects of human behavior, and Smith's overall goal of broad socioeconomic welfare. The balancing of moral and material motivations requires the social embeddedness of economic exchange within normative community frameworks. In this context, the sociopsychological process of moral approbation via Smith's impartial spectator mechanism has the potential to temper humans' tendency for excessive (material) self-love. Smith's scrutiny of internationally active corporations problematizes a range of institutional and governance issues and their implications for the moral bonds between individuals, MNCs, and global society. Most importantly, Smith worries about the potentially negative impact of increasingly anonymous and emotionally distant economic relationships between market participants on their ability to reckon with the moral consequences of their actions. Building on Smith's entangled perspective, the paper proposes a normatively grounded framework to critically contend with contemporary efforts to redefine corporate citizenship in the global economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mary Wollstonecraft is an early and important critic of Adam Smith, engaging with his Theory of Moral Sentiments in her Vindication of the Rights of Woman. Given Wollstonecraft's arguments against moralists who "give a sex to virtue," what did she make of Smith's use of gender-coded language and the oft-cited passage where he claims that "humanity is the virtue of a woman, generosity of a man" (TMS IV.2.10)? This paper revisits the scholarly debate over gender essentialism in Smith, arguing that Smith's view of virtue is not gender essentialist, and that Wollstonecraft saw this and did not target Smith with her critique. Instead, Wollstonecraft affirms Smith's claims, leveraging them in order to advocate for educational and social reform. Reading these texts together corrects the tenacious reading of Smith as a gender essentialist, while also illuminating the differences between Smith's and Wollstonecraft's conceptions of self-control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent Kant scholarship has argued that sympathetic feeling is necessary for the fulfilment of duty (e.g. Fahmy, Sherman, Guyer, and others). This view rests on an incorrect understanding of Kant and the historical context in which he wrote. In this paper, I compare Kant's conception of sympathy with Hume's and Smith's, arguing that Kant adapts central features of Smithian sympathy. I then examine Kant's lectures on ethics and anthropology, arguing that in them we can distinguish between two types of sympathy: one that is instinctual or pre-reflective, which we might call empirical sympathy, and one that is reflective and properly moral, which we might call rational sympathy. On these grounds I reconstruct an account of Kantian sympathy as a cognitive virtue for which feeling may be useful but not necessary, since its primary purpose is to provide information about the well-being of others, leading to action which honours their worth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Even the most zealous interpreters of Adam Smith as an advocate of free markets and commercial progress have long acknowledged his support for public education. Yet the comparatively little scholarship on Smith's educational theory never fully articulates his defense of public education, often framing it as a corrective to economic and moral problems generated by the market while ignoring its political importance. We argue here that Smith saw public education as much more than anesthesia to treat the wounds inflicted by the market. For Smith, compulsory public education not only promotes distributive justice, develops moral judgment, and cultivates good citizenship—it is vital for securing all three. A compulsory education affords citizens the opportunity to sympathize with others and be objects of sympathy while teaching them how to be skeptical of the rhetorical efforts of others. As such, this paper argues that Smith's major works offer a potent defense of public education as a precondition for political judgment rather than a mere program "needed to offset the social costs of the division of labor." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Adam Smith's impartial spectator and David Hume's general point of view have much in common, as do their moral theories more generally. However, this paper argues that a distinctive feature of Smith's theory—the pleasure of mutual sympathy—allows Smith to better explain a number of important features of norms. In particular, it provides Smith with a more plausible mechanism for explaining how norms emerge, and offers him a richer set of resources for explaining both why we are attracted to norms and why norms are often characterized by local similarity and global diversity. Rather than merely being a matter of historical interest, though, this paper argues that this aspect of Smith's theory warrants attention from contemporary social scientists interested in the nature of norms, as well as from philosophers interested in how we might look to our sentiments to ground our normative practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract This paper aims to defend Adam Smith’s ideas of taxation via moral philosophical approaches. In the conventional interpretation such a view is assumed to be inconsistent particularly due to the shortcomings of his economic theory. We suggest that via his notions of justice and equity, and of surplus income counted on an equilibrium basis in his natural price system, his argument for proportional taxation is rather coherent, while considerations for horizontal equity would result in a support for some progressivity in taxation. In the latter sense the equity-based tax reform plans have some policy implications on distributive justice in the modern state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• This paper explores the Newtonian roots of Adam Smith's thinking as a contribution to explaining the structural dynamics of the economic system. • Smith proposes an explanation of "social physics", where the intentionality of actors is the main distinction from Newton's natural dynamics. • In Smith's account, the sources of structural economic dynamics lie in the actors' capacity to organise production within the market. • This conceptual framework highlights a possible avenue along which to investigate Pasinetti's separation theorem. • The literature on industrial policy has moved in the last twenty years towards Pasinetti's insights, to which explicitly reference should be made. This paper explores the Newtonian roots of Adam Smith's thinking in the structural dynamics of the production system and of social organization at large. Newton's Principia Mathematica inspired a philosophical movement in Scotland that looked for principles that could explain the dynamics of social and economic bodies with the same scientific rigour. In Smith's account, the sources of structural economic dynamics lie in the actors' capacity to organise production within that domain of interaction of competing forces that he defines as the market. Against this background, Smith analyses the role of the institutional setup. This conceptual framework is central to the theory of structural dynamics in classical political economy. It highlights a possible avenue along which to investigate Pasinetti's distinction between the 'natural' (production-based) and the 'institutional' levels of analysis (Pasinetti's separation theorem) by exploring the dynamic interdependence of technological and institutional drives in the emerging new industrial revolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What did Adam Smith make of the effect of commercial civilisation on national security, liberty and warfare? This paper examines Smith's argument on how the civilising force of commerce gave rise to the social division of labour and, consequently, to changes in defence and warfare, while also considering his treatment of national security and liberty in a century dubbed the 'Second Hundred Years' War' between Britain and France. It concludes that, for Smith, a standing army was an embodiment of civilisation as well as an outcome of the expansion of the division of labour in the early-modern commercial civilisation of Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines a letter by Adam Smith that has not been reported on by any previous publication on Smith's letters, including the Correspondence of Adam Smith. The background of this unpublished letter is also explained. Adam Smith sent this unpublished letter to Richard Elliston Philips, Esq, who was secretary to the Board of Customs in Scotland. Importantly, this letter is worth studying because it enables us to understand Smith's activities at the Customs House. Furthermore, the unpublished letter referenced Smith's last visit to London. The letter indicates what Smith did not want to do during this visit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we propose a reading of Smith's political philosophy, based on his theory of political obligation, as a critique of contractarianism. The author will reject the hypothesis of the state of nature and the consent of individuals, proposing, instead, a theory based on opinion, but, above all, on the illusion that commercial society will lead us to happiness. We will trace these ideas in three of his most important texts: The Theory of Moral Sentiments, The Wealth of Nations, and the Lectures on Jurisprudence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Smith's statements on wealth and happiness are paradoxical. On the one hand, Smith states that individuals' pursuit of wealth is beneficial for society because it leads to economic growth and establishes rank and order in society. On the other hand, he appears to say that pursuit of wealth leaves individuals unhappy. Griswold refers to this as 'comic irony'. In this paper, by examining what Smith says about wealth and happiness, we attempt to resolve this paradox. Towards this end, we analyze the unconscious that is implicit in the Theory of Moral Sentiments. As we will describe, analyzing Smith's statements by considering the role of the unconscious implies that the pursuit of great wealth can make individuals happy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through a consideration of Part V of Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments , this paper investigates the differential effects of custom on morality, which depend on the social station and profession of the moral actor, and on place, time, and situation. This paper shows how Smith understands that moral sentiments develop naturally and yet are susceptible to vital forces of moral leadership ("fashion") that can affect their development. Smith prescribes different moral actions in differing circumstances and demonstrates moral leadership in his own action. This paper argues further that Smith holds it necessary for social elites to model behaviors that are productive of freedom in society at large. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to show the relevance of Adam Smith's moral philosophy for contemporary trends in moral cognition. According to these accounts, research on moral judgment should start focusing more on its diachronic dimension, as opposed to its synchronic one, so that it can properly account for the constitutive and developmental integration of automatic and controlled processes, of emotions and reasons (§1). Smith's reflective sentimentalism – appropriately interpreted (§2) – can provide the theoretical and philosophical framework for these accounts. On the one hand, Smith's account makes the collaboration and integration of emotions and reason necessary for an appropriate normative moral judgment in typically developed individuals: developing a moral conscience requires both automatic and controlled processes (§3). Furthermore, since Smith was very aware of the limits and flaws of sympathy and of the impartial spectator's possibility of error, his theory is capable of explaining the many ways in which typical individuals can misjudge, individual differences in moral judgments, and some of the ways in which the development of a full-blown moral conscience can go wrong (§4). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The subject of this paper is the place of Hume in Nicholas Phillipson's account of the Scottish Enlightenment. I begin with Phillipson's reading of Hume as 'civic moralist'. I then turn to his account of Hume the author of The History of England. And from there I proceed to the place of Hume in his intellectual biography of Adam Smith. I conclude with a brief description of Phillipson's understanding of Hume's place in the history of the Scottish Enlightenment as it mutated in the late eighteenth century and came to an end in the early nineteenth. I show how just as Phillipson's Hume cannot be understood apart from the Scottish Enlightenment, so also Phillipson's Scottish Enlightenment cannot be understood without Hume. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to present a comparative analysis and reconstruction of the approach to social, moral, and institutional change in the theories of Adam Smith and Sophie de Grouchy. In their theories moral philosophy is inextricably linked with social thought. I also discuss the role of education and institutions in such a process. I argue that Smith's and de Grouchy's understanding of the roles of sympathy and institutions are strictly connected to the way they perceive the process of social change. Both philosophers considered people as equals and equally capable of sympathizing with others. For both of them, sympathy is a key element in reconstructing how societies change. In my opinion, both these philosophers believe that such a change can be induced: in the case of de Grouchy, this would be done primarily by legislators. In the case of Smith, respected people are capable of initiating change and are subsequently followed by others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper suggests that the liberal state in market society presents an inherent tension between liberalism and democracy. It shows how the tradition of liberal political economy provides for a constitutional form that supports specific and contestable values, relies on depoliticising the foundation of those values (especially in relation to private property and the bases of commercial society), and the exercise of authority – enshrined in the Rule of Law and backed by the force of law. The paper suggests that this has been poorly mediated in mainstream discourse, but that Moore and Lloyd's V for Vendetta provides an astute vernacular critique of the liberal state by developing clearly recognisable allegories of Thatcherite political economy that illustrate the formal nature of justice and democracy under the liberal state form. The paper makes the specific claim that V for Vendetta can be read as a significant critique of the political economy of the liberal state, and the more general claim that cultural artefacts have the potential to develop important insights into the relationship between state, economy, and society in keeping with the traditions of the 'new political economy'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to resolve a seeming paradox in Adam Smith's study of history with regard to inference to the best explanation. In the Wealth of Nations Smith argued the priority of "natural progress" over the model of historical progress as evidenced by many contemporary historians. These two competing exercises in philosophical history raise the previously unexplored question of what are critical tests to justify which model is the best, with Smith's wide use of scientific realist standards such as seeking for underlying general causality, generality in explanatory and predictive power, and appeal to the arts of persuasion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The premise of this paper is that Adam Smith was first a teacher and second an economist and writer. Set this, it aims to show that one of the causes of the remarkable success of The Wealth of Nations was the didactic rhetoric that the author put into practice in communicating his thoughts. It focuses on the well-known example of the manufacture of pins, previously not studied from this perspective, because of its important function as a proem to the work, place in which it is a priority to adapt to the imagination of students, listeners and readers, capturing their sympathy so that they wish to continue learning, listening and reading. After identifying the previous formulations of the example by other authors, it analyses the different versions provided by Smith, identifying in them three relevant levels from the point of view of education: visual, emotional and historical. In addition, it gives relevance to the didactic context of Scotland of his time and to the interconnection of Smith's different cultural interests, especially his connections with rhetoric. Its conclusion is that Smith based his didactic rhetoric on perspicuity and sympathy, building a teaching discourse, first, and textual, later, that created an immersive visual environment in which students, listeners and readers felt intuitively protagonists inside the conceptual world exposed (that of the new economic science) and, with this, agents of their own formative process, which has an undeniable topicality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper aims to analyze and discuss some elements from the thinker Adam Smith: the sympathy and the figure of the 'impartial spectator'. Equally, it is considered important to make conceptual repositions in order to 'correct' distorted visions and interpretations of this Enlightenment philosopher. For this end, an approach is taken from the conceptions of the Indian philosopher and economist Amartya Sen. With this interpretative and conceptual 're-reading' it is possible to present some criticisms of the idea of impartiality presented by John Rawls through the device of the 'veil of ignorance'. More than that, it is intended to show that the conception of the 'impartial spectator' is capable of presenting enlargements and possible gains in the discussion of the aspects of justice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper clarifies what Walras learned from Smith by examining his quotations of Smith and his handwritten notes in the Wealth of Nations belonging to the Walras Library. Although Walras's general equilibrium theory has often been compared to Smith's "invisible hand," Walras himself had no intention of developing it in his pure economics. In his applied economics, Walras was influenced by Smith's analysis of the division of labour in terms of efficiency. However, Walras did not share the explanation of its origin in his social economics, which suggests the reason why Walras never quoted Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It has long been recognised that Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations (1776) advances a 'system of natural liberty' in seeking to account for the 'nature and causes of the wealth of nations.' This is not however a theme that is explored or explained in the early sections of the book; in fact, not until Book IV, Ch. ix does Smith give his most expansive account of what he might mean by this term. This paper examines this chapter in detail to determine the limits of his critique in that chapter of the 'agricultural system' (of Physiocracy), and why it might be that Smith is so parsimonious in offering a clear account of his central idea. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We ambitiously reexamine Smith's moral theory in relation to Hume's. We regard Smith's developments as glorious and important. We also see them as quite fully agreeable to Hume, as enhancement, not departure. But Smith represents matters otherwise! Why would Smith overstate disagreement with his best friend? One aspect of Smith's enhancement, an aspect he makes very conspicuous, is that between moral approval and beneficialness ('utility' in Smith) there is another phase, namely, the moral judge's sense of propriety. With that phase now finding formulation, Smith, if only implicitly, generates a spiral of beneficialness and propriety, a spiral shown in Figure 7 in the present paper. We consider Figure 7, illustrating the spiral, to be the most important arrival point in the present paper; it highlights the non-foundationalism of Smith's ethics. But to arrive at the spiral, we must engage in extensive exegesis. In Part IV of The Theory of Moral Sentiments, Smith presents a foil against which he develops his own theory, a foil supposedly representing Hume. According to the foil, moral approval derives from 'utility.' But, in multiple ways, the foil is misleading. We provide an interpretation of Hume, notably his four-factor account of moral approval, before examining Smith's representation of Hume. One twist is that Smith used the words utility and useful differently than Hume did – Smith quietly stretched them to include species of agreeableness, thereby obscuring the importance of agreeableness in Hume's theory. Another, more significant problem is that Smith allows the impression that in Hume moral approval derives quite determinately from beneficialness. In fact Hume conveys the interpretive and sentimental spaciousness of the operations that generate moral approval; here, Hume even speaks repeatedly of 'proper sentiments', thus almost using the term propriety himself. But the propriety phase in Smith opens up to a key facet of Smith's development on Hume: He poeticizes a locus of sympathy not emphasized in Hume – namely, that between the moral judge and her own man within the breast; that locus enters the theory in addition to the sympathies emphasized in Hume, not in lieu of them. We distinguish lateral sympathy, which is important in Hume's thought, and vertical sympathy, which is especially characteristic of Smith's more inner-directed and allegorical thought. Smith embraces Hume's lateral sympathy and enhances moral theory by adding formulations ('the man within the breast', 'the impartial spectator') that elaborate vertical sympathy. Next, we come to something of a twist in the whole matter: We show that – as Smith well knew all along! – propriety is a species of agreeableness! Smith's propriety phase represents another dimension within which such agreeableness lives: Smith's vertical dimension thus gives rise to a spiral representing the diachronic development of the judge herself. It is a spiral of beneficialness and propriety: Each propriety phase in the next loop of the spiral engenders a species of agreeableness now as a part of beneficialness. Smith's developments on Hume, then, involve the following three facets: (1) formulation of the propriety phase; (2) the poetic elaboration of vertical sympathy; (3) the diachronic spiral of propriety and beneficialness. The three facets come together, especially in Ed. 6 of The Theory of Moral Sentiments. The whole development goes beyond Hume, but, really, is agreeable to Hume – though Smith himself portrays his developments as disagreeing with features of Hume's moral theory. We speculate that Smith was more or less aware of all that that we say, including the absense of any really substantive disagreement. Why, in that case, would Smith have proceeded as he did? We address that question at the end of the piece. Our speculations suggest a method in the madness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although 'relative poverty' is a phrase of immediate recognition, wide circulation and an ever increasing acceptance in the last half century, the concept itself remains surprisingly undertheorised. This paper wishes to try and remedy this discursive deficiency by proposing an ontological elucidation of the nature of our needs. The author re-visits the dispute between Amartya Sen and Peter Townsend — a duel of crossed wires (if not sabres), which can be seen as representative of the various theoretical takes on the nature of relative poverty. While the dispute itself ended with an unfortunate misunderstanding between the two scholars, whose different disciplinary affiliations have done nothing but replicate the rift, the author nonetheless foregrounds the commonality between the two thinkers - their respective identification with Adam Smith. By exploring points of differences and convergence with Adam Smith's own ontology of needs, which the author reconstructed elsewhere, the paper hopes to offer insights into the ontology of 'relative poverty' as well as to suggest that taking this ontology seriously would lead us inevitably to a re-examination of 'economic methodology'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper puts forth evidence that Adam Smith held liberty as a central principle, but also that he adopted an approach of strategic yielding and caution. Smith associated this accommodating approach with the Athenian official Solon, who put forth laws that attempted to be "the best that the people can bear." I argue that the view of Smith as Solon, accommodating where necessary, is underrepresented in the modern literature and is in contrast to views suggesting that the liberty principle was not so central to Smith's teachings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although Adam Smith used history extensively in his Wealth of Nations, his contribution to economic history is neither systematised nor explicitly presented. The aimof this paper is to investigate the ways in which history is incorporated in Smith's political economy and to elucidate the role of historical investigation in Smith's Wealth of Nations. We propose a "four thematic" approach of Smith's use of history, corresponding to four distinct ways in which Smith incorporates the historical element in his political economy. First, as method through a progressive version of proto-historical materialism, second, as illustration in order to verify his theoretical conclusions, third, as theory in the form of his stages theory, and, finally, as economic history to describe the emergence of modern Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Iain McGilchrist richly explains the right and left hemispheres of the brain, how each functions and what each tends to do. This paper serves, firstly, as a primer to McGilchrist's fascinating exposition. Second, it offers a formulation that uses a spiral to structure the iterative and layered relationship. Third, it presents McGilchrist's concerns about how modernity has enfeebled the right hemisphere, and how the left hemisphere is, at it were, running amok. Fourth, it considers some of McGilchrist's political overtones. Sharing McGilchrist's concerns, finally, I elaborate why they might lead us to look to classical liberalism as the best way to avoid the traps of the left hemisphere, to invigorate the health of the right hemisphere, and to cope with modernity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the similarities between Adam Smith's device of the impartial spectator and the use of perspectival devices in common law reasoning. The paper adopts a reading of Smith's device as one involving the exercise of imaginative sympathy by an ordinarily virtuous, and culturally and historically situated, spectator who does not have a stake in the outcome of the scene being evaluated. The point here is to show that the impartial spectator is 1) a device of common, ordinary virtue - both in the sense of being located in a culture at a specific point in time, and in the sense of possessing only moderate, achievable virtues (e.g. being moderately affectively sensitive); and 2) a device that enables a focus on a situation, which requires imaginative work, emotional engagement and careful, particularised description. Having so modelled Smith's device, the paper shows the similarities between it and the use of perspectival devices in common law reasoning, specifically here via the ‘right-thinking member of society' test in defamation law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the countless similarities between David Hume's and Adam Smith's moral theories, many people have lately argued that the Theory of Moral Sentiments can be read as a critical response to Hume's ethics. In this paper I contend that the most important difference between these sentimentalist philosophers has to do with the source and nature of morality's normative authority, which in turn determines what is a legitimate moral reason or what is morality properly speaking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Book IV of Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations concerns two rival economic theories, Mercantilism and Physiocracy. The latter, François Quesnay's system, occupies only the ninth and final chapter, and it begins with a stunning dismissal. Yet, fifteen pages later, Smith praises this theory to the skies. That cries out for explanation. Like Mercantilism, Smith's system emphasizes commerce, whereas Quesnay's is confined to agriculture. But like Physiocracy, Smith's system is built on individual liberty, whereas Mercantilism is one of government control. Despite his initial put-down, Smith is naturally inclined more toward Quesnay's philosophy. And the main thesis of my paper is to suggest one reason for this that has not previously been brought to light, and that can explain Smith's extravagant praise for it. Quesnay employs a Newtonian scientific method different from the one emphasized in Smith's early 'Astronomy' treatise, a method Smith first prominently introduced a decade after his meetings with Quesnay, in Wealth of Nations and Smith's eulogy for Hume (1776), and in the sixth (1790) edition of his Theory of Moral Sentiments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nicholas Kaldor was much influenced by the Smith-Young view of increasing returns. The objective of this paper is to critically examine Kaldor's interpretation of Smith and Young. In particular, five questions are addressed: (1) Does Smith's Wealth of Nations have nothing much to contribute in terms of disequilibrium theory or increasing returns after the middle of chapter four? (2) Did Smith and Young have a sectoral view of increasing returns in the sense that they saw increasing returns being confined to manufacturing only? (3) Does the Youngian growth mechanism need to be supplemented with Keynesian aggregate demand so that growth does not fizzle out? (4) What are the important policy differences between Kaldor and the Smith-Young analysis of increasing returns? (5) Finally, what explains Kaldor's interventionist bent of mind and his dirigiste approach to policy making? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Empathy has been taken to play a crucial role in ethics at least since the Scottish Enlightenment. More recently, a revival of moral sentimentalism and empirical research on moral behavior has prompted a renewed interest in empathy and related concepts and on their contribution to moral reasoning and to moral behavior. Furthermore, empathy has recently entered our public discourse as having the power to ameliorate our social and political interactions with others. The aim of this paper is to investigate the extent to which such a role can be actually granted. Before focusing on a positive assessment, I will delve into a few problems our ordinary concept of empathy and our commonsensical way of conceiving its connection to ethics will need to face. Specifically, I will show how an exaggerated reliance on the ordinary concept of empathy could lead to an underestimation of its biases and potential limitations (§ 2), how a naïve conception of its connection to morality can overlook relevant counterexamples (§ 3) and lead to forms of reductionism (§ 4). Overcoming this possible shortsightedness would pave the way for arguing in favor of an important – though not sufficient and possible neither necessary – role for empathy in ethics (§ 5). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • Increase in biodiversity increases biological and environmental fitness. • The Janus Hypothesis explains how fitness is optimized by maximizing total system throughflow (TST) and storage (TSS). • Autonomy, biodiversity, and connectivity are three key ingredients in the process. Abstract Adam Smith's classic, The Wealth of Nations (Smith, 1776), laid down the foundations for free-market, and later growth, economics. Goals, resources, currencies, labor, and skills in human enterprise all have parallels in the economy of nature: ▪ Self-interested people have counterparts in survival-driven species; ▪ Opportunities and markets are reflected in resource and habitat niches; ▪ Division of labor is expressed in role niches and biodiversity; ▪ Persistence of economic growth is matched in that of biological growth; ▪ Growth in money-flow mirrors matter- and energy-flow in ecosystems; ▪ Capital accumulation as monetary profit in economics is expressed as the standing stocks of natural capital in ecology; and finally, ▪ Smith's invisible hand , generating "greatest goods for the greatest many", finds specificity in the utility theory and mathematics of ecology's network environ analysis. These parallels, and the fact that man is a part of nature also, suggest the same laws direct both ecology and economics. This paper summarizes the Janus Hypothesis (Patten, 2016) as a candidate theory determining natural (and human) economics. The hypothesis holds that three relational " ABC "s— a utonomy, b iodiversity, and c onnectivity—self-organize to maximize biological and environmental fitness in the transactional economy of nature. Applicability to human economics is axiomatic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper concerns a neglected aspect of the Wealth of Nations (with the notable exception of D. Levy 1999), dealing directly with decision under risk. In a few pages from book I, chapter 10, Adam Smith explicitly named "lotteries" various objects of choice (possible occupations, or investment opportunities, for instance) and provided an analysis which standard expected utility glasses would hardly fit. Taking this into account allows a better understanding of the part played by typical characters like the "projector" or the "sober man", in such matters as Smith's conception of entrepreneurship or of the credit market. The use of some modern concepts in decision analysis (inverse stochastic dominance, rank dependent utility, prudence toward risk), is a means to show the existence, in Smith's work, of an original theory from decision under risk, where his analysis of lotteries in the Wealth of Nations is consistent with statements from his moral philosophy on asymmetric sensitivity to gains and losses and to the regulating part played by the impartial spectator. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Adam Smith devotes a great deal of attention to the role of fashion in the relationship between the social classes. Smith's general account of fashion is grounded on the transmission of fashion from the rich to the poor. However, when it comes to accounting for the generation of fashion amongst the wealthy class, Smith's account moves away from wealth distinctions and focuses instead on more sophisticated forms of social judgement. This paper examines Smith's general account of fashion between the classes and then identifies the refinements to the account that he provides when he considers the operation of fashion amongst the rich. The paper suggests that the operative distinction among the wealthy is not relative wealth, but rather reputation for taste, and concludes with a discussion of the “man of taste” in Smith's account of fashion. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper adopts the view promoted by early modern philosopher Adam Smith that exercises of the sympathetic imagination play an important role in supporting human sociability and ethical behaviour. It argues that such exercises have potential to significantly change the way in which privileged racial identities relate to marginalised and devalued racial identities. First, the paper draws on Sally Haslanger’s reflections upon her lived experience of transracial parenting to illustrate how sympathetic identification with the experiences of a differently racialized individual can transform the way in which we relate to entire racial groups. Haslanger’s account demonstrates the potential for exercises of the sympathetic imagination to disrupt the way in which we experience our own embodiment, and to generate a form of knowledge that implicates our sense of self and will to act. Second, the paper discusses some limitations of appealing to sympathy as a social resource in less intimate contexts. This discussion throws light on the importance of exercising a critically reflective mode of sympathy to overcome racial bias, in addition to the importance of institutional design and grassroots initiatives in facilitating sympathetic identification across racial lines. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

After a bit more than two hundred years since the publication of the book "An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations", by Adam Smith, and approaching fifty years of the creation of the new China, the paper develops a vision of what Smith thought that in his time it was impossible to practice, in example, capitalism in a totalitarian regime and, even more, communist. This paper offers a look of the Popular Republic of China nowadays and the way by which the great dragon of Asia is handled economically. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines some critical accounts of emotional life shaped by neoliberalism. A range of literature concerned with neoliberalism and emotional experience in educational contexts is reviewed. I argue that neoliberal ‘reforms’ in public institutions create an ever-increasing demand for emotional performance. Neoliberals often refer to Adam Smith'sThe wealth of nations(WN) but this paper focuses on Smith's equally significantThe theory of moral sentiments.In this work Smith connects competitive social relationships with varieties of challenging emotional experience. I argue that theorists in the present, seeking to understand neoliberal ‘reforms’ in public institutions, should focus on not justWNbut both of Smith's major works together. This paper offers new insights into the nature of neoliberalism, extending and developing the field of historically informed critical work highlighted in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper, I argue that Smith's commercial society is characterised more by restraint of self-command than by restraint of emotions through self-command, as usually stated. According to Smith, the appropriate degree of self-command varies with historical circumstances: better living conditions for all favour relaxation of self-command and lead people to express their sentiments more freely. I thus highlight a crucial link in Smith's thought between variations in general economic conditions and variations in moral judgement on the expression of emotions, or, in other words, between The Theory of Moral Sentiments and the Wealth of Nations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In The Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844 (completed in August 1844), Marx takes two crucial steps in the formation of his worldview. The first relates to his rejection of all “old” materialism, including Feuerbach’s, and the adoption of his own version, which he called “communist,” “practical.” This view was later presented definitively in the first thesis on Feuerbach (spring of 1845) and elaborated in The German Ideology (1845-1846). The second step relates to Marx’s synthesising of the philosophical standpoint that he had developed up to this point (around the spring of 1844) with political economy. Up to this point, he had spoken of alienation in largely philosophical terms; now it is rooted in the process of production. On both counts Adam Smith was an important influence. This claim provides the focus of this paper. To make this point successfully, the author has found it necessary to trace briefly the development of Marx’s philosophical standpoint up to the writing of the Manuscripts, and to distinguish between the two methodologically distinct aspects of Adam Smith’s thought: the one that Marx accepted and the other that he rejected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]