Adam Smith on reputation, commutative justice, and defamation laws

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark J. Bonica ◽  
Daniel B. Klein
Keyword(s):  
Adam Smith ◽  
Commutative Justice

Citizens, Markets and Social Order: An Aristotelian Reading of Smith and Rousseau on Justice

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jimena Hurtado
Keyword(s):  
Social Interactions ◽  
Building Block ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Adam Smith ◽  
General Will ◽  
Commercial Society ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Commutative Justice ◽  
The Difference ◽  
The City

Justice is the corner stone of society; but not any justice. Adam Smith and Jean-Jacques Rousseau differ on the type of justice needed to guarantee a well-ordered and prosperous society. There are different types of justice that regulate different kinds and levels of social interactions. Some involve our direct relationships with our fellow-beings others our relationship with the law as the expression of our will as citizens. This chapter uses Aristotle’s understanding of justice in the city to assess the differences in the types of justice Smith and Rousseau consider fundamental for society. Through this lens it is possible to understand the difference between commutative justice, which Smith rendered the building block of society, and universal justice, which Rousseau considered the backbone of the society of the general will. This difference furthers our understanding of the coincidences and differences in their appraisal of commercial society.

Adam Smith: Scottish moral philosopher as political economist

1992 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 91-113 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donald Winch
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Distributive Justice ◽  
Adam Smith ◽  
Moral Philosopher ◽  
Natural Justice ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
Political Economist ◽  
Commutative Justice ◽  
Wealth Of Nations ◽  
Autonomous Science

AbstractBy contrast with those for whom the Wealth of nations marks the origin of economics as an autonomous science, this article argues that Smith's significance lies in his attempt to repossess political economy by restoring its links with the sciences of morals and natural jurisprudence — those concerns which are characteristic of his writings as a moral philosopher. The case proceeds by re-examining two topics derived from these sciences. The first begins with Smith's ungenerous treatment of his mercantile predecessors as a clue to what he believed was distinctive about his own system. Smith was antagonistic to precisely those rationalist, utilitarian and reductive models of behaviour based on self-interest that he is held to have in common with mercantile writers; he was answering rather than joining those who felt it necessary to isolate and legitimate rational economic self-seeking. The second topic turns on Smith's natural jurisprudence: his application of the criteria of natural justice when criticizing mercantile policies and institutions, where the emphasis falls on the negative injunctions of commutative justice rather than the positive ones of distributive justice. The separation of the ethics of the Theory of moral sentiments from the Wealth of nations, therefore, tells us more about Smith's successors than Smith himself.

scholarly journals The Edifying Discourses of Adam Smith: Focalism, Commerce, and Serving the Common Good

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erik W. Matson
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Common Good ◽  
Social Enterprise ◽  
Adam Smith ◽  
The Common Good ◽  
Commercial Activities ◽  
Commutative Justice ◽  
The Common ◽  
Wealth Of Nations ◽  
The Relationship

Smith’s discourses aim to encourage mores, practices, and public policies in service to the common good, or that which a universally benevolent spectator would approve of. The Wealth of Nations illustrates how in pursuing our own happiness within the bounds of prudence and commutative justice we may be said, literally or metaphorically, to cooperate with God in furthering the happiness of humankind. The Theory of Moral Sentiments elaborates an ethic, here called “focalism,” that instructs us to proportion our beneficent efforts to our knowledge and ability. The relationship between political economy and focalism is bidirectionally reinforcing. In one direction, the ethic of focalism contributes to the moral authorization of self-love, thereby invigorating and dignifying honest commercial activities. In the other direction, the insights of political economy reinforce the ethic of focalism by elaborating how through prudent commerce and focal beneficence we cooperate, even if only metaphorically, in a grand social enterprise.

Adam Smith in Context

2004 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leonidas Montes
Keyword(s):  
Adam Smith

Adam Ferguson and the Idea of Civil Society

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Craig Smith
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
David Hume ◽  
Adam Smith ◽  
Scottish Enlightenment ◽  
Commercial Society ◽  
University Of Edinburgh ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
English Speaking World ◽  
The University

Adam Ferguson was a Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Edinburgh and a leading member of the Scottish Enlightenment. A friend of David Hume and Adam Smith, Ferguson was among the leading exponents of the Scottish Enlightenment’s attempts to develop a science of man and was among the first in the English speaking world to make use of the terms civilization, civil society, and political science. This book challenges many of the prevailing assumptions about Ferguson’s thinking. It explores how Ferguson sought to create a methodology for moral science that combined empirically based social theory with normative moralising with a view to supporting the virtuous education of the British elite. The Ferguson that emerges is far from the stereotyped image of a nostalgic republican sceptical about modernity, and instead is one much closer to the mainstream Scottish Enlightenment’s defence of eighteenth century British commercial society.

Essays on Hume, Smith and the Scottish Enlightenment

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher J. Berry
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual History ◽  
David Hume ◽  
Adam Smith ◽  
Detailed Examination ◽  
Scottish Enlightenment ◽  
Subsequent Work ◽  
Retrospective Assessment ◽  
The 1960S

A collection of essays by a leading scholar. The work selected spans several decades, which together with three new unpublished pieces, cumulatively constitute a distinct interpretation of the Scottish Enlightenment as a whole while incorporating detailed examination of the work of David Hume and Adam Smith. There is, in addition, a substantial introduction which, alongside Berry’s personal intellectual history, provides a commentary on the development of the study of the Scottish Enlightenment from the 1960s. Each of the previously published chapters includes a postscript where Berry comments on subsequent work and his own retrospective assessment. The recurrent themes are the ideas of sociability and socialisation, the Humean science of man and Smith’s analysis of the relation between commerce and morality.

Adam Smith and Rousseau

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Political Economy ◽  
Adam Smith ◽  
Key Concepts ◽  
History And Literature ◽  
Edinburgh Review

Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Adam Smith are two of the foremost thinkers of the European Enlightenment, thinkers who made seminal contributions to moral and political philosophy and who shaped some of the key concepts of modern political economy. Among Smith’s first published works was a letter to the Edinburgh Review where he discusses Rousseau’s Discourse on the Origin of Inequality. Smith continued to engage with Rousseau’s work and to explore many shared themes such as sympathy, political economy, sentiment, and inequality. This collection brings together an international and interdisciplinary group of Adam Smith and Rousseau scholars to provide an exploration of the key shared concerns of these two great thinkers in politics, philosophy, economics, history, and literature.

Two Intellectual Landmarks in the Year 1749

2019 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 101-123
Author(s):  
Farhad Rassekh
Keyword(s):  
Paradigm Shift ◽  
David Hume ◽  
Adam Smith ◽  
Considerable Extent ◽  
Monetary Theory ◽  
Economic Theories ◽  
Classical Economics ◽  
Wealth Of Nations ◽  
Economic Thinking

In the year 1749 Adam Smith conceived his theory of commercial liberty and David Hume laid the foundation of his monetary theory. These two intellectual developments, despite their brevity, heralded a paradigm shift in economic thinking. Smith expanded and promulgated his theory over the course of his scholarly career, culminating in the publication of The Wealth of Nations in 1776. Hume elaborated on the constituents of his monetary framework in several essays that were published in 1752. Although Smith and Hume devised their economic theories in 1749 independently, these theories complemented each other and to a considerable extent created the structure of classical economics.

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