Du «spectateur impartial» au «travailleur impartial», un commentaire sur la relation entre philosophie morale et économie politique chez Adam Smith selon Jean Mathiot

Dialogue ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 50 (3) ◽  
pp. 469-509 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gilles Campagnolo
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Adam Smith ◽  
The State ◽  
Moral Sentiments ◽  
Impartial Spectator ◽  
History Of ◽  
Économie Politique ◽  
Wealth Of Nations ◽  
The Church

ABSTRACT: As Smith freed moral philosophy from former control bodies (the Church, the state), the Scottish philosopher opened the field for a scientific political economy. In hisAdam Smith. Philosophie et économie(Paris, Presses universitaires de France, 1990, p. 45), Jean Mathiot asked :«Should then one wonder that his [Smith’s] audacious stand became the historical grounding stone for political economy, then bringing recognition as an objectively-grounded field of knowledge?»Mathiot’s text and thought have been little debated to this day; this essay is meant to fill that gap, in particular with regard to the history of Smith’s reception in France. Mathiot sought to understand better the “impartial spectator” using a new character whom he claimed Smith was implicitly sketching, and whom he called “the impartial laborer”. To Mathiot’s mind, from theTheory of moral sentiments(1759) to theWealth of Nations(1776), the link is nothing else than Smith’s own philosophy.

‘The Man Within’: Adam Smith on Moral Autonomy and Religious Sentiments

2017 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-64 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeng-Guo S. Chen
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Adam Smith ◽  
Moral Autonomy ◽  
Moral Sentiments ◽  
Impartial Spectator ◽  
Innocent People ◽  
Religious View ◽  
Moral Agents ◽  
The Mind

This essay analyses the ethical importance and religious implications of ‘the man within’ in Adam Smith's moral philosophy. Not introduced until the second edition of Theory of Moral Sentiments, ‘the man within’ appears as the internalization of the impartial spectator. With the invention of the man within, Smith was able to explain how moral agents pursue virtues and behave morally beyond immediate and quotidian concerns with either praises or blames from society. Having complied with the general dictates of the impartial spectator with conscience, humans become morally autonomous individuals whose moral judgements are derived from constant dialogues with the man within in an ethical microcosm within their breasts. The man within possesses a transcendent nature that preempts social judgements. Because of that transcendent nature, Smith also denominated the man within as ‘the substitute of Deity’. This essay also argues that even conscientious and virtuous individuals can be wronged and misjudged by society. To Smith, religious sentiments were most likely generated among the morally autonomous, innocent people. Afflicted with devastating distranquility of the mind caused by misjudgments of society, the innocent can only find comfort in the hope for the afterlife. The essay concludes that Smith's religious view in this particular regard goes hand in hand with his great concern with justice prevailing in his writings of political economy, government and ethics.

scholarly journals Adam Smith on governance and regulation. An account of his lectures on jurisprudence

2016 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 90-98
Author(s):  
Pilar Piqué
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Division Of Labor ◽  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Adam Smith ◽  
Moral Sentiments ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Wealth Of Nations ◽  
Theory Of Moral Sentiments

The present study analyzes a little explored work of Adam Smith: his Lectures on Jurisprudence, understanding it as a "bridge" between his Moral Philosophy and his Political Economy. We show that Smith states in Theory of Moral Sentiments some tensions facing the sympathy once the bonds of affection between members of the same society began to reveal weak. This lead Smith into the study of Jurisprudence, the study of a society of strangers that need a common identification under a State that imposes rules of justice unveiled by science. In his Lectures on Jurisprudence, Smith finds that the division of labor was the result and the ultimate expression of opulence and freedom of humanity. These conduct him to answer why does the division of labor contribute to opulence and why does the division of labor brings about man’s freedom and these two questions ended in the creation of The Wealth of Nations.

The Proper Context of Business

2019 ◽  
pp. 31-66
Author(s):  
James R. Otteson
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Local Knowledge ◽  
Adam Smith ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
Invisible Hand ◽  
Moral Sentiments ◽  
Wealth Of Nations ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
Proper Context

Chapter 2 investigates the explanation Adam Smith gave in his famous Wealth of Nations (1776) for why some places are wealthier than others, and what political, economic, and other social institutions are required for increasing prosperity. The chapter discusses the conception of “justice,” as opposed to “beneficence,” that Smith offered The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759), as well as Smith’s economizer, local knowledge, and invisible hand arguments from his Wealth of Nations that form the basis of his political economy. We look at the duties of government implied by Smithian political economy, including both what he argues government should do and what it should not do. We also look at empirical evidence to answer the question of whether Smith’s predictions on behalf of his recommendations have come true in the intervening centuries.

scholarly journals What’s the problem, Mr. Smith? Shedding more light (than Heat) on Adam Smith’s view of man *

2018 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-28
Author(s):  
Emmanoel de Oliveira Boff
Keyword(s):  
Adam Smith ◽  
Economic Thought ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Moral Sentiments ◽  
Impartial Spectator ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
Cast Doubt ◽  
Wealth Of Nations ◽  
Theory Of Moral Sentiments

Abstract Why has the “Adam Smith Problem” recently been discussed in the literature? Although most historians of economic thought regard the problem solved, these discussions cast doubt on this apparent solution. This article suggests that the “Adam Smith Problem” may originate from the concept of the human being developed by Smith in the “Theory of Moral Sentiments”: in this book, human beings can be understood as composed of an empirical and a (quasi) transcendental side, in the form of the impartial spectator. It is argued that it is the tension between these two parts which creates supposed inconsistencies between aspects of the “Theory of Moral Sentiments” and the “Wealth of Nations” like, for example, the role of sympathy and self-interest in each of these books.

PRACTICING PPE: THE CASE OF ADAM SMITH

2017 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 277-295 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ryan Patrick Hanley
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Adam Smith ◽  
Pattern Detection ◽  
Knowledge Generation ◽  
Synthetic Approach ◽  
History Of Astronomy ◽  
Discrete Component ◽  
History Of ◽  
Point Of Reference

Abstract:Adam Smith has long been celebrated as a polymath, and his wide interests in and contributions to each of the discrete component fields of PPE have long been appreciated. Yet Smith deserves the attention of practitioners of PPE today not simply for his substantive insights, but for the ways in which his inquiries into these different fields were connected. Smith’s inquiry was distinguished by a synthetic approach to knowledge generation, and specifically to generating knowledge with applications exportable to other fields. Further, Smith’s investigations of various areas of study led him to recognize patterns in and across these fields, and his sensitivity to such patterns helped guide his inquiry and render it a connected enterprise. This paper examines several of Smith’s discrete inquiries in the history of astronomy, language, moral philosophy, and political economy, to show how he employed the techniques of pattern detection that he practiced in each of these inquiries to the task of generating new insights into new fields of inquiry. In so doing, Smith not only distinguished himself as an early practitioner of what we today identify with PPE, but he also provides a useful point of reference for those doing PPE today.

Adam Smith: Moral and Political Philosophy

Philosophy ◽  
2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Craig Smith
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Moral Psychology ◽  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Adam Smith ◽  
Scottish Enlightenment ◽  
History Of ◽  
Technical Details ◽  
Wealth Of Nations ◽  
The University ◽  
The 19Th Century

Adam Smith (1723–1790) has become known as the father of economics. His reputation as the author of the Wealth of Nations has eclipsed his contributions to other areas of philosophy. Smith was Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Glasgow and a key figure in the Scottish Enlightenment. His Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759) was well-regarded at the time but faded from the philosophical canon in the 19th century and has only recently been subject to a revival of interest among philosophers. Smith’s thought was dismissed as moral psychology or as proto-utilitarian political economy until a revival in interest stemming largely from the publication of a critical edition of his works in the 1970s. Recent years have seen a renaissance in interest in Smith among moral philosophers. This has been accompanied by the first serious analysis of Smith’s thinking on rhetoric and the philosophy of science. This bibliography focuses on Smith’s moral and political philosophy. There is a very large literature on the technical details his economic theory and his contribution to the history of that discipline, but that will be mentioned here only when illuminating for discussions of his moral and political thinking.

PHILOSOPHICAL HISTORY AND THE SCIENCE OF MAN IN SCOTLAND: ADAM FERGUSON'S RESPONSE TO ROUSSEAU

2013 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 543-568 ◽  
Author(s):  
IAIN MCDANIEL
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
Roman Republic ◽  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Adam Smith ◽  
The State ◽  
Scottish Enlightenment ◽  
Art And Culture ◽  
History Of

Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Discourse on the Origin and the Foundations of Inequality is now recognized to have played a fundamental role in the shaping of Scottish Enlightenment political thought. Yet despite some excellent studies of Rousseau's influence on Adam Smith, his impact on Smith's contemporary, Adam Ferguson, has not been examined in detail. This article reassesses Rousseau's legacy in eighteenth-century Scotland by focusing on Ferguson's critique of Rousseau in his Essay on the History of Civil Society (1767), his History of the Progress and Termination of the Roman Republic (1783), and his lectures and published writings in moral philosophy. Ferguson's differences from Rousseau were more pronounced than is sometimes assumed. Not only did Ferguson offer one of the most substantial eighteenth-century refutations of the Genevan's thinking on sociability, nature, art, and culture, he also provided an alternative to the theoretical history of the state set out in the Discourse on Inequality.

CAMEO APPEARANCES: THE DISCOURSE OF JEWELRY IN MIDDLEMARCH

2002 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 265-288 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jean Arnold
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Gender Roles ◽  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Discursive Practice ◽  
Modern History ◽  
History Of ◽  
Wealth Of Nations ◽  
Cultural Cohesion ◽  
Victorian Age

IN RECENT TIMES, the covert yet insistent relation between aesthetics and political economy has claimed significant critical focus, for these two discourses have implicated and complicated each other in puzzling ways.1 In offering some background to this relation, Mary Poovey has traced the modern history of aesthetics and political economy to a common origin within the eighteenth-century field of moral philosophy.2 As a study in search of cultural cohesion, moral philosophy drew together a wide-ranging set of critiques including ethics, aesthetics, economics, and government. Then, in the second half of the eighteenth century, the field branched, Poovey tells us, shaping new categories of knowledge through such works as Edmund Burke’s Enquiry (1757) on aesthetics and Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations (1776) on political economy. As these divisions in knowledge became further refined through discursive practice in the Victorian Age, aesthetics and political economy appeared to have little to do with each other; however, Poovey argues that “one way to remember the originary relationship between these two discourses — and to measure the toll exacted by their division — is to tease from each its past and present entanglements with gender” (“Aesthetics” 8). In this essay, I take up her call by examining the relation between aesthetics and political economy, as they inscribe their mediations on gender roles in George Eliot’s Middlemarch.

1. Life and times

2018 ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
Christopher J. Berry
Keyword(s):  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Adam Smith ◽  
History Of Astronomy ◽  
Scottish Enlightenment ◽  
Literary Style ◽  
History Of ◽  
Wealth Of Nations

There is more to Adam Smith than The Wealth of Nations, a book on the workings of the economy. He wrote an important treatise on moral philosophy, published an exceptionally well-informed history of astronomy, and was an author who cared about literary style and how to communicate both orally and in print. ‘Life and times’ provides a biographical outline from his birth in Kirkcaldy in 1723 to his student years at Glasgow University and Balliol College, Oxford, and his return to Glasgow University as the Professor of Logic in 1751. It also describes the sort of society in which Smith lived, with the backdrop of the 1707 Treaty of the Union and the Scottish Enlightenment.

scholarly journals Attitudes to Credit in Britain, 1680–1790

1990 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 305-322 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julian Hoppit
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Adam Smith ◽  
The Other ◽  
Economic Order ◽  
The Political ◽  
Scottish Enlightenment ◽  
History Of ◽  
Great Tradition ◽  
Wealth Of Nations ◽  
Vast Range

The history of economic ideas in Britain is dominated by a great tradition which in its early stages focuses on Adam Smith. For the century before the publication of the Wealth of nations in 1776, economic ideas are most often studied in relation to the ‘arrival’ of Smith and commented on with regard to the degree to which they may be considered precursors of his ideas. Though this imposes a sense of order and establishes some principles with which to select from the vast range of economic writings, the dangers of certain whiggishness in this approach are readily apparent. Writers can appear to be winners or losers depending on the extent to which their ideas were denied, adapted or adopted by Smith and the other classical economists.1 Such problems have been acknowledged by many historians, not least by those who have fruitfully examined the political and philosophical bases of the emergence of political economy, particularly with regard to the Scottish enlightenment. Despite this, the force of the great tradition remains very strong. The authors and ideas that are examined are the ‘major’ ones, that is to say contributions that were, or attempted to be, either comprehensive or clearly attached to what, with hindsight, were the main strands of development. The emphasis has been upon theories or systematic explanations of the economic order. Not surprisingly the unsystematic and more casually formulated reflections of non-economists and ‘amateurs’, such as Defoe, are often swept under the carpet, even if their ideas on economic matters were more widely disseminated (and perhaps more influential) at the time. Consequently, our perception of economic ideas between the Restoration and the Wealth of nations continues to be highly and perhaps atypically selective.

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