II—Ambition, Love, And Happiness

2020 ◽  
Vol 120 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-45
Author(s):  
Glen Pettigrove
Keyword(s):  
Adam Smith ◽  
Moral Sentiments ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Theory Of Moral Sentiments

Abstract What is the relationship between ambition and love? While discussions of happiness often mention romances, friendships, aspirations, and achievements, the relationship between these features is seldom discussed. This paper aims to fill that gap. It begins with a suggestive remark made by La Rochefoucauld and repeated by Adam Smith: ‘Love often leads on to ambition, but seldom does one return from ambition to love.’ To explain what accounts for such a pattern, I introduce a distinction between stage-setting emotions and master emotions, which is useful for illuminating relationships between a number of emotions, including ambition and love. Drawing on things Smith says elsewhere in the Theory of Moral Sentiments, I conclude by highlighting one way the pattern might be reversed and ambition might lead to love.

scholarly journals SOBRE A FILOSOFIA MORAL DE ADAM SMITH

2010 ◽  
Vol 35 (111) ◽  
pp. 57 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hugo E. A. da Gama Cerqueira
Keyword(s):  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Adam Smith ◽  
Scottish Enlightenment ◽  
Moral Sentiments ◽  
Impartial Spectator ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Theory Of Moral Sentiments

Este artigo discute a Teoria dos sentimentos morais de Adam Smith. O argumento central do texto é apresentado, tomando por base o contexto proporcionado pela filosofia moral do Iluminismo escocês. Os conceitos de simpatia e espectador imparcial são discutidos, apontando-se a maneira original como Smith concebe a relação entre a moralidade e a sociabilidade.Abstract: This article examines Adam Smith’s Theory of moral sentiments. The moral philosophy of the Scottish enlightenment is central to the argumentation developed in this paper which analyses the concepts of “sympathy” and of “impartial spectator” and points to the originality of Smith’s argument regarding the relationship between morality and sociality.

scholarly journals Was Adam Smith an evolutionary economist?: Smith’s study of botany and Charles Darwin’s theory of morality

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tetsuo Taka
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Nutritional Value ◽  
Adam Smith ◽  
Value Theory ◽  
Experiential Knowledge ◽  
Moral Sentiments ◽  
Darwinian Theory ◽  
Wealth Of Nations ◽  
Theory Of Moral Sentiments

AbstractThis paper aims to extend and provide a new understanding of Adam Smith’s thoughts by focusing on some revisions in the 4th edition of The Theory of Moral Sentiments (Smith 1774), “the nutritional value theory of corn” in the Wealth of Nations, and then comparing Smith’s discourses on the formation of morality with C. Darwin’s. Smith’s understanding of human nature extended and deepened with the study of botany and other sciences at Kirkcaldy after spending 2 years in France as Duke Buccleugh’s tutor. He began to understand human nature not only as a composite of self-love and benevolence, but also of instinctual and experiential knowledge. Thus, Smith’s system transitioned to an evolutionary one, and he became an unconscious forerunner of the Darwinian theory of morality formation.

scholarly journals A Few Remarks on Adam Smith’s Dissertation (1761)

1977 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-67 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jan Noordegraaf
Keyword(s):  
Adam Smith ◽  
French Translation ◽  
Moral Sentiments ◽  
The Third ◽  
History Of Linguistics ◽  
History Of ◽  
Theory Of Moral Sentiments

Summary In 1761 Adam Smith (1723–90) published his Dissertation on the Origin of Languages. Erroneously scholars have thought that this essay appeared as a supplement to the second edition of Smith’s book The Theory of Moral Sentiments of the same year; in fact it was only added to the third edition of that work (1767). Against Coseriu’s opinion that Adam Smith must be considered as a pioneer of the typology of language, one can put forward that Smith’s ideas on the typology of language are very similar to those of the French Abbé Gabriel Girard (1677–1748), whose influence is admitted by Smith himself. On another point, it turns out that before 1809, the year in which J. Manget published a French translation of Smith’s Dissertation, already three other translations into French of the same work had appeared. First-hand inspection of texts appears desirable in the writing of the history of linguistics.

The Progress of Feeling: The Ossian Poems and Adam Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
JoEllen DeLucia
Keyword(s):  
Women Writers ◽  
Social Development ◽  
Historical Change ◽  
Scottish Enlightenment ◽  
Moral Sentiments ◽  
Historical Progress ◽  
The Feminine ◽  
And Gender ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Theory Of Moral Sentiments

This chapter examines the relationship between time, feeling, and gender in two foundational texts of the Scottish Enlightenment, the Ossian poems and Adam Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments. It contends that Macpherson and Smith created a temporal map of emotion that gauged social development from “primitive” to “developed” cultures and offered women writers and Scottish philosophers a new field upon which they could experiment with the relationship between gender and historical progress. Despite their obvious differences, Macpherson and Smith used women’s social status and the feminine values they were thought to impart to their male counterparts as tools for charting, evaluating, and questioning emerging theories of historical change. The ambiguity surrounding feminine sentiments’ placement in these Scottish Enlightenment narratives of historical progress creates the foundation for the following chapters, which trace women writers’ engagement with the theories of feeling and historical progress articulated by these two influential writers.

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.

scholarly journals SENTIMENTS, CONDUCT, AND TRUST IN THE LABORATORY

2017 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 25-55 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vernon L. Smith ◽  
Bart J. Wilson
Keyword(s):  
Small Groups ◽  
Adam Smith ◽  
Individual Behavior ◽  
Individual Choice ◽  
Formal Representation ◽  
Moral Sentiments ◽  
Trust Games ◽  
Theory Of Moral Sentiments

Abstract:In this essay we provide a brief account and interpretation of The Theory of Moral Sentiments showing that it departs fundamentally from contemporary patterns of thought in economics that are believed to govern individual behavior in small groups, and contains strong testable propositions governing the expression of that behavior. We also state a formal representation of the model for individual choice of action, apply the propositions to the prediction of actions in trust games, report two experiments testing these predictions, and interpret the results in terms directly related to the model. In short, we argue that the system of sociability developed by Adam Smith provides a coherent non-utilitarian model that is consistent with the pattern of results in trust games, and leads to testable new predictions, some of which we test.

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