scholarly journals Taming Egoism: Adam Smith on Empathy, Imagination and Justice

2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (Special Issue) ◽  
pp. 29-37
Author(s):  
Agnieszka Czarnecka
Keyword(s):  
Social Order ◽  
Life Experiences ◽  
Adam Smith ◽  
Role Playing ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Impartial Spectator ◽  
Social Morality ◽  
Psychological Mechanisms ◽  
The Social ◽  
Self Interest

I argue that the construction of the social order, as shown by Adam Smith in The Theory of Moral Sentiments, depends on people’s ability to tame their inborn egoism. According to the philosopher’s anthropological assumptions a human being learns through life experiences how to control his self- interest so that it does not threaten societal existence. During socialization, a human being – still an egoist to some extent – continues role-playing by the use of the psychological mechanisms of empathy and imagination. As a result he develops sympathy, at first, as a reaction to real people’s emotions experienced in a particular context. Finally, he naturally and more and more unconsciously takes under consideration the perspective of an impartial spectator. The gradually developing process brings about consequences that improve social morality, such as control over the expression of intense emotions, which is a condition for experiencing emotional harmony, or a refrain from pursuing one’s self-interest at the expense of someone else, so as not to become a subject of social contempt. One should also bear in mind that none of these consequences was carefully planned in advance nor purposefully executed.

Who Was This Man?

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mitch Kachun
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Atlantic World ◽  
Life Experiences ◽  
Broad Context ◽  
Military Power ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Revolution

Chapter 1 introduces the broad context of the eighteenth-century Atlantic world in which Crispus Attucks lived, describes the events of the Boston Massacre, and assesses what we know about Attucks’s life. It also addresses some of the most widely known speculations and unsupported stories about Attucks’s life, experiences, and family. Much of what is assumed about Attucks today is drawn from a fictionalized juvenile biography from 1965, which was based largely on research in nineteenth-century sources. Attucks’s characterization as an unsavory outsider and a threat to the social order emerged during the soldiers’ trial. Subsequently, American Revolutionaries in Boston began the construction of a heroic Attucks as they used the memory of the massacre and all its victims to serve their own political agendas during the Revolution by portraying the victims as respectable, innocent citizens struck down by a tyrannical military power.

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.

The Rhetoric of the Market: Adam Smith on Recognition, Speech, and Exchange

2001 ◽  
Vol 63 (3) ◽  
pp. 549-580 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andreas Kalyvas ◽  
Ira Katznelson
Keyword(s):  
Social Order ◽  
Adam Smith ◽  
Division Of Labour ◽  
Modern Theory ◽  
Modern Analogue ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
Social Esteem ◽  
Wealth Of Nations ◽  
Institutional Foundations ◽  
Normative Role

We probe the connections linking the market, speech, and sympathy in the work of Adam Smith, stressing how individuals strive for social esteem and ethical credit while competing in markets. We demonstrate how Smith approached speech and rhetoric as constituting attributes of markets, the modern analogue of previous institutional foundations for social order. Thus, markets are not simply, or exclusively, arenas for the instrumental quest by competitive and strategic individuals to secure their material preferences. They are a central mechanism for social integration derived not from strategic self-interest but from the inexorable struggle by human agents for moral approbation. Part One retranslates the master concept ofMoral Sentimentsinto a modern theory of recognition. Part Two considers how Smith, in hisRhetoric, established the mutual constitution of recognition and speech. Part Three carries this understanding to hisJurisprudence, the most integrative of his texts, which relocates these impulses inside the market itself.The pivotal second chapter of Adam Smith'sWealth of Nations, “Of the Principle which gives occasion to the Division of Labour, ” opens with the oft-cited claim that the foundation of modern political economy is the human “propensity to truck, barter, and exchange one thing for another.” This formulation plays both an analytical and normative role. It offers an anthropological microfoundation for Smith's understanding of how modern commercial societies function as social organizations, which, in turn, provide a venue for the expression and operation of these human proclivities.

scholarly journals Adam Smith and the Social Foundation of Agreement: Walford v Miles as a Relational Contract

2017 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 376-404 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Campbell
Keyword(s):  
International Trade ◽  
Adam Smith ◽  
Case Law ◽  
Good Faith ◽  
Economic Exchange ◽  
Mutual Respect ◽  
Relational Contract ◽  
The Social ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
The Law

That the reception in subsequent case law of Leggatt J's outstanding discussion of good faith in Yam Seng Pte Ltd v International Trade Corporation Ltd has been disappointing demonstrates the continuing failure to appreciate the normative constitution of economic exchange and the law of contract. This paper re-examines the concept of economic exchange which may be derived from the work of Adam Smith in order to show that Smith did not conceive of exchange as a system of solipsistic self-interest but as self-interest which is formed on the basis of the mutual respect of the parties to the exchange. The significance of Smith's views for the law of contract will be demonstrated by a re-examination of the rejection of good faith in Walford v Miles in light of those views. Whilst it is moot whether the law of contract should recognise a general doctrine of good faith, that law must become self-conscious of the mutual respect it requires of parties to a contract which is indicated in the concept of good faith.

scholarly journals Social Norms and Economic Theory

1989 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 99-117 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jon Elster
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Economic Theory ◽  
Social Norms ◽  
Adam Smith ◽  
Emile Durkheim ◽  
Homo Economicus ◽  
The Social ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
Common Interests ◽  
Genetic Fitness

One of the most persistent cleavages in the social sciences is the opposition between two lines of thought conveniently associated with Adam Smith and Emile Durkheim, between homo economicus and homo sociologicus. Of these, the former is supposed to be guided by instrumental rationality, while the behavior of the latter is dictated by social norms. In this paper I characterize this contrast more fully, and discuss attempts by economists to reduce normoriented action to some type of optimizing behavior. Social norms, as I understand them here, are emotional and behavioral propensities of individuals. Are norms rationalizations of self-interest? Are norms followed out of self-interest? Do norms exist to promote self-interest? Do norms exist to promote common interests? Do norms exist to promote genetic fitness?

scholarly journals What Makes People Good or Bad? (Mis)Anthropological Essay on Searching for Social/ Cultural Reasons on Judging the Other People

2016 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 927
Author(s):  
Bojan Žikić
Keyword(s):  
Social Context ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
The Other ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Cultural Perspectives ◽  
Significant Tendency ◽  
The Social ◽  
Personal Experiences

The aim of this paper is to discuss thinking of people which is informed by culture, social institutions and personal experiences, and which shows significant tendency not to operate in simply binary mode when it is about people from somebody’s imminent social surrounding. Two examples are presented form the nowadays Belgrade. It is argued that at least people of this particular social context, who tend to deploy more nuances in the judging on and labelling their neighbours seen as bringing some kind of disruption of the social order then to those people they think as of generic categories only, are informed by such social/cultural perspectives on human being which paramount it, but also suggest its capacity for serious wrong doing.

scholarly journals Adam Smith and the contemporary world

2010 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 50 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amartya Sen
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
John Rawls ◽  
Economic Activity ◽  
Adam Smith ◽  
Critical Distance ◽  
Comparative Approach ◽  
Impartial Spectator ◽  
Contemporary World ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
The Moment

This paper argues that many of Adam Smith's insights, particularly those in his Theory of moral sentiments, have a relevance to contemporary thought about economics and ethics that is currently underappreciated. In economics, for example, Smith was concerned not only with the sufficiency of self-interest at the moment of exchange but also with the wider moral motivations and institutions required to support economic activity in general. In ethics, Smith's concept of an impartial spectator who is able to view our situation from a critical distance has much to contribute to a fuller understanding of the requirements of justice, particularly through an understanding of impartiality as going beyond the interests and concerns of a local contracting group. Smith's open, realization-focussed and comparative approach to evaluation contrasts with what I call the "transcendental institutionalism" popular in contemporary political philosophy and associated particularly with the work of John Rawls.

From Moral Sentiments to Civic Engagement: Sociological Analysis as Responsible Spectatorship

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robin Wagner-Pacifici
Keyword(s):  
Social Action ◽  
Adam Smith ◽  
Social Scientist ◽  
Cultural Sociology ◽  
Subject Position ◽  
Sociological Analysis ◽  
Impartial Spectator ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Spectator

This article proposes an entirely different understanding of the goals of cultural sociology, arguing that the subject position of the “spectator” should replace that of the “social scientist.” It contends that cultural sociology should aspire for fidelity—to moods and experiences, to locations and dramas, and to the truth of experience—and that this fidelity can be achieved through witnessing. In order to build the case for a new kind of cultural sociology, the article cites the works of Adam Smith, and especially his theory of social morality founded on the figure of the “impartial spectator.” It also examines four initial problems, including the problem of the alleged distinction between social action and spectatorship and the problem of identifying the appropriate “spectacle.” It concludes by highlighting some important lessons that need to be taken into account so that cultural sociology will continue to flourish.

EQUITY, BESIDES: ADAM SMITH AND THE UTILITY OF POVERTY

2015 ◽  
Vol 37 (4) ◽  
pp. 559-581 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher S. Martin
Keyword(s):  
Labor Supply ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Adam Smith ◽  
Supply Function ◽  
The Social ◽  
Wealth Of Nations

Generations of readers have nodded in agreement with Adam Smith’s argument, in Book One of the Wealth of Nations, that a nation cannot be happy if the workers who constitute the majority of its population are miserable. Smith notes that equity, besides, demands that workers receive a generous recompense for their labor. I contend that this famous statement is best interpreted in light of contemporary arguments that it was socially useful for workers to be poor. Smith’s engagement with these arguments is usually interpreted with reference to the labor supply function, but I argue that it also involved deeper suppositions about the place of workers in the social order. Smith’s reaction to these suppositions enriches our understanding of his contribution to liberal economics.

Smith

2019 ◽  
pp. 158-169
Author(s):  
Roger Crisp
Keyword(s):  
Practical Reason ◽  
Adam Smith ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Scottish Enlightenment ◽  
Impartial Spectator ◽  
Divine Retribution ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
Human Ethics ◽  
The Spectator

This chapter discusses the views on self-interest and morality of the Scottish Enlightenment philosopher Adam Smith (1723–90). Smith’s theory of sympathy is explained. The notion of the impartial spectator is discussed, in connection with both propriety and utility, and it is shown how the view of the spectator itself incorporates certain aspects of the human point of view. Smith is claimed to be a deontologist, at least concerning human ethics. His version of the dualism of practical reason is outlined, and the difficulties of combining a utilitarian conception of God with the notion of divine retribution are noted.

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