The Impartial Spectator: Adam Smith's Moral Philosophy
Abstract
D. D. Raphael provides a critical account of the moral philosophy of Adam Smith, presented in his first book, The Theory of Moral Sentiments. Whilst it does not have the same prominence in its field as his work on economics, The Wealth of Nations, Smith's writing on ethics is of continuing importance and interest today, especially for its theory of conscience. Smith sees the origin of conscience in the sympathetic and antipathetic feelings of spectators. As spectators of the actions of other people, we can imagine how we would feel in their situation. If we would share their motives, we approve of their action. If not, we disapprove. When we ourselves take an action, we know from experience what spectators would feel, approval or disapproval. That knowledge forms conscience, an imagined impartial spectator who tells us whether an action is right or wrong. In describing the content of moral judgement, Smith is much influenced by Stoic ethics, with an emphasis on self-command, but he voices criticism as well as praise. His own position is a combination of Stoic and Christian values. There is a substantial difference between the first five editions of the Moral Sentiments and the sixth. Failure to take account of this has led some commentators to mistaken views about the supposed youthful idealism of the Moral Sentiments as contrasted with the mature realism of The Wealth of Nations. A further source of error has been the supposition that Smith treats sympathy as the motive of moral action, as contrasted with the supposedly universal motive of self-interest in The Wealth of Nations. Available in OSO: http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/oso/public/content/philosophy/019921333X/toc.html
... But Smith does not leave any ambiguity about this part: a few times in the text, sympathy is said "to be founded" or "to arise from" an imaginary change of situation. 12 Thus, as Raphael (2007) remarked, it constitutes a 8 For an opposing interpretation, see Nanay (2010). 9 "[S]ympathy designates […] in Smith's work both an explanatory principle (as in the expression "system of sympathy"), an operator, or the main cog of a "mechanism" by which an individual, identifying with another and conceiving what he would feel in his situation, is likely to share his feelings, and lastly the result of this operation when it succeeds (the actual concordance of sentiments between the actor and the spectator)" (Dellemotte, 2011(Dellemotte, , p. 2248. ...
... For a discussion of the role of imagination in Smith's work, see, among others, Harrison (1995), Campbell (1971), Skinner (19741979, pp. 14-41) and Raphael (2007). For a more specific discussion of the central role of imagination in Smith's moral philosophy and, especially, in sympathy, see Evensky (2005, I, 1, pp. 3-9). ...
... Such a characterization of the emotional result of Smith's imaginary change of situation prompts us to consider Smithian sympathy as something other than the case in which the spectator's emotion is similar to the other's. Far from being trivial, such an interpretation of sympathy, as a feeling similar to the original one, led some commentators to view Smith's cases of "illusive sympathy" (TMS, II, i, 2, p. 71; italics added) as anything other than sympathy (see, for instance, Raphael, 2007). Now, as we have shown, Smith's imaginary change of situation systematically leads the spectator to feel an emotion distinct from the other. ...
... Our moral sentiments are formed, then, according to Smith, by repeated interactions with others, and are honed by our repeated experiences of either sympathy or antipathy. The perspective of an "impartial spectator" that we form as a final judge or adjudicator of propriety and impropriety arises from a coalescence of inductive generalizations we make on the basis of our numerous discrete experiences of judging-our observations of us judging others, of others judging us, and of others judging others (Raphael 2007). ...
... This is a contested issue among Smith scholars, however. SeeOtteson (2002),Raphael (2007), andOslington (2011).Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. Rights reserved. ...
Elizabeth Anderson claims that the prevailing culture of business is one of domination. “Most workplace governments in the United States are dictatorships, in which bosses. . don’t merely govern workers; they dominate them” (2017, p. xxii; italics in the original). If this diagnosis is correct, then the culture of business poses a significant threat to human liberty, as each year millions of people in the employ of businesses spend hundreds or thousands of hours on the job. This essay provides a further argument supporting Anderson’s analysis, by extending her treatment of Adam Smith and drawing on his claim about the potentially mind-numbing effects on workers of extreme division of labor. Smith’s analysis, though consistent with Anderson’s, implies that the problem is more worrisome than she allows, and accordingly that Anderson’s own remedy might be insufficient. Our Anderson/Smith argument suggests that worker unfreedom might warrant more aggressive institutional remedy.
... A lo anterior hay que agregar que, el contenido del juicio moral en Smith está muy influido por la ética estoica 1 . Su postura es una combinación de valores estoicos y cristianos (Raphael, 2009). Smith desarrolló la figura del espectador imparcial a partir de los supuestos de comportamiento social y moral implícitos en las obras de Hutcheson y Hume. ...
En este artículo se examina el problema de Adam Smith denominado por la escuela histórica alemana Das Adam Smith Problem, surgido de la dicotomía filosófica existente entre la simpatía desarrollada en la Teoría de los sentimientos morales publicada en 1759 y el interés propio bosquejado en La riqueza de las naciones, obra publicada en 1776. De la mano de estas dos obras clásicas y de la revisión de un conjunto de estudios especializados en la materia, los autores del presente manuscrito aportan algunas reflexiones a favor de la coexistencia y complementariedad de la simpatía y el interés personal en la conducta humana, en contraposición a los adversarios de Smith, quienes se equivocan al comparar el interés propio con el egoísmo simbolizado en la caricatura del homo economicus. De ahí que el interés propio sea, en general, provechoso no solo por la coincidencia natural entre el autointerés y el bien común como habitualmente se interpreta, sino porque, además, debe reunir ciertas condiciones institucionales previas que harán que el interés propio trabaje en la dirección deseada para lograr el bien común. En ese sentido, el problema de Adam Smith, lejos de ser una contradicción, es un malentendido histórico y filosófico muy relevante por sus implicaciones en el debate contemporáneo entre economía y ética.
... 12 For a critique of the reading of Smith as a moral utilitarian see, inter alia, Raphael (2007). For the utilitarian tone in his political theory see Griswold (1999, 200) and Campbell (1971, 202, 205, 217). ...
... 200 year later Adam Smith, who owned a copy of Stobais' collection in his library, presented a related moral control mechanism for self-interested actions: the "impartial spectator." With this concept, which is at the core of his moral philosophy (Raphael 2009), Smith meant the individual's ability to observe herself or himself from a superior perspective in interaction with others. This involuntarily creates a bond with others who are affected by one's actions, a kind of social moral framework for self-interest: ...
... Words change meaning over time (Wispé, 1986;Sugden, 2002;Raphael, 2007;Nanay, 2010;Scheler, 2017;Fontaine, 2023;MacDonald, 2023). The Concise Oxford English Dictionary (Weiner and Simpson, 1991) lists eight distinct meanings for the noun 'sympathy', some now obsolete, dating from as early as the 16th century while others have emerged more recently. ...
In 2018, British Columbia (BC), Canada’s third most populous province, announced the creation of an Expert Panel to explore the feasibility of introducing a basic income in BC. The Expert Panel on Basic Income prepared the policy report, Covering All the Basics: Reforms for a More Just Society , that responded to this task. Our research applies a critical policy studies approach to explore the ideologies, discursive strategies, and discourses embedded in and emanating from the report. In so doing, we find that the report reproduces problematic discourses about self-sufficiency, welfare dependency, and (poor) choice(s). Rather than discarding a basic income for the working-age population based on flawed assumptions and problematic beliefs, we invite policymakers to consider a more transformative vision that recognises the systemic roots of financial hardship, and embraces a basic income as a key building block of income security for BC and all of Canada.
... Our emotional attachment to others seems necessary, but not sufficient, to decide which course of action is the appropriate one. It is only when those sentiments are considered from the standpoint of an impartial spectator (Raphael 2007) -when they are ideally regulated (Kauppinen 2014) -that we can rest assured that we are complying with the overriding affection. Our emotions should be educated (Sauer 2017) and we must put ourselves into the shoes of those we can only imagine today but will exist in the future, to try and consider them as if they were the actual others with whom to create such concord. ...
After introducing some of the many issues raised by intergenerational justice, the paper will focus in particular on the motivational problem: Why should we be motivated to act in favor of others when sacrifices on our behalf are required? And more specifically, how can such sacrifices be justified when those we act for are neither born nor easily unidentifiable? While many accounts of moral motivation exist, most scholars will grant that emotional engagement is a strong motivational drive. Hence, the paper will focus on such a drive. I will, first, argue that immediate emotions and empathy – understood uniquely as a form of emotional attunement – are insufficient to grant that the acts they motivate are morally acceptable. The case of future generations is a perfect example of such insufficiency. Second, I will discuss the possibility of regulated emotions and sympathy playing such a role. In fact, by regulating and educating emotions, a conscious or “rational” component is added, which could help avoid the biases and limitations immediate affective phenomena show. Such a “rational” component would also enable us to provide a criterion to distinguish cases in which emotions drive us in morally acceptable or unacceptable directions. In the second part of the paper, the sentimentalist tradition will be reconsidered, with particular attention to Adam Smith’s moral proposal – since the sympathetic engagement of an impartial spectator could be an excellent example of a regulated and educated emotional attunement of the kind required to deal with some of the many moral issues future generations raise and, in particular, with the motivational problem itself.
... He thought that individuals are much better off making their own moral decisions than any fixed system imposed either by intellectuals and governments or by natural or divine laws [2]. However, Smith argued, to properly make normative judgements that would drive our decisions and minimize the corruption of our moral faculties one needs to consider the details of how we make decisions, and the details of the actions we judge, from an impartial spectator's perspective [3]. ...
Adam Smith developed a version of moral philosophy where better decisions are made by interrogating an impartial spectator within us. We discuss the possibility of using an external non-human-based substitute tool that would augment our internal mental processes and play the role of the impartial spectator. Such tool would have more knowledge about the world, be more impartial, and would provide a more encompassing perspective on moral assessment.
... Coming back to the earlier point of self-awareness and needing the feedback of others, there are newer authors who emphasize this specific point (Rasheed 2019) and even moral philosopher Adam Smith made it a central aspect in his theory of the conscience (Raphael 2007). Rochat (2018) highlights that individuals need to become aware of themselves through the evaluative eyes of others. ...
Psychologists and moral philosophers have much to say about self-awareness and so it is no surprise that in leadership research self-awareness also has come to play an important role. For some time now, leadership research has been dominated by psychologists and we argue that their version of the self-awareness is very thin. It is empty of morality and therefore offers only a partial understanding of humanity. That make its conclusions for leadership ineffective and unethical. Psychology-driven approaches to leadership stress effectiveness: leaders make followers work towards a given goal in an effective manner. Self-awareness, to them, is a thorough understanding of one’s strengths, weaknesses, values, how others see one, all with the goal of turning people into followers. Since ethics is excluded, this view of self-awareness lacks a foundational moral concept: respect/dignity and is closer to self-assessment. Building on Immanuel Kant and other German Idealists, Georg Friedrich Wilhelm Hegel proposed a theory of the development of self-awareness that is more holistic as it situates the individual in a social and moral context and thus transcends the purely functional view of the self-other relationship propagated in psychological approaches. We concretely argue that psychological approaches to leadership systematically drive managers into a catastrophic situation that Hegel describes in the Master-Slave Dialectic. Understanding Hegelian self-awareness prevents leaders becoming self-less masters. Truly self-aware leaders heed the warning of the Humanity Formulation of Kant’s Categorial Imperative, namely that they must always treat humanity, whether in their own person or in the person of any other, never merely as a means to an end, but always at the same time as an end. They understand their self, they understand its social and moral dimension, and they see their self-reflected in the other.
... For discussion of Smith's notion of an "impartial spectator," seeRaphael (2007). 7 For accounts of this process, seeOtteson (2002),Hanley (2009), Forman-Barzilai (2011), and Weinstein (2013. ...
Most Adam Smith scholars hold that Smith endorsed public provision of education to offset deleterious consequences arising from the division of labor. Smith’s putative endorsement of publicly funded education is taken by some scholars as evidence that he tends more toward progressive than classical liberalism, or that this is a departure from, perhaps an inconsistency with, Smith’s otherwise strong presumption against government intervention in markets. This paper argues that these interpretations are flawed because Smith ultimately does not advocate public provision of education. He raises the idea and explores its potential benefits, but he ultimately does not endorse it. Smith also provides reason to be skeptical of public provision of education, which suggests that his final position may have inclined against it.
There is an important role for recognition in The Theory of Moral Sentiments. There is recognition in the sympathetic process, in love and wealth accumulation. Because the sympathetic process is intersubjective as in the psychoanalytic literature, it is based on recognition of minds, which results from the mirroring process of mothers. Love, which is based on mutual regard, requires mutual recognition. Individuals are motivated with the need to form relationships, in which they recognize each other, as in the psychoanalytic literature on object relations theory, and philosophical writings. The third form of recognition is based on wealth accumulation, which gives esteem and admiration. Esteem results from recognition and is born out of interpersonal interactions. We contribute to the literature by highlighting the importance of recognition in the sympathetic process, in love and wealth accumulation based on psychoanalytic and philosophical literature.
By exploring Adam Smith’s considerations of arts, this paper stresses that the philosopher establishes a profound connection between music and sympathy. In his essay “Of the Nature of that Imitation which takes place in what are called The Imitative Arts,” Smith delves into esthetic theory, dedicating a significant portion of the text to music and its role in eliciting pleasure and emotions. While previous studies have acknowledged the presence of art-related vocabulary and an esthetic dimension in The Theory of Moral Sentiments, they have not comprehensively mobilized his art essay to illuminate his moral theory. Following this unexplored path, this paper rallies the parallel Smith creates between emotions and musical aspects, such as rhythm and melody, to find a connection between his esthetic and moral ideas. In essence, it reveals how the human esthetic sensibility to look for regularities and order serves as a foundational element in Smith’s understanding of sympathy and social harmony .
This essay reconsiders the possibility and prospects for the relationship between business ethics scholarship and the world of business practice. More specifically, to a field that often considers the question, “What should be the role of business in society?” it poses the question, “What should be the role of the Society for Business Ethics in business?” My intent is not to solve the related epistemological question of whether we have to “be one to know one.” It is, however, to encourage scholars to leave our laboratories more often to engage with the work and world of those we study. To that end, the essay poses a series of questions for us – individual scholars, members of the Society, and the Society itself – to consider about our relationship with business. It concludes with a postscript response to one of those questions: When, if ever, should the Society make public statements?
This study aims to evaluate the risks faced by businesses embracing digitalization while assessing the opportunities, how to manage these risks in the mentioned new period, the supporting factors and opportunities, and the potential threats and challenges. In this context, we first address the historical development of the concept of digital transformation, its main benefit objectives, then the risks and adverse effects of digitalization, which is followed by a discussion, over the existing literature, of the change in risk management in the digitalized world and the conditions, opportunities, and challenges making this change necessary. As a result, digitalization can provide significant gains in operational processes and risk management approaches. On the other hand, it has been revealed that it is necessary to act with a new risk management approach in which this opportunity for gain can be made use of, taking into account the new risks arising after digitalization. Evaluating the opportunities and challenges regarding implementing the said approach, we have assessed the risk management approaches in businesses after digitalization under the titles of how businesses’ reactions to risks change, the consequences of risks in changing businesses, and how the adverse effects of risk have changed.
For Smith, the historical process is indispensable for understanding in what sense and to what extent we can speak of harmony between the individual self and others. Indeed, the historical process is not only a driving cause of self-development in terms of the differentiation of the individual self of each human being in society, but it also influences the nature of the relationships that human beings have with each other. Starting from these premises, this chapter describes in what sense Smith’s understanding of human beings would be based on an idea of harmony between oneself and others that depends on the historical process. Therefore, I outline in what sense it would be possible to speak of a relationship between historical context, moral conduct and human nature in Smith’s conception of the human being. In particular, after outlining some features of Smith’s philosophy of history, I explore one of the main features of Smith’s philosophical anthropology through an examination of the figure of the savage. In doing so, I provide an example of how the development of the self would be linked to the satisfaction of a desiderative human nature of the human being depending on the historical and social context.
This chapter describes in what sense Smith’s conception of human nature can be defined in different ways, and how it is related to some tendencies and desires, such as sociability, language, the human propensity to exchange, self-love, harmony, the desire to gain deserved approval from real and imagined spectators, the desire to improve one’s condition and happiness. In particular, I describe how, in Smith’s moral philosophy, these desiderative and motivational dimensions, across several categories of discourse (philosophical, psychological and anthropological), are all linked to the possibility of harmony between oneself and others in society.
This chapter describes how the research was conducted, the level of analysis adopted and clarifies the use of some of the main terms used throughout the book. In particular, on the one hand, I reconstruct some concepts such as human nature, mind and the self on the basis of the main philosophical traditions with which Smith has been compared in terms of similarities and differences; on the other hand, I describe the arguments at the basis of Smith’s development of these concepts in the different levels of analysis of his inquiry. At the same time, my research has a theoretical approach insofar as I problematise some concepts such as human nature, mind and the self by providing a coherent synthesis of the various uses of the terms. Moreover, I pay explicit attention to Smith’s style in analysing his thought: a style that combines analytical precision, abstract definitions, but with the description of particular and concrete cases. Finally, I offer Smith’s articulation of the concept of ‘human being’ and its thematic contexts.
This article investigates emotionally based solidarity appeals in the Facebook posts from Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki (Poland) and Prime Minister Viktor Orbán (Hungary) published in the first weeks of Russia’s military invasion of Ukraine, between February 24 and April 9, 2022. Our approach involves a qualitative thematic analysis to uncover the political strategies used to either foster or diminish a collective sense of sympathy. The findings reveal a striking disparity between the two countries. Prime Minister Morawiecki’s rhetoric strongly emphasizes sympathetic solidarity, establishing a close and emotional bond with Ukraine. He extends his support to the attacked country, including the provision of weapons and diplomatic services, while openly expressing hostility toward Russia. In contrast, Prime Minister Orbán’s posts, despite mentioning humanitarian efforts coordinated by his government, notably lack appeals for sympathy. Based on the comparison of the two countries, our study emphasizes the significance of nuanced moral language for political agenda in times of crisis.
There are two principal issues discussed in this chapter. Firstly, it examines the relationship between Joseph Butler (1692–1752) and Adam Smith (1723–1790). Exploring the association between these two personalities is something that both Butler and Smith scholarships have relatively disregarded. In contrast to this general understanding, the chapter aims to illustrate their intimate relationship. Secondly, drawing on the first point, it also attempts to determine some clues to comprehend Butler’s attitude towards commercial society, which encompasses the theme of this book. Regarding this point, it is discussed that Butler defends some forms of self-love in several ways, indicating his positive attitude towards commercial society.
Despite the differences, there is some convergence between Adam Smith's and Immanuel Kant's theories of moral motivation. Both rely on a peculiar feeling, respect, as the proper source of motive in moral matters. An analysis of Smith's and Kant's conception of respect shows that both recognize that it has a specific normative import and plays a decisive role in morality. This convergence offers some support to the idea that Smith's sentimentalism and Kant's rationalism are compatible, at least as far as moral motivation is at issue.
In this chapter, Edwin van de Haar argues that Smith’s international theory offers a unified view of politics and economics, based on Smith’s views on human nature. Smith's political economy covers many topics, such as the nation, war, the balance of power, military organisation, empire, and of course free trade. Contrary to alleged academic wisdon, he did not see a relation between free trade and peace.
En este artículo indagaremos sobre cuál es para Adam Smith el motivo o causa por el que se debe retribuir con beneficio el factor “capital” de la producción. Detallaremos el que daremos por llamar “el problema del beneficio” que surge de la vaguedad con que es explicado el fenómeno del beneficio dentro de la obra. Comenzaremos por mostrar las dificultades que conllevan las interpretaciones usuales que hacen sobre esta cuestión, entiéndase, la solución “vía parsimonia” y “vía poder”, ambas las veremos como intentos que no logran dar una respuesta adecuada, en el primer caso directamente no responderá al problema, mientras que la segunda solución llega a una conclusión que es una contradicción dentro de la filosofía de Smith. Luego, plantearemos nuestra propia respuesta y mostraremos en qué sentido logra superar las dificultades antes mencionadas: el beneficio como retribución al comercio que posibilita la división del trabajo.
Adam Smith desarrolla su teoría moral a partir de una cualidad psicológica innata que conocemos como simpatía. Consiste básicamente en lo que hoy conocemos como “empatía”, es decir, la capacidad de acompañar al otro en cualquier pasión. Al igual que cualquier disposición natural, es una cualidad moralmente neutra y, por tanto, debe ser desarrollada y cultivada para formar positivamente la fisonomía natural de una persona. De acuerdo con la teoría de Smith, por el deseo innato de simpatía, cuando interactuamos con los demás, tendemos imaginativamente a ponernos en su lugar y evaluar su conducta como apropiada o inapropiada frente a determinadas circunstancias. ¿Qué es lo que evaluamos? La reacción del agente en tales circunstancias. Y como para Smith toda acción proviene de los sentimientos, lo que evaluamos, en definitiva, son sus sentimientos. ¿De qué manera lo hacemos? A través de nuestros propios sentimientos. Si al ponernos en el lugar del agente coincidimos en los sentimientos que lo movieron a reaccionar y actuar de dicho modo, entonces su acción es apropiada y simpatizamos con él; si no coincidimos en los afectos, no simpatizamos y, por tanto, lo reprobamos. Sin embargo, hasta aquí estamos frente a un proceso que es exclusivamente psicológico. Las evaluaciones que hacemos de los sentimientos de los demás no son todavía evaluaciones morales, porque lo apropiado o inapropiado se restringe a opiniones particulares: a mí me parece apropiado que una persona, frente a tales circunstancias, reaccione de tal manera y la apruebo; pero a otra persona le puede parecer inapropiado y, entonces, no la aprueba. Para llegar a una evaluación moral necesitamos distanciarnos de esta perspectiva parcial y mirar los hechos desde una tercera posición, que nos permita evaluar con imparcialidad; es decir, poniendo entre paréntesis nuestros sesgos particulares. Es entonces cuando surge, como fruto de los procesos simpatéticos, el espectador imparcial. Con el objetivo de reflexionar sobre la tesis de la simpatía como mecanismo de juicio moral, este artículo busca esclarecer el concepto de simpatía en Smith, mostrar la relación que guarda con el juicio moral y exponer cómo, en nuestra opinión, esta cualidad psicológica constituye la condición de posibilidad del surgimiento del espectador imparcial.
Adam Smith was born 300 years ago, in June 1723. The son of a Scottish lawyer and customs commissioner grew to become a great Enlightenment thinker who gained global fame for his writings in moral philosophy and political economy. His second major work, the “Wealth of Nations” (1776), enabled economics to establish itself as a separate academic discipline. In numerous countries, the book had not only a theoretical but also a practical policy impact. Yet many distortions crept into the reception history of Smith’s oeuvre. For some years now, an interdisciplinary group of Smith scholars has taken on the received wisdom to challenge the clichés. In this survey written on the occasion of the Adam Smith tricentenary, Karen Horn presents some insights from recent Smith scholarship and shows just how inspiring and fruitful an engagement with the great Scot continues to be – even for economists, who are so far remarkably underrepresented in this activity.
This article offers a cross-reading of Smith and Rawls in order to highlight the fundamental role of sympathy, moral sentiments and the idea of reciprocity they contain in Rawls’s theory of justice as fairness, and more specifically in the possibility of ensuring the stability of the ideal, well-ordered society through the development of an appropriate sense of justice. I study their respective moral anthropologies and their analyses of guilt, resentment, indignation and envy, highlighting the fundamental role these moral sentiments play in social cooperation.
In The Sources of Normativity, Korsgaard argues for what can be called “The Universality of Humanity Claim” (UHC), according to which valuing humanity in one’s own person entails valuing it in that of others. However, Korsgaard’s reliance on the claim that reasons are essentially public in her attempt to demonstrate the truth of UHC has been repeatedly criticized. I offer a sentimentalist defense, based on Adam Smith’s moral philosophy, of a qualified, albeit adequate, version of UHC. In particular, valuing my humanity, understood as (my awareness of) my perspective and the reasons determined from within it, entails valuing your humanity, understood as (your awareness of) your perspective and the reasons determined from within it. Given Korsgaard’s emphasis on the publicity of reasons in her argument for UHC, I also discuss the role of reasons in my account. I argue that the relative weights of (at least some of) an agent’s reasons are determined from within a shared evaluative point of view, namely, the standpoint of what Smith calls “the impartial spectator.” These reasons have normative authority over and constrain the agent’s private reasons, that is, those that are determined from within her own particular evaluative point of view.
There is a distinction between asking whether a military commander’s act was reasonable and asking whether a military commander acted in the manner in which a reasonable military commander would have acted. The difference is that only the second question compels a person assessing a given state of affairs to engage in empathetic perspective-taking. Accordingly, this chapter argues that the reasonable military commander test is a legal device which invites those who apply it to engage in empathetic perspective-taking. Construing the reasonable military commander test as a perspective-taking device brings into focus the crucial question of whose views and whose interests influence the legal evaluation of a commander’s behaviour. Understanding the reasonable military commander test in this way also directs attention to the role of empathy in the battlefield. It is important to be clear about this rationale of the reasonable military commander test in the battlefield in order to ensure that the conduct of military commanders is assessed accurately.
This chapter defends the view that empathy is tightly linked to the concept (and the phenomenon) of moral perception , which is in turn closely related to moral judgement . The contributions of scholars such as Lawrence Blum are taken into account and carefully analysed in order to demonstrate how moral judgement needs moral perception and how in turn moral perception cannot function properly without empathy.
In recent decades, Alasdair MacIntyre has developed a style of moral philosophy and an argument for Neo‐Aristotelian virtue ethics that has deeply influenced business ethics. Most of the work inspired by MacIntyre has dealt with individual and organisational dimensions of business ethics rather than the market economic environment in which individuals and organisations operate. MacIntyre has been a fierce critic of capitalism and economics. He has read Adam Smith an advocate of selfish individualism, rule‐based ethics and the banishment of teleology. This reading is seriously defective, and Smith in fact offers much of what MacIntyre calls for in economics. MacIntyre's ethical framework can be made more powerful and useful to business ethicists by incorporating Smithian insights, especially Smith's account of market virtues and teleological account of markets as extended cooperation directed towards the common good of wealth creation. Aside from issues of the interpretation of MacIntyre and Smith, this analysis opens new pathways for dialogue between business ethicists and economists.
Zusammenfassung
Vor 300 Jahren, im Juni 1723, kam Adam Smith auf die Welt. Aus dem Sohn eines schottischen Anwalts und Zollkommissars wurde ein großer Aufklärer, der vor allem mit seinen moralphilosophischen und ökonomischen Schriften Berühmtheit erlangte. Mit seinem zweiten Hauptwerk, dem „Wealth of Nations“ (1776), etablierte sich die Volkswirtschaftslehre als eigenständige akademische Disziplin. Das Buch entfaltete nicht nur theoretische, sondern in zahlreichen Ländern auch praktische Wirkung. Freilich ging die Rezeptionsgeschichte mit erheblichen Vergröberungen und Verzerrungen einher. Gegen diese Klischees stemmt sich seit einigen Jahren eine interdisziplinäre Gruppe von Smith-Forschern. In diesem Überblicksartikel aus Anlass des Jubiläums stellt Karen Horn einige der Einsichten aus der jüngeren Literatur der Smith-Forschung vor und zeigt, wie reizvoll und fruchtbar die Auseinandersetzung mit dem großen Schotten weiterhin ist – auch für die hier unterrepräsentierten Ökonomen.
For the first time, in Hume and Smith, ‘sympathy’ occupies a central position as the principle of moral judgment. The key to solving the relationship between sympathy and economic thought lies in the theory of justice. Hume and Smith inherited Hutcheson’s criticism of the Hobbesian selfish system and considered humans selfish and social. For both, the relationship between selfishness and sympathy is neither a contradiction nor a subordinate structure in which selfishness ultimately dominates sympathy. In this joint project, Hume’s institutional utilitarianism could justify Smith’s economic theories and provide Smith’s theory of government with a proper philosophical foundation. I argue that this is particularly significant because Smith himself failed to provide the foundation in areas where the idea of public utility plays a vital role, such as in the critical case of national defence and the decline of martial spirit.
Adam Smith (1723–1790) was a Scottish moral philosopher and political economist. He is best known today for his later influence on the field of economics although in his own time it was his moral theory that received most attention. He published two books in his lifetime, both of which were highly acclaimed on publication, leading Smith to become a prominent part of the Scottish Enlightenment and one of the foremost figures in European intellectual life. Smith’s first book was The Theory of Moral Sentiments (first published in 1759, but continually revised until his death and ran to six editions). It remains a significant text in the history of moral philosophy although it has been eclipsed in the popular consciousness by his subsequent work, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, or more commonly, The Wealth of Nations (1776). Shortly after his death his reflections on the history of astronomy were published as Essays on Philosophical Subjects (1795) and, much later, student notes from 1762–1763 were collected and published as Lectures on Jurisprudence (1978) helping shed light on and clarify aspects of his philosophy, particularly on issues of justice and government.
This article analyzes the relationship between competition and justice in Adam Smith in order to determine to what extent competition can promote and undermine justice. I examine how competition features in two basic motivations for human action, “the propensity to truck barter and exchange,” and “the desire of bettering our condition.” Both can be traced back to the desire for recognition, but they operate in very different ways. The former manifests itself in social cooperation, chiefly commercial exchange and the division of labor, and while it can take a competitive form, competitive success produces benefits for everyone. In contrast, the latter may manifest itself in win-lose social competition. Commercial society harnesses both motivations, and both have negative as well as positive effects. However, while Smith explicitly addresses the negative effects of excessive specialization in the division of labor, it is less clear how he thinks the negative effects of social competition can be addressed. I argue that competition can undermine justice when (i) it pits people against each other and (ii) leads to psychological corruption. I conclude with some reflections on what a focus on competition adds to our understanding of Smith’s work.
El presente artículo se propone explorar los vínculos entre ética y economía en la obra de Adam Smith, tratando de superar la aparente contradicción entre sus dos mayores trabajos: La teoría de los sentimientos morales y La riqueza de las naciones, que diera origen en el siglo XIX a la famosa discusión en torno al Problema de Adam Smith. Lejos de mantener la idea de que ambos trabajos se contradicen, propondremos una interpretación donde la simpatía aparece como un elemento central para explicar el origen de la sociedad comercial que Smith defiende más abiertamente en su famoso tratado de economía política, sin dejar de lado los reparos que el mismo Smith tuviera respecto a las consecuencias morales y sociales provocadas por los patrones culturales promovidos por la sociedad comercial naciente.
In this chapter we reconsider Adam Smith’s works The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759) and The Wealth of Nations (1766), for evidence of his Enlightenment contribution to responsible management in the twenty-first century. Far from being the poster boy of unregulated, neoclassical market economics as falsely idealized by Milton Friedman and others, we sample more fully and patiently to reveal the overlooked, complex interdependence of self-interest and social justice that plainly results. We suggest that a more humanistic, just, and social economy could be developed from the themes sympathetically developed in these two complementary works.
What explains the ambition to get rich? Adam Smith is clear that commercial ambition, the passionate desire for great wealth, is not simply a desire to satisfy one’s material needs. His argument on what underlies it, however, is not obvious. I review three possibilities suggested by Smith’s work and the scholarly literature—vanity, the love of system, and the desire for tranquility—and conclude that none of them captures the underlying motive of commercial ambition. Instead, I argue that Smith understands commercial ambition as a misguided desire for excellence. Ambitious pursuers of wealth are driven by the desire to deserve and to enjoy recognition for their excellence, but their judgment of what is truly excellent is corrupted by the standards of a wealth-worshipping society. Instead of appealing to the moral standpoint of the impartial spectator, they construct in their minds and follow a corruptive moral guide: the wealth-worshipping spectator.
This essay uses concepts from Adam Smith’s The Theory of Moral Sentiments to develop ideas about choice and welfare. I use those ideas to offer several challenges to common approaches to behavioral welfare economics and new paternalist policy making. Drawing on Smith’s dialectical concept of practical reason, which he develops in expositing ideas about self-awareness and self-judgment, I first argue that inconsistency need not be viewed as pathological. Inconsistent choices might indicate legitimate context-dependencies as individuals reflect over disjointed perspectives and act accordingly. Understanding inconsistency as reasonable raises epistemic difficulties for identifying errant choices and designing corrective policies. Second, I draw on Smith’s theory of the impartial spectator to discuss dynamic aspects of welfare. Welfare is not simply a matter of preference satisfaction but involves a sense of progress and improvement towards better preferences. Smith’s account suggests that economists interested in welfare should focus on institutional arrangements that facilitate self-development.
In the long eighteenth century, sympathy was understood not just as an emotional bond, but also as a physiological force, through which disruption in one part of the body produces instantaneous disruption in another. Building on this theory, Romantic writers explored sympathy as a disruptive social phenomenon, which functioned to spread disorder between individuals and even across nations like a 'contagion'. It thus accounted for the instinctive behaviour of people swept up in a crowd. During this era sympathy assumed a controversial political significance, as it came to be associated with both riotous political protest and the diffusion of information through the press. Mary Fairclough reads Edmund Burke, Mary Wollstonecraft, William Godwin, John Thelwall, William Hazlitt and Thomas De Quincey alongside contemporary political, medical and philosophical discourse. Many of their central questions about crowd behaviour still remain to be answered by the modern discourse of collective psychology.
El presente trabajo pretende mostrar cuál es el rol de la utilidad en la teoría moral de Adam Smith desarrollada en su primer libro, La teoría de los sentimientos morales, mostrando los elementos de la teoría que evitan su deslizamiento hacia el utilitarismo; particularmente, en el ámbito de la justificación moral, puesto que, si bien la corriente ética utilitarista comenzó propiamente con Jeremy Bentham y fue sistematizada por John Stuart Mill en la primera mitad del siglo XIX, algunos han llamado a Smith proto-utilitarista. Para eso se explica el concepto de simpatía que maneja Smith –distinguiendo entre simpatía psicológica y moral– y el de propiedad, claves a la hora de distanciarlo del utilitarismo, y se analizan las lecturas de T.D. Campbell y James Otteson, dos grandes expertos en Smith que lo califican (con matices) como utilitarista.
Adam Smith wird gemeinhin als Begründer der Wirtschaftswissenschaft angesehen. Am bekanntesten ist er als der Prophet des Eigennutzes, aber diesen Ruf hat er gewiss nicht verdient.
The formation of the public sphere is extremely dependent on the technologies available in society to produce and circulate social information. The formation of the public sphere has undergone several transformations as well as information technologies. The liberal public sphere, for example, was characterized by its emancipation from the centralist contours of the court and by the new impersonal structures guaranteed by the dynamics of large cities of the nineteenth century. With the rise of the mass media in the twentieth century, the public sphere began to have a more pluralistic group-driven contour no longer consisting essentially of individuals who were in public places for debates on general themes. A third stage, the current one, transformed the public sphere centered on groups into a new constellation generated by the algorithmic logic of social networks. The formation of new legal standards to deal with the negative effects of the new digital public sphere can no longer be guided by the previous standards and must focus in particular on fostering the self-organization of the technological sector concerned.KeywordsArtificial intelligenceTransformation of the public sphereSocial mediaDigital lawSubjectivity
Lastly, those are not at all to be tolerated who deny the being of a God. Promises, covenants, and oaths, which are the bonds of human society, can have no hold upon an atheist. The taking away of God, though but even in thought, dissolves all.
These words, from Locke's Letter Concerning Toleration, ring unconvincingly in our ears. They affirm that the bonds of human society hold only those who believe in God. This affirmation breaks into two propositions:
(i) the bonds of human society are promises, covenants, and oaths;
(ii) promises, covenants, and oaths hold only those who believe in God.
Much might be said about the first proposition, but not here. Whether it rings unconvincingly in our ears, surely the second does, and it is this which I shall address. The suppos1t1on that moral conventions depend on religious belief has become alien to our way of thinking. Modern moral philosophers do not meet it with vigorous denials or refutations; usually they ignore it.