Just Sentiments

Erik W. Matson for AdamSmithWorks



David Hume believed Puritan attitudes contributed to the commercial spirit of England. Hume anticipated Max Weber’s focus on the Protestant ethic but also differed from him.
 
"Protestant convictions gelled with concurrent developments... The combination gave rise to both the spirit of the age and its material consequences."

Wednesday, March 27, 2024

Michael Clark and Luke Hollister for AdamSmithWorks

A wise leader considers what the public can bear, not just what he thinks would otherwise be best. Clark and Hollister show Smith's Solonic side as Smith edits his works and responds to the world around him.

"The socialist or fascist is more prone to this folly, but a liberal may also qualify as a man of system if he makes his doctrine his vanity."

Wednesday, February 28, 2024

Yahya Alshamy and Daniel B. Klein for AdamSmithWorks



Gains are novel and require time to be incorporated into our ideas of ourself; Losses, however, effect the base upon which we have built ourselves up. Alshamy and Klein explain Smith's lasting ideas regarding behavioral psychology and asymmetrical sympathy.

"Smith saw that the depths of the downside—misery, suffering, anguish—are deeper, more profound, and more enduring than the heights of the upside—levity and joy."

January 24, 2024

Scott Drylie for AdamSmithWorks

Many say that Adam Smith unequivocally endorsed government funding of schooling. Drylie says they are wrong.

"Smith would certainly approve of the broad public attention to education and the tendency toward local decision making, but still disapprove of the permanent and focal placement of government in this critical aspect of our lives."

December 27, 2023

Hairuo Tan for AdamSmithWorks

Tan shows the parallels in the thought of two great civilizational moralists, though separated by space, tradition, and more than 2000 years.

"Finding the universal truth in a culture that seems quite different from one’s own does not homogenize the two cultures, but it may harmonize them."

November 22, 2023 

Jonathon Diesel for AdamSmithWorks

Diesel treats one of Smith’s most discussed exceptions to the liberty principle, namely, his endorsement of the status-quo cap on interest rates. Diesel proposes that we read between the lines. Smith’s argumentation for the cap is immediately subverted by his own statement that lenders can distinguish between sober and unsober borrowers.

"...in a free-market lenders could of their own choosing refrain from lending at high rates, simply to attract some of the sober borrowers to their pool of applicants."

October 25, 2023

Paolo Santori for AdamSmithWorks

Santori speculates that the first book of Adam Smith's project in Wealth of Nations can also be read as a response to Hume's skepticism about God and the problem of evil.

"Smith’s best arguments to defend God’s work against the charge raised by Philo’s consideration of human evil [in Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion] are thus the birth of commercial society and the opulence of markets to the private and public good."

September 27, 2023

Dylan DelliSanti for AdamSmithWorks

DelliSanti explores the controversy about the nature of Smith's "man within the breast" and what kinds of individual innovations are possible in understanding and changing moral norms.

"[I]n Smith’s interpretation of the moral sphere, innovations are innovative consciences. In the moral sphere, the adoption by society of one person’s innovation is the adoption of that person’s conscience."

August 23, 2023

Jordan J. Ballor for AdamSmithWorks

Ballor looks to Smith on how royal and market institutions influence those in and around them.  

"Smith wants to expand the scope and significance of market mores, where 'more important virtues' like industriousness, thrift, honesty, temperance, and prudence can be cultivated more consistently..."

July 26, 2023

Benoît Malbranque for AdamSmithWorks

Laissez faire, laissez passer. The history of economic liberalism in France from 1695 to 1776 shares a common legacy with other European countries and is a rich and understudied source of economic reasoning.

"Economic liberalism was formulated over several generations of intellectuals across Europe. The contribution of France was especially valuable from the year 1695."

June 28, 2023

Jon Murphy & Andrew Humphries for AdamSmithWorks

Did Adam Smith misremember Cicero's story or is Smith winking to his true audience across time?

"The wise man seeks to be thought worthy by the best judges, those who would or ought to approve of our work, conduct, and character, no matter when that person is to be found."

May 24, 2023

 John A. Robinson and J. Robert Subrick for AdamSmithWorks
What is being explained and what is the explanation? Robinson and Subrick argue that Smith saw the pitfalls of a labor theory of value (LTV) but used it as a noble lie to affirm the moral value of labor and argue that it receives fair compensation in a market-based economy.

"Smith used the language of LTV in [Wealth of Nations] to assure the laboring classes that their labor remained dignified and rewarded under his liberal plan."

April 26, 2023

Paul D. Mueller for AdamSmithWorks

Mueller shows how the ideas Adam Smith developed in The Theory of Moral Sentiments further undergird his arguments for limited and mainly local government.

"Where social affairs are free from governmentalization, people operate in contexts that promote more robust moral judgments. People better find the path of virtue."

March 22, 2023

Christopher Martin for AdamSmithWorks

Martin looks closely at when and how Adam Smith advocates for the interests and welfare of the least well off.

Did Adam Smith always side with the poor and weak against the rich and powerful? Christopher Martin gives the resounding answer: Yes, mostly. It’s a little complicated.

February 22, 2023

Caroline Breashears for AdamSmithWorks

Breashears shows that there's always more to learn from Adam Smith - not only from the content of his writing but from the paratexts of his work as well.

"Seeing Smith's paratextual materials, we recover some of the fullness of Smith’s outlook for human life in modern times."

January 25, 2023

Patrick Fitzsimmons for AdamSmithWorks

What are the historical requirements for the emergence of stable liberal polities? Adam Smith suggests monogamous marriages as an important, steadying institution.

"Families meet not on violent terms, but on civil and economic ones instead. The polity can focus on improving the polity, rather than fighting."

December 28, 2022

Erik W. Matson for AdamSmithWorks

Adam Smith's “An Inquiry into the Principles which Lead and Direct Philosophical Enquiries; Illustrated by the History of Astronomy.” is an adventure into reflection on the passional and aesthetic dimensions of scientific and philosophic practice.

"As we participate in Smith’s passions, we can’t help but feel still higher levels of surprise, wonder, and admiration: surprise at the ending of Smith’s essay, wonder at the novelty of his ironic self-contradiction, and admiration for his genius. The sentiments encourage us to puzzle over Smith’s contrariety and arrive at a fuller sense of the purpose of his essay."

November 23, 2022

Caleb Petitt and Daniel Klein for AdamSmithWorks

290 vs 0. That's the tally between the mentions of "sympathy" in Adam Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments vs his Wealth of Nations. Caleb Petitt and Daniel Klein keep count on this and much more.

"The dramatic difference in the language used by Smith in his two books does not reflect a change in Smith over time...The language shift is all part of a larger, coherent, unified attempt to improve people’s judgments."

October 26, 2022

Kacey Reeves West for AdamSmithWorks

Kacey Reeves West examines Smith on entrepreneurs and prudent entrepreneurship from princes to politicians to businesswomen.

"Smith cautions that these life-changing opportunities might tempt individuals to abandon virtue and embrace vice. For that reason, Smith calls on individuals to tackle life-changing opportunities with prudence and justice lest they fall prey to disordered ambition."

September 28, 2022

Marcus Shera for AdamSmithWorks

Shera explores the connection between thinking and conduct in William James and Adam Smith's philosophical works.

"Meaningful beliefs come with practical habits, and the value of those habits is a test of truth."

August 24, 2022

Jacob Hall for AdamSmithWorks

Hall shows that Adam Smith and David Hume's ideas concerning the Common Law and English Liberty are more closely related that some scholars believe.

"The style of Hume’s History and Smith’s LJ differ, or course. Smith lectured to students whereas Hume wrote for mass consumption. But their estimation of the importance of the common law for the development of English liberty is equal."

June 27, 2022

Erik W. Matson for AdamSmithWorks

Matson explains Adam Smith's moral authorizations of the pursuit of honest income and the presumption of liberty.

"One of the patron saints of the Great Enrichment, Smith teaches how we do our part in serving the good of the whole; how in focusing diligently on the good of our part we serve that of the whole; and how freedom fortifies the remarkable correspondence between those two goods."

June 22, 2022

Daniel B. Klein for AdamSmithWorks


Klein focuses on the crucial concepts of jural theory and jurisprudence and how these relate to Deirdre McCloskey's work on the Great Enrichment.
 
"Whatever the reasons for its neglect, the jural theory of Grotius and others clarified and still clarifies the liberty that is at the center of what Smith called 'the liberal plan.' "

May 25, 2022

Daniel B. Klein and Erik W. Matson for AdamSmithWorks

In the second essay in our series, Klein and Matson discuss Smith and Hume's language and ideas about "nature" and "convention."

"We can define natural convention as a social practice whose concrete form in time and place allows for various expressions (and is therefore conventional), but whose generalized form is necessary (and hence natural) to social development beyond the primeval state."
 
April 27, 2022