Smith's View Research Articles

Adam Smith' conception of the social relations of production

This article as a sequel to Song (1995), ‘Adam Smith as an early pioneer of institutional individualism’, aims to depict what Smith's conception of social relations of production looks like, and draws a tentative conclusion that when grasped in the whole context of Smith's system of social thought, it is neither neoclassical nor Marxian orthodoxy, but can be better appreciated as suggesting an independent - Smithian - perspective. Then, an exploratory claim is submitted to show that Smith's view of class and power relations is found to bear striking affinities with that of Max Weber, the great German sociologist.

Regarding Others

Regarding Others Stewart Justman (bio) Carefully crafted, lucid, humane, Tzvetan Todorov’s paper argues that as a condition of our being we seek the recognition of others. Like the infant who craves the gaze of the mother, we stand in need of affirmation. Even “masters” do. To be is to lack. In taking grown men back to infancy (the only state of nature we know of) and ascribing to them something like the dependence on the regard of others Rousseau assigns women, Todorov turns the tables on the masculine bias of the Western tradition. The need of recognition does not come down to the desire for glory, although neither does it reduce to vanity, that petty craving for admiration inveterately associated with women. According to Todorov, the discovery of the genuinely social nature of humanity was made in the eighteenth century, most notably by Rousseau and Adam Smith. In Smith’s view, even in commercial society people are powerfully swayed by factors like sympathy, custom, and habit, and indeed the desire for esteem, not just by narrowly economic calculations. Economic activity itself is traced by Smith to “the propensity to truck, barter, and exchange one thing for another,” and that inclination in turn, to “the faculties of speech and reason.” 1 Even in our economic transactions it seems we are social beings. Our very nature disposes us to look to others for what we lack. As Todorov claims, we are incomplete creatures. As a prime example of Smith’s estimation of the power of the social motive—as opposed to mere vanity—Todorov points to his statement: “From whence, then, arises that emulation which runs through all the different ranks of men, and what are the advantages which we propose by that great purpose of human life which we call bettering our condition? To be observed, to be attended to, to be taken notice of with sympathy, complacency, and approbation, are all the advantages which we can propose to derive from it.” Note, however, what Smith says next: “It is the vanity, not the ease, or the pleasure, which interests us. But vanity is always founded upon the belief of our being the object of attention and approbation.” 2 In citing Smith’s statement—up to the punch-line—as evidence of his belief that we are social and not just vain, Todorov may have missed the author’s point. In this case as in so many [End Page 83] others, Smith surveys the human scene with high irony, aware of the way big results spring from trifling motives and blind errors. Hence the mock-heroic tone of his observation: “Of such mighty importance does it appear to be, in the imaginations of men, to stand in that situation which sets them most in the view of general sympathy and attention. And thus, place [that is, eminence or precedence], that great object which divides the wives of aldermen, is the end of half the labours of human life” (TMS 57). “Great” and “mighty” act ironically in these passages, serving to diminish, not magnify. The author writes with a keen sense of the nothingness of our strivings, the vanity of human wishes. The economic competitor who sweats to win some kind of imagined glory; the baron who sells his patrimony for a diamond buckle; 3 the poor man’s son who enslaves himself to a dream of social prominence (TMS 181)—these are characteristic Smithian figures, busying themselves mightily about very little, seeking one end and compassing another. As much of an ironist as Swift or Pope or (given the differences cited by Todorov) Mandeville, Smith views our vanity with a kind of celestial smile. “Lord, what fools these mortals be.” But human vanity isn’t always a laughing matter to Smith, as he makes plain in the last edition of the Theory of Moral Sentiments. For the actor’s vanity plays on the spectator’s corruption: “The disposition to admire, and almost to worship, the rich and the powerful, and to despise, or, at least, to neglect persons of poor and mean condition, though necessary both to establish and to maintain the distinction of ranks and the order of society...

Structure, Sequence, and Subordination in American Political Culture: What's Traditions Got to Do with It?

Rogers Smith's American Political Science Review article, “Beyond Tocqueville, Myrdal, and Hartz: The Multiple Traditions of America,” poses challenging substantive and methodological questions for the study of American political development. Whether or not it intended to do so, the article has struck a chord in several programs of research. The following colloquy between Smith and me centers on Smith's reading of political culture in terms of “traditions.” In a spirit of advancing our common enterprise, I have sharpened rather than muted the differences between Smith's views and my own in order to bring them into relief in a short space.

SELF-COMMAND IN ADAM SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS

Building on an analysis of Adam Smith's enumeration of five classes of passions, we show that self-command in his Theory of Moral Sentiments (TMS) can be modeled as a game whose structure is identical to endogenous quality or reputation models. While acknowledging Smith's views on the evolutive nature of the general rules of morality (as well as the individual's understanding of them), we take the general rules as given. Within the game's framework we show how self-command can be attained in equilibrium solely due to the `internal reputation effect' arising from one's self-interested behavior. Our game-theoretic reinterpretation of TMS sheds new light on the acquisition of self-command and casts Smith as a sophisticated early theorist: he had already dealt with the issue of reputational enforcement, and wrestled with the same tension that has led to the eductive and evolutive approaches to non-cooperative game theory.

LYDGATE'S "LIFE OF OUR LADY": A TEXT IN TRANSITION

Lydgate's Life of Our Lady poses a number of difficult questions. What kind of work is it? Is it finished? When was it written? The poem notoriously challenges critical taxonomy. Its traditional title gives no accurate idea of its form: it is neither a `religious biography' nor a conventional saint's legend.2 Criticism is further hampered by uncertainty as to its state of completeness: Derek Pearsall assumes that it is an unfinished fragment of a 'life'; John Norton Smith, conversely, sees it as a complete work `intended for reading during the Christmas Cycle'.3 As for the date of the Life of Our Lady, Pearsall simply states that `It is impossible ... to date the poem accurately.'4 What I shall propose here is that in seeking answers to these questions one must take into account the nature of the text: a text in transition. Il . The judgements of modern critics tend to emphasize the virtues of Lydgate's style in the Life of Our Lady, his imagery, his emotional intensity, the richness and lavishness of his use of traditional motifs, while dismissing the poem's claim to narrative form, representing it rather as an amorphous 'mixture' or 'mosaic' of 'discontinuous' and 'scattered' material.' However, the real problem with narrative structure in Lydgate's poem is simply that different parts of it seem to have been constructed to two quite different designs: a continuous narrative on the one hand, and a series of independent readings on the other. George Keiser argues that of all the programmes of book and chapter division presented by the manuscripts of the Life of Our Lady, the six-book structure alone `probably was authorial'.6 If so, Lydgate planned the very noticeable difference in size between the first three books (I: 889 lines; II: I669; III: i 8o6) and the last (IV: 406 lines; v: 700; VI: 462). Pearsall considers that this disproportion argues `some decline in the impetus of the work' after `the riches of the first three books'.7 There does indeed seem to be a substantial change of direction between Book III and Book Iv: the prayer to the Virgin at the end of the third book is offered `in full conclusion' (III. 804), as if to round off a completed work, and Lydgate's elaborate establishing of a temporal context at the start of the fourth book is full of references to things new (Iv.8, 14). It is true, too, that the last three books are all constructed on the same very simple pattern: each is devoted to one specific incident in the life of the Virgin according to the Gospels of Luke and Matthew (the circumcision of Christ, the visit of the Magi, and the Purification of the Virgin), and in each the narrative of the scriptural event is simply juxtaposed with the explanation of the significance of the liturgical feast in which it is commemorated.8 Nevertheless, by examining carefully the narrative structure of each book, it becomes clear that the really significant division is not between the long Books I-III and the short Books iv-vs, but between the different narrative methods in the first two and the last four books.' Critics have long recognized the logical patterning of the later books and have attempted to explain the structure and function of the Life of Our Lady as a whole in the light of this perceived plan. Pearsall observes: `Especially towards the end, we can see how the material is promised and delivered for the appropriate liturgical feast', and, extending this perception backwards, he claims: `The whole structure of the poem reflects the course of the liturgical year', though Lydgate `only gets as far as the Purification'.'` In Norton Smith's view, the whole poem as it stands is `organized around the Christmas Cycle: its principal points of interest are the major feasts of the Cycle: Nativity, Circumcision, Epiphany, and Purification'. This is an attractive interpretation: the poem does not come to an accidental end because for some reason Lydgate was unable to proceed with it but, in Norton Smith's words, moves from `the dark spiritless inertia of Advent' in the Prologue to `the light and spiritual illumination of Candlemas'. …

Helping, doing, and the grammar of complicity

In law a constant stream of actual cases, more novel and more tortuous than mere imagination could contrive, are brought up for decision-that is, formulae for docketing them must somehow be found. Hence it is necessary first to be careful with, but also to be brutal with, to torture, to fake and to override ordinary language ....(1) Introduction This essay is about grammatical(2) and, to a lesser extent, moral aspects of law of complicity, which treats someone who helps someone else commit a crime as though helper himself committed crime. The point I hope to make here is similar to one Professor Phillip Johnson made about what he called the unnecessary crime of conspiracy.(3) In its current mode, complicity too is unnecessary, but for better reasons, I think, than Professor Johnson came up with for saying same about conspiracy. Johnson suggested eliminating crime of conspiracy by calling conspiracies attempts,(4) a change of description that is more than semantic. Attempting entails trying. Conspiracies may demonstrate their members' antisocial character, but by agreeing to kill someone tomorrow or next month parties have no more attempted or tried to commit murder than those who engage to marry attempt to marry, or those who register for a Bar Exam prep-course attempt to take Bar Exam. Professor Johnson forces his redescription of conspiracy into Model Penal Code's definition of attempt which, even without his help, already makes a paranoid fantasy out of what it means to attempt a crime. Despite what Code says, searching for a victim,(5) reconnoitering,(6) or possessing materials to be used in crime(7) are not part of grammar of trying to commit a crime; equally ungrammatical is Professor Johnson's claim that agreeing to commit a crime is trying to commit a crime. I am not concerned here with conspiracy, but with complicity. My thesis is that in its current mode, where someone encourages someone else to commit a crime, complicity is unnecessary because it is redundant of laws that criminalize solicitation (a request that someone else commit a crime)(8) or conspiracy (where requested party agrees).(9) Where complicity is not redundant, that is, where criminal idea does not originate with helper, or where there is no agreement to commit a crime, I would redescribe complicity as an inchoate or risk-based, as opposed to consequence- or harm-based, mode of criminality. This is because essence of complicity is not causal as to principal or perpetrator's offense, but relational as to principal offender, or simply expressive of helper's antisocial or dangerous character.(10) A decade ago, Paul Robinson,(11) Sanford Kadish,(12) and Joshua Dressler(13) each wrote excellent pieces on complicity, which before then had received little scholarly attention in America. In 1991, Oxford University Press published Keith Smith's impressive one-volume treatise, which presents Smith's views alongside centuries of English thought on topic.(14) None of these four principal works or work examined therein, including that of criminal-law gurus George Fletcher and Glanville Williams, sees complicity as a form of inchoate liability. In last quarter-century, three short articles recommending such an approach have appeared in English law journals: two by Richard Buxton and one by J.R. Spencer, both of whom focus more on operation than on meaning of complicity.(15) The same can be said of English Law Commission, whose 150-page consultation paper compresses into a few short paragraphs essence and logic of complicity.(16) The Model Penal Code, too, hints at inchoate nature of complicity, but Code's approach fails both grammatically (someone who tries but fails to help robbery has perpetrated robbery),(17) and thematically. By placing complicity provisions remote from inchoate provisions, and by sentencing complicit actors like perpetrators, not like inchoate offenders, Code's drafters demonstrate that they saw complicity as only nominally inchoate or risk-based. …

Final Causes in Adam Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments

Final Causes in Adam Smith's TheoryofMoral Sentiments RICHARD A. KLEER 1. INTRODUCTION From its inception and for a long time thereafter, Adam Smith's Theory of Moral Sentimentswas deemed to turn upon the concept of a benevolent divine author of nature. This view was perhaps put most succinctly by Wilhelm Hasbach, who claimed that the point of departure for all of Smith's theoretical investigations was "the tenet of a God whose most outstanding properties were the greatest possible wisdom and beneficence. His highest purpose in the creation of the world was human happiness. For the realization of his final purpose, he made use of mechanics. The Creator is to be compared to a watchmaker, who has so artfully assembled the gears of the world that it produces order, harmony, beauty and happiness without the gears knowing or willing this outcome."' However, in recent decades, the tendency has been to argue that teleological arguments, while present in The Theory of Moral Sentiments, may be excised without impairing the cogency of his analysis. I mention only those who have made that book itself the focus of study (ignoring the larger body of scholars who examined it merely as a stepping stone to the exegesis of The Wealth ofNations). Alec Macfie claimed that, after reading The TheoryofMoral Sentiments"with the sole and explicit aim of noting all the differing passages in which Nature, the Deity, or the invisible hand.., occur," he found it "quite remarkable how little relation they have with the main sympathy-spectator argument. The ' Hasbach, Untersuchungen iiber Adam Smith und die Entwicklung der politischen Okonomie (Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot, 1891), 7: "Ihren Ausgangspunkt bildet die Lehre yon Gott, dessen am meisten hervortretende Eigenschaften gr6gte Weisheit und Giite sind. Sein h6chster Zweck bei der Erschaffung der Welt war die menschliche Glfickseligkeit. Zur Verwiridichung seiner Endzwecke bedient er sich des Mechanisrnus. Der Sch6pfer ist einern Uhrmacher zu vergleichen, welcher die R~ider der Welt so kunstvoil zusammengesetzt hat, dab sie Ordnung, Harmonie, Sch6nheit, Gliickseligkeit auswirken, ohne dab die P-~der es wissen oder wollen." [275] 276 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 33:2 APRIL ~995 latter indeed is self-sufficient on the level of moral philosophy. TM The justification for this assertion was not made explicit but can be gleaned from his account of Smith's moral theory. He sought to overturn the opinion which had prevailed among earlier commentators, that in Smith's view moral distinctions are the result of sympathy or instinct alone.S He asserted, rather, that Smith actually assigns a large role in his theory to human rationality. Specifically , ethical distinctions are formed only through rational reflection upon the feelings experienced by individuals in their social interaction. Moreover, these distinctions evolve into a form suitable to social existence only over a long period of time, in which the process of reflection becomes ever more educated as past experience of feelings is accumulated.4 The key role assigned to human rationality, in Macfie's view, gives Smith's moral theory an "inductive" quality and makes its teleological component dispensable. "In its inductive and descriptive arguments, The Theory of Moral Sentiments did give us a practical principle of moral discrimination, historically and socially as well as individually developed, and backed by the growing traditions of social experience .... It is in this system of inductive theory, not in the invisible hand, that his most valuable and original contribution was made."5 Other scholars have supported a similar conclusion. Hans Medick asserted that even if one conceives the "invisible hand" reference in The Theory of Moral Sentiments as "evidence for the preponderance of an optimistic deism in Smith's basic normative assumptions," one must nevertheless grant that such a concept has "no direct connection with Smith's empirically-founded statements concerning the social and economic actions of mankind." Rather, he claimed, "it symbolizes.., the Smithian view of society as an objective causal nexus and a productive historical force sui generis. This force, on the one hand, generates the artificial needs of mankind and, on the other hand, at once is kept in motion by the dynamic of these needs and directs that dynamic to goals which are not intended by...

Adam Smith's Advisory Style as Illustrated by his Trade Policy Prescriptions

The purpose of this paper is to recover Adam Smith's conception of the appropriate rules of argumentation for the political economist in public policy discussion. Our interest will be in Smith's attempt to model the advisory style which he thought appropriate for an economist writing on public policy issues, advising the legislature and debating constitutional problems. Inferences will be drawn from the scope and tone of Smith's work on some selected issues of economic policy reform discussed in The Wealth of Nations (hereafter WN). Extensive reference will be made to Smith's admission of the vital role of rhetoric in human affairs in his Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres, and to Smith's view of the legislator's perspective on policy as enunciated in the Theory of Moral Sentiments.

Profits, priests, and princes: Adam Smith's emancipation of economics from politics and religion

In launching modern economics, Adam Smith paved the way for laissez-faire capitalism, Marxism, and contemporary social science. This book scrutinizes Smith's disparagement of politics and religion to illuminate the subtlety of his rhetoric, the depth of his thought, and the ultimate shortcomings of his project. The author analyzes Smith's ideas on government, justice, human psychology, and international relations, stressing Smith's efforts to elevate wealth at the expense of citizenship and to replace normative political philosophy with historical theorizing and empirical modeling that emphasize economic causes. The book also provides the most comprehensive interpretation available of Smith's views on religion, examining the discrepancies between The Wealth of Nations and The Theory of Moral Sentiments. The concluding chapter appraises the demise of communism in light of the Marxian emancipation of economics from politics and religion.

John Locke and the epistemological foundations of Adam Smith's rhetoric

John Locke's experiential‐based philosophy of knowledge provided the foundation for later epistemological‐psychological rhetorics associated with eighteenth‐century British rhetorical theory. Adam Smith's conception of rhetoric is one of the earliest contributions to eighteenth‐century rhetorical theory. This essay examines the epistemological assumptions guiding Smith's view of rhetoric and argues that Smith's philosophical commitments are grounded in the scientific, empiricist, and psychological tradition advocated by Locke. The theoretical relationship linking Locke with Smith helps illuminate the communicative characteristics of Smith's rhetoric as well as the evolution of modern rhetorical theory.

GERSHOM CARMICHAEL ON ‘DEMAND’ AND ‘DIFFICULTY OF ACQUIRING’: SOME EVIDENCE FROM THE FIRST EDITION OF CARMICHAEL'S COMMENTARY TO PUFENDORF'S DE OFFICIO

This paper considers G. Carmichael's use of the term demand and its importance to the translation of a passage from his commentary to S. Pufendorf's De Officio relevant to the development of price analysis. A new translation of this passage allows us to highlight the relationships between the scheme of price determination put forward by Carmichael and those put forward by other authors. The discussion touchs also upon A. Smith's views on the role of cost and demand and shows that his analysis of price is developed along lines already contained in Carmichael's and F. Hutcheson's works and in older traditions. Copyright 1993 by Scottish Economic Society.

Adam Smith and his legacy for modern capitalism

This is a study of the thought of the 18th-century philosopher Adam Smith, best known for the political economic theory expounded in his book The Wealth of Nations. Smith is widely believed to have advocated the view that all human behaviour is motivated by selfish concerns and that the balance of self-interests in a competitive market will produce eoconomic good for the society as a whole. This book argues that Smith's views were misconstrued. In support of this argument, the author martials evidence not only from The Wealth of Nations, but also from Smith's comparatively neglected other works, especially his Theory of Moral Sentiments and Lectures on Jurisprudence, linking Smith's discussion of motivation with his analysis of political economy, social order, division of labour and jurisprudence.

Ralph Smith's Concept of Aesthetic Experience and Its Curriculum Implications

Based on the aesthetic philosophies of Monroe Beardsley and others, Smith has shaped view of art education based on the excellence of aesthetic experience afforded by exemplary works of art. Although aesthetic experience is valuable, it may not provide grounds to justify the teaching of art. Four difficulties are noted: (a) determining whether students are having quality aesthetic experiences, (b) attention to exemplary works limits opportunities to judge artworks independently, (c) tendency to exclude problematic works, and (d) tendency to limit study to modern or premodern works. In 1986, Ralph Smith's essay Excellence in Art Education was first published by the National Art Education Association, with revised version appearing the following year. Smith's essay dealt with the role of the arts in general education at time when the schools were being criticized for their seeming lack of intellectual rigor. Noting the spate of publications, includingA Nation at Risk (National Commission on Excellence in Education, 1983) which documented steady decline in the quality of American education over the last twenty years, Smith felt it was both timely and appropriate for the arts to be included in this discourse. The arts are certainly areas of human endeavor where the excellence of human achievement has been exemplified. Yet, overall, these reports paid scant attention to the arts. In Smith's words the reports were a mixed bag: acknowledging the importance of the arts, yet placing greater stress on the teaching of mathematics, science, and computer programming as areas where the curriculum needed remediation. The arts were grouped with other important curriculum matters. In Smith's view this was lip-service. To remedy this oversight, he argued for conception of excellence in the arts grounded in the notion of the excellence of aesthetic experience as fundamental value. In the last twenty-five years, Smith has built an elaborate and persuasive philosophical edifice of his views on the arts in which his idea of aesthetic experience is prominently featured. At issue here is whether his concept of aesthetic experience constitutes sufficient reason to warrant the teaching of art in the schools.

Objectivity, Subjectivity and Beyond: an Exchange With W. C. Smith

Part of the problem in interpreting Smith within the framework of the subject-object polarity is that the term objective is used in various senses which are not always carefully discriminated. Thus objective knowledge may be, in the first place, knowledge of objects construed as external facts or things. As such, Smith argues, it is an inappropriate category for the knowledge of persons who are not things but conscious agents who assign meaning to facts. In this sense, Smith's argument seems to be almost trivial—but only because his own contribution to the study of religion has made it commonplace. Respecting this first sense of objectivity as knowledge of external objects arrived at by an epistemologica! approach that looks upon them as neutral, impersonal things, I believe Smith's critique is in the main incontestable. As early as 1968 in What is Comparative Religion Comparing?2 I was a convert to Smith's view that the proper study of humankind's religiousness is the meanings ascribed to religious facts, meanings that are at the same time the meanings ascribed to gods, human, history, and nature. I feel sometimes that in Towards a World Theology (hereafter, TWT) Smith is still fighting a battle which he long ago won, namely, the

Sagebrush Soldier: Private William Earl Smith's View of the Sioux War of 1876

Journal Article Sagebrush Soldier: Private William Earl Smith's View of the Sioux War of 1876 Get access Sagebrush Soldier: Private William Earl Smith's View of the Sioux War of 1876. By Smith Sherry L.. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1989. xviii + 158 pp. Illustrations, maps, notes, bibliography, index. $18.95.) Robert E. Smith Robert E. Smith Missouri Southern State College Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Western Historical Quarterly, Volume 22, Issue 1, February 1991, Page 100, https://doi.org/10.2307/968754 Published: 01 February 1991

Sagebrush Soldier: Private William Earl Smith's View of the Sioux War of 1876

Sagebrush Soldier: Private William Earl Smith's View of the Sioux War of 1876

Sagebrush Soldier: Private William Earl Smith's View of the Sioux War of 1876

Sagebrush Soldier: Private William Earl Smith's View of the Sioux War of 1876

Beyond Self-Interest and Altruism: A Reconstruction of Adam Smith's Theory of Human Conduct

I attempt a reconstruction of Adam Smith's view of human nature as explicated in The Theory of Moral Sentiments (TMS). Smith's view of human conduct is neither functionalist nor reductionist, but interactionist. The moral autonomy of the individual, conscience, is neither made a function of public approval nor reduced to self-contained impulses of altruism and egoism. Smith does not see human conduct as a blend of independently defined impulses. Rather, conduct is unified, by the underpinning sentiment of sympathy.

Neo-Mercantilism and The Wealth of Nations: British Commercial Policy after the American Revolution

Few works of economic thought have such a close association with the intellectual and economic history of their period as Adam Smith's An inquiry into the nature and causes of the wealth of nations. Three recent careful assessments of the ‘influence’ of Smith's work, however, have found little direct evidence for its positive significance for economic policy in the 1780s and 1790s. Parliamentary debate seldom referred to the Wealth of nations, and then usually negatively unless by Smith's friends, or ‘radicals and Foxite whigs’. John Locke, David Hume, Charles Davenant, Sir Josiah Child, William Petty, Josiah Tucker and Arthur Young were all cited more frequently. A wide range of parliamentary leaders read Smith carefully, and several ministers knew him well and sought his advice, but with the exception of Shelburne they appear to have applied Smith's thought eclectically. Salim Rashid has noted that in 1776 there were already influential economic authorities, notably Arthur Young and Josiah Tucker, who advocated freer markets. Conversely, for over a decade after the publication of the Wealth of nations, articles on economic matters in the major periodical reviews made scanty reference to Smith's work, while the protectionist views of Sir James Steuart, whom Smith had ignored, were often authoritative. Smith's views became respectable among the political after negotiation of the Anglo-French commercial treaty of 1786, but it was this liberal economic policy which gave the wealth of nations currency, not the reverse.

Sagebrush soldier: Private William Earl Smith's view of the Sioux War of 1876

Sagebrush soldier: Private William Earl Smith's view of the Sioux War of 1876