Adam Smith and the character of virtue
- Author/Creator:
- Hanley, Ryan Patrick, 1974- author
- Publication/Creation:
- Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2009
- Resource Type:
- Book
More Details
Additional/Related Title Information
- Full Title:
- Adam Smith and the character of virtue / Ryan Patrick Hanley
- Variant Titles:
- Adam Smith & the Character of Virtue
Subjects/Genre
- Genre:
- Electronic books
- Subjects:
- Smith, Adam,1723-1790
Virtue
Ethics, Modern--18th century
Description/Summary
- Table of Contents:
- The problem : commerce and corruption -- Smith's defense of commercial society -- What is corruption? : political and psychological perspectives -- Smith on corruption : from the citizen to the human being -- The solution : moral philosophy -- Liberal individualism and virtue ethics -- Social science vs. moral philosophy -- Types of moral philosophy : natural jurisprudence vs. ethics -- Types of ethics : utilitarianism, deontology, and virtue ethics -- Virtue ethics : modern, ancient, and Smithean -- Interlude : the what and the how of TMS VI -- The what : Sith's "practical system of morality" -- The how : rhetoric, audience, and the methods of practical ethics -- The how : the ascent of self-love in three stages -- Prudence or commercial virtue -- The challenge : from praise to prudence -- Educating the vain : fathers and sons -- Self-interest rightly understood -- The advantages and disadvantages of prudence -- Magnanimity or classical virtue -- The problems of prudence and the therapy of magnanimity -- Up from individualism : desert, praiseworthiness, conscience -- Modernity, antiquity, and magnanimity -- The dangers of magnanimity -- Beneficence or christian virtue -- Between care and caritas -- Benevolence and beneficence and the human telos -- The character and purposes of the wise and virtuous man -- Wisdom and virtue and Adam Smith's apology -- Epilogue: The "economy of greatness."
- Summary:
- Recent years have witnessed a renewed debate over the costs at which the benefits of free markets have been bought. This book revisits the moral and political philosophy of Adam Smith, capitalism's founding father, to recover his understanding of the morals of the market age. In so doing it illuminates a crucial albeit overlooked side of Smith's project: his diagnosis of the ethical ills of commercial societies and the remedy he advanced to cure them. Focusing on Smith's analysis of the psychological and social ills endemic to commercial society - anxiety and restlessness, inauthenticity and mediocrity, alienation and individualism - it argues that Smith sought to combat corruption by cultivating the virtues of prudence, magnanimity and beneficence. The result constitutes a new morality for modernity, at once a synthesis of commercial, classical and Christian virtues and a normative response to one of the most pressing political problems of Smith's day and ours.
- Language:
- English
- Physical Type/Description:
- 1 online resource (xvi, 224 pages) : digital, PDF file(s)
- General Note:
- Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 05 Oct 2015).
- Local Note:
- Available to current Emory faculty, students and staff.
Additional Identifiers
- Catalog ID (MMSID):
- 9937691249702486
- ISBN:
- 9780511581212
Tools
- Cite
- Export as RIS
-
Direct Link
Direct Link
Direct Link URL
- Staff View