As modern economists, we use Adam Smith's "invisible hand" metaphor confident that we all know what it means in our discourse: it reflects our admiration for the elegant and smooth functioning of the market system as a coordinator of autonomous individual choices in an interdependent world. But in Adam Smith's moral philosophy, the invisible hand has a much broader responsibility: if individuals are to enjoy the fruits of a classical liberal society, the invisible hand must not only coordinate individuals' choices, it must shape the individuals into constructive social beings—ethical beings. I begin by presenting the philosophical basis for Smith's invisible hand, describing the sense in which the hand is invisible and whose hand it is. I then describe the story Smith tells of the invisible hand creating and maintaining a constructive classical liberal society and show how Smith's story evolved as his faith in the ability of the invisible hand to shape an appropriate ethical foundation waned. I conclude with some thoughts on the legacy of Adam Smith and of our predecessors in economic inquiry more generally.
This essay describes Smith's analysis of ethics in his Theory of Moral Sentiments: the interaction of our nature and our nurturing that makes common civic ethics possible and the dynamic interaction of individuals and extant societal constructions that can lead to ever more mature systems of civic ethics and thus toward those conditions necessary for a constructive, sustainable liberal system.
Adam Smith is the best known among economists for his book, The Wealth of Nations, often viewed as the keystone of modern economic thought. For many he has become associated with a quasi-libertarian laissez-faire philosophy. Others, often heterodox economists and social philosophers, on the contrary, focus on Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments, and explore his moral theory. There has been a long debate about the relationship or lack thereof between these, his two great works. This work treats these dimensions of Smith's work as elements in a seamless moral philosophical vision, demonstrating the integrated nature of these works and Smith's other writings. This book weaves Smith into a constructive critique of modern economic analysis (engaging along the way the work of Nobel Laureates Gary Becker, Amarty Sen, Douglass North, and James Buchanan) and builds bridges between that discourse and the other social sciences.
This article provides an explicit framework for evaluating the expected benefit to college-bound students of courses offered by Advanced Placement (AP) versus concurrent enrollment programs (CEP). District personnel can use it to assess the relative merits of these programs, given the characteristics of their students, in deciding which model to implement or maintain. Simulations reveal that CEP generally provides a higher expected benefit for districts where students who take the course attend private colleges or universities (including public institutions out of state) and perform on the AP exam around national norms. AP favors high schools where students taking the course either face inexpensive costs for study at institutions of higher education or perform exceptionally well on the AP exam. Information from a sample of 240 colleges and universities reveals that few explicitly reject AP or CEP for credit if the student meets a minimum criterion, although more information is provided for AP.
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