Adam Smith and Virtue

Hanley, Ryan Patrick

doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199605064.013.0012

Cited by 5 publications

(7 citation statements)

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“…This rediscovery of the Aristotelian substructure within Smith's system of thought reinforces recent virtue ethical readings of Smith by Deirdre McCloskey (2006), Ryan Hanley (2009, 2013) and others. Oslington (2018) has argued it is a theologically grounded ethics, based on Smith's background, extensive use of natural theological language and Newton being Smith's methodological model 18…”

Section: How Adam Smith Can Strengthen Macintyre's Account Of Marketssupporting

confidence: 66%

“…These Aristotelian elements are hardly surprising as the education the young Smith received in early 18th century Scotland was thoroughly Aristotelian, supplemented with Protestant natural law theory which would in time displace Aristotle as the point of reference for Scottish educators (Ross, 2010). This rediscovery of the Aristotelian substructure within Smith's system of thought reinforces recent virtue ethical readings of Smith by Deirdre McCloskey (2006), Ryan Hanley (2009Hanley ( , 2013 and others. Oslington (2018) has argued it is a theologically grounded ethics, based on Smith's background, extensive use of natural theological language and Newton being Smith's methodological model.…”

Section: Aristotelian Elements In Smith Connect Smith To Macintyrementioning

confidence: 82%

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Alasdair MacIntyre and Adam Smith on markets, virtues and ends in a capitalist economy

Oslington

2023

Business Ethics Env & Resp

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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.

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Section: How Adam Smith Can Strengthen Macintyre's Account Of Marketssupporting

confidence: 66%

Section: Aristotelian Elements In Smith Connect Smith To Macintyrementioning

confidence: 82%

Alasdair MacIntyre and Adam Smith on markets, virtues and ends in a capitalist economy

Oslington

2023

Business Ethics Env & Resp

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“…Scholars have long appreciated that one of the most valuable and significant features of his ethics is its theory of judgment (see, e.g., Fleischacker 1999;Valihora 2001;Carrasco 2004). But Smith's interest in intellectual virtue hardly ends here, as has been noted (e.g., Schliesser 2005;Hanley 2013). For now what is of most significance is that Smith's concern with intellectual virtue is tied to his larger theory of happiness.…”

Section: Smith Virtue and Virtue Ethicsmentioning

confidence: 93%

“…Yet this is no longer the rule. The import of Smith's virtue theory within his larger project has been emphasized in several recent studies (e.g., Griswold 1999;Montes 2004;Hanley 2013), and one consequence of this is that while the view of Smith as defending "an act-centered juridical approach to morality" that strives for "clear-cut directives for moral conduct" has not entirely disappeared (Frede 2013, p. 140, cf. Schneewind 1990, it has, among specialists, largely given way to an explicit association of Smith with virtue ethics (e.g., Hanley 2006;McCloskey 2008;Hanley 2009), to the degree that one now finds references in specialist literature to "Adam Smith's own virtue ethics" (Wells and Graafland 2012, p. 320).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Is Smith a Real Virtue Ethicist?

Hanley¹

2015

Handbook of Virtue Ethics in Business and Management

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“…Recent scholarship has nonetheless emphasized the normative side of Smith's TMS. See especially Hanley (2009Hanley ( , 2013.…”

Section: An Impartial Spectator Serving Two Different Projectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A missing touch of Adam Smith in Amartya Sen’s account of public reasoning: the man within for the man without

Bréban

Gilardone

2020

Cambridge Journal of Economics

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Sen claims that his 2009 theory of justice is based in part upon Smith’s idea of the ‘impartial spectator’. His claim has received criticism: some authors have responded that his interpretation of Smith’s concept is unfaithful to the original; others, focussing on internal features of Sen’s analysis, critique his use of the Smithian impartial spectator, arguing that it is a weak point in his comparative theory of justice. In this paper, we address both sets of criticisms. While agreeing with commentators that Sen’s reading of Smith is somewhat unfaithful, we reiterate that his aim in The Idea of Justice is not to provide an exegesis of Smith but rather to build his own comparative theory of justice by ‘extending Adam Smith’s idea of the impartial spectator’ (IJ: 134) to his own project. After clarifying their distinct approaches to the concept of the impartial spectator, we draw upon our account of these differences to evaluate Sen’s own use of the concept. Despite significant divergences, we show that Sen’s version of the impartial spectator is not inconsistent with Smith’s analysis. Though it does not correspond to Smith’s concept, that is to what the Scottish philosopher sometimes calls the ‘man within’, it is reminiscent of another figure from Smith’s moral philosophy: the ‘man without’. Beyond this analogy, there are further connections between Smith’s imaginary figure of the ‘man within’ and Sen’s account of ‘common beliefs’—both notions are ways of representing our beliefs regarding what is moral or just. But whereas Smith’s moral philosophy offers an analysis of the process by which the ‘man without’ influences the ‘man within’, nothing of that kind is to be found in Sen’s conception of public reasoning. And it is here that Smith’s famous concept of ‘sympathy’ can supplement Sen’s theory, in a way that furnishes an answer to Shapiro’s (2011) criticism regarding the possibility of spontaneous change of beliefs towards greater impartiality.

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Adam Smith and Virtue

Cited by 5 publications

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Alasdair MacIntyre and Adam Smith on markets, virtues and ends in a capitalist economy

Alasdair MacIntyre and Adam Smith on markets, virtues and ends in a capitalist economy

Is Smith a Real Virtue Ethicist?

A missing touch of Adam Smith in Amartya Sen’s account of public reasoning: the man within for the man without

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