A obra de Adam Smith é expressão de uma nova concepção de progresso elaborada principalmente durante a segunda metade do século XVIII. O desenvolvimento da sociedade passa a ser compreendido enquanto resultado da interação entre os indivíduos e expressão das faculdades e disposições humanas. Examinamos como essa nova perspectiva aparece nos estudos de Smith sobre as mais diversas áreas, como produção de riquezas, linguagem e ciência, mostrando como a relação entre essas esferas da sociedade é de interdependência dentro de um sistema. Ao analisar como Smith aborda diferentes temas, destacamos um aspecto comum importante entre os diferentes textos do autor: a noção de ordem. A procura desta aparece enquanto estímulo para as transformações da sociedade. Ela também conforma o método de investigação utilizado por Smith: a criação de sistemas explicativos com base nas regularidades entre as mais diferentes sociedades. Esse modelo possibilita, por exemplo, a formulação da teoria de desenvolvimento baseada em quatro estágios. Também acaba por conformar uma nova forma de se produzir história: em vez de narrar os acontecimentos de certos grupos particulares, procuram-se as regularidades entre estes para construir a história da espécie. Em suma, esta dissertação interpreta como as ideias de progresso e ordem na obra de Adam Smith estão fortemente interconectadas. / The work of Adam Smith is an expression of a new conception of progress elaborated mainly during the second half of the eighteenth century. Society\'s development comes to be understood as an effect of the interaction between individuals and of the expression of human faculties and dispositions. We examine how this new perspective appears in Smith\'s studies on different topics, such as the production of wealth, language and science, showing how the relationship between those spheres of society is characterized by an interdependence within a system. In analyzing how Smith addresses distinctive themes, we highlight an important common aspect among the author\'s different texts: the notion of order. The demand for it appears as a stimulus for the transformations of society. It also corresponds to the method of investigation used by Smith: the creation of explanatory systems based on the regularities among the most different societies. This model enables, for example, the formulation of the four-stage theory of development. It also ends up in a new way of producing history: instead of narrating the events of particular groups, one searches for the regularities between them to construct the history of the species. In short, this dissertation interprets how the ideas of progress and order in Adam Smith\'s work are strongly interconnected.

In The Sources of Normativity, Christine Korsgaard argues that in order to avoid the threat of moral skepticism, our moral theories must show how the claims they make about the nature of our actions obligate us to act morally. A theory that can justify the normativity of morality in this way answers what Korsgaard calls “the normative question.” Although Korsgaard claims that only Kantian theories of morality, such as her own, can answer the normative question, I argue that Adam Smith’s sentimentalist moral theory, as presented in The Theory of Moral Sentiments, can answer the normative question as well. As a result, it is possible to respond to the moral skeptic in the way Korsgaard outlines without accepting some of the theoretical drawbacks of Korsgaard’s own moral theory.

In A Treatise of Human Nature, David Hume argues that moral judgments are the product of sentiment. The mechanism of sympathy allows individuals to enter into a common point of view in order to produce judgments that are truly moral, and not merely self-interested. Hume argues that the common point of view is the standard that moral judgments are subjected to. I argue that the common point of view is an inadequate standard for distinguishing between proper and improper moral judgments. The common point of view is inadequate because it is subjective and unreflective. In The Theory of Moral Sentiments, Adam Smith offers an account of moral judgment that has an adequate standard for distinguishing between proper and improper moral judgments. Smith avoids the problems with Hume’s account due to his distinction between partial and impartial spectators and the role that self-command plays in his theory of moral judgment.

In this thesis I argue literary readership allows us to gain imagined experiences necessary to sympathize with people whose experiences are different from our own. I begin with a discussion of Adam Smith’s conception of sympathy and moral education. Although sympathy is a process we take part in naturally as members of a society, we can only be skilled spectators if we practice taking the position of the impartial spectator and critically reflect on our judgments. As I will argue in this thesis, literature provides a way for us to practice spectatorship without the consequences that come along with making mistakes when judging real people. Literature also provides a way to build up a stock of experiences, which can be applied together with our personal life histories to create the most informed judgments possible.

Abstract Adam Smith is one of the mostly widely read eighteenth-century thinkers, enjoying a scholar reputation among economist, social scientists, political theorists, as well as philosophers. It is frequently believed that the great eighteenth-century Scottish moral philosophy Adam Smith was an extreme dogmatic defender of laissez-faire. It seems clear that Adam Smith has undergone an ideologically based reinterpretation. Smith¡¦s ¡¨invisible hand¡¨ , the most famous metaphor in economics and social science, has been identical with the automatic equilibrating mechanism of the competitive market. Free-market exchanges can unintentionally produce economic well-being, but only under certain specific conditions. Smith¡¦s thesis is that the invisible hand works because, and only when, people operate with restrains self-interest in cooperation with others under the precepts of justice. I found that public spirit, or civic virtue was, for Smith, a vitally important aspect of political economy. I noted that for Smith all constitutions must be judged by the happiness of the people who live under them. Thus, government plays the read role in securing the common good in society.

This dissertation examines the aesthetics of Adam Smith. It argues that, despite appearances to the contrary, Smith not only articulated ideas on the subject and was engaged in the aesthetic debates of his time, but that he in many ways innovates on and challenges received opinion—he thus differs significantly from some of his better known contemporaries, including Edmund Burke and David Hume. For this reason, he is not merely a major thinker who happened to dabble in aesthetics; on the contrary, he considered the subject, which appears in nearly all his works, important, and often interrogates its issues in a more studied way. My project thus makes a case for Smith as a significant thinker in the history of aesthetics, one who merits renewed attention. This study does so by investigating the major aesthetic issues of the day, which Smith in fact discusses. It begins by examining Smith’s remarks on taste—the aesthetic issue of the century—which occur largely in Theory of Moral Sentiments. Though seemingly tangential, his discussion of taste is significant as it argues against the predominant eighteenth-century current that maintained the existence of a standard. He also challenges theorists such as Hume who made aesthetic experience classless and, especially via sympathy, disinterested. The study next investigates Smith’s aesthetic normativity and what are for him valid aesthetic judgments, which can be reconciled with his remarks problematizing taste. Here too, Smith appears to argue against the predominant impulse that sought to ground valid aesthetic experience in the immediate; in doing so, Smith demystifies and democratizes aesthetic experience. Finally, the dissertation investigates tragedy, by far the literary genre that most interested Smith, and which also drew attention from better known theorists. The paradox of tragedy—why readers and spectators are attracted to painful representations—was an aesthetic issue that vexed many thinkers of the century, and although Smith appears to ignore the issue, we have in his moral theory a solution to the paradox, one that is unique and more satisfying than those of his contemporaries. The project concludes by examining Smith’s relation to neoclassical dramatic theory. Though superficially appearing complacent in uncritically adopting neoclassical doctrine, Smith, even here, is being original.

The thesis argues that two ways in which we can consider empathy’s role in ethics are fundamentally flawed because they fail to take into account the myriad ways in which empathy can be affected and influenced by our motivations. I apply what I call ‘the motivation objection’ to these two views. This has three aspects: (1) reliability: because empathy can be affected and influenced by our motivations, empathizing does not always lead to the right results; (2) function: because it can be affected and influenced by our motivations, empathy is not sufficient for various functions; (3) circularity: because it can be affected and influenced by our motivations, empathy cannot be used to define or explain certain aspects of morality in a non-circular way. The two ways of considering empathy’s role in ethics are what I call constitutive views, according to which empathy in some way constitutes, or is the foundation for, morality, and instrumental views, according to which empathy is of instrumental value in morality. I apply the motivation objection to three constitutive views, two historical and one contemporary, each of which is a sentimentalist theory of morality with empathy (or sympathy, in the case of the historical theories) at its heart. These are the sentimentalist moral theories of David Hume, Adam Smith and Michael Slote. I then apply the motivation objection to instrumental views of empathy’s role in ethics, before defending one particular instrumental view, according to which empathy can play a positive role in morality when integrated with virtue, and the virtue of compassion in particular.

This dissertation examines the aesthetics of Adam Smith. It argues that, despite appearances to the contrary, Smith not only articulated ideas on the subject and was engaged in the aesthetic debates of his time, but that he in many ways innovates on and challenges received opinion—he thus differs significantly from some of his better known contemporaries, including Edmund Burke and David Hume. For this reason, he is not merely a major thinker who happened to dabble in aesthetics; on the contrary, he considered the subject, which appears in nearly all his works, important, and often interrogates its issues in a more studied way. My project thus makes a case for Smith as a significant thinker in the history of aesthetics, one who merits renewed attention. This study does so by investigating the major aesthetic issues of the day, which Smith in fact discusses. It begins by examining Smith’s remarks on taste—the aesthetic issue of the century—which occur largely in Theory of Moral Sentiments. Though seemingly tangential, his discussion of taste is significant as it argues against the predominant eighteenth-century current that maintained the existence of a standard. He also challenges theorists such as Hume who made aesthetic experience classless and, especially via sympathy, disinterested. The study next investigates Smith’s aesthetic normativity and what are for him valid aesthetic judgments, which can be reconciled with his remarks problematizing taste. Here too, Smith appears to argue against the predominant impulse that sought to ground valid aesthetic experience in the immediate; in doing so, Smith demystifies and democratizes aesthetic experience. Finally, the dissertation investigates tragedy, by far the literary genre that most interested Smith, and which also drew attention from better known theorists. The paradox of tragedy—why readers and spectators are attracted to painful representations—was an aesthetic issue that vexed many thinkers of the century, and although Smith appears to ignore the issue, we have in his moral theory a solution to the paradox, one that is unique and more satisfying than those of his contemporaries. The project concludes by examining Smith’s relation to neoclassical dramatic theory. Though superficially appearing complacent in uncritically adopting neoclassical doctrine, Smith, even here, is being original.

This study compares and contrasts the writings of Edmund Burke and Adam Smith, to determine whether they are contradictory, compatible, or complementary. Burke can be regarded as the founder of modern conservatism, and Smith is an early and powerful advocate of market-orientated liberalism. Today, their ideas have been blended into a system of “liberal conservatism” that serves as the unofficial political ideology of most right-of centre parties throughout the English-speaking world. However, it is not so immediately apparent that Smith and Burke can be reconciled with each other. In the course of this study, Burke and Smith’s ideas are considered at various levels of abstraction. They share a nuanced view of human beings as complex, social, sympathetic and self-interested. They both adhere to an empiricist epistemology that is distrustful of deductive rationality, especially when applied to complex human societies. In order to cope with this complexity, Burke and Smith alike counsel humility and pragmatism, and emphasise the importance of contingency. Furthermore, they suggest that policymakers rely on mechanisms that reveal information held by large numbers of individuals: tradition in the case of Burke, and the market mechanism in the case of Smith. Burke is a staunch opponent of arbitrary power, and an advocate of colonial liberty. However, he defends the prescriptive powers of the state, and argues that liberty should be tempered by self-restraint. Smith advocates a “system of natural liberty” in economic affairs, but acknowledges that such a system takes place within the framework of a coercive state. In terms of policy, Burke and Smith share similar views on external free trade and laissez-faire within the domestic economy, but there are important stylistic and substantive differences in their views on the relief of the poor. Ultimately, this study argues that Burke and Smith’s complementary policymaking framework, rather than their actual views on policy, is the true point of convergence between them. / Dissertation (MA)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Political Sciences / unrestricted

A presente tese trata da teoria da justiça de Adam Smith, especialmente das operações de linguagem realizadas por ela no conceito de justiça distributiva, contribuindo para o processo histórico de deslizamento deste conceito, a resultar na inexigibilidade jurídica dos temas distributivos e sua confusão com o conceito de caridade. Para isso, valemo-nos da metodologia proposta por Quentin Skinner e J.G.A. Pocock, de acordo com a qual é necessária a contextualização do texto, para se identificarem as linguagens da teoria política com as quais o autor teve que dialogar. Assim, a tese é divida em duas partes. Na primeira, buscando se tal contextualização, foram estudados autores que antecederam ou conviveram com Adam Smith, para se identificarem os problemas filosóficos por ele enfrentados e a maneira como buscaram resolvê-los. No primeiro capítulo foram vistas as instituições tradicionais escocesas, especialmente a jurisprudênciade Lord Stair (1619-1695). No seguinte, examinou-se o movimento de transição dos filósofos escoceses, buscando reformular tais instituições, a fim de adaptá-las à sociedade comercial inglesa, tendo em vista o Ato de União de 1707. Assim, trata-se da teoria da justiça de Gershom Carmichael (1672-1729), Francis Hutcheson (1694-1746) e Lord Kames (1696-1782). Desta primeira parte, notou-se que, na transição filosófica moral escocesa, foi dedicada especial atenção à concepção de virtude. Na segunda parte, no terceiro capítulo se fez uma contextualização histórica e notou-se que o conceito de virtude desempenhou um papel fundamental nos debates políticos ingleses dos séculos. XVII e XVIII. No quarto, tratou-se do papel da imaginação na teoria do conhecimento de Smith, falando-se sobre a imaginação simpatética (da filosofia moral), mas especialmente da imaginação teorética (das ciências naturais). Constatando-se a pretensão de Smith em aplicar o método da ciência especulativa a todas as áreas do conhecimento, conclui-se por sua necessidade de naturalizar as instituições sociais, a fim de que houvesse um objeto a ser espelhado (speculum) pelas ciências especulativas. Assim, no quinto, se viu como Smith procurou naturalizar a instituição social da linguagem. No sexto, como, através de sua história conjectural, buscou naturalizar a própria sociedade. No sétimo, como, apropriando-se de diversas tradições filosóficas, e operando deslizes em seus conceitos de virtude, Smith naturaliza sua concepção geral de virtude, decorrente da naturalização de suas quatro virtudes particulares (prudência, benevolência, justiça e autodomínio), fazendo com que ela não mais dependa de uma perspectiva de racionalidade prática. No oitavo, como a virtude particular da justiça foi restrita ao campo da justiça comutativa, que seria a única exigível, e como a justiça distributiva se tornou objeto da benevolência (caridade). No nono, como os temas distributivos foram relegados à política econômica. Ao final, concluiu-se que, com a naturalização da virtude e a restrição da exigibilidade da justiça ao campo comutativo, a possibilidade de distribuição deixou de ser matéria deontológica e passou a depender ontologicamente da eficiência produtiva, deixando a lógica distributiva a se referir a um critério racional deontológico de igualdade, passando sua causa a se submeter à lógica econômica de eficiência, e a maneira da distribuição, ao sentimentalismo moral da caridade. / The present thesis concerns Adam Smiths theory of justice, in particular the operations of language realized by it in the concept of distributive justice, contributing to the historical process of erosion of this concept and resulting in the judicial uncoerciveness of the distributive themes and their confusion with the concept of charity. For that, we make use of the methodology proposed by Quentin Skinner and J. G. A. Pocock, according to which the text must be contenxtualized, in order that the political theory language with which the author had to hold a dialogue with can be identified. In that manner, the thesis is split into two parts. In the first, aiming for such a contextualization, we study the authors that either preceded Adam Smith or were his contemporaries, so that the philosophical problems by him faced and the manners in which resolutions were attempted can be identified. In the first chapter the traditional Scottish institutions are seen, in particular the jurisprudence of Lord Stair (1619 -1695). In the following, we examined the movement of transition of the Scottish philosophers, which aimed to reformulate such institutions with the goal of adapting them to the commercial English society, in the light of the Union Act of 1707. Thus, the treatment is of the theories of justice of Gershom Carmichael (1672 -1729), Francis Hutcheson (1694 -1746) and Lord Kames (1696 -1782). From this first part, it was noted that in the transition of the Scottish moral philosophy special attention was given to the concept of virtue. In the second part, in the third chapter, after performing a historical contextualization, it is noted that the concept of virtue played a fundamental role in the English political debates of the XVII e XVIII centuries. In the fourth, the role of imagination in Smith\'s theory of knowledge is treated, discussing sympathetic imagination (of moral philosophy), but particularly the theoretical imagination (of the natural sciences). Having established Smith\'s intention in applying the speculative science method to all areas of knowledge, his necessity in naturalizing the social institutions in ascertained, in order that there is an object to be mirrored by (speculum) the speculative sciences. Hence, in the fifth, it is seen how Smith aimed to naturalize the social institution of language. In the sixth, how, through his conjectural history, he aimed to naturalize society itself. In the seventh, appropriating himself of various philosophical traditions and operating shifts in his concepts of virtue, Smith naturalizes his general conception of virtue, itself derived from the naturalization of his four particular virtues (prudence, benevolence, justice and self-command), so that it no longer depends on a practical rationality perspective. In the eighth, it is seen how the particular virtue of justice was restricted to the field of commutative justice, which would be the only claimable one, one, and how distributive justice became the object of benevolence (charity). In the ninth, we see how distributives themes were relegated to economic policy. Finally, it is concluded that with the naturalization of virtue and the restriction of the liability of justice to the commutative field, the possibility of distribution ceased to be a deontological matter and became ontologically dependent on productivec efficiency, leaving distributional logic to refer to a criterium of deontological equality, its cause submitted to economic\'s logic of efficiency, and the manner of distribution, to the moral moral sentimentalism of charity.