- [UNTITLED]
- Preface
- Abbreviations
- List of Contributors
- Introduction: Adam Smith: An Outline of Life, Times, and Legacy
- Adam Smith: A Biographer's Reflections
- Newtonianism and Adam Smith
- Adam Smith and Rousseau: Enlightenment and Counter-Enlightenment
- Adam Smith and Early-Modern Thought
- Adam Smith's Aesthetics
- Adam Smith As Critic
- Adam Smith: History and Poetics
- Adam Smith On Language and Rhetoric: The Ethics of Style, Character, and Propriety
- Adam Smith: The Sympathetic Process and The Origin and Function Of Conscience
- Adam Smith and The Limits of Sympathy
- Adam Smith and Virtue
- Adam Smith and Self-Interest
- Adam Smith on Labour and Capital
- Adam Smith on Value and Prices
- Adam Smith on Money, Banking, and the Price Level
- Commercial Relations: From Adam Smith to Field Experiments
- Adam Smith: Theorist of Corruption
- Adam Smith and the State: Language and Reform
- Adam Smith and the Law
- Adam Smith on Empire and International Relations
- Adam Smith on Civility and Civil Society
- Adam Smith on Religion
- Adam Smith on Equality
- Adam Smith on Women
- Adam Smith and Marx
- Adam Smith and the New Right
- Adam Smith: Methods, Morals, and Markets
- The Contemporary Relevance of Adam Smith
- Index Introductory Note
Abstract and Keywords
The concepts of self-interest and self-love feature prominently in both and . Various notions of self-preservation, self-interest, and self-love are distinguished, and it is shown how self-love functions less as a motive than as an orientation. Although self-love may corrupt moral perception, the impartial spectator serves as an antidote. Smith’s conception of self-interest in is a broad one and not inconsistent with the moral psychology of . That the virtue of benevolence features less in than is not surprising given Smith’s overall account of sympathetic interaction, as well as the threshold of knowledge required for benevolent action. The chapter closes with a summary consideration of prudence, a virtue grounded in self-interest, and an examination of the status of ambition.
Keywords: Adam Smith, self-interest, self-love, selfishness, commerce, prudence, ambition
Eugene Heath is Professor of Philosophy at the State University of New York, New Paltz. He has published essays on Bernard Mandeville, Adam Ferguson, and Adam Smith, as well as on topics in business ethics. He is the co-editor, with Vincenzo Merolle, of two volumes of scholarly essays on Adam Ferguson (Pickering & Chatto, 2008 and 2009).
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- [UNTITLED]
- Preface
- Abbreviations
- List of Contributors
- Introduction: Adam Smith: An Outline of Life, Times, and Legacy
- Adam Smith: A Biographer's Reflections
- Newtonianism and Adam Smith
- Adam Smith and Rousseau: Enlightenment and Counter-Enlightenment
- Adam Smith and Early-Modern Thought
- Adam Smith's Aesthetics
- Adam Smith As Critic
- Adam Smith: History and Poetics
- Adam Smith On Language and Rhetoric: The Ethics of Style, Character, and Propriety
- Adam Smith: The Sympathetic Process and The Origin and Function Of Conscience
- Adam Smith and The Limits of Sympathy
- Adam Smith and Virtue
- Adam Smith and Self-Interest
- Adam Smith on Labour and Capital
- Adam Smith on Value and Prices
- Adam Smith on Money, Banking, and the Price Level
- Commercial Relations: From Adam Smith to Field Experiments
- Adam Smith: Theorist of Corruption
- Adam Smith and the State: Language and Reform
- Adam Smith and the Law
- Adam Smith on Empire and International Relations
- Adam Smith on Civility and Civil Society
- Adam Smith on Religion
- Adam Smith on Equality
- Adam Smith on Women
- Adam Smith and Marx
- Adam Smith and the New Right
- Adam Smith: Methods, Morals, and Markets
- The Contemporary Relevance of Adam Smith
- Index Introductory Note
