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Adam Smith and the Character of Virtue
Abstract
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.
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“More recent arguments about the positive moral effects of the market order that focus on virtues and vices associated with that order include Deirdre McCloskey's three- volume defence of capitalism and an important paper by economists Luigi Bruni and Robert Sugden. 12”
From Alasdair MacIntyre and Adam Smith on markets, virtues and ends in a capitalist economy (2023) · cites this paper as [12]
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“One of the discoveries of recent Smith scholarship has been his indebtedness to Aristotle (Hanley, 2009; Vivenza, 2001, 2009).”
From Alasdair MacIntyre and Adam Smith on markets, virtues and ends in a capitalist economy (2023) · cites this paper as Hanley, 2009
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Items 201–300 of 308
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Wall, S. (2015) · Cambridge University Press eBooks · doi:10.1017/cbo9781139942478.023
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Metadata
- Authors
- Hanley, R. P.
- Affiliations
- Marquette University (US)
- Corresponding author
- Hanley, Ryan Patrick
- ORCID
- Hanley, Ryan Patrick
- Venue
- Cambridge University Press eBooks
- Publisher
- Cambridge University Press
- Published
- 2009-06-22
- OpenAlex
- W4292249351
- Cited by
- 310
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 16 · 2025: 11 · 2024: 20 · 2023: 44 · 2022: 15 · 2021: 19 · 2020: 26 · 2019: 61 · 2018: 13 · 2017: 14 · 2016: 16 · 2015: 30 · 2014: 12 · 2013: 4 · 2012: 5
- FWCI
- 5.32
- Type
- book
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Cambridge University Press eBooks (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Economics and Econometrics › Historical Economic and Legal Thought
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Society, Economy, and Ethics Research
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Philosophy › Philosophical Ethics and Theory
- Keywords
- Adam Smith, virtue ethics, commercial society, ethics, capitalism, prudence, magnanimity, beneficence, alienation, individualism, anxiety, inauthenticity, Christian virtues, classical virtues, modernity, free market
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