ADAM SMITH´S HOMO OECONOMICUS

CRIS - Centre for Research and Interdisciplinary Studies Bulletin, Prague College, 2010

Starting with the reading of Adam Smith’s oeuvre I have carried out in previous papers, I discuss first the reasons why the 19th century mythology of homo economicus involved Adam Smith and Bentham in a constellation named ‘utilitarianism’ made of individualism, harmony of interests, hedonism, rationalism. Secondly, I try to reconstruct the main lines of Adam Smith’s philosophy of action, stressing the role of imagination, deception, and limited rationality. I argue that the limits-to-knowledge thesis plays an essential role not only in Smith’s epistemology, ethics, and natural theology, but also in his philosophy of action. In more detail, I argue that according to Smith action is prompted by limited knowledge of future events while the full knowledge of a (fully)ideal spectator would make choice and action impossible. Thus, Smith’s agent, even when he is not irrational, is steered by passions, sentiments, a degree of sympathy, self-interest (with limited knowledge of the real character of one’s own interests), and blindness to remote consequences. Thirdly, I discuss in this light the figures of the prudent man and the wise man. Fourthly, I try to shed light, on the basis of Adam Smith’s philosophy of action, on his characterization of landlords, labourers, merchants and manufacturers, and people in the middling ranks.

Perspectiva Filosófica, 2023

A vaidade está subjacente ao comportamento humano e pode ser expressa de várias formas nos campos social, moral, estético e econômico. É um complexo emocional que engloba o narcisismo e o histrionismo como traços de caráter, assim como outras funções, tais como memória, imaginação, cognição e impulso instintivo. Este estudo se concentra no homo oeconomicus utilizando uma abordagem econômico-filosófica para descrever a vaidade em uma situação de interação social entre um agente que se exibe e um espectador que observa quando o tema é uma comparação mútua em face a sinais exteriores de riqueza. Para esse fim, são utilizados os pensamentos de Adam Smith sobre vaidade na obra Teoria dos Sentimentos Morais e os estudos de Stuart Mill sobre distúrbios nos modelos econômicos. Como conclusão, pretende-se demonstrar que o pensamento desses dois economistasfilósofos permanece relevante para determinar a vaidade do homo oeconomicus contemporâneo. Vanity underlies human behavior and can be expressed in various forms in the social, moral, aesthetic, and economic fields. It is an emotional complex that encompasses narcissism and histrionics as character traits, as well as other functions, such as memory, imagination, cognition, and instinctive drive. This study focuses on homo oeconomicus using an economic-philosophical approach to detail vanity in a situation of social interaction between an agent who shows off and a spectator who observes when the topic is a mutual comparison in the face of external signs of wealth. To that end, Adam Smith’s thoughts on vanity in the Theory of Moral Sentiments and Stuart Mill's studies on disturbances in economic models is used. In conclusion, we intend to demonstrate that the thoughts of these two economist-philosophers remain relevant in determining the vanity of the contemporary homo oeconomicus. Keywords: vanity; wealth; Adam Smith; Stuart Mill; homo oeconomicus

2009

This paper investigates Adam Smith’s intricate vision of human motivation and seeks to expose the fallacy of the “Adam Smith Problem”. Through an expansive study of the famed economist’s two most prominent works, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (WN) and The Theory of Moral Sentiments (TMS), I will show that the two are perfect complements of one other and that Adam Smith did not set down in one place his views on the nature of man. Adam Smith saw man for what he truly is, dominated by selfinterest but not without concern for others, able to reason but not necessarily able to reach the best or right conclusion while all the time seeing one’s own actions through a veil of self-delusion. WN and TMS are equally important books, and in order to understand the economics and philosophy of Adam Smith, both must be read and studied.

2003

Jeffrey Young is well-known in history of economic thought circles in Australia because of his collaboration with the late Barry Gordon. This collaboration is shown again in the book under review, where two chapters are based on this teamwork. Young’s intellectual debt is also shown in the dedication of the book to Barry Gordon and Kenneth Boulding. Through the prior publication of some articles in scholarly journals, a moderate portion of the book has already become known to the history of economic thought community. Nevertheless, there are a number of new things in this publication. The content of Young’s book is better indicated by the sub-title, The Political Economy of Adam Smith, than by the title, Economics as a Moral Science. The title is a better indication of the approach adopted to the study of Smith. As Young says ‘In this book I attempt to offer a coherent interpretation of Smith based on the interplay of economics and moral philosophy’ (p. ix). The view that ‘moral con...

This papers discusses the relationship of the 'model of man' presented by Adam Smith in The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759) and the assumptions about human behaviour which are quintessential for his An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776/77). It is argued that Smith's observation of a 'propensity to truck, barter and exchange one thing for another' does not in general hold for human behaviour. Moreover, there appears to be an inherent conflict with 'sympathy', the key concept proposed in The Theory of Moral Sentiments, if we interpret it as the source of social evaluation, self-evaluation and individual action. Following Karl Polanyi's critical comments in The Great Transformation (1944), we will discuss some of the consequences of this incongruence for the philosophical foundations of modern economics and economic policy.

PSN: Liberal Market Economies (Topic), 2007

Despite his fame, there is still widespread ignorance about the breadth of Adam Smith's contributions to economics, politics and philosophy. In Adam Smith - A Primer, Eamonn Butler provides an authoritative introduction to the life and work of this 'founder of economics'. The author examines not only The Wealth of Nations, with its insights on trade and the division of labour, but also less well known works, such as The Theory of Moral Sentiments, the lectures, and the writings on the history of science. Butler therefore provides a comprehensive, but concise, overview of Adam Smith's intellectual achievements. Whilst earlier writers may have studied economic matters, it is clear that the scope of Smith's enquiries was remarkable. In relating economic progress to human nature and institutional evolution he provided a completely new understanding of how human society works and was very much a precursor of writers such as Hayek and Popper. Indeed, with poor governan...

Review of Political Economy, 2015

The Wealth of Nations (WN), like Malthus's Essay on Population, Marx's Capital and Darwin's Origin of Species is one of those few books which have changed the way we think about the world. Edmund Burke believed it was 'probably the most important book ever written' (O'Brien, 1993, p. 144, n. 1). But this could never be said of Smith's other great work, The Theory of Moral Sentiments (TMS). It is hardly an exaggeration to say that Smith's reputation today as a seminal thinker of the 18 th century would be almost as high had TMS never been written. Yet as The Oxford Handbook of Adam Smith (Berry, Paganelli & Smith, 2013) clearly shows, the attention of Smith scholars at the present time is more engaged by moral philosophy-not to mention astronomy, rhetoric, belles lettres and jurisprudencethan by economics. This is partly a consequence of the definitive Glasgow edition of the works and correspondence of Adam Smith, inaugurated by the bicentenary of WN in 1976 and originally published by Oxford University Press, which was soon made widely available in paperback by the Liberty Fund. In the academic industry at any rate, supply creates its own demand. But there may be other reasons, intellectual and perhaps ideological, that I shall consider later in this article. In what follows I will first report the content of the Handbook, next examine its treatment of economic themes, and then explore some questions of intellectual history that it raises. Finally I shall ask why so much academic (and commercial) attention is now being paid to Adam Smith.

Handbook of the Philosophical Foundations of Business Ethics, 2013

Adam Smith is respected as the father of contemporary economics for his work on systemizing classical economics as an independent field of study in The Wealth of Nations. But he was also a significant moral philosopher of the Scottish Enlightenment, with its characteristic concern for integrating sentiments and rationality. This article considers Adam Smith as a key moral philosopher of commercial society whose critical reflection upon the particular ethical challenges posed by the new pressures and possibilities of commercial society remains relevant today. The discussion has three parts. First I address the artificial separation between self-interest and morality often attributed to Smith, in which his work on economics is stripped of its ethical context. Second I outline Smith‟s ethical approach to economics, focusing on his vigorous but qualified defence of commercial society for its contributions to prosperity, justice, and freedom. Third I outline Smith‟s moral philosophy proper as combining a naturalistic account of moral psychology with a virtue ethics based on propriety in commercial society.

History of European Ideas, 2008

In his Wealth of Nations (1776) Adam Smith created an agenda for the study of the economy that is reflected in the structure of modern economics. This paper describes Smith's contributions to four central areas of economic theory: The theory of price formation, the relationship between market outcomes and the public interest, the role of the state in the economy, and the sources of economic growth. In each case, an attempt is made to relate Smith's contribution to the state of contemporary economics, showing both the similarities and contrasts between the respective approaches.