The new paternalism does not replace older wisdom
In: Economic affairs: journal of the Institute of Economic Affairs, Band 44, Heft 2, S. 386-393
ISSN: 1468-0270
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In: Economic affairs: journal of the Institute of Economic Affairs, Band 44, Heft 2, S. 386-393
ISSN: 1468-0270
In: Journal of the history of economic thought, S. 1-23
ISSN: 1469-9656
This paper interprets the interaction between Protestantism and commercial spirit in David Hume's account of English development, mostly drawing from The History of England. Hume saw Protestant theology—especially the more enthusiastic strains of English Puritanism—as having fortuitously shifted the landscape of political and economic sensibilities in England in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries by affecting believers' political, social, and economic psychologies. Those shifting psychologies exhibited affinities with concurrent developments, especially the decline of feudalism, the rise of consumerism, and the creation of an independent middle class of merchants. The peculiar synergy between such changes and Protestant theological innovations led to the emergence of England, by the eighteenth century, as a polite and commercial people—a people for whom commerce became, Hume claimed, more honorable than in any other nation. Hume, like Max Weber, saw a distinctive Protestant spirit as having contributed to the modern commercial order.
In: Routledge Handbook of Classical Liberalism, Forthcoming
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In: The European journal of the history of economic thought, Band 30, Heft 4, S. 507-524
ISSN: 1469-5936
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In: Journal of the history of economic thought, Band 45, Heft 2, S. 298-320
ISSN: 1469-9656
Adam Smith's discourses aim to encourage mores, practices, and public policies in service to the common good, or that which a universally benevolent spectator would approve of. The Wealth of Nations illustrates how in pursuing our own happiness within the bounds of prudence and commutative justice, we may be said, literally or metaphorically, to cooperate with God in furthering the happiness of humankind. The Theory of Moral Sentiments elaborates an ethic, here called "focalism," that instructs us to proportion our beneficent efforts to our knowledge and ability. The relationship between political economy and focalism is bidirectionally reinforcing. In one direction, the ethic of focalism contributes to the moral authorization of self-love, thereby invigorating and dignifying honest commercial activities. In the other direction, the insights of political economy reinforce the ethic of focalism by elaborating how through prudent commerce and focal beneficence, we cooperate, even if only metaphorically, in a grand social enterprise.
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In: Journal of Economic Methodology, forthcoming
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In: Southern Economic Journal, https://doi.org/10.1002/soej.12601
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In: Forthcoming in 'British International Thought in the Making,' eds. B. Bourcier and M. Jakonen (Palgrave Macmillan)
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In: Forthcoming in Hume Studies
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In: Forthcoming in the Journal of the History of Economic Thought
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Working paper
In: Adam Smith, Theology, and Morality, ed. Ballor and van der Kooi (London: Routledge, Forthcoming)
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In: Adam Smith Works
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Working paper
In: Forthcoming in Hume Studies
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Working paper