Mündigkeit und Tugend. – David Hume, Immanuel Kant und Adam Smith über Dispositionen zu moralischem Handeln und Strategien, sich der moralischen Verpfl ichtung zu entziehen

SATS ◽  
2004 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Christel Fricke
Keyword(s):  
Immanuel Kant ◽  
David Hume ◽  
Adam Smith

Hutcheson, Francis (1694–1746)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Fate Norton
Keyword(s):  
Immanuel Kant ◽  
Human Nature ◽  
David Hume ◽  
Adam Smith ◽  
Colonial America ◽  
Special Kind ◽  
Moral Sense ◽  
Francis Hutcheson ◽  
Five Senses ◽  
The Mind

Francis Hutcheson is best known for his contributions to moral theory, but he also contributed to the development of aesthetics. Although his philosophy owes much to John Locke’s empiricist approach to ideas and knowledge, Hutcheson was sharply critical of Locke’s account of two important normative ideas, those of beauty and virtue. He rejected Locke’s claim that these ideas are mere constructs of the mind that neither copy nor make reference to anything objective. He also complained that Locke’s account of human pleasure and pain was too narrowly focused. There are pleasures and pains other than those that arise in conjunction with ordinary sensations; there are, in fact, more than five senses. Two additional senses, the sense of beauty and the moral sense, give rise to distinctive pleasures and pains that enable us to make aesthetic and moral distinctions and evaluations. Hutcheson’s theory of the moral sense emphasizes two fundamental features of human nature. First, in contrast to Thomas Hobbes and other egoists, Hutcheson argues that human nature includes a disposition to benevolence. This characteristic enables us to be, sometimes, genuinely virtuous. It enables us to act from benevolent motives, whereas Hutcheson identifies virtue with just such motivations. Second, we are said to have a perceptual faculty, a moral sense, that enables us to perceive moral differences. When confronted with cases of benevolently motivated behaviour (virtue), we naturally respond with a feeling of approbation, a special kind of pleasure. Confronted with maliciously motivated behaviour (vice), we naturally respond with a feeling of disapprobation, a special kind of pain. In short, certain distinctive feelings of normal observers serve to distinguish between virtue and vice. Hutcheson was careful, however, not to identify virtue and vice with these feelings. The feelings are perceptions (elements in the mind of observers) that function as signs of virtue and vice (qualities of agents). Virtue is benevolence, and vice malice (or, sometimes, indifference); our moral feelings serve as signs of these characteristics. Hutcheson’s rationalist critics charged him with making morality relative to the features human nature happens at present to have. Suppose, they said, that our nature were different. Suppose we felt approbation where we now feel disapprobation. In that event, what we now call ‘vice’ would be called ‘virtue’, and what we call ‘virtue’ would be called ‘vice’. The moral sense theory must be wrong because virtue and vice are immutable. In response, Hutcheson insisted that, as our Creator is unchanging and intrinsically good, the dispositions and faculties we have can be taken to be permanent and even necessary. Consequently, although it in one sense depends upon human nature, morality is immutable because it is permanently determined by the nature of the Deity. Hutcheson’s views were widely discussed throughout the middle decades of the eighteenth century. He knew and advised David Hume, and, while Professor of Moral Philosophy at Glasgow, taught Adam Smith. Immanuel Kant and Jeremy Bentham, among other philosophers, also responded to his work, while in colonial America his political theory was widely seen as providing grounds for rebellion against Britain.

The Hobbesian Hypothesis in Eighteenth-Century Political Theory

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karl Widerquist ◽  
Grant S. McCall
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Immanuel Kant ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
David Hume ◽  
Private Property ◽  
Adam Smith ◽  
Edmund Burke ◽  
Thomas Paine ◽  
Property System

This chapter shows how “the Hobbesian hypothesis” (the claim that everyone is better off in a state society with a private property system than they could reasonably expect to be in any society without either of those institutions) appeared in Eighteenth-Century political theory. It shows how disagreement about the truth of the hypothesis produced virtually no debate. David Hume, Adam Smith, Immanuel Kant, Edmund Burke, and others asserted its supposedly obvious truth without providing evidence. Lord Shaftesbury, the Baron de Montesquieu, and Thomas Paine voiced scepticism but also provided little evidence. Others, such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau talked about similar issues without clearly taking a position on the hypothesis.

scholarly journals Justiça e beneficência: notas sobre uma possível aproximação entre Immanuel Kant e Adam Smith

2016 ◽  
Vol 28 (44) ◽  
pp. 391
Author(s):  
Andrea Faggion
Keyword(s):  
Immanuel Kant ◽  
David Hume ◽  
Adam Smith ◽  
De Se

Immanuel Kant e Adam Smith foram dois filósofos historicamente próximos, afinal, foram dois pensadores modernos de reconhecida importância. Além da proximidade temporal, Adam Smith foi amigo pessoal e interlocutor daquele que foi o filósofo que, possivelmente, mais impressionava Kant, a saber, David Hume. Não é então de se estranhar que existam pontos de contato entre as obras de Kant e Smith, a menos que nos esqueçamos que, além de ser um pioneiro da ciência econômica, Smith foi também um importante filósofo moral. Essa mera possibilidade de uma relação é reforçada por registros da admiração de Kant por Smith em escritos não publicados do primeiro. Dado o apreço de Kant pela investigação de Smith sobre o conhecimento moral do homem, este trabalho explora um paralelo entre o modo como Smith compara a virtude da justiça à virtude da beneficência na obra A Teoria dos Sentimentos Morais e o modo como Kant distingue os deveres jurídicos dos deveres éticos ou de virtude em sua Metafísica dos Costumes. A hipótese que temos em vista é que Smith poderia ter apresentado a Kant o conhecimento moral comum que haveria de ser formulado em princípios metafísicos por Kant. Na verdade, mais do que sabermos se foi de Smith que Kant retirou distinções e análises conceituais tão caras a sua própria filosofia moral, importa exatamente notar como o pensamento dos dois filósofos poderia bem guardar a referida relação um para o outro, de tal forma que um possa ser usado para iluminar o outro.

Adam Ferguson and the Idea of Civil Society

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Craig Smith
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
David Hume ◽  
Adam Smith ◽  
Scottish Enlightenment ◽  
Commercial Society ◽  
University Of Edinburgh ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
English Speaking World ◽  
The University

Adam Ferguson was a Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Edinburgh and a leading member of the Scottish Enlightenment. A friend of David Hume and Adam Smith, Ferguson was among the leading exponents of the Scottish Enlightenment’s attempts to develop a science of man and was among the first in the English speaking world to make use of the terms civilization, civil society, and political science. This book challenges many of the prevailing assumptions about Ferguson’s thinking. It explores how Ferguson sought to create a methodology for moral science that combined empirically based social theory with normative moralising with a view to supporting the virtuous education of the British elite. The Ferguson that emerges is far from the stereotyped image of a nostalgic republican sceptical about modernity, and instead is one much closer to the mainstream Scottish Enlightenment’s defence of eighteenth century British commercial society.

Essays on Hume, Smith and the Scottish Enlightenment

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher J. Berry
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual History ◽  
David Hume ◽  
Adam Smith ◽  
Detailed Examination ◽  
Scottish Enlightenment ◽  
Subsequent Work ◽  
Retrospective Assessment ◽  
The 1960S

A collection of essays by a leading scholar. The work selected spans several decades, which together with three new unpublished pieces, cumulatively constitute a distinct interpretation of the Scottish Enlightenment as a whole while incorporating detailed examination of the work of David Hume and Adam Smith. There is, in addition, a substantial introduction which, alongside Berry’s personal intellectual history, provides a commentary on the development of the study of the Scottish Enlightenment from the 1960s. Each of the previously published chapters includes a postscript where Berry comments on subsequent work and his own retrospective assessment. The recurrent themes are the ideas of sociability and socialisation, the Humean science of man and Smith’s analysis of the relation between commerce and morality.

Two Intellectual Landmarks in the Year 1749

2019 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 101-123
Author(s):  
Farhad Rassekh
Keyword(s):  
Paradigm Shift ◽  
David Hume ◽  
Adam Smith ◽  
Considerable Extent ◽  
Monetary Theory ◽  
Economic Theories ◽  
Classical Economics ◽  
Wealth Of Nations ◽  
Economic Thinking

In the year 1749 Adam Smith conceived his theory of commercial liberty and David Hume laid the foundation of his monetary theory. These two intellectual developments, despite their brevity, heralded a paradigm shift in economic thinking. Smith expanded and promulgated his theory over the course of his scholarly career, culminating in the publication of The Wealth of Nations in 1776. Hume elaborated on the constituents of his monetary framework in several essays that were published in 1752. Although Smith and Hume devised their economic theories in 1749 independently, these theories complemented each other and to a considerable extent created the structure of classical economics.

RACIAL STEREOTYPING OF HOMO SAPIENS AFRICANUS: A REVIEW OF ITS MYTH AND IMPACT ON DEVELOPMENTAL CAPACITY

2016 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 49-71 ◽  
Author(s):  
Seth Oppong
Keyword(s):  
Immanuel Kant ◽  
David Hume ◽  
Negative Impact ◽  
Homo Sapiens ◽  
Supporting Evidence ◽  
White People ◽  
Negative Stereotypes ◽  
Initial Errors ◽  
Developmental Capacity ◽  
Lower Intelligence

Generally, negatives stereotypes have been shown to have negative impact on performance members of a social group that is the target of the stereotype (Schmader, Johns and Forbes 2008; Steele and Aronson, 1995). It is against the background of this evidence that this paper argues that the negative stereotypes of perceived lower intelligence held against Africans has similar impact on the general development of the continent. This paper seeks to challenge this stereotype by tracing the source of this negative stereotype to David Hume and Immanuel Kant and showing the initial errors they committed which have influenced social science knowledge about race relations. Hume and Kant argue that Africans are naturally inferior to white or are less intelligent and support their thesis with their contrived evidence that there has never been any civilized nation other than those developed by white people nor any African scholars of eminence. Drawing on Anton Wilhelm Amo’s negligence-ignorance thesis, this paper shows the Hume-Kantian argument and the supporting evidence to be fallacious. 

Transitional Figures: Immanuel Kant, Adam Smith, James Madison

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas Greenwood Onuf
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Immanuel Kant ◽  
Final Stage ◽  
Adam Smith ◽  
Animal Husbandry ◽  
Legal Order ◽  
Human History ◽  
James Madison ◽  
Human Reason ◽  
Mutual Exchange

Foucault’s sense of the modern epoch finds Kant everywhere in the background. If, for Kant, nature appears to accommodate our needs, human reason nevertheless has a purpose beyond ourselves; nature’s purpose dictates our use of reason. Kant had us use reason to progress from savagery to animal husbandry and the cultivation of the land, mutual exchange, culture, and civil society. Better known are Smith’s four stages of human history: the Ages of Hunters, Shepherds, Agriculture, and Commerce. Set back by nomadic barbarians, Europe belatedly developed a novel society of independent nations, ever vigilant (and often enough at war), committed to improving their productive capabilities and reaping the benefits of commerce. Rationalization and positivism marked the final stage, which in turn required a positive legal order grounded in unimpeachable sources of law. These James Madison definitively articulated when he was U.S. secretary of state.

Moral canals: trust and social capital in the work of Hume, Smith and Genovesi

2000 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-45 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luigino Bruni ◽  
Robert Sugden
Keyword(s):  
Social Capital ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Market Economy ◽  
David Hume ◽  
Adam Smith ◽  
Social Institution ◽  
Economic Life ◽  
Economic Agents ◽  
Trading Partners ◽  
History Of

It is a truism that a market economy cannot function without trust. We must be able to rely on other people to respect our property rights, and on our trading partners to keep their promises. The theory of economics is incomplete unless it can explain why economic agents often trust one another, and why that trust is often repaid. There is a long history of work in economics and philosophy which tries to explain the kinds of reasoning that people use when they engage in practices of trust: this work develops theories of trust. A related tradition in economics, sociology and political science investigates the kinds of social institution that reproduce whatever habits, dispositions or modes of reasoning are involved in acts of trust: this work develops theories of social capital. A recurring question in these literatures is whether a society which organizes its economic life through markets is capable of reproducing the trust on which those markets depend. In this paper, we look at these themes in relation to the writings of three eighteenth-century philosopher-economists: David Hume, Adam Smith, and Antonio Genovesi.

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