Reviews for Adam Smith's Moral Philosophy

The average rating for Adam Smith's Moral Philosophy based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2014-06-21 00:00:00 Mark Stafford Evensky's book provides a decent overview of Smith's moral, economic and political philosophy. I would recommend to book as a good synopsis of the historical Smith that stretches the full gamut of moral philosophy, economic analysis, political philosophy, legal theory and social anthropology. It doesn't offer anything new, but it offers a good overview. Sometimes that is enough. The last section of the book provides an interesting re-reading of Smith, via a critique of the Chicago School interpretation (Gary Becker), focusing on James Buchanan, Amartya Sen and other contemporary (and "centrist") students of Smith, showing how the economics of Smith (the republican civic humanist) can lead to a non-strict, non-laissez-faire, interpretation of liberalism. The Smithean question is certainly not: "Free markets or socialism?", but rather the more nuanced one: "How much of government legislation - neither too much nor too little - should a commercial society have?" Reading Smith, and Buchanan, and Sen, can provide some pointers in the right (IMHO) direction. No book is perfect. There is one major flaw in the book, which is luckily easy to ignore. The book has a strange fixation on the shaky hypothesis that Smith, underneath all the appearances, was actually driven by faith: faith in God's divine plan manifesting itself in society. The famous "invisible hand", in this reading, is the hand of God, directing market forces for good ends. (Something like "the cunning of history" in Hegel.) There is only one problem with this hypothesis: there is no evidence for it. See for yourself. Luckily the book doesn't rely on this hypothesis, but narrates a rather conservative and carefully studied examination of Smith. The book can be enjoyed even while remaining dubious of this hypothesis.

Review # 2 was written on 2018-08-11 00:00:00 Jj Smith It was an honor to have had S. Gardner as a professor for the past term, I owe him and his book so much in giving me a thorough understanding of Kant. The best way to put this book is that: whatever question you hold, Gardner will anticipate this and answer it in the next sentence. It is written very well and covers the relevant content in such a way that you feel as if you have simultaneously dealt with the primary and secondary literature on Kant. Gardner does obviously leam towards a more analytical interpretation of Kant, but lends an honest reading to the Idealist position. He takes us through each section, writing especially lucidly on the Transcendental Aesthetic and its implications for justificatory philosophy. I was lucky to be able to attend his office hours to clarify all the questions I had, bur I'm sure with a close reading of this book you will get just as much out of the experience. S. Gardner god amongst mortals - looking forward to read his stuff on Sartre !