Our Great Purpose

Adam Smith on Living a Better Life

Ryan Hanley

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9780691197753
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Ethics & Moral Philosophy

Invaluable wisdom on living a good life from the founder of modern economics Adam Smith is best known today as the founder of modern economics, but he was also an uncommonly brilliant philosopher who was especially interested in the perennial question of how to live a good life. Our Great Purpose is a short and illuminating guide to Smith's incomparable wisdom on how to live well, written by one of today's leading Smith scholars.In this inspiring and entertaining book, Ryan Patrick Hanley describes Smith's vision of "the excellent and praiseworthy character, " and draws on the philosopher's writings to show how each of us can go about developing one. For Smith, an excellent character is distinguished by qualities such as prudence, self-command, justice, and benevolence—virtues that have been extolled since antiquity. Yet Smith wrote not for the ancient polis but for the world of market society—our world—which rewards self-interest more than virtue. Hanley shows how Smith set forth a vision of the worthy life that is uniquely suited to us today.Full of invaluable insights on topics ranging from happiness and moderation to love and friendship, Our Great Purpose enables modern readers to see Smith in an entirely new light—and along the way, learn what it truly means to live a good life.

Notes

Introduction

1. My understanding of what it means to have a “philosophy of living” owes much to both Alexander Nehamas, The Art of Living (California, 1998), and Pierre Hadot, Philosophy as a Way of Life (Blackwell, 1995). My thoughts on the good life are also deeply indebted to the teaching and writing of Leon Kass; see esp. his Leading a Worthy Life: Finding Meaning in Modern Times (Encounter, 2017).

2. Jordan Peterson, 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos (Penguin Random House, 2018).

3. Dugald Stewart, “Account of the Life and Writings of Adam Smith, LL.D.,” in Essays on Philosophical Subjects, ed. W.P.D. Wightman and J. C. Bryce (Liberty Fund, 1982), 291.

4. Woodrow Wilson, An Old Master, and Other Political Essays (C. Scribner’s Sons, 1893), 17–18.

5. Readers interested in this side of Smith will do especially well to consult Russ Roberts, How Adam Smith Can Change Your Life (Penguin, 2014), which aims to present Smith’s advice on “what the good life is and how to achieve it” (2) by recasting The Theory of Moral Sentiments into a “digestible form” for readers unlikely to “get around to reading all of the original” (10).

6. Knud Haakonssen and Donald Winch, “The Legacy of Adam Smith,” in The Cambridge Companion to Adam Smith, ed. Haakonssen (Cambridge, 2006), 385.

7. Even though the way I present Smith’s ideas here is unique, most of my discrete claims are generally accepted among scholars. When I do make claims outside the mainstream or on points where there is significant debate, I indicate these in notes.

8. Readers seeking more comprehensive introductions to Smith’s life and thought will do well to consult the books by Phillipson and Buchan and Norman listed in the suggestions for further reading.

I. On Self-Interest

1. George Stigler, “Smith’s Travels on the Ship of State,” in Essays on Adam Smith, ed. Andrew S. Skinner and Thomas Wilson (Oxford, 1975), 237.

2. Theory of Moral Sentiments, 250.

3. Theory of Moral Sentiments, 214–15.

4. Theory of Moral Sentiments, 357.

5. Theory of Moral Sentiments, 200–201.

6. See also Theory of Moral Sentiments, 258.

II. On Caring for Others

1. For an especially stimulating rereading of Smith’s views on altruism and egoism from a social scientific perspective, see Vernon L. Smith and Bart J. Wilson, Humanomics: Moral Sentiments and the Wealth of Nations for the Twenty-First Century (Cambridge, 2019).

2. Not all ...