Adam Smith And The Invisible Hand Of God
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Adam Smith and the Invisible Hand of God
This book contributes to the ‘new view’ reading of Adam Smith, providing a historically and contextually rich interpretation of Smith’s thought. Smith built a moral philosophy on the foundations of a natural theology of human sociality. Examination of his life, relationship with David Hume and use of divine names shows that he retained a progressive form of Christian theism. The book interrogates the metaphor of the ‘invisible hand’ and highlights the importance of the religious dimension of Adam Smith’s thought for his moral philosophy, his jurisprudence and his economics. It reflects on the contemporary relevance of a theological reading of Smith and lays the ground for further inquiry between economic and religious perspectives.
The Invisible Hand of God in Adam Smith
Adam Smith is revered as the father of modern economics. Analysis of his writings, however, reveals a profoundly medieval outlook. Smith is preoccupied with the need to preserve order in society. His scientific methodology emphasises reconciliation with the world we live in rather than investigation of it. He invokes a version of natural law in which the universe is a harmonious machine administered by a providential deity. Nobody is uncared for and, in real happiness, we are all substantially equal. No action is without its appropriate reward - in this life or the next. The social desirability of individual self-seeking activity is ensured by the 'invisible hand', that is, the hand of a god who has moulded us so to behave, that the quantity of happiness in the world is always maximised.
Adam Smith's System of Liberty, Wealth, and Virtue
Author: Athol Fitzgibbons
language: en
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Release Date: 1995-07-20
This book examines the influence that Adam Smith's philosophy had on his economics, drawing on the neglected parts of Smith's writings to show that the political and economic theories built logically on his morals. It analyses the significance of his stoic beliefs, his notions of art and music, astronomy, philosophy and war, and shows that Smith's invisible hand was part of a 'system' that was meant to replace medieval Christianity with ethic of virtue in this world rather than the next. Smith was motivated primarily by a political ideal, a moral version of liberalism. He rejected the political philosophy of the Greeks and Christians as authoritarian and unworldly, but contrary to what many economists believe, he also rejected the amoral liberalism that was being advocated by his countryman and friend David Hume. Far from being myopic about self-love, Smith arrived at his theories of free trade, economic growth, and alienation via his reinterpretation of Stoic virtue. Of interest to economists, philosophers, political theorists, sociologists and lawyers concerned with jurisprudence, this book is clearly written, and its innovations reveal the hitherto hidden unity in Smith's overarching system of morals, politics and economics.