Eric Schliesser

Smith's Humean Criticism of Hume's Account of the Origin of Justice

It is argued that Adam Smith criticizes David Humes account of the origin of and continuing adherence to the rule of law for being not sufficiently Humean. Hume explained that adherence to the rule of law originated in the self-interest to restrain self-interest. According to Smith, Hume does not pay enough attention to the passions of resentment and admiration, which have their source in the imagination. Smiths offers a more naturalistic and evolutionary account of the psychological pre-conditions of the establishment and morality of justice than Hume had. Yet, Smiths account also makes room for a thin conception of Lockean natural right to property, while rejecting the contractualist and rationalistic elements in Locke. It emerges that Smith severs the intimate connection that Hobbes and Hume made between justice and property.

Galilean Reflections on Milton Friedman’s “Methodology of Positive Economics,” with Thoughts on Vernon Smith’s “Economics in the Laboratory”:

In this article, the author offers a discussion of the evidential role of the Galilean constant in the history of physics. The author argues that measurable constants help theories constrain data. Theories are engines for research, and this helps explain why the Duhem-Quine thesis does not undermine scientific practice. The author connects his argument to discussion of two famous papers in the history of economic methodology, Milton Friedman’s “Methodology of Positive Economics,” which appealed to example of Galilean Law of Fall in its argument; and Vernon Smith’s “Economics in the Laboratory.” While the author offers some criticism of Friedman and Smith, most of the article is a friendly reinterpretation of their insights.

Newton’s Challenge to Philosophy: a programmatic essay

I identify a set of interlocking views that became (and still are) very influential within philosophy in the wake of Newton’s success. These views use the authority of natural philosophy/mechanics to settle debates within philosophy. I label these “Newton’s Challenge.”

Book ReviewsD. D. Raphael, The Impartial Spectator: Adam Smith’s Moral Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. Pp. 143.

Eric Axelson, former head of the Department of History at the University of Cape Town, is to be commended for producing a richly illustrated and comprehensive new translation of this diary. Translations or the Portuguese original have been published previously in 1898,1947 and 1954. The last of these, African Explorers (Oxford, 1954), was also edited by Axelson, but it did not address the voyage from the coast of Mozambique to India and back. That shortfall has been avoided in this valuable new edition, which also contains other useful features. The anonymous diary commences with da Gammas ship leaving Portugal and ceases somewhere off Gabon Axelson addresses why this is so in his long and highly informative introduction, which is the true value added in this new edition of the diary. Axelson uses the introduction to contextualize the diary and explore the problems associated with trying to determine the exact nature of da Gammas ship, voyage, and the like. The translation itself is new, and the diary recounts in brief detail this epic voyage from Portugal, around the Cape Horn, and on to India. It also includes much of the return voyage. That discussion is further enriched by a number of high quality colour and monochrome illustrations and three appendices. The first appendix addresses the question of locating in the present the landing point at Natal as described in the diary. Appendix 2 gives a brief synopsis of da Gammas life following his 1497-1499 voyage. Appendix 3 addresses the Portuguese epic poem 05 Lvsiados de Lvis de Camâs (1572), and a number of lesser known South African poems influenced by the da Gamma epic tale. This last appendix is clearly the most novel its utility was not immediately apparent to this reader but no doubt it will appeal to others, and it is not without its own utility. That observation aside, I found this to be a very valuable little book. Experts will find it a lovely addition to their library and novices will discover it to be an enjoyable, accessible, and engaging account. It is certainly a good buy for most research or university libraries.

35.00 (cloth).Leonidas Montes, .Adam Smith in Context: A Critical Reassessment of Some Central Components of His Thought. Houndsmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004. Pp. 186.

In this paper, I explore the significance of that peculiar concept, the so-called piacular, in Adam Smith’s The Theory of Moral Sentiments (hereafter TMS). Smith describes the concept first in the context of his treatment of what we would call “moral luck” and then returns to it in what became part VII of TMS. In brief, the piacular is the feeling that arises when we have been an involuntary cause of another’s harm. It is a feeling of shame that is akin – but not identical – to what is commonly called “agent-regret.” I argue, first, that according to Smith it is part of our humanity that we ought to see ourselves in part as causes in the (great) causal chain of life. This is a plausible interpretation of Smith’s view in light of (i) his treatment of the way in which the sympathetic process that underwrites moral judgment is, in part, a judgment of the proportionality of causes and effects and (ii) his claim that our habitual causal environment is constitutive of our sanity and rationality. Second, I explain the highly regulated norms that according to Smith govern the atonement of the piacular. Somewhat surprisingly, these norms are irrevocably tainted by superstition. In Smith’s account this superstitious element should not be eradicated, but embraced as part of our shared humanity.

75.00 (cloth).

The main point of this paper is to contribute to understanding Milton Friedman’s 1953 “The Methodology of Positive Economics” (hereafter F1953), one of the most influential statements of economic methodology of the twentieth century, and, in doing so, help discern the non trivial but complex role of philosophic ideas in the shaping of economic theorizing and economists’ self-conception.1 It also aims to contribute to a better understanding of the theoretical origins of the socalled ‘Chicago’ school of economics.

The Piacular, or on Seeing Oneself as a Moral Cause in Adam Smith

The main point of this paper is to contribute to understanding Milton Friedman’s (1953) “The Methodology of Positive Economics” (hereafter F1953), one of the most influential statements of economic methodology of the twentieth century, and, in doing so, help discern the non trivial but complex role of philosophic ideas in the shaping of economic theorizing and economists’ self-conception. It also aims to contribute to a better understanding of the theoretical origins of the so-called ‘Chicago’ school of economics. In this paper, I first present detailed textual evidence of the familiarity of George Stigler with the early work of Talcott Parsons, the most important American translator and disseminator of Max Weber’s ideas, who also helped create sociology as a distinct discipline in the United States. The Chicago-Parsons link is no surprise because historians have known that Frank Knight and Parsons corresponded, first about translating Weber and then about matters of mutual interest. Knight, who was a doctoral advisor to Stigler and teacher of Milton Friedman, was not merely the first American translator of Weber, but remained keenly and, perhaps, increasingly interested in Weber throughout his life. I am unfamiliar with any investigation of the Weberian influence on Knight’s students. I show that Stigler praises Parsons’ treatment of Alfred Marshall, who plays an outsized role in Friedman’s self-conception of economics and economic theory. I also show that Stigler calls attention to the methodological similarity between Friedman and Parsons. Finally, I turn to F1953, and I show, first, that some of its most distinctive and philosophically interesting claims echo Parsons’ treatment of methodological matters; second that once alerted one can note Weberian terminology in F1953.

“Every System of Scientific Theory Involves Philosophical Assumptions” (Talcott Parsons). The Surprising Weberian Roots to Milton Friedman’s Methodology

I argue that economists have reasons internal to the way that evidence works in the sciences to re-discover the importance of the history of their own discipline. For it is a constitutive element of science - here conceived as an ongoing research practice (as opposed to as an explanatory activity) - that evidence is never discarded forever and is thus historical in nature. Moreover, while drawing on the history of economics and the history of physics, I argue that the history of a discipline can be a source of important evidence in ongoing inquiry. Along the way, I attack a too rigorous distinction between the history of economics and economic history. I distinguish my approach from two closely related positions that emphasize learning from the past for scientific purposes. In my conclusion, I argue that that if economics departments continue to discard the history of economics (and economic history), one of its natural homes is in (history of) philosophy departments, where it can be nurtured among many other theoretical enterprises potentially relevant to the sciences.

The Surprising Weberian Roots to Milton Friedman’s Methodology

In this paper I distinguish four methods of empirical inquiry in eighteenth century natural philosophy. In particular, I distinguish among what I call, (i) the mathematical-experimental method; (ii) the method of experimental series; (iii) the method of inspecting ideas; (iv) the method of natural history. While such a list is not exhaustive of the methods of inquiry available, even so, focusing on these four methods will help in diagnosing a set of debates within what has come to be known as ‘empiricism’; throughout the eighteenth century there was a methodological reaction against the hegemonic aspirations of mathematical natural philosophy associated with the authority of Newton.

PHILOSOPHY AND A SCIENTIFIC FUTURE OF THE HISTORY OF ECONOMICS

In this chapter we address what we call “The-Everybody-Did-It” (TEDI) Syndrome, a symptom for collective negligence. Our main thesis is that the character of scientific communities can be evaluated morally and be found wanting in terms of moral responsibility. Even an epistemically successful scientific community can be morally responsible for consequences that were unforeseen by it and its members and that follow from policy advice given by its individual members. We motivate our account by a critical discussion of a recent proposal by Heather Douglas. We offer three, related criticisms of Douglas’s account. First, she assumes that scientific fields are communicative communities. Second, in a system where the scientific community autonomously sets standards, there is a danger of self-affirming reasoning. Third, she ignores that the character of a scientific community is subject to moral evaluation. We argue that these omissions in Douglas’s theory leave it with no adequate response to TEDI Syndrome. Moreover, we deny that science ought to be characterized by unanimity of belief among its competent practitioners, this leads easily to the vices of close-mindedness and expert-overconfidence. If a scientific community wishes to avoid these vices it should create conditions for an active pluralism when it and its members aspire to the position of rational policy decision-making.