Giants of the Scottish Enlightenment Part 2: Adam Smith

Students: Hear James Taylor live at the Exploring Liberty http://lrnlbty.co/x5Zi3P or Liberty and Society Seminars http://lrnlbty.co/zVrPEg this summer

Prof. James Stacey Taylor discusses the contributions of Adam Smith with a particular focus on his philosophy. Smith is most famous for two works:
- The Wealth of Nations
- The Theory of Moral Sentiments

The Wealth of Nations is an important book on economics, so important in fact that Smith has been called the father of modern economics. His second book, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, was heavily influenced by Francis Hutcheson (See our video on Francis Hutcheson: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gr2O3aLSzZU).

In The Theory of Moral Sentiments, Smith advocates for a form of moral sentimentalism. We naturally link sympathy to either approval or disapproval of an action or reaction. For instance, if an individual insults another person, we attach sympathy to the reaction of the person who was insulted. If the person insulted underreacts or overreacts, we will disapprove the response morally. If the reaction seems right, we will approve of the response morally.

We will also sympathize with parties who are not sharing a similar sentiment. For instance, if a person loses their mental capacity or passes way, we will sympathize with that person even though they themselves are not feeling the same sentiment.

Lastly, using Smith's moral sentimentalism, we can judge our own actions. We can do this by looking at our own actions from a third person point of view.

Watch more videos: http://lrnlbty.co/y5tTcY

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• Adam Smith
• wealth of nations
• francis hutcheson
• modern
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• ethics
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• freedom

[regelemihai]

@ZinayH

Giving favoratism to banks is corporatism. Both leftists and rightwingers can oppose that. But to go from that and say that a certain social class has to be descriminated against simply because it has more wealth than others, is juvenile in the extreme. I hope more and more people stop using class warfare as an argument in the future.

[daPlumber702]

@ZinayH I think you think the wrong people are "controlling us" Businesses no matter what they do, cannot force us to pay for what they make/do. Government is the only entity with the power to put a gun in our face and demand our private property. Government is the only entity that has been allowed to hold the same gun in our face while telling us what we can do with our bodies. Wall Street can only bet on what we will do with the guns in our faces..

[locomuchacho1]

again...no dislikes, Scotland i'm tellin ya

[doobersmanster]

@regelemihai It's tragically Ironic.

[regelemihai]

@doobersmanster

Absolutely. The whole poilitical elite leans heavily on appeals to emotion to draw crowds to themselves. Rational argumentation is too hard to adopt for the sheep. It really is sad what's going on.

[doobersmanster]

@regelemihai Welcome the Gramsci, Marcusa Neo Marxist social engineering. This class warfare non-sense is never going to stop, it benifits people to resent others becasue that justifies their state of inferiority and there mental state of jealousy. It actually uses the Theory of Moral Sentiments of human nature to feul the fire of critisizm against it. People are just too stupid or ignorant to realize it..:)

[eche73]

@daPlumber702 you do realize that the same thing that motivates the rich also motivates the poor, ROI. Slave labor is unsustainable. Eventually liabilities will surmount and slaves become smarter. Good luck with finding another earth-like planet.

[daPlumber702]

@eche73 Taxing the individually wealthy makes as much sense as taxing corporate entities. They will move or find ways around it and if they didn't do either of those, they wouldn't have enough. You'd make them broke, and then the middle class would become the poor, the poor would be the starved to death, and the rich would be the one's clinging onto what you haven't robbed.

[daPlumber702]

@eche73 All a business can do is lobby for policy change. The government makes lobbying possible, fights aggressively for it to remain so (and there are actually good arguments for why it should be allowed but I digress) They also make the laws.

You should learn that companies do NOT pay taxes. Their employees, customers, and the world around them pays their taxes. Just the same as your car doesn't pay the taxes required for you to drive it. You do.

[daPlumber702]

@eche73 Stealing money from someone with more than enough and someone who's homeless blind starving on the street is the exact same thing. The only thing that changes it is your personal values and morals. Apparently your personal values and morals say that it's alright to steal, as long as it's not from the blind guy. You have the values of a thief.

[eche73]

@grady1610 the most profound thing I have read all day!

[eche73]

@daPlumber702 the argument is not about inequality, rather inequity. Taxes are paid as a percentage of income. The rich pay more in taxes = they have higher incomes which also afford them tax shelters and exemptions that the poor do not have. In the US the greatest economic expansion occurred when the top paid +90% in income taxes, +50% corp taxes and +25% cg taxes. All those taxes now below 40% with cg tax @ 15%. The top income and wealth are extremely high. They can afford to pay higher tax.