Adam Smith’s Pragmatic Liberalism

Adam Smith’s Pragmatic Liberalism
Author :
Publisher : Springer
Total Pages : 239
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9783030193379
ISBN-13 : 3030193373
Rating : 4/5 (373 Downloads)

Book Synopsis Adam Smith’s Pragmatic Liberalism by : Lisa Hill

Download or read book Adam Smith’s Pragmatic Liberalism written by Lisa Hill and published by Springer. This book was released on 2019-07-22 with total page 239 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Adam Smith is commonly conceived as either an economist or a moral philosopher so his importance as a political thinker has been somewhat neglected and, at times, even denied. This book reveals the integrated, deeply political project that lies at the heart of Smith’s thought, showing both the breadth and novelty of Smith’s approach to political thought. A key argument running through the book is that attempts to locate Smith on the left-right spectrum (however that was interpreted in the eighteenth century) are mistaken: his position was ultimately dictated by his social scientific and economic thought rather than by ideology or principle. Through examining Smith’s political interests and positions, this book reveals that apparent tensions in Smith's thought are generally a function of his willingness to abandon, not only proto-liberal principles, but even the principles of his own social science when the achievement of good outcomes was at stake. Despite the common perception, negative liberty was not the be-all and end-all for Smith; rather, welfare was his main concern and he should therefore be understood as a thinker just as interested in what we would now call positive liberty. The book will uniquely show that Smith’s approach was basically coherent, not muddled, ad hoc, or ‘full of slips’; in other words, that it is a system unified by his social science and his practical desire to maximise welfare.


Adam Smith’s Pragmatic Liberalism Related Books

Adam Smith’s Pragmatic Liberalism
Language: en
Pages: 239
Authors: Lisa Hill
Categories: Political Science
Type: BOOK - Published: 2019-07-22 - Publisher: Springer

GET EBOOK

Adam Smith is commonly conceived as either an economist or a moral philosopher so his importance as a political thinker has been somewhat neglected and, at time
Adam Smith
Language: en
Pages: 433
Authors: Eric Schliesser
Categories: Business & Economics
Type: BOOK - Published: 2017 - Publisher: Oxford University Press

GET EBOOK

Adam Smith was a famous economist and moral philosopher. This book treats Smith also as a systematic philosopher with a distinct epistemology, an original theor
The Pragmatic Enlightenment
Language: en
Pages: 361
Authors: Dennis C. Rasmussen
Categories: Business & Economics
Type: BOOK - Published: 2014 - Publisher: Cambridge University Press

GET EBOOK

This is a study of the political and moral thought of the Enlightenment, focusing on four key eighteenth-century thinkers: David Hume, Adam Smith, Montesquieu,
The Problems and Promise of Commercial Society
Language: en
Pages: 208
Authors: Dennis Carl Rasmussen
Categories: Business & Economics
Type: BOOK - Published: 2010-11 - Publisher: Penn State Press

GET EBOOK

Adam Smith is popularly regarded as the ideological forefather of laissez-faire capitalism, while Rousseau is seen as the passionate advocate of the life of vir
Skepticism and Freedom
Language: en
Pages: 324
Authors: Richard A. Epstein
Categories: Law
Type: BOOK - Published: 2003-06 - Publisher: University of Chicago Press

GET EBOOK

With this book, Richard A. Epstein provides a spirited and systematic defense of classical liberalism against the critiques mounted against it over the past thi