In the field of business ethics, Adam Smith has generally been viewed with a measure of suspicion. Smith's famous invocation of the invisible hand - according to which self-interest promotes the greater good - has generally been seen as a fundamental challenge to a discipline committed to the...

Alasdair MacIntyre argues that the Enlightenment ideology, which includes Adam Smith's moral theory, lacks any sense of telos and will, therefore, fail in the long run. This article accepts MacIntyre's challenge and examines Smith's moral philosophy arguing that Smith did not completely discard...

This paper discusses how in the British tradition, political economy, which partly emerged out of discourses in natural theology, ethics, and jurisprudence, casts some light on the content of our moral obligations. Drawing on Hutcheson, Hume, and Smith, I illustrate how commerce came to be...

Frederic Bastiat (1801-1850) was an economist and journalist. A member of the French Liberal School, he is best known for his free trade ideas and his philosophy of law. Mark Blaug ranks him as one of the 100 greatest economists before Keynes. Schumpeter called him a brilliant economic...

Frédéric Bastiat (1801-1850) was an economist and journalist. A member of the French Liberal School, he is best known for his free trade ideas and his philosophy of law. Mark Blaug ranks him as one of the 100 greatest economists before Keynes. Schumpeter called him a brilliant economic...

In his Idea of Justice, Amartya Sen compares the two basic approaches to evaluate institutions, transcendental institutionalism and realization-focused comparisons. Referring to Smith's Impartial Spectator, he argues in favour of the latter and proposes the principle of Open Impartiality....

In recent years studies have appeared that highlighted Adam Smith's interventionist recommendations. These opinions are not new. The exceptions to liberalism in Smith's thought were pointed out by Jacob Viner in 1927. Even before Viner, there were economists who condemned the exaggeratedly...