Lesson 5: Social Aspects of Justice and Commerce - Intercollegiate Studies Institute

Lesson 5 Lesson 5: Social Aspects of Justice and Commerce

Presented by: Dr. Jay Richards
Busch School of Business and Economics at the Catholic University of America

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Self-Interest, Virtue, and the Commercial Society

In this lesson, students will draw from thinkers such as Adam Smith and David Hume to gain an appreciation for how virtuous motives matter along with the effects of individual actions. Social order, prosperity, and happiness require a large scope for the pursuit of self-interest, but an appropriate balance between self-regard and regard for others, along with balance in the virtues, is most conducive to genuine human happiness.

Key Concepts: (1) Virtue (2) Justice as a Negative Virtue, (3) Impartial Spectator (4) Beneficence (5) Virtuous Luxury, (6) Vicious Luxury

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“We must … view ourselves not so much according to that light in which we may naturally appear to ourselves, as according to that in which we naturally appear to others.”

Adam Smith

“All the members of human society stand in need of each other’s assistance, and are likewise exposed to mutual injuries. Where the necessary assistance is reciprocally afforded from love, from gratitude, from friendship, and esteem, the society flourishes and is happy.”

Adam Smith

“Thus the greatness of the sovereign, and the happiness of the state, are in a great measure united with regard to trade and manufactures.”

David Hume

“To say that, without a vicious luxury, the labour would not have been employed at all, is only to say, that there is some other defect in human nature, such as indolence, selfishness, inattention to others, for which luxury, in some measure, provides a remedy; as one poison may be an antidote to another. But virtue, like wholesome food, is better than poisons, however corrected.”

David Hume