Fonna Forman

In the Theory of Moral Sentiments, Adam Smith observed that we live in a fundamentally conflictual world. Although he held that we are creatures who sympathize, he also observed that our sympathy seems to be constrained by geographical limits. Accordingly, traditional theories of cosmopolitanism were implausible; yet, as a moral philosopher, Smith attempted to reconcile his bleak description of the world with his eagerness for international peace. Smith believed that commercial intercourse among self‐interested nations would emulate sympathy on a global scale, balancing national wealth and international peace without a coercive apparatus to enforce compliance with international law.

Many normative political theorists have engaged in the systematic collection and/or analysis of empirical data to inform the development of their arguments over the past several decades. Yet, the approach they employ has typically not been treated as a distinctive mode of theorizing. It has been mostly overlooked in surveys of normative political theory methods and methodologies, as well as by those critics who assert that political theory is too abstracted from actual political contestation. Our aim is to unearth this grounded normative theory (GNT) approach – to identify its definitive practices and highlight its potential significance. We detail four overlapping commitments characteristic of GNT. These include commitments to expanding the comprehensiveness of input for normative arguments through original empirical research and/or analysis, recursivity in the development of normative claims, attentiveness to the systematic inclusion of a range of voices and ways of knowing, and accountability to those engaged by the theorist in empirical contexts. We discuss methodological distinctions within GNT, including between more- and less-solidaristic approaches. We discuss how GNT answers calls for theorists to engage more closely with empirical political dynamics and we consider responses to possible critiques.

In this essay the author explores the relation between sympathy and proximity in Adam Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments. The essay proceeds in two parts. First, the author demonstrates that Smith's description of our various attachments and affections, and the inevitable conflicts among them, draws us into the rich spatial texture of sympathetic response and stimulates further inquiry into a variety of spaces in which sympathetic activity takes place. In the second part, the author explores three such spaces-the physical, the affective, and the historical/cultural-to critique the way that some contemporary moral and political theorists have appropriated Smith's account of sympathy as a tool for cosmopolitan aspirations. To what extent can Smith's sympathy model detach us from and get us beyond the partiality and particularity generated by our physical, affective, and cultural entanglements?

In this essay the author explores the relation between sympathy and proximity in Adam Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments. The essay proceeds in two parts. First, the author demonstrates that Smith’s description of our various attachments and affections, and the inevitable conflicts among them, draws us into the rich spatial texture of sympathetic response and stimulates further inquiry into a variety of spaces in which sympathetic activity takes place. In the second part, the author explores three such spaces—the physical, the affective, and the historical/cultural—to critique the way that some contemporary moral and political theorists have appropriated Smith’s account of sympathy as a tool for cosmopolitan aspirations. To what extent can Smith’s sympathy model detach us from and get us beyond the partiality and particularity generated by our physical, affective, and cultural entanglements

This 2010 text pursues Adam Smith's views on moral judgement, humanitarian care, commerce, justice and international law both in historical context and through a twenty-first-century cosmopolitan lens, making this a major contribution not only to Smith studies but also to the history of cosmopolitan thought and to contemporary cosmopolitan discourse itself. Forman-Barzilai breaks ground, demonstrating the spatial texture of Smith's moral psychology and the ways he believed that physical, affective and cultural distance constrain the identities, connections and ethical obligations of modern commercial people. Forman-Barzilai emphasizes his resistance to the sort of relativism, moral insularity and cultural chauvinism that too often accompany localist critiques of cosmopolitan thought today. This is a fascinating, revisionist study that integrates the perspectives of intellectual history, moral philosophy, political theory, cultural theory, international relations theory and political economy, and will appeal across the humanities and social sciences.

Adam Smith s contribution to economics is well-recognised, but in recent years scholars have been exploring anew the multidisciplinary nature of his works. The Adam Smith Review is a rigorously refereed annual review that provides a unique forum for interdisciplinary debate on all aspects of Adam Smith s works, his place in history, and the significance of his writings to the modern world. It is aimed at facilitating debate between scholars working across the humanities and social sciences, thus emulating the reach of the Enlightenment world which Smith helped to shape. This ninth volume brings together leading scholars from across several disciplines to consider topics as diverse as Smith s work in the context of scholars such as Immanuel Kant, Yan Fu and David Hume, Smith as the father of modern economics, and Smith s views on education and trade. This volume also has a particular focus on Asia, and includes a section that presents articles from leading scholars from the region. "

Agrarian alternatives to slavery in the works of Adam Smith, Frances Wright, and Robert Wedderburn -- On Adam Smith's "original error respecting value"--Book reviews -- Alexander Broadie, Agreeable connexions. Scottish Enlightenment links with France -- Eleanor Courtemanche, The 'invisible hand' and British fiction, 1818-1860: Adam Smith, political economy, and the genre of realism -- Mike Hill and Warren Montag, The Other Adam Smith -- David F. Hardwick and Leslie Marsh (eds), Propriety and prosperity: new studies on the philosophy of Adam Smith -- Wade L. Robison and David B. Suits (eds), New -- Jack Russell Weinstein, Adam Smith's pluralism: rationality, education, and the moral sentiments -- Notes for contributors.

Until quite recently, philosophers tended to ignore Adam Smith. They noted his idea of sympathy in the Theory of Moral Sentiments, but generally regarded it as superficial and unsophisticated, and tended to dismiss Smith as a minor figure in the shadow of David Hume. Moreover, he was regularly cast aside as a crass materialist who corrupted the world with a moral justification for capitalism. In this environment, Smith scholarship was left to the mercy of economists and historians of economics who for the most part subordinated his moral philosophy, if not ignored it altogether. This project joins in a interdisciplinary effort today among intellectual historians, moral philosophers and political theorists to shatter the economists' hegemony over Smith's meaning and to broaden the scope of his relevance to key questions in contemporary ethical and political theory. ;I develop a reading of Smith that will strike many as counterintuitive, given all he said in the Moral Sentiments about our capacity to sympathize with others. I pursue his provocative suggestion, woven throughout the text, that we actually live, in a world without sympathy, in a fundamentally conflictual world, in what Smith once referred to with trepidation as a "fatherless world," a world without the comforts of universal and timeless truths, without a summum bonum. I seek to understand why Smith believed the world was like this, why he believed that traditional theories of cosmopolitanism in such a world were implausible, and how as a moral philosopher, he attempted to reconcile his bleak description of the world with his ardent wish for harmony among peoples in the international sphere---how he sought to address the problem of international peace and cross-cultural intelligibility given the various constraints that his moral philosophy revealed to him. Addressing these timely questions will entail a fresh reading of the Moral Sentiments in its various editions, placing special emphasis on Smith's moral-psychological and sociological claim that sympathy has limits---that our natural interest in the well-being of others is constrained notably by physical proximity, by historical and cultural familiarity , and by affective partiality, and is therefore resistant to philosophical universalization