Adam Smith and the corruption of moral sentiments: tensions between ethics and economics
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.26439/en.lineas.generales2025.n014.8162Keywords:
Adam Smith, market, corruption of moral sentiments, moral judgment, impartial spectatorAbstract
This article focuses on Adam Smith’s notion of the corruption of moral sentiments, understood as the deterioration of moral judgment and sympathy caused by the imitation and admiration of wealth. This perspective allows us to understand how, within commercial society, self-interest can erode the ethical foundations of social life. The aim is not to provide an empirical diagnosis of contemporary corruption, nor an account of the political role of the private sector in state corruption —aspects to which Smith was not entirely indifferent—, but rather to offer a conceptual reconstruction of the phenomenon, considering primarily The Theory of Moral Sentiments. In this sense, the article questions whether the market may entail degrading or corruptive effects on social relations and, against interpretations that present Smith as a mere defender of liberalism, argues that although Smith was a proponent of the free market, he also recognized its possible degrading effects on social dynamics, drawing on both the aforementioned ethical work and The Wealth of Nations.
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