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Introduction
Post-Kantian ethics often establishes a sharp distinction between virtue ethics and
duty based ethics. The former focuses upon the importance of moral character in ethical
matters. It is the kind of person that you are, not whether you conform your actions to
rules, that makes one virtuous. Duty based ethics, or so-called deontological ethics,
focuses upon the importance of adhering to moral laws or duties. It is not having the
proper character that lies at the heart of ethics so much as having our actions following
moral laws which are right in themselves.
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One problem with this distinction between
virtue ethics and duty based ethics is that it may pigeonhole the ideas of certain
philosophers, particularly those prior to Kant, by placing them in one camp or the other.
Our modern categories for understanding the history of thought may place blinders on the
way in which we read a particular philosopher’s arguments. More disturbingly, it may
lead us to misconceive a philosopher’s understanding of the tensions that can exist in a
human being pulled between two competing sets of demand: those of virtue and those of
duty.
Such is the case with Adam Smith. Much of the secondary literature on Smith’s
moral theory focuses on his explanation of the rise of moral judgments out of our
passions and emotions (see Griswold: 1999; Otteson: 2002; Raphael: 1985). Along with
Hume and Hutcheson, Smith is considered to be a moral sentiment theorist who provides
a naturalistic account of the origins of virtue. Considerable attention is paid to unraveling
the meaning of such concepts as propriety and impropriety, sympathy and mutual
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A third approach to ethics often juxtaposed to duty-based and virtue ethics is utilitarian ethics, best
exemplified by the work of Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill. In broadest term, utilitarianism argues
that actions are right if they maximize overall well being and happiness. Although Smith argues in various
places that moral rules serve a general public good, he does not argue that moral rules are created to
maximize utility. For a further discussion of these issues see Rauhut Chapter 7 (2004).
Convention