Abstract

Maria A. Carrasco

The Double Meaning of Self-command

In TMS, Adam Smith seems to conflate two different meanings of ‘self-command’, making that virtue appear with a somehow paradoxical character:  on the one hand, that which gives luster to all virtues, the keystone of his moral system;  on the other, a moral virtue which makes injustice and other moral vices admirable.  I will argue that the blurred lines begin because Smith does not distinguish between ‘self-command’ as the matrix of rational acting — a pre-moral habit which is directly related to autonomy — and the specific moral virtue of self-command (which includes fortitude and temperance). The first habit is indeed a meta-virtue, concomitant to any virtue, which illuminates the reflexive character of human action. The second one is a ‘cardinal virtue’ analogous to prudence, justice or beneficence.