Speaker
Description
Soren Kierkegaard presents an ethical system that remains very influential with three basic classifications. Some live the 'Aesthetic' life which is essentially hedonism, others the 'Ethical' life (following laws and behaving justly) and a few live the 'Spiritual' life (when laws and normal practice are suspended to pursue a higher telos).
This paper examines the extent to which the tripartite Kierkegaardian ethical model can be deployed as a hermeneutical lens to view Smith's ethics - which also has three lives - a way of unconstrained self-love, a way of constrained self-love and a way of benevolence.
The paper proposes to examine the extent to which the three moral lives of Kierkegaard and Smith converge and/or diverge.
With half of a book manuscript written on this topic the paper provides a timely opportunity to engage in debate with other Smith scholars.
| Organization | Charles Sturt University |
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