THE CHALLENGE: FROM PRAISE TO PRUDENCE

In Part VI of TMS, Smith introduces the virtue of prudence as a remedy for the vices induced by the love of praise, the basic form of untutored self-love. His concern to remedy these vices is itself the product of his nuanced assessment of the love of praise – an assessment that balances an appreciation of the material and social benefits of the love of praise with an appreciation of the psychological and political disturbances that such a love frequently encourages. Smith's account of prudence has as its principal goal the maximization of these benefits and the minimization of their costs. In this respect his account goes beyond familiar conceptions. It has long been recognized that his account of prudence provides a window on commercial man. Yet the aim of his account is hardly to champion “the accumulating capitalist who is the driving force of the Wealth of Nations,” nor is it simply to offer a defense of “bourgeois virtues” – a project with which Smith's name has increasingly come to be associated. And neither is it only a plea for moderation or middling virtue, though it surely is that in part. Rather, Smith's account of prudence sets forth a model moral character for the admiration and emulation of citizens of commercial society – one specifically designed to preempt the particular ills and preserve the particular beneficial inclinations characteristic of such citizens.