Addison and Smith: Freedom and Responsibility
Freedom and Responsibility in Addison and Smith
Topic
This set of readings pairs two key works of the eighteenth century––Joseph Addison’s Cato and Adam Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments. Chief among the thematic links between the two works is stoicism, for Addison’s depiction of Cato the Younger’s final days nicely complements Smith’s treatment of “self-command,” of moral duty, of Stoicism, and of the character of virtue.
Guide to the Readings
Editions used:
- Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, ed. D.D. Raphael and A.L. Macfie, vol. I of the Glasgow Edition of the Works and Correspondence of Adam Smith (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1982).
- Joseph Addison, Cato: A Tragedy and Selected Essays, ed. by Christine Dunn Henderson and Mark E. Yellin, with a Foreword by Forrest McDonald (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2004).
- David Hume, Essays Moral, Political, Literary, edited and with a Foreword, Notes, and Glossary by Eugene F. Miller, with an appendix of variant readings from the 1889 edition by T.H. Green and T.H. Grose, revised edition (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund 1987).
See also in the Online Library of Liberty:
- Collections: The Scottish Enlightenment
- Joseph Addison (1672-1719)
- Adam Smith (1723-1790)
- David Hume (1711-1776)
Session I: Character, Stoicism, and Heroism in “Cato.”
Joseph Addison, Cato: A Tragedy
Session II: Character, Stoicism, and Heroism in “Cato.”
Joseph Addison, Cato: A Tragedy
Session III: Judgment, Justice, and Beneficence
Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments
- Part II, Section II “Of Justice and Beneficence”
- Part III “Of the Foundations of our Judgments concerning our own Sentiments and Conduct, and of the Sense of Duty”
Session IV: : The Character of Virtue
Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments
- Part VI “Of the Character of Virtue”
Session V: Stoicism, Happiness, and Virtue
Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments
- Part VII “Of the Systems which make Virtue consist in Propriety”
Session VI: Virtue, Stoicism, and Human Freedom
David Hume, Essays Moral, Political, Literary
Reading Lists
- Addison and Smith: Freedom and Responsibility
- American Liberty in Political Documents before 1787
- An Introduction to the Major Writings of Ludwig von Mises
- Banned Books
- British and French Sources of American Constitutionalism
- Burlamaqui, Bayle: Freedom Tolerance, Natural Law
- Cato’s Letters: Liberty and Responsibility
- Cobden: Liberty and Peace
- Constant’s Principles of Politics
- Emerson on Anti-slavery
- Eric Mack, An Introduction to the Political Thought of John Locke
- Gibbon and the Rise of Christianity and Islam
- Homer’s Iliad: Liberty and Responsibility
- Hume, Smith, and Ferguson: Wealth, Commerce, and Corruption
- Hume: History of England
- James Tyrrell on Authority and Liberty
- Jefferson-Hamilton Debate
- John Milton: Liberty in his Prose and Poetry
- Major Political Thinkers: Plato to Mill
- Mandeville: Vice, Virtue and Liberty
- Mill-Macaulay Debate on Government
- Old Testament and English Political Thought
- Political Sermons of the Founding Era
- Readings from the OLL Reader
- Rousseau and Hume: Contrasting Views of Liberty
- Shakespeare and Marlowe: Liberty in Four Plays
- Shakespeare: Liberty and Responsibility
- Socialist Tracts
- Sophocles and Aeschylus: Blood Justice and the Founding of Legal Order
- Tacitus: Liberty and Tyranny in the Annals
- The Ruling Class and the State: An Anthology
- Thomas Paine and American Liberty
- Thucydides: War, Empire, and Liberty