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Adam Smith Lecture Series – Daniel B. Klein, George Mason University
April 15 @ 6:30 pm - 7:30 pm MDT
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“Commanding Passions: Adam Smith on Self-Command”
Join us Monday, April 15 at 6:30 for a lively presentation from Daniel B. Klein on Adam Smith teaching that virtuous self-command sets passions against passions. A couple of months before he died in 1790, Adam Smith published the sixth and final edition of “The Theory of Moral Sentiments.” One of the new sections is “Of Self-command.” It describes wayward passions and speaks of the virtuous commanding of passions. Klein’s title, “Commanding Passions,” might be understood as: the commanding of passions. But another understanding is also important: the passions that do the commanding. Klein will suggest that Smith taught that virtuous self-command sets passions against passions.
Daniel B. Klein is a professor of economics and JIN chair at the Mercatus Center, George Mason University. He leads the Adam Smith Program and has written many journal articles on Adam Smith’s moral philosophy, politics and economics, some of which are collected in the books “Central Notions of Smithian Liberalism” and “Smithian Morals.”