Beyond virtues and vices: Antonio Genovesi's and Adam Smith's “science of relationships”

ABSTRACT

Some recent literature has rediscovered the Italian tradition of “civil economy”. This literature has underlined how the discourse about virtues and vices was fundamental in order to establish how, in a political and economic context, a harmonious order could be established. On the basis of this main focus on virtues and vices, it was stated that Genovesi's thought is essentially different from Smith's one. In this article, I argue that the direct focus on questions of virtues and vices does not help capture the novelty introduced by these authors and the relational value of their agency theory.

KEYWORDS:

• Antonio Genovesi
• Adam Smith
• Ethics and Economics

Acknowledgment

I would like to thank the anonymous referees for their valuable comments and suggestions to improve the quality of the paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

¹ For this literature, see Bruni and Sugden (2000), Bruni and Zamagni (2007, 2015), and Bruni and Sugden (2008).

² See Robertson (2005).

³ Moreover, an approach directly focused on virtues and vices without a larger consideration of Genovesi's logic of action cannot completely neutralise another major interpretative perspective concerning Genovesi and his civil economy. I refer to those (see, for example, Ferrone [2008] and D'Onofrio [2015]) who, considering how Genovesi's economic discourse was influenced by the tradition of natural law, stated that Genovesi was not really interested in civic, relational dynamics but in the intervention of the Sovereign to regulate economic functioning. The adoption of a perspective based on virtuous behaviour, in fact, necessitates introducing assumptions that are either theological or integral to the tradition of natural law.

⁴ As stated by Haakonssen (1981, 136) when describing Smith's thought, “the description of impartial spectator is a description of the criteria which mankind must use in deciding whether an action or character is morally valuable or not”. So the “spectator principles” do not provide mankind with rules, but they do “give evaluation concrete form (and thereby inform) practical reasoning” (Haakonssen 1981, 137).

⁵ According to this idea, the religious aspect plays an important role in creating this substantial difference in the way they “read the world”. While benevolence, mutuality, gratuity and other social virtues, underlined by Antonio Genovesi, are associated with a Catholic perspective, more effective criteria, such as competition, self-interest, utility in creating wealth and social order, are proposed by Adam Smith also as a result of his belonging to a Presbyterian tradition.

⁶ For Vico's conception of Scienza Nuova and the role of “ingenuity” in establishing links among different elements of experience, see Amoroso (1998, 5). As stated by Lollini (2011, 121), “Vico's thought maintains the alterity of nature as an intrinsic, constant, and relational feature of the creation of the human world”. Thus Vico was interested in the relational nature of meaning and “conatus” does not represent a voluntary impulse to regulate nature but “a figure of intercorporeality that alludes to the relational nature of meaning” (Lollini 2011, 126). For an interesting analysis of Genovesi's philosophical education, see Zambelli (1972).

⁷ Genovesi was influenced by Vico who, as stated by Amoroso (1998, 5), “in turning his back on modern, Cartesian metaphysics, Vico revives the old link between truth and being, but then connects (with a much more modern move than he himself perhaps thought) truth and being precisely with doing”. Smith wrote: “the present inquiry does not concern a matter of right, if I may say so, but concerning a matter of fact” (Smith 1976 [1759], II. i. 5. 10).

⁸ As stated by Young (1997, 133).

⁹ For an interesting analysis on this subject, see Pennisi (1987).

¹⁰ Hume wrote: “It will be easy to conceive of what vast consequences these principles must be in the science of human nature, if we consider that so far as regards the mind. These are the only links that bind the parts of the universe together, or connect us with any person or object exterior to ourselves. For as it is by means of thought only that any thing operates upon our passions, and as these are the only that any thing operates upon passions, and as these are the only ties of our thoughts, they are really to us the cement of the universe.” (Hume 1938, 417).

¹¹ It is interesting to note that Genovesi was involved in the operation of “seeing the reciprocal relationships – between things – with the aim of being able to judge them” (Genovesi 1818, 8) and “discovering new and previously unknown relationships” (Genovesi 1818, 13) in order to offer a “relational definition of ideas” to explain natural and social order and Adam Smith starts his scientific reflection with a similar interest: “Philosophy is the science of the connecting principles of nature…Philosophy, by representing the invisible chains which bind together all these disjointed objects, endeavours to introduce order into this chaos of jarring and discordant appearances” Smith (1980, II. 12, 45–46).

¹² Genovesi (1818, 31).

¹³ Smith (1976 [1759], II. ii. 3. 2, 86).

¹⁴ Smith (1976 [1759]: 37].

¹⁵ Smith (1976 [1776]. I. v: 49).

¹⁶ Smith (1976 [1776]. II. ii. 3.10).

¹⁷ The first Italian edition of Wealth of Nations (1790–1791) was published in Naples edited by Policarpo Merande; the Theory of Moral Sentiments was published in a complete Italian translation in 1991 by Istituto dell'enciclopedia italiana (edited by A. Zanini). See Tribe (2002).

¹⁸ This text was also studied, commented and edited by Romagnosi, an author particularly interested in the activity of the human mind, see Genovesi (1853).

¹⁹ Naples, Stamperia Simoniana.

²⁰ The reference book for his teaching of Civil Economy at the first chair of Commerce and Mechanics instituted in 1754 at the University of Naples, one of the first chairs of Economics in Europe. For a critical introduction to Genovesi's Lezioni, see Dal Degan (2013).

²¹ Logica per gli giovanetti, Naples, Stamperia Simoniana, 1766. Another treatise on a Logical subject, in Latin, Elementorum artis logico-criticae was composed by Genovesi in 1745.

²² Della Diceosina o sia della filosofia del giusto e dell'onesto, Naples, Stamperia Simoniana, 1766.

²³ Lezioni di economia civile, Naples, Stamperia Simondiana, 1767. A second, augmented edition was published in 1769.

²⁴ As V. Ferrone (2008, XIV) writes in his introduction to a new edition of Diceosina based on the edition of the text published in 1777 in Naples by Domenico Terres.

²⁵ Genovesi's references to Rousseau are frequent in his writings on Ethics and Economics while Smith refers to Rousseau for the first time in an anonymous letter to the Edinburgh Review published in 1756, in which he analyses Rousseau's Discourse of Inequality and then, albeit not explicitly, in his TMS and WN as shown by Rasmussen (2008).

²⁶ K. Tribe (2002, 162) explains that Smith's ideas generally became known through the work of translators and commentators. The translation of “self-love” does not help its positive understanding: for example, G. Garnier, one of the first translators into French of Wealth of Nations, translated the two occurrences of this term in the book as “intérêt personnel” and “égoisme”. For a history of the translations of the term “self-love”, see Force (2006). In relation to a positive use of self-love in Adam Smith's writings see, among others, Rosenberg (1990), Phillips (1997), Griswold (1999), Darwall (2006), and Bee (2014).

²⁷ See Genovesi (2013, 171) and Smith (1976 [1759], 309); see also Smith (1976 [1759], 303).

²⁸ As Genovesi recognised:: “The illustrious G. B. Vico one of my Maestros” (2013, 275). There are a lot of references to Vico in Genovesi's writings, he recognised inter alia the importance of the Scienza Nuova: “a marvellous book and one of the few that in these subjects bring honour to Italy” (Genovesi 1853, 205, note 1).

²⁹ Gadamer underlined that Vico and Shaftesbury can be considered two important thinkers belonging to the tradition of “common sense” which goes back to the old Roman concept. In particular, Vico intended “sensus communis” as the sense of what is right and of the common good that is to be found in all men: moreover, it is a sense that is acquired through living in the community and it is determined by its structures and aims. In Shaftesbury's idea common sense appears mostly as a virtue of social intercourse with a moral and even a metaphysical basis implied and it governs our relations with people. See Gadamer (2013, 23–32). It is interesting to note that both were in contact with Genovesi and that Shaftesbury influenced Hutcheson's exposition of the moral sense and the subsequent development of the Scottish common sense philosophy founded by T. Reid.

³⁰ Genovesi knew the “learned work of this Englishman” as revealed by several quotations (see, for example, Genovesi [1853, 251]). For interesting details about Shaftesbury's stay in Naples, see Croce (1927), while for his conception of ethics, see Crispini (2000).

³¹ Genovesi's benevolence like Smith's idea of beneficence is different from immediate and spontaneous passion as in Hume's conception of benevolence (which is intended as natural and spontaneous sympathy towards close friends or kin). As Hanley (2009, 181) explains, Smith “tends to convey the distinction via the Latinised terms of ‘benevolence’ and ‘beneficence’. The former he associates with a well-meaning but inefficacious disposition, whereas the latter connotes successful activity on behalf of others. Smith's several critiques of compassion and pity frequently emphasise this same distinction”.

³² Genovesi (1766a, I, Ch.1, XVII).

³³ Genovesi (2013, 171).

³⁴ Genovesi's own expression.

³⁵ Echoing the expression of Hume (1978, 1938): “a bundle or collection of different perceptions”.

³⁶ Montesquieu, in his major work, Esprit des lois, attempted to clarify the relationship between the two internal forces of human beings, concentrative and diffusive, inspiring Genovesi who commented on the book.

³⁷ Genovesi (1779, 203–204).

³⁸ Genovesi (1853, 250).

³⁹ Genovesi (1853, 38).

⁴⁰ Actions stem from the nature of man, from the relationships with everything that surrounds him and the laws of these relationships. Therefore, they should be studied and investigated by examining not only the passions that animate them, nor only the forces that support them from a physical standpoint, and not even just the reasons that explain them. Man is, in fact, composed of body, heart and intellect and must be looked at bearing in mind all his components, see Genovesi (1853, 248).

⁴¹ Genovesi (2008, 33).

⁴² Genovesi (2008, 35).

⁴³ Genovesi (1853. V. IV.)

⁴⁴ Genovesi (1766b, 248)

⁴⁵ Genovesi (2008, 68).

⁴⁶ Smith in a similar sense, wrote: “In solitude we are apt to feel too strongly whatever relates to ourselves: we are apt to over-rate the good offices we may have done, and the injuries we may have suffered: we are apt to be too elated by our own good, and too dejected by our own bad fortune. The conversation of a friend brings us to a better temper, that of a stranger to a still better temper.”

⁴⁷ “By virtue of an intimate recess we could discover a certain duplicity of soul, and divide ourselves into two parties” (Shaftesbury 1981, 60).

⁴⁸ Crispini (2000, 30).

⁴⁹ In the same perspective as Shaftesbury as underlined by Genovesi.

⁵⁰ Smith (1976 [1759], 9).

⁵¹ Smith (1976 [1759], 309); see also Smith (1976 [1759], 303).

⁵² Smith (1976 [1759], 154).

⁵³ Smith (1976 [1759], 110).

⁵⁴ Smith (1976 [1759], 320).

⁵⁵ As Campbell (1971, 181) states associating Hutcheson's idea of virtue to benevolence.

⁵⁶ “Sympathy is the method of choice that Smith adopts to ground his Christian ethical system on the Golden Rule through an expansive role of virtuous self-love” (West 1969, 95).

⁵⁷ Smith (1976 [1759], 9).

⁵⁸ In this perspective, what defines moral agent is more a transcendent feature than an internal debate or a dialogic encounter with the self as stated by Brown (1994, 208). See also Dow (1990).

⁵⁹ Smith (1976 [1759], 110).

⁶⁰ Smith (1976 [1759], 134).

⁶¹ Smith (1976 [1759], 113).

⁶² Smith (1976 [1759], 110.

⁶³ See Forman-Barzilai (2011).

⁶⁴ About distance and sympathetical relationships with strangers, see Paganelli (2010).

⁶⁵ Because of its complex nature, Genovesi's benevolence is more similar to Smith's idea of beneficence and different from immediate and spontaneous passion as in Hume's conception of benevolence (which is intended as natural and spontaneous sympathy towards close friends or kin). As Hanley (2009, 181) explains. Smith “tends to convey the distinction via the Latinised terms of ‘benevolence’ and ‘beneficence’. The former he associates with a well-meaning but inefficacious disposition, whereas the latter connotes successful activity on behalf of others. Smith's several critiques of compassion and pity frequently emphasise this same distinction”.

⁶⁶ See Smith (1976 [1759], 306–314).