Conference on Adam Smith's
The Theory of Moral Sentiments

May 4-6, 2006
Rochester Institute of Technology

Thursday, May 4th
Sessions are in Carlson Imagining Science (Bldg. 76)

1. 2 - 2:30, Auditorium (Bldg, 76, Room 1125)

Neven Leddy -- Adam Smith and the Electronic Enlightenment

2:30-3 Coffee and cookies

2A. 3-4 (Auditorium)

Gabriel Chavez -- Normative Explanations in The Theory of Moral Sentiments

2B. 3-4 (76-1235)

Vincent Bissonette -- "The most cruel misfortune": Suffering innocence in The Theory of Moral Sentiments

3. 4-5 (Auditorium)

Monica Gerrek -- Revisiting Sentimentalism: A Smithian Normative Moral Theory

4. 5-6:30 Plenary Session (Auditorium)

Peter Jones -- Smith on taste and criticism: texts and contexts

Dinner on campus

5. 8-9:30 Plenary Session (Auditorium)

Michael Pritchard -- The Taming of Resentment

Friday, May 5th
Sessions are in the Administration Building (Bldg. 1), Rooms 2000 and 3287

6A. 9-10 (Bldg. 1, Room 2000)

Tony Pitson -- TMS and Sympathy

6B. 9-10 (Bldg. 1, Room 3287)

Jill Bradbury -- Squaring the Circle: The (Mis)Functions of Benevolence in TMS and WN

7A. 10-11 (1-2000)

Jonathan Rick -- Sympathy and Engagement

7B. 10-11 (1-3287)

Dogan Gocmen -- Adam Smith’s Utopia and the “Adam Smith Problem”

8A. 11-12 (1-2000)

Andrew Terjesen -- Sympathy, Persons and Impartiality: A Consideration of the Moral Psychological Difference Between David Hume and Adam Smith

8B. 11-12 (1-3287)

Maria Pia Paganelli -- Approbation and the Adam Smith Problem

Noon -- Lunch

9A. 1-2 (1-2000)

Tim Madigan -- A Very Gentlemanly System of Morals: Smith and Schopenhauer on the Basis of Morality

9B. 1-2 (1-3287)

Kevin Quinn -- Losing the World: Another Adam Smith Problem

10A. 2-3 (1-2000)

Colin Heydt -- "A delicate and an accurate pencil": Adam Smith, description, and the practical purposes of ethics

10B. 2-3 (1-3287)

Gabriela Remow -- General Rules in the Moral Theories of Smith and Hume

11. 3-4:30 Plenary Session (1-2000)

Jerry Evensky -- Adam Smith on the Human Prospect

Saturday, May 6th
Sessions are in Carlson Imagining Science, Bldg. 76

12A. 9-10 (Bldg. 76-1125, Auditorium)

Amit Ron -- Modern Natural Law Meets the Market: The Case of Adam Smith

12B. 9-10 (76-1230)

Maria Carrasco -- TMS and the model of justice

13A. 10-11 (76-1125)

Alistair MacLeod -- Invisible Hand Arguments: Milton Friedman and Adam Smith

13B. 10-11 (76-1230)

Michael Frazer -- Adam Smith's Individualist Sentimentalism

14. 11-12 (76-1125)

Craig DeLancey -- Sympathy, Merit, and the Social Order in Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments

Lunch -- Noon at Crossroads

15A. 1-2 (76-1125)

Chad Flanders -- Smith’s Reply to Hume’s Life and Death

15B. 1-2 (76-1230)

Ryan Hanley -- Adam Smith, David Hume, and the Politics of Natural Religion

16A. 2-3 (76-1125)

Neven Leddy -- Adam Smith’s TMS between the porch and the garden: Ancient philosophy in 1759, 1790 and 1976

16B. 2-3 (76-1230)

David White -- Smith’s Divine Ambiguities

17. 3-4 (76-1125) Concluding session

Eric Schliesser -- Articulating practices as reasons: Adam Smith on the social conditions of possibility of property

The papers are arranged, to some extent, in themes. For instance, on Thursday afternoon, the A sessions are on whether Smith was giving a normative theory; on Friday morning, the A sessions are on sympathy, the B sessions are generally on the Adam Smith problem; and so on. As one would expect, the paper groupings are somewhat arbitrary because papers often talk to several issues; some papers do not seem to fit into obvious themes of other papers; and schedules have had to be accommodated.