Adam Smith and the character of virtue / Ryan Patrick Hanley.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. The Problem: Commerce and Corruption -- Smith's Defense of Commercial Society -- What Is Corruption? Political and Psychological Perspectives -- Smith on Corruption: From the Citizen to the Human Being -- 2. The Solution: Moral Philosophy -- Liberal Individualism and Virtue Ethics -- Social Science versus Moral Philosophy -- Two Types of Moral Philosophy: Natural Jurisprudence versus Ethics -- Three Types of Ethics: Utilitarianism, Deontology, and Virtue Ethics -- Virtue Ethics: Modern, Ancient, and Smithean -- 3. Interlude: The What and the How of TMS VI -- The What: Smith's "Practical System of Morality" -- The How: Rhetoric, Audience, and the Methods of Practical Ethics -- The How: The Ascent of Self-Love in Three Stages -- 4. Prudence, or Commercial Virtue -- The Challenge: From Praise to Prudence -- Educating the Vain: Fathers and Sons -- Self-Interest Rightly Understood -- The Advantages and Disadvantages of Prudence -- 5. Magnanimity, or Classical Virtue -- The Problems of Prudence and the Therapy of Magnanimity -- Up from Individualism: Desert, Praiseworthiness, Conscience -- Modernity, Antiquity, and Magnanimity -- The Dangers of Magnanimity -- 6. Beneficence, or Christian Virtue -- Between Care and Caritas -- Benevolence and Beneficence and the Human Telos -- The Character and Purposes of the Wise and Virtuous Man -- Wisdom and Virtue and Adam Smith's Apology -- Epilogue: The "Economy of Greatness"