Drawing on a wide range of Hegel’s writings, this book analyses the Hegelian position on ethical action. This position is systematically compared with that of Immanuel Kant, the comparison emphasizing Hegel’s insistence on a morality grounded in an ‘ethical’ context which essentially refers to the state rather than the agent’s private will. The argument proceeds to the relationship between the state and the various components of civil society, and to the interaction between the state and t...

Adopting a view of utilitarian ethics in which motivation in the public interest takes on greater weight than is generally appreciated, this book explores the extent to which the philosophy of Immanuel Kant is consistent with this nuanced version of utilitarianism.Kant’s requirement that full ethical merit needs an agent to act purely ‘from duty’ to forward ‘the universal end of happiness’ rather than from a personal inclination to achieve that end clearly distinguishes his positio...

In this landmark volume, Samuel Hollander presents a fresh and compelling history of moral philosophy from Locke to John Stuart Mill, showing that a ‘moral sense’ can actually be considered compatible with utilitarianism. The book also explores the link between utilitarianism and distributive justice.Hollander engages in close textual exegesis of the works relating to individual authors, while never losing sight of the intellectual relationships between them. Tying together the gre...

Samuel Hollander’s work has been provoking debate for over four decades. This book brings together key contributions of recent years, in addition to some brand new pieces. The essays are introduced by a Preface in which Hollander reflects on his past work and reactions to it.Highlights include two issues of particular current relevance. Conspicuous is an extensive chapter regarding Adam Smith’s often neglected arguments for government intervention in the economy to correct market f...

John Stuart Mill: Political Economist is a revised version of the part of Samuel Hollander's The Economics of John Stuart Mill (1985) treating the theory of economic policy. In this book, Professor Hollander offers a critical yet sympathetic analysis of Mill's quest to accomplish thorough reform of capitalism in the interest of distributive justice while protecting the security of property and contemplating the potential evolution of capitalism into cooperative organization. Part I of the ...

Samuel Hollander is widely recognized as one of the most important and controversial historians of economic thought. This second volume collects together essays extending beyond classical economics, the subject with which he is most associated. This collection includes: * studies in Scholastic, Smithian and Marshallian literature * papers on the Co

This book rejects the commonly encountered perception of Friedrich Engels as perpetuator of a 'tragic deception' of Marx, and the equally persistent body of opinion treating him as 'his master's voice'. Engels' claim to recognition is reinforced by an exceptional contribution in the 1840s to the very foundations of the Marxian enterprise, a contribution entailing not only the 'vision' but some of the building blocks in the working out of that vision. Subsequently, he proved himself to be a...

In this unconvential and sharply written text Hollander introduces the work of Smith, Ricardo, and Mill, and, on specific topics, Malthus and Marx. He leads the student through the nuances of the arguments, making clear how he agrees with or challenges recieved ideas about their writings. Attention is given to the precursors of the classics, to their immediate successors, and to the Sraffian system.

The renewed interest in the works of the great classical economists reflects in part a recognition that there is still much to be learned from them about the operation of the economy. This volume is the first in a series of four in which Professor Hollander will provide an analytical and critical assessment of the thought of the British school of classical economists; later volumes will elucidate the thought of Ricardo and Malthus, Mill, and Marx. This study relates Smith's theoretical pos...

The recent economic crisis in the United States has highlighted a crisis of understanding. In this volume, Bradley C. S. Watson and Joseph Postell bring together some of America's most eminent thinkers on political economy-an increasingly overlooked field wherein political ideas and economic theories mutually inform each other. Only through a restoration of political economy can we reconnect economics to the human good. Economics as a discipline deals with the production and distribution o...

This book explores the perceived paradigmatic conflict within British classical economics between the so called 'Ricardo School' and the contemporary French Economics of Jean-Baptiste Say. Samuel Hollander provides the reader with extensive evidence, utilizing all editions of Say's main texts and his lesser-known writings in order to demonstrate his adherence to much of Ricardian theory.This intriguing book focuses on selected doctorinal issues and surrounding debates, and will int...

Spinoza is generally recognized as one of the most important philosophers of the early modern period; less well known are his observations regarding private ethical conduct, social control including state intervention in the market, and public policy including welfare.This book explores these political economy dimensions of Spinoza’s thought setting them in the context of his own wider work and the broader intellectual history landscape. The discussion in the book takes account of ...