Scottish Enlightenment
By Riccardo Piroddi
Abstract: L’Illuminismo scozzese fu alimentato da un clima di tolleranza, prosperità commerciale e libertà economica. I filosofi scozzesi misero in discussione le basi del razionalismo classico, spostando l’attenzione verso l’istinto e la spontaneità come forze determinanti nella vita sociale.
Shaftesbury e Hutcheson sostennero l’esistenza di un senso morale innato e di una naturale inclinazione alla benevolenza, mettendo in crisi l’idea del contratto sociale come fondamento della società. David Hume collegò il progresso economico alla libertà politica, affermando che l’espansione del commercio e l’emancipazione delle classi inferiori dessero origine a una borghesia capace di guidare la vita politica. Egli riteneva che la giustizia dovesse basarsi sull’utilità sociale e su istituzioni nate dall’evoluzione naturale delle abitudini umane, riconoscendo la necessità di leggi e coercizione per mantenere l’ordine e tutelare la libertà individuale.
Adam Smith integrò ragione e sentimento nella comprensione dell’agire umano, sostenendo che la legittimità morale derivasse dal rapporto tra affetti e norme sociali. Al centro del suo pensiero vi è il concetto di prudenza come virtù sociale, che media tra interesse personale e giustizia. In Wealth of Nations, Smith delineò un sistema economico fondato sul libero mercato e sull’intervento minimo dello Stato, capace di armonizzare l’interesse individuale con il benessere collettivo. Questo insieme di idee segnò profondamente lo sviluppo del pensiero politico, economico e sociale moderno in Europa.
In 18th-century Scotland, a secular and tolerant culture emerged, fuelled by an economic system rooted in trade, free enterprise, and prosperity. This environment gave rise to the Scottish Enlightenment, also known as the Age of Reason, which profoundly influenced political, economic, and religious thought throughout Britain.
A central debate in the Scottish Enlightenment revolved around two contrasting views: self-respect, a dominant passion in Hobbesian philosophy, and benevolence, the natural human inclination to care for others. This marked a departure from the rationalistic understanding of human nature, shifting focus to instinct, impulse, and spontaneity—forces that significantly shape social life.
One of the earliest contributors to this shift was Anthony Ashley Cooper III, Earl of Shaftesbury (1671–1713). He argued that humans possess an innate moral sense, enabling them to immediately distinguish between right and wrong. Shaftesbury believed that individual and collective interests are naturally aligned, which led to a critique of the social contract. He suggested that such a contract was not essential for the creation of political communities, as humans are already inclined toward social cooperation through moral affection.
Francis Hutcheson (1694–1746) expanded on Shaftesbury’s ideas by emphasizing benevolence, the moral and natural impulse that drives humans to live in society. According to Hutcheson, this innate sense of benevolence was present from the inception of the state, and the social contract merely served to protect individual freedoms and property rather than to establish society itself.
These philosophical ideas were closely tied to the emergence of a commercial civil society in Scotland. The Scottish Enlightenment thinkers saw free labour, wages, and the economy as natural systems of justice and freedom, integral to the development of a prosperous and just society. In this view, the economy was not merely a mechanism for wealth accumulation but a reflection of moral principles guiding human interaction and societal development.
Davide Hume
David Hume (1711–1776), a prominent figure in the British Enlightenment and a leading empiricist, placed the progress of economic activity at the heart of political freedom. He argued that as the lower classes gained emancipation and new, more advanced tools of production were invented, trade expanded, making the bourgeoisie the new key players in both economic and political life.
This emerging political class, primarily composed of the bourgeoisie, championed property rights, which in turn facilitated the advancement of the arts and sciences. This shift in mentality was also shaped by the foundational English constitutional documents, such as the Magna Carta and Habeas Corpus, which granted fundamental rights and freedoms to even the poorest classes. These legal frameworks fostered social mobility and the growth of trade, leading to a broader expansion of the economic system.
Hume believed that this political and economic transformation underscored the importance of equality within any legal system. He asserted that significant inequality among citizens weakens the state, as it undermines the conditions necessary for the prosperity and stability that come from a free, dynamic economy and society. Thus, for Hume, economic progress and social equality were interlinked, forming the basis for a strong and resilient state.
David Hume’s political theory was grounded in the concept of a federal state, which evolved through natural processes that reflect the historical development of political order, with economics at its core. Rather than viewing a strict discontinuity between the state of nature and the state of law, Hume proposed that human beings are inherently sociable and shaped by habitual behaviours. While individuals are naturally selfish, they are also capable of identifying with others through sympathy, an innate capacity that allows them to connect and understand fellow humans.
Hume believed that the true human condition is found in society, where individuals can refine their instincts through education and interaction. The cohesion of society, in his view, must adhere to the principle of social utility—the idea that societal structures should be designed to enhance and meet individual needs. This anthropological understanding of human beings underscores the need for an organizational structure that guides the natural progression of human society toward more complex systems. These systems should anchor humanity’s innate sociability to a government capable of ensuring justice, protecting property, and safeguarding personal belongings.
In Hume’s framework, politics is not about creating new structures but rather about organizing and reinforcing what is derived from human nature, which may otherwise be too fragile to endure on its own. The political system thus combines both natural and civil virtues, producing the principles of justice. The role of justice, in this sense, is to reconcile the pursuit of profit, habit, and the growing complexity of communal life, ensuring that societal growth does not come at the expense of individual well-being.
The safeguarding of individual freedoms, however, cannot be achieved without a system of coercion. For Hume, laws must regulate the dynamics of society, and a mechanism for enforcing these laws, including the punishment of offenders, is essential to maintaining order and ensuring obedience within the social body. This balance between freedom and coercion is central to Hume’s vision of a just and functional society.
Adam Smith
Adam Smith (1723–1790) built upon the understanding of human nature as a coordination of reason and feeling. He modified the concept of sympathy—a central idea in Scottish Enlightenment thought—by linking human actions to the notions of ownership and appropriateness. In Smith’s view, legitimacy in human behaviour arises from the relationship between a person’s affections and the object that stimulates those feelings. This relationship is, however, deeply influenced by social custom, making society an intrinsic part of human nature.
For Smith, prudence, the social virtue par excellence, reflects the ethical dimension of appropriateness in human actions. The interplay between property and prudence, between personal interest and virtue, forms the cornerstone of Smith’s philosophical and economic doctrines. His theory of justice hinges on this balance, where economics (interest) and politics (virtue) are closely connected.
In his seminal work The Wealth of Nations (1776), Smith undertook a comprehensive examination of the legal and social structures of Europe. He addressed key issues like the division of labour, the accumulation of capital, income distribution, and public debt, providing a foundational analysis of modern economics.
Politically, Smith saw the sovereign as the only figure capable of mediating between virtue and interest. The ruler’s role is to balance individual and societal interests, ensuring that both economic activities and ethical considerations align.
Economically, Smith argued that the government’s primary responsibilities were to protect citizens and to ensure the flourishing of commercial activities in a free and virtuous manner. His advocacy for free trade laid the groundwork for the bourgeois capitalist system, promoting the idea that markets, when left to operate freely, could harmonize individual self-interest with broader social benefits. Smith’s ideas thus fused the ethical with the economic, proposing a system where both personal and collective well-being are interlinked.
