The Theory of Moral Sentiments - Adam Smith [268]
13 Parmenides’ dates make it unlikely that he could have met Plato. A similar story is told in Cicero, Brutus 191, substituting Antimachus for Parmenides.
14 The original source for the first quote is Plutarch; for the second, Athenaeus. But both stories also appear in eighteenth-century sources on which Smith may have drawn; e.g., Thomas Leland, The History of the Life and Reign of Philip King of Macedon (London, 1758), vol. 2, p. 47. The story of Parmenio’s execution is told in Quintus Curtius Rufus 7.2.11-33 (which also includes the account of Alexander’s reliance on him); and Plutarch, Lives, “Alexander” 49.
15 See Clarendon, History of the Rebellion in England (1720 -21), vol. 1, p. 55.
16 levee: “the concourse of those who crowd round a man of power in a morning” (Johnson).
17 See Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 4.3; 1124b6-9 and 1125a12-16.
18 Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 5 (1. 76-79).
19 Smith again likely has Locke in mind, who likewise identifies as “the great secret of education” the utilization of the love of esteem to assist in the cultivation of virtue; see Some Thoughts Concerning Education, sec. 56-58, as well as Rousseau’s discussion of “le grand secret de l’education” in Emile 4.
PART VII, SECTION I
1 On these conceptions of virtue, see 7.2.1-3 (p. 318).
2 Smith treats these conceptions of moral judgment in 7.3.1-3 (p. 318).
PART VII, SECTION II
1 Part 6, “Of the Character of Virtue,” presumably provides Smith’s own position on the question addressed in this paragraph.
2 Smith restricts his study of Plato’s conception of virtue to Republic . For the analogy between the parts of the city and the parts of the soul, see esp. Republic 368c-369b, 434d-436b.
3 On reason as the governing principle of the city, see Republic 428a- 429a; as governing principle of the individual, see Republic 442c.
4 On the objects and ends of the first class (spirit, or thymos) see, e.g., Republic 548c-550b; on those of the second (appetite, or epithymia ) see, e.g., Republic 558c-561d; on the relationship between these, see Republic 439d-440e. On the Scholastic distinction between the “irascible” and the “concupiscible,” see, e.g., Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, First Part of the Second Part, Question 23.
5 See, e.g., Republic 442c, 579b-582e, which treat the cardinal virtue of wisdom (sophia), rather than prudence properly speaking (phronesis).
6 See, e.g., Republic 429a-430a, 442c, which treat the cardinal virtue of courage (andreia) rather than magnanimity properly speaking (megalopsychia), a term that does not seem to have been much used by Plato. Here and in his discussion of prudence Smith imports terms more associated with Aristotle. On the anger we feel toward ourselves upon succumbing to pleasure, see, e.g., Republic 439e.
7 See, e.g., Republic 430e-432b, which calls attention to the harmony afforded by the cardinal virtue of moderation (sophrosyne).
8 See, e.g., Republic 432b-434d, 442d-443e, which treat the virtue of justice (dikaiosyne). The view that Plato’s conception of justice replicates Pythagorean views on justice as a form of harmony or proportion has been argued from Smith’s day to our own; see, e.g., the history of ancient philosophy prefaced to the third volume of Monboddo’s Ancient Metaphysics (London and Edinburgh, 1784), xxxii-xxxiii.
9 See 2.2.1 (p. 95).
10 For Grotius’s distinction, see Rights of War and Peace 1.1.8. The distinction between Grotius and Aristotle is elaborated in a manner that anticipates Smith’s note in Pufendorf, Law of Nature and Nations 1.7.9-12.
11 See esp. Republic 444d-e.
12 Smith’s précis of Aristotle’s definition of virtue emphasizes Aristotle’s account of habituation (see Nicomachean Ethics 2.1-5, 1103a14-1106a13) and of the mean (see Nicomachean Ethics 2.6, 1106a14-1107a27), and perhaps underemphasizes the place of choice and deliberation.
13 On courage (andreia) as a mean, see Nicomachean Ethics 3.7 (1115b6-1116a15); on magnanimity (megalopsychia) as a mean, see Nicomachean Ethics 4.3 (1125a17-33). Smith’s account of the “frugality” as the virtue