ABSTRACT
This chapter offers an interpretation of Adam Smith’s account of virtue and vice that reveals the unity of his ethical system as virtue ethics. The interpretation draws on the distinction between virtue as a quality of an action and virtue as a quality of a person – distinction Smith introduces when presenting his original reading of Aristotle. The virtuousness or viciousness of action, in turn, is based solely on the occurrent passions that action expresses or is motivated by. Since prime bearers of moral value are internal states of agents, Smith’s system qualifies as ‘agent-based’ virtue ethics as it has been termed by Michael Slote. Besides establishing justice as virtue of persons, Smith’s two-level account of virtue enables him to make room for moral motivation while staying true to agent-based virtue ethics. Namely, Smith argues that the most effective complementary and restraining motives stem from our capacity for moral judgment, which makes us passionate about attaining virtue and evading vice.
