Adam Smith and William James on the psychological basis of progress

This paper identifies extensive connections between Adam Smith’s and William James’s accounts of the psychological basis of intellectual, material and moral progress. These connections are brought into focus through discussion of their shared circumspection towards claims to objective truth, which highlights Smith’s distance from mainstream interpretations of his contributions to economics. The paper additionally argues that insight into the sustained emphases that Smith and James place upon the role of psychological satisfaction as a motivating factor in societal and personal progress can aid current efforts to draw upon their work and to reconcile the disciplines that they are widely credited with founding

Poor choice? Smith, Hayek and the moral economy of food consumption

This paper explores the moral economy of food in the United Kingdom via discourses on food bank usage and obesity. It argues that both of these markers of malnutrition were interpreted under the Conservative-led governments of David Cameron (2010–2016) as failings of personal responsibility and identified primarily with the working class, advancing the assumption that poor people make poor choices. Based on a critique of this account, our wider contribution is two-fold. First, we identify the Hayekian lineage of the discourse of personal responsibility, highlighting its utility in facilitating a form of neoliberal market consent through its insistence on self-reliance. Second, we stake out an alternative to this conceptualization through a discussion of Adam Smith’s notion of self-command, which we call interpersonal responsibility

The phenotype associated with a large deletion on MECP2

Multiplex ligation-dependent Probe Amplification (MLPA) has become available for the detection of a large deletion on the MECP2 gene allowing genetic confirmation of previously unconfirmed cases of clinical Rett syndrome. This study describes the phenotype of those with a large deletion and compares with those with other pathogenic MECP2 mutations. Individuals were ascertained from the Australian Rett Syndrome and InterRett databases with data sourced from family and clinician questionnaires, and two case studies were constructed from the longitudinal Australian data. Regression and survival analysis were used to compare severity and age of onset of symptoms in those with and without a large deletion. Data were available for 974 individuals including 51 with a large deletion and ages ranged from 1 year 4 months to 49 years (median 9 years). Those with a large deletion were more severely affected than those with other mutation types. Specifically, individuals with large deletions were less likely to have learned to walk (OR 0.42, 95% CI: 0.22–0.79, P=0.007) and to be currently walking (OR 0.53, 95% CI: 0.26–1.10, P=0.089), and were at higher odds of being in the most severe category of gross motor function (OR 1.84, 95% CI: 0.98–3.48, P=0.057) and epilepsy (OR 2.72, 95% CI: 1.38–5.37, P=0.004). They also developed epilepsy, scoliosis, hand stereotypies and abnormal breathing patterns at an earlier age. We have described the disorder profile associated with a large deletion from the largest sample to date and have found that the phenotype is severe with motor skills particularly affected

Schools out : Adam Smith and pre-disciplinary international political economy

In this article, I argue that invocations of Adam Smith in international political economy (IPE) often reveal the influence therein of a disciplinary ontological disaggregation of economic and non-economic rationality, which I claim is obscured by the tendency to map its complex intellectual contours in terms of competing schools. I trace the origins of the disciplinary characterisation of Smith as the founder of IPE's liberal tradition to invocations of his thought by centrally important figures in the perceived Austrian, Chicago and German historical schools of economics, and reflect upon the significance to IPE of the reiteration of this portrayal by apparent members of its so-called American and British schools. I additionally contrast these interpretations to those put forward by scholars who seek to interpret IPE and Smith's contribution to it in pre-disciplinary terms, which I claim reflects a distinct ontology to that attributed to the British school of IPE with which their work is often associated. I therefore contend that reflection upon invocations of Smith's thought in IPE problematises the longstanding tendency to map its intellectual terrain in terms of competing schools, reveals that the disciplinary ontological consensus that informs this tendency impacts upon articulations of its core concerns and suggests that a pre-disciplinary approach offers an alternative lens through which such concerns might be more effectively framed

Beyond rationalist orthodoxy: towards a complex concept of the self in IPE

In this thesis I investigate the intellectual foundations of International Political Economy (IPE) in order to develop a more complex account of agency than that currently provided to the subject field by neoclassical economics. In particular, I focus on the thought of Adam Smith, whose ideas are gaining interest in IPE owing to an increasing recognition of his seminal contribution to the subject field. I investigate the secondary debate on Smith, his influences, his distance from his peers in the Scottish Enlightenment and his ongoing influence across the social sciences. I also analyse the thought of William James, and argue that his similarly influential concept of agency offers a complex view of the self that is complimentary to Smith’s account. I suggest that the framework of the self that these thinkers provide can present critical IPE theorists with an alternative concept of agency than the reductive account currently employed in the subject field. I argue that these theorists are unable to countenance such an alternative owing to their implicit acceptance of the analytical separation of economics and politics that became institutionalised after the Methodenstreit. I suggest that this is obscured by their commitment to normative interventionism, which I argue threatens to reiterate the universalist claims that they seek to challenge