The Real Adam Smith: A Personal Exploration by Johan Norberg takes an intriguing, two-part look at Smith, his rise to prominence and the impact of his ideas today, both economic and ethical. It’s difficult to imagine that a man who lived in a world of horse drawn carriages and sailing ships would foresee our massive 21st century global market exchange, much less the relationship between markets and morality. But Adam Smith was no ordinary 18th century figure. Considered the “father of modern economics,” Smith was first and foremost a moral philosopher. The revolutionary ideas he penned in The Wealth of Nations and The Theory of Moral Sentiments, changed the world.

Noted author, economic analyst and Cato Institute Senior Fellow Johan Norberg examines Adam Smith’s 18th century ideas and their relevance to our 21st century global marketplace today. The first part of the documentary is "Morality and Markets".  It takes an intriguing look at Smith, his background and the evolution of his ideas, both economic and ethical. Norberg travels Europe to locales where Smith was born, educated and spent his life teaching, writing and advocating his revolutionary ideas on markets and human morality.

The chapter will screen this first episode and then Wake Forest professor James Otteson and Marquette University professor Ryan Hanley will lead a discussion about the film's ideas.

About the Speakers

James Otteson is Professor of Economics and the Thomas W. Smith Presidential Chair in Business Ethics at Wake Forest University, where he is also the Executive Director of the BB&T Center for the Study of Capitalism. Dr. Otteson joined Before coming to Wake Forest, Dr. Otteson was joint professor of philosophy and economics, and philosophy department chair, at Yeshiva University. He has taught previously at New York University, Georgetown University, and the University of Alabama. He also serves currently as a Research Professor in the Freedom Center and in the Philosophy Department at the University of Arizona, and he is a Senior Scholar at the Fund for American Studies in Washington, DC.

Dr. Otteson’s scholarship focuses on political economy, political philosophy, history and philosophy of economics, and eighteenth-century moral and political thought. He is an expert on Adam Smith, on the moral foundations of capitalism, and on the comparative evaluation of competing systems of political economy.

Ryan Hanley is the Mellon Distinguished Professor of Political Science at Marquette University. His research in the history of political philosophy focuses on the Enlightenment. He is the author of Love's Enlightenment: Rethinking Charity in Modernity (Cambridge University Press, 2016), and Adam Smith and the Character of Virtue (Cambridge University Press, 2009), and he has edited two additonal volumes on Adam Smith. Prof. Hanley received his B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania, his M.Phil. from Cambridge University, and his Ph.D. from the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago. Prior to coming to Marquette he was a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow at Yale University's Whitney Humanities Center.