The Practical Morality of Life: Adam Smith, George Anne Bellamy, and the Theatre

The economist and moral philosopher Adam Smith was committed to ‘a practical system of Morality’. George Anne Bellamy was a well-known actress of the eighteenth century, who published a best-selling memoir. Coming from completely different backgrounds, they both keenly observed their world—human nature, morality and exchange.

Reading Smith’s final edition of The Theory of Moral Sentiments in relation to the Apology of George Anne Bellamy illuminates many of Smith’s final revisions, in partic...