David McKendrick and Stephen A. Webb
Glasgow Caledonian University, Scotland
• Why focus on the Scottish Enlightenment?
• Setting the context and the relevance of
Adam Ferguson
• Ferguson, commercialism and the concept
of
exploitation
• Ferguson's civic virtue and magnanimity
The Scottish Enlightenment tradition
adds a line of trajectory and critical
insights as well as historical texture, to
several key issues which relate to social
work ethics that should necessitate
serious engagement.
"Despite critical differences between
them, differences which have if anything
been under-appreciated, I argue that the
philosophers of the Scottish
Enlightenment were unified by the
commitment to human betterment in this
world as the measure of progress, and to
investigating the conditions of its
achievement“ (Robertson, 1997)
Rousseau’s locution:
Scottish social science spoke incessantly of
virtue and liberty whereas others spoke
mainly of utility.
In Scotland between the years 1750 and
1790, in the work of Adam Smith, Adam
Ferguson, John Millar, and to a lesser
extent, the historian William Robertson, a
remarkably modern sociological treatment
of
society and its institutions emerged, a
tradition which was largely forgotten and
ignored by the nineteenth century.
The irony is that this sociological treatment
of society and its institutions should have
been rejected by nineteenth-century
social
theorists in favour of organicism and the
theory of progress. The true heirs of the
Scottish sociological tradition became the
socialists and Marx.
This bridging of traditions in Ferguson is
used as a device here to reproduce these
two related sides which reflect the
contours
of social work ethics: Firstly, an emphasis
on civic virtue as informed by moral
philosophy and secondly, the influence of
theoretical sociology of structural power,
exploitation and relations of domination
Ferguson was resigned to the fact that the
division of labour was an inevitable
contingency of the continuity of progress
Forms of government,” Ferguson tells us,
“take their rise, chiefly from the manner in
which the members of a state have been
originally classed.”
Brewer (1986)
(i) exploitation is understood as economic
exploitation;
(ii) it is approached through the notion of
human agency;
(iii) and the discussion of exploitation is
integrally linked to an ethical concern
about
Its injustice.
It has been said that ‘Ferguson’s pages on
the division of labour are a minor triumph
of
eighteenth century sociology’ (Peter Gay,
The Enlightenment, 1970, II: 342–3)
Economic exploitation involves inequality of
power and control in the labour process and
is
integrally linked by Ferguson to the division
of
labour and mechanical labour, which are seen
to have the effect of denuding and
diminishing
the human agent. These adverse effects are
analysed through the notion of human nature
and can be described as alienation (p.471)
Herein lies an ethical imperative which
sees
economic exploitation, and the division of
labour to which it is ultimately linked, as
harmful, wrong and unjust (Brewer, ibid).
Iain McDaniel notes
"The Essay on the History of Civil Society
opens with an account of the
'Characteristics
of Human Nature'. Ferguson's initial
strategy
in this section was to undermine the
distinction between nature and artifice
upon
which both Hobbes's and Rousseau's
"he taught his students at Edinburgh that
Justice rested upon a 'disposition
favourable
to mankind' not on utility, a view which
Obviously contrasted with Hume“
(pp. 71-72).
Ferguson’s published inspiration comes
from
the Stoic absorption with sympathia, social
Intimacy and communitarianism, which he
then applies to the contemporary
condition’
(Hill, p.152).
Magnanimity, courage, and the love of
mankind, are sacrificed to avarice and vanity,
or
suppressed under a sense of dependence.
The
individual considers his community so far
only
as it can be rendered subservient to his
personal advancement or profit: he states
himself in competition with his fellowcreatures
.. seems to have slow movements, a deep
voice and calm speech. For since he takes
few things seriously, he is in no hurry, and
since he counts nothing great, he is not
strident; and these (attitudes s/he avoids)
are the causes of a shrill voice and hasty
movements (Aristotle, Ethics)
"Magnanimity involves reaching out to, and
accommodating, what is unknown, strange
and radically different. It denotes a new
kind
of openness or hospitality. It means
working
with service users from very different
cultural
and geographical backgrounds from our
own“(Nixon, 2008).
Alasdair MacIntrye (1981):-
"Ferguson's type of sociology which is the
empirical counterpart of the conceptual
account of the virtues which I have given, a
sociology which aspires to lay bare the
empirical, causal connection between
virtues, practices and institutions”.
 Scottish
Enlightenment thinking
represented a paradigm concerned with
key sociological concepts that was not
evident elsewhere in Britain
 These reference points are echoed by
Bordieu in his work on “cultural capital”
 Wacquant in his examination of the rise of
the “hyperghetto”
 Standing in his work on the emergence of
the “Precariat” as a “new, dangerous class”
 All of whom have direct reference points in
modern day Social Work
Thus social workers in doing good become good,
we therefore contend that it is a necessity for
virtuous social workers to challenge the causes
of exploitation and that this should be central
plank of our activity. Social workers to promote
Ferguson’s magnanimity as a central tenant of
our professional ethics.
 The question we pose is do existing ethical
codes encourage and support this aim or do they
develop an overly representative focus on the
individual rather than notions of the “common
weal”

According to Thomas P Miller Aristotle’s civic
humanism underwrote the Scottish approach to
political and moral theory with an emphasis on
practice wisdom and prudence. Aristotle
struggled with the challenge of achieving “the
common good for all” in a state of “community of
equals”.
 For Chomsky Adam Smith developed a brand of
“socialism”. Smith understood that upholding the
common good requires substantial intervention
to assure lasting prosperity of the poor by
distribution of public revenues


Feathersone, White and Morris in their critique of
Child Protection present the metaphor of a
“muscular” state.
Responsibility is individualised and uncoupled from
wider structural issues such as inequality
discrimination and oppression. (e.g. David
Cameron’s comments on Tracy Connolly)The role of
the social worker is as the muscular arm of the state
concerned with enforcing compliance with the states
notion of what constitutes good parenting
 Notions of communitarianism and community itself
are seen as secondary to the actions and motivations
of the individual. The state becomes increasingly
weightless (Toynbee) and hollow


Henry Giroux in describing the after effects of
Hurricane Katrina, and the Bush neo liberal
governance as a biopolitics of disposability.
Marginalised and poor members of society, are
unable to engage in the prevailing consumerist ethic.
They are consigned to living in sinkholes of poverty
in desolate or abandoned enclaves of decaying cities
or rural spaces or in an ever expanding prison
empire.
 Social work must challenge this and and reconsider
our existing ethical settlement and develop a new,
radical ethical base that has at its heart an
enlightened approach

 We
must place the notion of virtue ethics
which directly challenge discrimination,
exploitation, and marginalisation as the
core tenants of a new radical and
Enlightened Scottish social work.