James Moore has remarked that the ‘distinguishing feature’ of the Scottish Enlightenment was ‘intellectual disagreement’ (2009: 180). While this point is well-taken it is something of an overstatement. That the Scots did not always see eye to eye is nowhere more apparent than in their shared realisation that commercial society had its drawbacks or flaws. The character and remediability of those deficiencies produced lively debate and is the chief focus of this chapter.

We can start by picking up the claim made in Chapter 5 that two strains in ancient liberty could be identified. One discussed in that chapter dealt with liberty as a state of tranquillity, where unruly desires were under the control of reason, the other to be discussed here dealt with liberty as a civic or political activity. To be free on this latter understanding meant positively acting as a citizen, participating in the res publica, with the significant negative corollary that a commercial life was less ‘free’ and must be confined to an appropriately limited sphere.

The roots of this twin-pronged argument lie in Aristotle. Man, he says famously, is by nature a creature of the polis. Since for Aristotle humans only realise themselves when they act according to their nature, then being political, that is to say doing politics, is a fulfilment of their end (telos). ‘Doing politics’ meant participating in the public realm of the polis.