This chapter takes up the postponed topic of liberty. Smith, as we have seen, called it a ‘blessing’ and the same accolade had previously been bestowed by Hume (E-CP 494), Kames (1766: 5), Wallace (CGB 117) as well as Turnbull in his commentary on Heineccius (MCL 245). George Berkeley, in his Essay towards Preventing the Ruin of Great Britain (1721, 1752) is another who employs it to characterise the greatest possession of a ‘virtuous man’ and ‘good Christian’. He then proceeds to say that in ‘the present age’, ‘injudicious patrons of liberty’ have not distinguished between it and licentiousness (1953: VI, 70). This statement indicates that the meaning of ‘liberty’ is not straightforward. As a term, and perhaps also as a concept, it is subject to a variety of meanings and it is part of the task here to tease these out within the broad context of commercial society.

How commercial society functions – its operating principles and motivations – is the backdrop to the Scots' moral philosophy. That commerce appeared to ‘work’ on the assumption of self-love (as Smith said of consumers' dealings with the butcher) did not mean that it operated in an ‘ethics-free’ zone. Aside from the recognition that human interactions in a commercial society were not confined to buying sausages (as it were), a distinctive set of what can be called ‘commercial virtues’ was identified. This represents a shift in the schedule of virtues (plotted via the ‘natural history’ outlined in Chapter 2).