Adam Smith : theorie der ethischen Geguehle

Translated title of the contribution: Adam Smith: theory of moral sentiments

Jack Barbalet

    Research output: Chapter in Book / Conference PaperChapter

    Abstract

    Adam Smith is widely regarded as the founder of economic science. He is best known as the prophet of self interest, but this is a reputation he hardly deserves. While he famously argued in the Wealth of Nations (hereafter WN), first published in 1776, that persons enter market exchanges in order to satisfy their interests (Smith 1981: 26-7), he was quite clear that a naked pursuit of self interest is destructive of not only the social good but markets themselves (Smith 1981: 84, 339-41). Misunderstanding about Smith does not end here, unfortunately. An earlier book, The Theory of Moral Sentiments (hereafter TMS), first published in 1759, is widely described as developing a philosophical theory of ethics based on psychological principles. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact Smith disparages and shuns philosophy in TMS (Smith 1979: 20-1, 315) and prior to its Part VII, which critically considers systems of moral philosophy, there is no engagement with the work of philosophers at all. The problem here is linguistic: for Smith the term ‘moral’ referred to the patterns of human behaviour, as when he wrote in the WN that ‘what is properly called moral philosophy ... investigate[s] and explain[s] those connecting principles of common life’ (Smith 1981: 769). This is a commitment to sociology, however it is named, not philosophy, as we shall see. There is a third confusion about Smith that can be simply corrected. It is often said that the TMS, written before WN, contradicts the later work: whereas TMS advocates sympathy or regard for others, WN advocates self interest. Not only does this perspective misunderstand the arguments of each work, as we shall see, it also ignores the fact that while TMS was first published before WN, Smith revised each work several times so that they effectively became contemporaneous publications.
    Translated title of the contributionAdam Smith: theory of moral sentiments
    Original languageGerman
    Title of host publicationHauptwerke der Emotionssoziologie
    EditorsKonstanze Senge, Rainer Schuetzeichel
    Place of PublicationGermany
    PublisherSpringer
    Pages333-339
    Number of pages7
    ISBN (Electronic)9783531934396
    ISBN (Print)9783531172378
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 2013

    Keywords

    • Smith, Adam, 1723-1790
    • self
    • emotions
    • sociology

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