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Adam Smith: Moral Sentiments
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Adam Smith (baptized June 5 (OS) or June 16 (NS) 1723; died July 17, 1790) was a Scottish moral philosopher and a pioneering political economist. One of the key figures of the intellectual movement known as the Scottish Enlightenment, he is known primarily as the author of two treatises: The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759), and An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776). The latter was one of the earliest attempts to systematically study the historical development of industry and commerce in Europe, as well as a sustained attack on the doctrines of mercantilism; it ... contained Smith's explanation of how rational self-interest and competition can lead to common well-being.
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Adam Smith was a Scottish political economist and moral philosopher. He is considered the fundamental economist upon whose work modern capitalism is based as he advocated individual economic growth, free enterprise and free will.
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In any case, Adam Smith apparently believed that moral sentiments and self-interest would always add up to the same thing. One possible line of reasoning he might have employed in reaching this conclusion is as follows: the invisible hand cannot operate if there is no society, for precluding a societal construct precludes division of labor, and ... the efficiency which comes with its manifestation. Now for society to exist, justice is a necessary condition (as pointed out in Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments). For justice to exist in any social setting, individuals must harbor the passions of gratitude and resentment governed by a sense of 'merit' and 'demerit' (again from Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments). And finally, as Smith himself would have so vehemently argued, the sense of 'merit' and 'demerit' is almost exclusively engendered by human sympathy. In conclusion, the invisible hand of the market is, at some level, contingent upon the ability of humans to sympathize: Smith's self-interest is indeed in consonance with the notion of sympathy.
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As a moral philosopher Smith cannot be said to have won much acceptance for his fundamental doctrine. This doctrine is that all our moral sentiments arise from sympathy, that is, from the principle of our nature "which leads us to enter into the situations of other men and to partake with them in the passions which those situations have a tendency to excite." Our direct sympathy with the agent in the circumstances in which he is placed gives rise, according to this view, to our notion of the propriety of his action, whilst our indirect sympathy with those whom his actions have benefited or injured gives rise to our notions of merit and demerit in the agent himself. It seems justly alleged against this system by Dr Thomas Brown that "the moral sentiments, the origin of which it ascribes to our secondary feelings of mere sympathy, are assumed as previously existing in the original emotions with which the secondary feelings are said to be in unison." A second objection urged, perhaps with less justice, against the theory is that it fails to account for the made his tour in 1773, whilst Hume's death did not take place till 1776. Smith seems not to have met Johnson in Scotland at all.
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Smith now began to give more attention to jurisprudence and economics in his lecture and less to his theories of morals. An impression can be obtained as to the development of his ideas on political economy from the notes of his lectures taken down by a student in about 1763 which were later edited by Edwin Cannan,[5] and from what Scott, its discoverer and publisher, describes as "An Early Draft of Part of The Wealth of Nations", which he dates about 1763. Cannan's work appeared as Lectures on Justice, Police, Revenue and Arms. A fuller version was published as Lectures on Jurisprudence in the Glasgow Edition of 1776.
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Smith assumes that if each person pursues his own interest the general welfare of all will be fostered. He objects to governmental control, although he acknowledges that some restrictions are required. The capitalist invariably produces and sells consumable goods in order to meet the greatest needs of the people. In so fulfilling his own interest, the capitalist automatically promotes the general welfare. In the economic sphere, says Smith, the individual acts in terms of his own interest rather than in terms of sympathy. Thus, Smith made no attempt to bring into harmony his economic and moral theories.
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Moral Sentiments