LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Adam Smith
built 628 days ago
Adam Smith was a Scottish economist and philosopher. He has become famous by his influential book The Wealth of Nations (1776). Smith was the son of the comptroller of the customs at Kirkcaldy, Fife, Scotland. The exact date of his birth is unknown. However, he was baptized at Kirkcaldy on June 5, 1723, his father having died some six months previously.
Source:
Adam Smith was the son of a blind watchmaker from Kirkcaldy. From watching his father work he learned first-hand how watches can be made slowly and painfully by many stages of trial and error, finally resulting in something the customer can't really have the heart to complain about. Then the process starts all over again with the next watch and whatever parts are lying around in the shop.
Source:
Adam Smith wrote two books, one about economics and the other about morality. His Wealth of Nations argues for a largely free-market economy, while his Theory of Moral Sentiments argues that human morality develops out of a mutual sympathy that people seek with one another. How do these books go together? How do markets and morality mix? James Otteson provides a comprehensive examination and interpretation of Smith’s moral theory and shows how his conception of the nature of morality applies to his understanding of markets, language and other social institutions. Considering Smith’s notions of natural sympathy, the impartial spectator, human nature, and human conscience the author ... addresses the issue of whether Smith thinks that moral judgments enjoy a transcendent sanction.
Source:
Adam Smith himself cannot have seen any contradiction, since he produced a revised edition of Moral Sentiments after the publication of Wealth of Nations. Both sets of ideas are to be found in his Lectures on Jurisprudence. In recent years most students of Adam Smith's work have argued that no contradiction exists. In the Theory of Moral Sentiments, Smith develops a theory of psychology in which individuals in society find it in their self-interest to develop sympathy as they seek approval of what he calls the "impartial spectator." The self-interest he speaks of is not a narrow selfishness but something that involves sympathy.
Source:
Adam Smith was born in 1723 in Kirkaldy, county Fife, located on the Firth of Forth in Scotland, the son of Adam Smith and Margaret Douglas. His father had died before he was born and he was raised by his widowed mother. He attended Glasgow and Oxford universities before accepting the position as professor of moral philosophy at Glasgow in 1752. He discusses the foundation of society's ethical conduct in Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759);
Source:
Adam Smith was born in 1723 in the small town of Kirkcaldy, near Edinburgh. His father... Adam Smith (1679-1723), who died shortly before he was born, was a distinguished judge advocate for Scotland and later comptroller of customs at Kirkcaldy, who had married into a well-to-do local landowning family. Young Smith was therefore raised by his mother. The town of Kirkcaldy was militantly Presbyterian, and in the Burgh School in the town he met many young Scottish Presbyterians, one of whom, John Drysdale, was to become twice moderator of the general assembly of the Church of Scotland.
Source:
MORE ABOUT
Adam Smith