Adam Smith

In his first contribution to History of Political Philosophy, Joseph Cropsey focuses on the political thought of Adam Smith, a man who helped lay the theoretical justifications of free market capitalism. Though today he is only thought of as an economist, it needs to be remembered that Smith’s actual employment was a moral philosopher. Though he is counted as a political philosopher as the purposes of Strauss and Cropsey; there is very little political philosophy in his moral thought while his economic theory has more implications for political philosophy than any direct contribution. Still, his work is highly important as he did make one of the major defenses of liberal capitalism.

In order to understand Smith, it is helpful to understand his two major influences, John Locke and David Hume. The influence Locke had over Smith is easy to spot, particularly in their shared concern for liberty, property rights, and tolerance. It is more difficult to spot Hume’s influence, but it can be seen in his conception of morality as being rooted in feelings. Still, Smith grounded his conception of utility in a sort of a conclusion of reason rather than in a sense of feeling as Hume did. One major way Smith’s position on feelings is manifested is through his teachings on sympathy, which is a highly important element of Smith’s moral theory as it allows people to see other’s as oneself. Because Smith sees sympathy as being natural to people, he also sees both moral law and society as being natural.

Smith’s views on society are interesting as his “natural right” depends heavily on a supposed impartial observer viewing the actions of people so that it may be properly judged. It should also be pointed out that while Smith sees society as being natural, he does not have this same view of political society as it is more narrowly conceived and mostly exists for the purpose of safeguarding justice. As a result of this, there is now an even greater sense of the divide between politics and society. From here Smith makes three moves. These moves are as follows: 1) moral philosophy is divided between two parts, ethics and jurisprudence. Justice is placed in the latter part. 2) Justice is seen as giving what is due to a person, no more and no less and does not necessitate gratitude. 3) Political society is only seen as natural in the weak sense.

All this talk of what is natural may appear to be Medieval in origin, but it needs to be understood that it is really much more mechanical than what was found in the Middle Ages. Still, natural tendencies are highly valued by Smith, particularly in his ethics. This can be seen in his ethics as he defends a consequentialist based approach on the grounds that it is more natural than intention-based ethics. His focus on what is natural can also be seen in the tension Smith sees between the natural sentiments of people and the natural course of things as people labor but are pushed back by nature, thus making work difficult. The tension Smith notices here ends up leading to one of the more important elements of his thought as the tension between people’s natural sentiments and the natural course of things ends up producing wealth, which Smith elevates. It also needs to be recognized that sentiment still guides people more than reason, and it is this sentiment that forms the basis of morality, much as it also does in Hume. And much like Hume, Smith also makes use of the is/ought distinction in order to avoid giving moral worth to every feeling.

Smith supports democracy as he feels that it is the system that most mitigates the differences between rulers and the ruled, a move that Smith hopes will be able to bring together society and political society. Because of this, a free, reasonable, comfortable, and tolerant life for all those involved is preferred. A nation’s wealth is seen as the best way of bringing about these conditions while free market capitalism is seen as the best way of generating this wealth. The wealth of a nation and its welfare are therefore not easily separated.

It should be noted that while Smith certainly believed in capitalism, he was not a dogmatist for them as many of his followers would later become. Smith grounds value in labor and thinks that labor and land owners share in the wealth they created together. What this means is that Smith could have had no conception of talking to the multitude of laboring poor nor defending putting them in that position. What’s more, Smith did not even call his system “capitalism.” Rather, Smith called it “the system of natural liberty” and was to be a system open to all. Though the intention of this system was indeed to produce liberty, it must be understood that by “liberty” Smith was keeping with tradition as he had a far more communal conception of liberty than what would later develop and was also careful to distinguish liberty from license. Still, Smith had a highly positive outlook for the possibility of the growth of liberty as he thought that this system would naturally spread throughout the world.