Adam Smith

This collection of essays explores the literature of Adam Smith, not in his allotted role as the father of modern economics, but focussing on his work as a moral philosopher. Smith's philosophy is a less than straight-forward concept. His Theory of Moral Sentiments suggests that sympathy was natural to man, while his Wealth of Nations worked out a grand socio-economic theory on the assumption that human nature essentially was self-interested. This seems contradictory, and the essays presented here explore how, like his contemporaries, Smith had a much broader idea of philosophy, and these two works represented part of a much larger whole. The book provides a background to the essays, outlining a few major themes from Smith's literature, the essays reflecting more the current state of Smith scholarship than a historical collection.