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Adam Smith’s Ideological System And Contribution

Posted on:2015-03-26Degree:DoctorType:Dissertation
Country:ChinaCandidate:T Y WangFull Text:PDF
GTID:1109330467475109Subject:Western economics
Abstract/Summary:PDF Full Text Request
Adam Smith was a great thinker, and has made outstanding achievements in economics, ethics, law, literature, philosophy, rhetoric and astronomy. Thus, Adam Smith received a warm support and love of the people. In order to repay the people and achieve the ideal of a civilized society in mind, Adam Smith has been constantly thinking and writing. Human nature has a natural property and social property. Adam Smith has tried to build a complete theoretical system for the entire lifetime, fully revealing the essence of the historical development of properties and human nature; explaining the operation mechanism and rules of social order, revealing the process of human development and the ultimate purpose.Adam Smith’s officially published three books, one of the books for economics, the name is "An Inquiry into The Nature and causes of the Wealth of The Wealth of Nations", referred to as "The Wealth of Nations.""The Wealth of Nations," explains the division of labor theory, monetary theory, theory of value and distribution theory, a system of economic thought, and the book has also been recognized as the foundation of modern economics. Adam Smith’s other book is "The Theory of Moral Sentiments." This book describes the theory of compassion, justice and virtue theory, established ethics system. Adam Smith also published a book. The book’s name is "Lectures on Justice, police, revenue and arms," referred to as "Law Notes."This book is about legal lectures, compiled from notes by two students. Although this book is not a formal writings of Adam Smith, the two students’ notes are very detailed, very comprehensive exposition of the ideas of Adam Smith in the law, which is extremely important for the study of Smith’s ideas and help us to more deeply understand the complete and detailed ideas of Adam Smith.Respectively from the "The Theory of Moral Sentiments,""An Inquiry into The Nature and causes of the Wealth of The Wealth of Nations" and ""Lectures on Justice, police, revenue and arms," This paper analyzes Adam Smith’s ethical, economics and law ideological thoughts. Adam Smith’s thoughts are internal consistency. This paper truly shows Smith’s ideal society, explains the significance and value of Smith’s thoughts. Adam Smith’s ethical, economics and law ideological thoughts are interrelated. From the three books, the paper analyzes the concept and definition of each of Adam Smith’s ideas and explains the relationship between ethics, economics and law. Eventually we interpret Smith’s thoughts completely.This paper is divided into four parts.In the first part. I analyze ethical thinking in detail in the book of "The Theory of Moral Sentiments," including the concept of compassion, justice and virtue outlook. Theory of sympathy is the starting point and basic foundation for the establishment of Adam Smith’s ethics system. Everyone can share their feelings with others suffering and happiness, which is the basic principle of compassion. Compassion is the core of the theory of Adam Smith’s ethical thought. The theory of justice is the mainstay role in Smith’s ethical system of thought. Justice defines the basic human order, so that each person can find a suitable location. Everyone who has a virtue is a necessary condition to achieve Smith’s ideal society, so Adam Smith constructed the virtues concept. In view of the virtues, the most important virtue is prudence, benevolence and self-command. Impartial spectator like a presiding judge, according to the general guidelines, rules each emotion and behavior. According to the general rules of society which is formed by a long-term implementation of the standards, impartial spectator is the sole judge of all emotions, virtues and behavior. By the impartial spectator, Adam Smith put compassion concept, justice concept and virtue concept together.In the second part,1study economic thought in the book of "An Inquiry into The Nature and causes of the Wealth of The Wealth of Nations" in detail, including the division of labor theory, monetary theory, theory of value and distribution theory. The division of labor is like engines for increasing national wealth. I discuss the causes and development process and limitations of the division of labor. Adam Smith’s economics fundamental goal is to increase national wealth and achieve wealthy and strong country. In the commodity economy, the wealth shows a large number of goods and services which can meet human needs. Adam Smith clearly pointed out that labor is the fundamental source of all wealth. Adam Smith divided capitalist society into three different classes:first, the workers, whose income is wages; second, the capitalists, whose income is profit; third, landlords, whose income is rent. Adam Smith pointed out that the exchange value of commodities can be final distribution for the wages, profit and rent. In general, commodity prices eventually can" be decomposed into wages, profit and rent.In the third part, I study the jurisprudence ideas in the book of "Lectures on Justice, police, revenue and arms," including private law, family law and public law. Justice is the foundation of the law. Smith pointed out that justice is the basic starting point of natural jurisprudence. A person, who violates justice, will infringe on the other people’s happiness. For this behavior, the impartial spectator would be outraged. The impartial spectator would stop or punish this behavior, by means of coercive power. In order to ensure the safety of the people, to prevent abuse, each country must establish a legal system; study various violations principles and how to punish the aggressor.In the fourth part, this paper analyzes the Adam Smith’s ideal society and ethics, economics and jurisprudence constraints for the realization of the ideal society. Adam Smith describes his ideal order of human society with the natural order. Adam Smith’s natural order means that the overall harmony of society, including the orderly harmony of moral, political, economic and legal. Adam Smith’s thoughts about the natural order of specific preferment in two aspects:first, the whole society is orderly and stable, if people have conflicts and contradictions, we have a regulatory mechanism in the ethical, legal and economic system; second, the natural order means both spontaneous adjustment mechanism and human designed regulating mechanism in reality. Natural order is an order for the well-being of human society by God which can dispose the nature and govern human society. Adam Smith’s order contains natural theology that human order is set by God and human designed order that is set by human in ethical, economic and legal aspects of the society.Whether at home or abroad, papers and books on thoughts of Adam Smith are very common, but these trends is one sided which is based on economic thinking, or based on ethics thinking, or based on thinking. It means that has not yet been a full interpretation of the writings of Adam Smith’s thoughts. Based on "The Theory of Moral Sentiments,""An Inquiry into The Nature and causes of the Wealth of The Wealth of Nations" and ""Lectures on Justice, police, revenue and arms," this paper analyzes Adam Smith’s thoughts on ethics, economics and jurisprudence. By mutual research on three books in the ideological concepts, I restore true and complete thoughts of Adam Smith.This paper systematically analyzes the ethics system, economics system and jurisprudence system. Ethics system includes concepts of compassion, justice and virtue; economic system includes the division of labor theory, monetary theory, theory of value and distribution theory; jurisprudence system includes private law, family law and public law. Through the study on the ethics system, economics system and jurisprudence system, I discuss the relationship between the three aspects of Adam Smith’s thoughts, explaining the meaning and value of Adam Smith’s ethics and jurisprudence in the real world.Based on Adam Smith’s ethical system, economics and jurisprudence system, this paper reveals Adam Smith’s ideal social system, and describes Adam Smith’s practical significance and value of ethics and jurisprudence.Adam Smith described the natural order as the most suitable social systems for human society. The natural law is the basic rule to ensure to achieve the natural order. That is only to follow the laws of nature; the natural order of society can be realized. The paper expounds three natural laws to guarantee the realization of the ideal society:taking the laws of justice as the external norms of all human behaviors, taking the impartial spectator as inner supervisor of all human behavior, pursuing self-interest under the condition of equality and freedom.Based on Adam Smith’s three original,"The Theory of Moral Sentiments,""An Inquiry into The Nature and causes of the Wealth of The Wealth of Nations" and ""Lectures on Justice, police, revenue and arms," this paper analyze economics system, ethics system and jurisprudence system and identify the relationship between them. Eventually, Adam Smith’s complete system of thought has been set up.Both ancient and modern times, the researches on Adam Smith’s thoughts are very rich which provides the foundation for the full study on Adam Smith in the future. From the philosophical, political, economic, ethical and legal perspective, this paper adopts the method of social ideology to study Adam Smith’s thought. By reading a lot of literature, this paper carefully select on the basis of the original Adam Smith, sorting and processing with a more detailed interpretation of Smith’s ideas for establishing a good foundation for the study of literature Smith thought.Based on the comprehensive analysis and understanding of Adam Smith ethics, economics and law, this paper can help us to fully understand the thoughts of Adam Smith and to promote the integration of development in ethics, economics and law. Convergence of ethics, economics and law is great significance in modern era. In modern society, no matter what discipline we study, we must have a broad vision; we must take an active interest in latest research results and ideas in other disciplines. By drawing the latest research results in other disciplines, we enrich and develop our own disciplines, establishing a more powerful explanatory of the theory, promoting the development and progress of the whole society, and making a great contribution to human civilization.
Keywords/Search Tags:Compassion, justice, rights, natural order, natural law
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