Adam Smith's Ethical Thought

Adam Smith was not only a master of economy but also a prominent moralist in history.However studies ever made on his ethical thoughts were far from enough compared withthose on his economic achievements, which had been studied in more depth and morecomprehensively. In fact, as an important branch in his thinking system, Adam Smith'sethical thoughts weight the same as his economic theories do. Therefore, it is of greatsignificance to explore Adam Smith's thoughts of ethic in full sides. This article analyzesAdam Smith's ethical thoughts from four points.Part one describes the emerging of Adam Smith's ethical thoughts. His thoughts, as thereflection of his own moral sentiment, not only refined and distilled the predecessors'moral thoughts, but also adapted to and promoted the development of his time.Part two discusses the basis of Adam Smith's ethnic thoughts ?human nature where hehad unique explanation. By unifying two opposite terms of human nature "sympathy"and "self-respect" into harmony, Adam Smith started from the concept of double humannature to explore human thinking and behavior, and pioneered a new field for humannature study.Part three focuses on structure of Adam Smith's ethical thoughts system. Adam Smithprovided a full set of ethical thoughts system taking "sympathy" as his theoretical basis,taking the citizens' happiness as the life goal, and suitableness as the main clue.Part four is the evaluation of Adam Smith's ethnical thoughts. In order to treat histhoughts properly and entirely, attention should be paid on the thoughts' limitation as wellas its value to the modem world.This article, through analysis and study on Adam Smith's ethical thoughts, is trying todraw attention on moral construction and provide beneficial reference to solve the ethnicissues during establishment and development of social market economy.