Theory Of Adam Smith's Concept Of Self Interest And Social Interest Concept

The concepts of self-interest and social-interest are two important concepts among Adam Smith’s Moral Philosophy. In fact, the discussion between these two concepts mainly follows with a long-time tradition of the debate between self-love and beneficence. Such debate was once out of the vision of scholars during the age of Medieval. However, when it came to the age of Enlighten Movement, self-interest, which generally belonged to the field of Politics, had been highly regarded first among philosophers, then among economists. The idea of self-interest obtained its status as the first principle by following understanding of human nature on self-love. And this will be basic context for our discussion about smith’s idea of self-interest and social-interest.In this article the author tend to first recall the tradition of the debate between self-love and beneficence in order to explore the specific contents of self-interest and social-interest among Smith’s context, and start to analyze the concept of self-interest. Secondly, the next task is to compare the inner relation among sympathy, the impartial spectator, propriety, self-interest and social-interest so that we could understand Smith’s design for dealing with self-interest and social-interest. Then, the author both discuss the use of the concept of self-interest in field of economy and the impact of the moral corruption of commercial society to Smith’s theory in order to show smith’s reflection and his improvement in dealing with the relation between self-interest and social-interest in certain situation. The aim is then to reveal the meaning of Smith’s theoretical design for current age.