Analysis Of Adam Smith’s Right Theory

Smith’s theory of law mostly characterized by empirical research methods, he carried onand developed Francis Hutcheson’s theory and fight John Locke’s social contracts and discusswhy so, in his idea, it’s not original contracts make government’s legitimacy possible,authority principle and materialism do.Smith’s private-law theory system is largely representative in which he proves theappearance of private ownership on the basis of four stages of the development of human’ssociety, which makes him the first thinker who puts forward the reasonability of privateproperty under distributive justice. The appearance of private ownership, from Smith’sperspective, is the consequence of natural division which contributes most to the raise ofproductivity and improvement of living standards, hence, private ownership is one kind ofmore advanced system.The most impressive feature in his theory is that he abandoned the transcendental andrational way of research of Grotius and adopted empirical way to carry on British philosophytradition. In <Lectures on Jurisprudence>, Smith suspect the idea that predecessors dividedistribution justice into jura perfecta and imperfect. He believe that begger is someone ofcharity or we can say he has rights to be given,however,“right” used here is notappropriate,it’s a a metaphorical expression. Usually, from our understanding,“right” has nodifference with jura perfecta and is related with exchange justice.“imperfect” meansdistribution justice. The former can be included in the right,the latter, however, can beincluded in moral system.Hugo Grotius and Samuel Pufendorf had defined the jura perfecta and imperfecta andgiven its objective, on the contrary, Smith negated this idea very definitely. In his opinion,there is no possibility that imperfect can be a part of objective of jurisprudence. The mainobjective of imperfect is charity which should be researched in moral system. Moreover,imperfect belongs to the category of distribution justice which can be felt everywhere in dailylife.What should be emphasized on is that distribution justice in Smith’s research is classic, itmeans goodness and virtue, not social goods or material. Considering this, it is clear to see thetremendous influence on posterity of Smith’s theory. Smith started to discuss his property theory after his division, and his property theory is the embryo of modern distribution justice.In conclusion, Smith plays an extremely important role in the transition from classical theoryto modern one of distribution justice, he is the first thinker who puts forward thereasonability of property right, he adopts empirical to research political philosophy. What hedid means a lot to posterity!...