Rethinking of the Adam Smith Problem and Impartial Spectator
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We find that homo economicus alway works to maximize the utility found in economics. Today utilitarianism or utility-maximizing self-interest plays an important part in economics. But Adam Smith’s moral philosophy is further from utilitarianism than Hume, or Bentham’s utilitarianism. Smith rejects the idea that our assessments or decisions should aim at the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people in his two books, the Moral Sentiments(1759) and the Wealth of Nations(1776). If we assume that the butcher in the Wealth of Nations is simply an economic man, it might merely support a generalized claim to self-interest, linking men through a narrow utilitarian social theory. Scholars have long been interested in the question of the consistency between sympathy, compassion and self-interest of Smith’s moral philosophy, and the Adam Smith problem refers to a claimed inconsistency between both the Moral Sentiments and the Wealth of Nations, regarding the portrayal of human nature and human behavior. In the 19th century a debate originated among German scholars over what came to be called Das Adam Smith Problem. If the economic man is the prudent man in the economic sphere, and the economic man also is under the sway of social sympathy and the ruling of the impartial spectator in the Moral Sentiments, what conclusion follows as to its connection with the Wealth of Nations? Smith’s analysis in the Wealth of Nations presumes a system of natural liberty, which includes the three main pillars of the virtues of justice, prudence and benevolence defined and enforced by positive law and civic ethics, but the emergence of the system of natural liberty is in tern dependent on humankind’s material progress. Smith also was the first thinker to place markets, competition and market exchange at the center of economics. Our purpose of this paper focused on Smith’s analysis of moral and social psychology which explain how far the pursuit of individual self-interest through cultural and market exchange can yield economic growth and socially beneficial outcomes. And then we also focused on if there are obvious mistakes of individual perspective and judgement, what is the function of the impartial spectator within Smith's system to correct for them.
Abstract
We find that homo economicus alway works to maximize the utility found in economics. Today utilitarianism or utility-maximizing self-interest plays an important part in economics. But Adam Smith’s moral philosophy is further from utilitarianism than Hume, or Bentham’s utilitarianism. Smith rejects the idea that our assessments or decisions should aim at the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people in his two books, the Moral Sentiments(1759) and the Wealth of Nations(1776). If we assume that the butcher in the Wealth of Nations is simply an economic man, it might merely support a generalized claim to self-interest, linking men through a narrow utilitarian social theory. Scholars have long been interested in the question of the consistency between sympathy, compassion and self-interest of Smith’s moral philosophy, and the Adam Smith problem refers to a claimed inconsistency between both the Moral Sentiments and the Wealth of Nations, regarding the portrayal of human nature and human behavior. In the 19th century a debate originated among German scholars over what came to be called Das Adam Smith Problem. If the economic man is the prudent man in the economic sphere, and the economic man also is under the sway of social sympathy and the ruling of the impartial spectator in the Moral Sentiments, what conclusion follows as to its connection with the Wealth of Nations? Smith’s analysis in the Wealth of Nations presumes a system of natural liberty, which includes the three main pillars of the virtues of justice, prudence and benevolence defined and enforced by positive law and civic ethics, but the emergence of the system of natural liberty is in tern dependent on humankind’s material progress. Smith also was the first thinker to place markets, competition and market exchange at the center of economics. Our purpose of this paper focused on Smith’s analysis of moral and social psychology which explain how far the pursuit of individual self-interest through cultural and market exchange can yield economic growth and socially beneficial outcomes. And then we also focused on if there are obvious mistakes of individual perspective and judgement, what is the function of the impartial spectator within Smith's system to correct for them.
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