Smith's Humean criticism of Hume's account of the origin of justice

Journal of the History of Philosophy 44 (1):47-63 (2006)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

It is argued that Adam Smith criticizes David Hume's account of the origin of and continuing adherence to the rule of law for being not sufficiently Humean. Hume explained that adherence to the rule of law originated in the self-interest to restrain self-interest. According to Smith, Hume does not pay enough attention to the passions of resentment and admiration, which have their source in the imagination. Smith's offers a more naturalistic and evolutionary account of the psychological pre-conditions of the establishment and morality of justice than Hume had. Yet, Smith's account also makes room for a thin conception of Lockean natural right to property, while rejecting the contractualist and rationalistic elements in Locke. It emerges that Smith severs the intimate connection that Hobbes and Hume made between justice and property

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 90,221

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Sympathy as a “Natural”.Robert C. Solomon - 2004 - The Ruffin Series of the Society for Business Ethics 4:53-58.
Justice And Resentment In Hume, Reid, And Smith.Michael S. Pritchard - 2008 - Journal of Scottish Philosophy 6 (1):59-70.
Causation as a Philosophical Relation in Hume.Graciela De Pierris - 2002 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 64 (3):499 - 545.
Humean Minds and Moral Theory.Sheldon Wein - 1988 - Philosophy Research Archives 14:229-236.
Hume's and Smith's Partial Sympathies and Impartial Stances.Jon Rick - 2007 - Journal of Scottish Philosophy 5 (2):135-158.

Analytics

Added to PP
2009-01-28

Downloads
426 (#41,390)

6 months
12 (#122,295)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Eric Schliesser
University of Amsterdam

Citations of this work

Will the Real A. Smith Please Stand Up!Matthias P. Hühn & Claus Dierksmeier - 2016 - Journal of Business Ethics 136 (1):119-132.
Locke’s Humean conventionalism.Eric Schliesser - forthcoming - British Journal for the History of Philosophy:1-10.
Beyond sympathy: Smith’s rejection of Hume’s moral theory.Paul Sagar - 2017 - British Journal for the History of Philosophy 25 (4):681-705.

View all 14 citations / Add more citations

References found in this work

Adam Smith's science of morals.Tom Campbell - 1971 - London,: Allen & Unwin.
Sympathetic Liberalism: Recent Work on Adam Smith.Stephen Darwall - 1999 - Philosophy and Public Affairs 28 (2):139-164.

Add more references