Journal of the History of Philosophy

Adam Smith's fame now rests primarily upon his Wealth of Nations (WN) of 1776, which did not receive much attention until Prime Minister Pitt praised it in Parliament in 1791. Before then Smith's reputation was almost entirely based upon his Theory of Moral Sentiments (TMS) of 1759. Fleischacker begins this "philosophical companion" to WN with the observation that "Adam Smith was a philosopher before he was a social scientist, yet it remains unclear to this day what relationship his philosophical writings bear to his treatise on economics." One of Fleischacker's main aims is to remedy this, and he admirably succeeds in highlighting "the virtues that lie within and just beyond the frame of WN" (xv). From now on nobody will ever be able to believe that Smith left his moral beliefs behind when he composed his treatise on economics.

The book is in five parts: Methodology, Human Nature, Foundations of Economics, Justice, and Politics. In the first part, Fleischacker discusses "obstacles to reading Smith"—his irony and prolixity—which have been responsible for mis-readings of his two works. Accordingly, Fleischacker attempts to defend Smith's writing style. But the only antidote to failing to detect Smith's irony may be simply a careful reading of his works with an understanding of their polemical and theoretical contexts. As for his prolixity, it seems hard to defend, at least in TMS. A contemporary was blunt about this: "An extravagant turn to declaim and embellish leads [Smith] quite astray from the study of accuracy, precision, and clearness that is so essentially necessary to the delivering of any theory, especially a new one; and his indulging of this humour for playing everywhere the orator . . . has made him spin out to the tedious length of 400 pages what . . . might have been delivered as fully and with far more energy and perspicuity in 20." Like others before him, Fleischacker attempts to make a virtue out of TMS being somewhat like "a theatrical performance," and extends this feature to WN. But if WN is less prolix and less theatrical than TMS, this undoubtedly is because Smith had long left his classroom habits behind and had paid attention to critics of his style. Fleischacker finds "great precision and masterly organization" in WN. Such precision is in evidence when "similar ideas are given similar wording across vast stretches of the text" (21). No claims are made for WN's originality, which was famously impugned by Joseph Schumpeter.

Though Fleischacker correctly notes that "Smith has surprisingly little to say, directly, about epistemology," he discerns "behind" Smith's "perspicuity" and theory-building in WN "a sophisticated epistemological theory" (27, 21). One of Smith's Glasgow colleagues thought that he practiced "the true old Humean philosophy"; but while Fleischacker never explicitly rejects this suggestion, he nevertheless finds Smith's epistemology closer to Thomas Reid's than to that of Hume himself. Smith turns out to be a defender of common sense who, like Wittgenstein, possesses "a sophisticated realization that the very attempt to defend common sense suggests, wrongly, that common sense needs defense" (23).

It used to be thought that WN and TMS are opposed to one another: that WN deals solely with self-interested individuals, while TMS emphasizes benevolence and sympathy. How could one person write both? This old "Adam Smith Problem" is properly dismissed as a pseudo-problem. But in its dismissal it is surprising to see so much space devoted to Hutcheson. For the teachings of Hutcheson probably were largely left behind when Smith encountered Hume's philosophy. Part IV, Justice, is meticulous and detailed, and will likely prove to be the most controversial part. Smith was not a utilitarian and rejected Hume's attempt to trace the origin of property and justice to utility. Here it was disappointing not to see any discussion of the critique of Hume's views by Lord Kames, whose Essays on the Principles of Morality (1751) must have influenced Smith...