Abstract

My dissertation is a study of the way in which Adam Smith and David Hume think that commonly accepted standards of morality develop. I carefully examine Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments, which I argue reveals the first comprehensive understanding of human institutions, including moral institutions, as the ongoing products of a system of unintended order. They arise, that is, on the basis of individuals interacting with one another as they freely strive to satisfy interests, without those individuals intending to establish any system of order. ;I show how my interpretation of Smith resolves long-standing scholarly issues, including the celebrated "Adam Smith Problem." I argue that Smith understands all human institutions as the product of a market-like development that proceeds according to the institution's efficiency at satisfying human wants. Smith's Wealth of Nations and Theory of Moral Sentiments are particular instantiations of this single model of a market. ;I then argue that this same understanding of human institutions is found in Hume, though Hume limits it to what he calls our notions of justice. Despite some significant similarities in their accounts, then, I argue that an examination of Hume's treatment reveals that Smith's explanation of moral systems is more complete than and generally superior to Hume's. I next place Smith's discussion in its historical setting, showing what role he plays in the ethical debates during the Scottish Enlightenment, in particular those debates carried on by Hobbes, Mandeville, Clarke, Butler, Hutcheson, and Hume. ;Finally, I turn to a criticism of Smith's position. I evaluate Smith's argument that such a system of morality has an ultimate moral sanction because the elements of human nature that are necessary to establish the system--principally the desire for mutual sympathy of sentiments--could only have been granted by God. I find two issues that he failed to address adequately. I then close the dissertation by linking Smith's account on a few crucial points to current thinking about ethical justification and by assessing Smith's contribution to present-day ethical theorizing