Adam Smith's System of Liberty, Wealth and Virtue.

• Author: West, Edwin G.

This book is an attack on the view that Adam Smith conceived of the science of economics after shelving moral considerations and wholeheartedly approving of the motivating force of self-interest. This view, which the author claims to be widespread among Nobel-prize-winning economists, rests exclusively on a superficial reading of The Wealth of Nations (WN). Fitzgibbons argues that in Smith's preceding book, The Theory of Moral Sentiments (MS), virtue, and not self-interest, was the most workable standard in life. Moreover, he did not place morals and economics in different compartments but strived to integrate them in one all-embracing philosophy. MS indicates that Smith intended his theory of morals to be the intellectual foundation of a total system that included politics, economics, and law. He wanted to supplement the free market with a public recognition of virtue. Ultimately his system described an economy operating within a framework of moral self-constraint.

But what was the basis of Smith's moral theory? Fitzgibbons provides an overview. Smith dispensed with early Christian rationalism because it was preoccupied with preparing people not for this world but for the next. In addition, Smith, like Hume, wanted to replace the Aristotelian worldview with an outlook more consistent with the science of Sir Isaac Newton. Newtonian physics had replaced Aristotelian physics, and Smith belonged to the new group of thinkers who opposed Aristotle and the Greeks whenever their doctrines were inconsistent with "science." But whereas Hume wanted to replace virtue and practical reason with utility, Smith insisted on a moral version of the liberal state. Ultimately he believed that it was possible to make higher and lower motives compatible, to the benefit of society, by discovering the relevant laws of nature (p. 16).

Whereas Hume rejected the past, Smith looked to it for inspiration. He rejected Christian virtue in favor of Cicero's stoic version, which implied the practice of virtue in political and public life. But whereas Cicero was preoccupied with a virtuous elite and a philosopher-king, Smith proceeded to offer a general scientific theory of virtue with wide application. A liberal system of laws then followed from Smith's science of morals. Although Smith rejected unworldliness and the Christian worldview, he did not promote materialism and self-love rather than virtue. "Smith was neither an idealist...nor a materialist...but a Stoic...