Adam Smith on the Virtues: A Partial Resolution of the Adam Smith Problem

It is now easy to see, in the light of Adam Smith's Lectures on Jurisprudence, that The Theory of Moral Sentiments and The Wealth of Nations were parts of a grand system. Nonetheless, TMS and WTVare not tightly linked. This paper pursues the following strategy: knowing that Smith wrote both works, one can go back to TMS, investigate Smith's handling of the virtues, and see how that work implicitly defended the acquisitive, commercial society analyzed so thoroughly in WN.1 In doing so, it will be shown that Smith has a distinctive, key, narrow handling of the virtue justice which is based upon the passion resentment. Smith's treatment of justice explains why there can be no concept of just price in Smith's work. It serves to support market, flexible, or negotiated prices as ethically legitimate because it effectively removes market prices from the domain of government control or responsibility, at least insofar as government is enforcing justice. It will be seen that Smith views prudence as a virtue. He sanctifies self-interest with the appellation of virtuousness, and provides a virtuous underpinning to the logic of acquisitive, selfinterested commercial society where everyone to some extent is a merchant, Moreover, Smith is relatively unconcerned with avarice. He does