In describing Adam Smith's acknowledgments as "neo-plagiarism" (Rashid, 1990), was trying to characterize a situation where a scholar either borrows ideas from others but provides no acknowledgment, or had access to fruitful and important ideas yet seems to have ignored them. These can be two quite different issues, and I am indeed guilty of inadequately distinguishing between them. A scholar w...

This paper argues that many of Adam Smith’s insights, particularly those in his Theory of moral sentiments, have a relevance to contemporary thought about economics and ethics that is currently underappreciated. In economics, for example, Smith was concerned not only with the sufficiency of self-interest at the moment of exchange but also with the wider moral motivations and institutions requir...

In The Sources of Normativity, Christine Korsgaard argues that in order to avoid the threat of moral skepticism, our moral theories must show how the claims they make about the nature of our actions obligate us to act morally. A theory that can justify the normativity of morality in this way answers what Korsgaard calls “the normative question.” Although Korsgaard claims that only Kantian theor...

This article analyzes the relationship between competition and justice in Adam Smith order to determine what extent can promote undermine justice. I examine how features two basic motivations for human action, “the propensity truck barter exchange,” desire of bettering our condition.” Both be traced back recognition, but they operate very different ways. The former manifests itself social coope...

What explains the ambition to get rich? Adam Smith is clear that commercial ambition, passionate desire for great wealth, not simply a satisfy one’s material needs. His argument on what underlies it, however, obvious. I review three possibilities suggested by Smith’s work and scholarly literature—vanity, love of system, tranquility—and conclude none them captures underlying motive ambition. Ins...