"Adam Smith and the Rights of the Dead"

South African Journal of Philosophy, 2023

RIIM

An introductory lecture on the moral philosophy of Adam Smith, focusing on his "Theory of Moral Sentiments."

Academia Letters, 2020

Journal of Applied Philosophy, 2010

Journal of Scottish Philosophy, 2022

Christel Fricke suggests a reading of the TMS as a normative moral theory. According to her, the core of this theory is Smith’s account of the rules of justice – rather than his theory of conscience, as many scholars assuime, including both Carrasco and von Villiez. The rules of justice are not constituted by the spectatorial process between a person concerned and her impartial spectator. This is because an (implicit) endorsement of these rules is a condition for the person concerned and her spectator for engaging in a spectatorial process in the first place and for the possibility of their agreeing on shared moral standards. Shared moral standards arising from a spectatorial process have both factual and justified authority. The rules of justice, however, have absolute authority. Human beings are naturally motivated to act in accordance with the rules of justice; but the process of socialization within a particular culture gives rise to prejudices about who is (and who is not) among those whose feelings and interests have to be respected. Smith’s moral account of the socialization of a child (and his account of civilization at large) is therefore ambivalent: On the one hand, socialization is indispensable for a child’s moral education. But on the other hand, any process of socialization takes place under contingent conditions and gives rise to prejudices about who is to be respected as an equal. The rules of justice prescribe to respect all people as equals, independently of their cultural identity, and to take their interests into account: universal respect is a requirement of impartiality.