Published by EH.NET (July 2004)  
 
Samuel Fleischacker, _On Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations: A Philosophical 
 Companion_. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004. xvii + 329 pp. 
 $39.50 (hardcover), ISBN: 0-691-11502-8.  
 
Reviewed for EH.NET by Spencer J. Pack, Department of Economics, 
 Connecticut College.  
 
  
 
Smithologists trying to keep up with the burgeoning commentaries on Adam 
Smith may well wonder with Jonathan B. Wight, "Is There a Speculative 
Bubble 
in Scholarship on Adam Smith?" Wight argues that no, there is no 
speculative  
Smithian scholarship bubble because, among other reasons, much of the new 
work is still informative and significantly adds to our understanding of 
Smith's project (Wight 2004). Fleischacker's new book on Adam Smith 
admirably demonstrates the acuity of Wight's viewpoint.  
 
Samuel Fleischacker, Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of 
Illinois, Chicago, has written "a guide to the many philosophical questions 
that inform WN or are raised by its conclusions" (xv). _On Adam Smith's 
Wealth of Nations: A Philosophical Campanion_ is readable in separate 
parts.  
 
Readers of this list serve may be least interested in the short (20 page) 
 Part III "Foundations of Economics." There Fleischacker attempts to explain 
such topics as the natural price/market price dichotomy, labor command 
versus 
labor theory of value, and productive and unproductive labor, apparently 
without benefit of having studied the major classical economists of the 
nineteenth and twentieth century such as Ricardo, Marx, Sraffa and Dobb -- 
 always a mistake.  
 
The 55-page Part I, "Methodology" and the 60-page Part II "Human Nature," 
deal with such issues as Smith's writing style and rhetorical strategies; 
his epistemology; his philosophy of science; Smith's use of evidence; the 
role of God and teleological explanations in Smith's work; Smith's 
anticlerical strain; the importance of the impartial spectator; the minimal 
inborn differences between people and the importance of early childhood 
education in shaping character for Smith; self-interest and the importance 
of speech, discussion and contracts for Smith; and vanity and the role of 
risk-taking. Fleischacker is traveling well-trod ground here, and for the 
most part there is little that is new in these sections. (I did, however, 
appreciate that for Fleischacker there is basically a new Adam Smith 
problem. Fleischacker detects a shift between the early economic Smith in 
the 
_Theory of Moral Sentiments_ (TMS) where, for example, there are beggars 
happily sunning themselves by the side of the highway; and the latter 
economic 
_Wealth of Nations_ (WN) where these nonchalant beggars do not exist, and 
where starvation and dependency are real hardships. There are also some 
other peculiar economic discrepancies between _TMS_ and _WN_.)  
 
Readers of this list may be more interested in the 29-page Part V 
"Politics" and 21-page Epilogue "Learning from Smith Today." There, 
basically  
in agreement with writers such as Meek (1977), John Kenneth Galbraith, and 
Pack (1991), Fleischacker demonstrates that there is indeed a "left wing" 
as well as a "right wing" reading of Smith. Smith's strong moral concern 
for the poor; his view of them as equal in decency and desert to everyone 
else in society; the need to protect the state and society from the power 
of large corporations and strong churches; hence, the need to _not_ 
delegate welfare or education to for-profit or religious enterprises; are 
properly stressed by Fleischacker in this sympathetic portrait of a left 
Smithian legacy.  
 
Yet, the real gem in this book, which does indeed contain important new 
material, is the long (82-page) Part IV "Justice." Particularly since the 
discovery of the second, more detailed set of student lecture notes of 
Smith's Jurisprudence course in 1958, and their first publication in 1978, 
it is quite clear that _TMS_ and _WN_ are part (or bookends) of a larger 
Smithian project which included a work on natural jurisprudence. As 
Fleischacker points out, Smith's project developed his political concerns 
out of his moral philosophy, much as Aristotle did in moving from his 
_Ethics_ to _The Politics_. Nonetheless, Smith was unable or unwilling 
to complete this project. Why? In a deep, penetrating analysis, 
Fleischacker argues provocatively that Smith's project of natural 
jurisprudence conflicted so deeply with other elements in his thought 
that Smith could not complete it. 
Smith wants to appeal to the impartial spectator and people's proper 
emotions to show how natural justice develops. Yet, as Fleischacker 
elaborates, the sentiments of the impartial spectator vary so widely 
according to context, it is hard to see how the impartial spectator 
could ever provide us with a set of precise laws holding across all 
societies. It is difficult or perhaps impossible for the impartial 
spectator to criticize the systemic moral views ingrained in a society. 
Thus, although Smith seems as if he wanted to criticize some of his own 
society's laws and institutions as unjust in _WN_, he was reluctant to 
do so. In _WN_ Smith plays down his own theory of justice; when Smith 
does appeal to justice, he never explains what justice really is. 
This is a problem. Fleischacker explains: "Smith, realizing that his 
project of developing a full-scale natural jurisprudence was internally 
flawed, decided in _WN_ to finesse the issue and write the book with 
a conception of justice that his contemporaries would take as 
uncontroversial" (171-172).  
 
Nonetheless, according to Fleischacker, Smith's work contributed to the 
changes in moral outlook, and the possible role of the state to aid the 
poor and attempt to abolish poverty, that inverted the entire understanding 
of distributive justice. The pre-Smithian notion of distributive justice 
was largely based upon the Aristotelian view that distribution should be 
according to merit and not a redistribution of material goods to the poor. 
On the other hand, the modern view of distributive justice, largely thanks 
to Smith himself, is that it is the duty, and not an act of grace, for 
the state to try to alleviate or abolish poverty. In my opinion, all 
readers interested in Adam Smith's project and/or the modern Post-Smithian 
notion of distributive justice, should have access to this book, so they 
can study this important, provocative contribution to the understanding 
of Smith's conception of justice.  
 
References:  
 
Ronald Meek, _Smith, Marx, and After_ (John Wiley and Sons, 1977).  
 
Spencer J. Pack, _Capitalism as a Moral System: Adam Smith's Critique of 
 the Free Market Economy_ (Edward Elgar, 1991).  
 
Jonathan B. Wight, "Is There a Speculative Bubble in Scholarship on Adam 
Smith?" 
 Paper presented to the Eleventh World Congress of Social Economics, 
 Albertville, France, June 2004.  
 
  
 
Spencer J. Pack, Professor of Economics at Connecticut College, New London, 
Connecticut, has written extensively on Adam Smith. His recent work 
includes 
"Aristotle's Theoretical System and Socioeconomic Justice in the 21st 
Century," 
Presented at the Eleventh World Congress of Social Economics, Albertville, 
France, June 2004; and "Smith's Humean Criticism of Hume's Account of the 
Origin 
of Justice," _Journal of the History of Philosophy_ (forthcoming; 
co-authored 
with Eric Schliesser).  
 
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