------------ EH.NET BOOK REVIEW -------------- 
Published by EH.NET (September 2004) 
 
Leonidas Montes, _Adam Smith in Context: A Critical Reassessment of  
Some Central Components of His Thought_. New York: Palgrave  
Macmillan, 2004. xii + 186 pp. $69.95 (hardcover), ISBN:  
1-4039-1256-4. 
 
Reviewed by Peter McNamara, Department of Political Science, Utah  
State University. 
 
 
Leonidas Montes's _Adam Smith in Context_ has two virtues: first, it  
provides a useful, concise account of the unwieldy and rapidly  
increasing literature on Adam Smith and, second, it presents the  
author's own views on Smith which, while not entirely original,  
constitute a thoughtful fine-tuning of the so-called civic humanist  
approach to Smith. The book is in two unequal parts. The first and  
larger part discusses Smith's moral theory. The second part of the  
book is an analysis of Newton's influence on Smith's economic  
methodology. Montes follows Quentin Skinner's interpretative approach  
which emphasizes reading texts in their historical context. According  
to Montes, the classical influence on Smith has been a neglected  
context. This dimension of his book makes a nice contrast with Gloria  
Vivenza's recently translated _Adam Smith and the Classics_ (Oxford:  
Oxford University Press, 2002) with which Montes has many  
disagreements, some small, some large. 
 
Montes begins with the Adam Smith Problem: the suggestion that there  
is a conflict between Smith's moral theory based on sympathy and his  
economic theory based on self-interest. While many influential Smith  
scholars have viewed it as a "pseudo-problem," Montes (fortunately)  
takes it seriously. He provides a very welcome account of the  
emergence of the problem in Germany in the nineteenth century that  
shows the connection between the beginnings of the German Historical  
School of economics and the identification of the Adam Smith Problem.  
Both, it turns out, grew out of a reaction against British policies  
and British ideas, particularly the free trade doctrines that Smith  
did so much to establish. Smith and Britain were caricatured as  
single-minded advocates of self-interest. On this basis, Smith's  
moral theory seemed anomalous. Montes believes that the usual way of  
dispatching the Problem -- by distinguishing "sympathy" from  
"benevolence" and pointing out that sympathy is the mechanism by  
which moral judgment takes place and thus not in conflict with  
self-interest -- is too quick and, somewhat paradoxically, concedes  
too much to the terms of debate established by the original  
proponents of the Adam Smith Problem. 
 
To make his point, Montes reviews three critical elements of Smith's  
moral theory. First, Montes argues that sympathy is not simply a  
means for making moral judgments. It is also a _motive_ for moral  
conduct because the very act of sympathizing involves an imaginative  
leap on our part into someone else's situation. It is as much a  
disposition to act as it is a means of rendering moral judgment. As a  
motive, it reflects our fundamentally social nature. The second  
element of Smith's moral theory that Montes dwells on is  
self-command. Montes draws attention to the pivotal role self-command  
plays in Smith's overall account of the virtues. It is not only one  
of the Smithian cardinal virtues, it is also a prerequisite for the  
performance of the other virtues. Montes begins with a discussion of  
the general background to Smith's account of the virtues. He argues  
that Smith should be seen in light of the classical tradition in  
which there was a close link between virtue and manliness. According  
to Montes, this connection lives on in Smith's language, in his moral  
theory, and in his policy prescriptions. With regard to this last  
area, Montes revisits the militia versus standing army debate and  
tries to show that while Smith favored a standing army he saw the  
moral merit of a militia's contribution to citizen virtue. The  
discussion of self-command is closely tied to the third of Montes's  
main points about Smith's moral theory: Smith's account of propriety  
makes him proto-Kantian rather than utilitarian or proto-utilitarian.  
Propriety is a judgment of moral good made with reference to the  
intention behind an action and without reference to the consequences.  
A key example cited by Montes is Smith's claim that we approve of the  
heroic valor -- the self-command -- of a soldier even if his cause is  
unjust; that is, regardless of consequences of the action. These  
accounts of sympathy, self-command, and propriety lead Montes to  
argue repeatedly against the idea that Smith's thought bears any  
simple relation to the crude Robinson Crusoe individualism of later  
economists. 
 
This observation prepares us somewhat for the abrupt shift in the  
last part of the book to questions of economic methodology.  
Specifically, Montes asks: was Smith a Newtonian? Montes believes he  
was but not for reasons scholars usually give. According to Montes,  
Smith was not a proponent of a mathematical-deductive method and he  
was certainly not a proponent of an embryonic form of Walrasian  
general equilibrium theory. The passages usually cited to support  
this view are in Montes's opinion largely metaphorical. Smith was,  
however, a Newtonian in the deeper sense that like Newton he wished  
to uncover the pieces of the connecting chain that links together  
events -- "the real structures underlying phenomena" (p. 149). In  
this Montes sees a connection between Smith and his own preference  
for "critical realism" as an approach in economics. 
 
One might find many areas of disagreement with Montes's reading of  
Smith both from within the interpretative approach he uses and from  
without. Let me just raise one question with regard to Smith's moral  
theory. One feature of it which Montes does not explore is the  
potential hazard that lurks in Smith's analysis of sympathy,  
self-command, and propriety. Take the example of the admiration we  
feel for someone who is a hero in a bad cause. Is there not something  
perverse about this? Was not Smith aware of this problem? Consider  
also Smith's belief that we sympathize with the rich and the great,  
regardless of their moral character, and for this reason defer to  
them. Both examples point to the way in which sympathy is, perhaps, a  
motive but not a _moral_ motive. I wish Montes had dealt more  
explicitly with such issues. But, at the least, his useful book  
helped me to think about them and a host of others one finds in the  
complex thought of Adam Smith. 
 
 
Peter McNamara is author of _Political Economy and Statesmanship:  
Smith, Hamilton and the Foundation of the Commercial Republic_  
(Northern Illinois University Press, 1997) and editor of _The Noblest  
Minds: Fame, Honor, and the American Founding_ (Rowman & Littlefield,  
1999). 
 
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