Philosopher · Early modern
Adam Smith
1723–1790 · Scottish Enlightenment; political economy
Nominally Presbyterian; his “Author of Nature” is the God of natural religion, and he was Hume's closest friend.
Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments grounds morality in sympathy and the judgment of an “impartial spectator”; his Wealth of Nations describes how self-interest under a “system of natural liberty” is led as if by an invisible hand to serve the common wealth. He favored free trade and competition but distrusted merchants and allowed the state public works, education and defense.
Why he matters: He founded the economics that Rerum Novarum and its successors both criticize and partly accept; Centesimus Annus 32–42 recognizes the market's legitimate role while refusing to let it be the whole of social life, and Michael Novak's Catholic case for democratic capitalism is built on Smith.
Where to be careful
Economic liberalism as a system is rejected (Rerum Novarum 3; Quadragesimo Anno 88; CCC 2425), his moral theory rests on sentiment rather than the natural law, and his religion is the deism of his age; but his humane realism about work, wages and the abuses of monopoly gives much common ground.
Reading
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The Wealth of NationsAdam Smith · Books I and IV for the market; Book V for what the state must still do.
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The Theory of Moral SentimentsAdam Smith · The moral philosophy without which the economics is misread.
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Centesimus AnnusSt. John Paul II, 1991 · The Church's measured reckoning with the market economy.
Documented positions
Where this thinker stands on each dispute the test covers.