This thoughtful new abridgment is enriched by the brilliant commentary which accompanies it. In it, Laurence Dickey argues that the _Wealth of Nations_ contains--and conceals--a great deal of how Smith actually thought a commercial society works. Guided by his conviction that the so-called Adam Smith Problem--the relationship between ethics and economics in Smith's thinking--is a core element in the argument of the work itself, Dickey's commentary focuses on the devices Smith uses to ground his economics in broadly ethical and social (...) categories. An unparalleled guide to an often difficult and perplexing work. (shrink)

Introduction i. Adam Smith's Lectures at Glasgow University Adam Smith was elected to the Chair of Logic at Glasgow University on 9 January, and admitted to ...

Philosophers are fond of fiction and of imaginary examples to fill out their discussions of ethics. As with the stories of Jim and the guerrillas, of down and outs unwisely wandering into transplant hospitals and of railway wagons careering out of control towards philosophically minded points switchers, these examples are inclined to become baroque in their complexity and over-elaboration; any initial force or verisimilitude they may have had in their unadorned state is quickly overlain with a heavy varnish of cleverness (...) and complication.As an antidote to this modern day scholasticism, we could propose the true story of Joe Simpson and Simon Yates, recently made into a film in which the two protagonists actually describe what happened. (shrink)