 Smith's theory of actions and the moral significance of unintended consequencesAmos Witztum The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, 2008, vol. 15, issue 3, 401-432 Abstract: An important clue to the ambiguity in Smith's attitudes towards commercial society may lie in his disaffection with natural distributions; with distributions based on unintended consequences. The absence of proportionality between motives and outcomes dooms the morality of commercial society, not the mere absence of an ethical dimension to human character. Through the analysis of actions, we find correspondence between the three economic states of the Wealth of Nations and the three social states of the Theory of Moral Sentiments. Thus, re-distribution is important in the moral evaluation of commercial systems. Unintended consequences are neither a source of moral strength nor a safeguard against injustice. Keywords: Adam Smith; ethics-economics; proportional remuneration; distribution and morality; ethics of actions (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:eujhet:v:15:y:2008:i:3:p:401-432 Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from DOI: 10.1080/09672560802252297 Access Statistics for this article The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought is currently edited by José Luís Cardoso More articles in The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought from Taylor & Francis Journals |
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