Abstract

adam smith1 is often taken to be an heir to the natural jurisprudence tradition, to which he explicitly refers in several places in his oeuvre.2 He combines it with an account of the moral sentiments, in which he sees the origin of morality and justice.3 The moral sentiments, as explored in The Theory of Moral Sentiments, are the basis for justice, which, embodied in positive law, is the framework for commercial society, the economy of which Smith explores in the Wealth of Nations. in this sense, Smith is seen by many scholars as a being a moral philosopher in the first place, and an economist in the second place.4 The challenge that remains, and which Smith addresses by a number of rhetorical strategies,5 is to ..