The crucial purposes of this thesis have two folds. Firstly, I will reconstruct Adam Smith¡¦s (5 June 1723-17 July 1790) thought through re-conceptualising the doctrine of the human nature in his theory. In doing this, I will give you reasons that the so-called ¡¥Das Adam Smith Problem¡¦ is founding on the wrong problematic concern in interpreting Smith¡¦s doctrine. The bulk of ¡¥the problem¡¦, having raised from the incessant controversy about whether Smith¡¦s theory is a coherent system built upon either sympathetic-based or interested-based foundation, but, as my kernel problematic concern in this thesis, I will argue that, neither side alone captures comprehensively about Smith¡¦s own understanding of human nature. Through presenting Smith¡¦s conception of the development of our moral judgement and his construction of operational principal of our market bahaviour, his doctrine of man should be orientated towards our intellectual capacity, especially on how do human cultivate their own moral judgement and the proper way of mutual understanding in everyday life. To accentuate the development of our capacity of judgement or reflection is the way I argue to understand Smith¡¦s conception of man correctly. Secondly, another controversy about Smith¡¦s doctrine lies on the contradiction among the concepts of ¡¥propriety¡¦ and ¡¥virtue¡¦ in his moral philosophy, while the former is the general standard attainable by the majority, and the latter with the stricter normative standard only a few men can achieve. My argument is, if man¡¦s intellectual capacity, such as judgement and reflection, having been regarded as essential concepts that Smith used to supersede the deficiency of one-sided understanding of human, then, his conception of impartial spectator and spectatorship¡¦s approach also gives the priority to cultivate our moral judgement and our capacity of reflection. Smith¡¦s primary concern, if I conceive it rightly, is to inspire our moral potential through disclosing the general principle lies behind our moral learning which terminated in the judgement made by impartial spectator, further, the concept of impartial spectator is also a linkage of different normative standards prescribed by propriety or virtue. Finally, In the conclusion part, I will connect my argument about moral potential with Smith¡¦s conception of human nature which tries to prove that, as the practical moralist, who considered man as intellectual animals that who deserves this privileged claim when who urges himself in enlarging and improving his own mentality.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:NSYSU/oai:NSYSU:etd-0216112-100321 |
| Date | 16 February 2012 |
| Creators | Wu, Jheng-yu |
| Contributors | Jeng-guo Chen, Chia-Hao Hsu, Hao Yeh, Roy Tseng |
| Publisher | NSYSU |
| Source Sets | NSYSU Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Archive |
| Language | Cholon |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.lib.nsysu.edu.tw/ETD-db/ETD-search/view_etd?URN=etd-0216112-100321 |
| Rights | unrestricted, Copyright information available at source archive |
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