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Adam Smith and the law

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The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics and the Law

Abstract

From 1751 to 1763 Smith was professor in the University of Glasgow, first of Logic and then of Moral Philosophy, and his legal and later his economic ideas emerged in the context of his teaching moral philosophy. He sought to study man’s conduct in society by the ‘Newtonian method’, based on observation, and he tended to present his ideas as generalizations from data taken from ancient and contemporary sources.

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Bibliography

  • Haakonssen, K. 1981. The Science of a Legislator: The Natural Jurisprudence of David Hume and Adam Smith. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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  • Ross, I.S. 1995. The Life of Adam Smith. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

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  • Smith, A. 1759. The Theory of Moral Sentiments, ed. D.D. Raphael and A.L. Macfie, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976 (= TMS).

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  • Smith, A. 1763–4. Lectures on Justice, Police, Revenue and Arms delivered in the University of Glasgow by Adam Smith, ed. E. Cannan, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1896. These notes, together with a fuller set from 1762–3, were published as Lectures on Jurisprudence, ed. R.L. Meek, D.D. Raphael and P.G. Stein, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978 (= LJ).

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  • Stein, P. 1979. Adam Smith’s jurisprudence — between morality and economics. Cornell Law Review 64: 621–38.

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© 2002 Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited

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Stein, P. (2002). Adam Smith and the law. In: Newman, P. (eds) The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics and the Law. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-74173-1_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-74173-1_2

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London

  • Print ISBN: 978-0-333-99756-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-349-74173-1

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