Human Nature, Mind and the Self in Adam Smith's Moral Philosophy

This book investigates the problematisation in Adam Smith's moral philosophy of a classical question: what makes us human beings from a moral standpoint? To do this, Riccardo Bonfiglioli explores the relationship between the concepts of human nature, mind and the self in order to reconstruct Smiths theory of subjectivity. After providing a systematic reconstruction of Adam Smiths conceptions of human nature , mind and the self exploring some aspects of Smiths philosophy (nature, philosophy of history, sympathy and imagination) and their empirical expressions (education, conduct and character) Bonfiglioli argues that, in Adam Smiths work, the meaning of moral human beings would depend on the human beings effort to live in harmony with oneself and the others. According to Bonfiglioli, in Smiths moral theory, this harmony with oneself and the others would be achieved in relation to a certain kind of awareness that can be possible when human beings try to judge the conduct and try to act according to the impartial spectator. Specifically, this impartial spectator is reinterpreted by the author in the light of the concept of immediacy.