An Analysis Of Moral Philosophy In Adam Smith 's "Moral Theory Of Romance"

Compared with the previous times, the moral situation of Chinese society is more and more wicked, the phenomenon of non moral is more and more serious, and morality encounter an unprecedented crisis. Then we how to get rid of the moral puzzle, and where to find the answer to this question? This paper attempts to work on the British philosopher Adam Smith’s "moral theory", by exploring the Adam Smith’s moral philosophy, absorb the essence of his theory of moral sentiment to provide theory reference for China’s socialism morals construction.This paper begins with Smith’s thoughts of social historical conditions and theoretical background, mainly reviews the contents of Smith’s moral philosophy from three aspects, which include the theoretical premise of moral philosophy, moral evaluation standard and discuss about virtue. The theory of human nature, which is the theoretical premise of Adam Smith’s moral philosophy, contains the egoism and altruism two natures, and the ego heart is more primitive than the altruistic heart. Smith looked conscience-impartial spectator, propriety and sense of responsibility as moral behavior criteria. In the discourse of virtue, he analyzed the virtues from two angles. He considered that Caution can be thought of a virtue from the ego heart, while justice and kindness can be thought of a virtue from the altruistic heart.Adam Smith’s moral philosophy took on theoretical characteristics that can not be ignored, which has caused us a profound reflection on the lack of ethics in the current social phenomenon, and has a positive significance for us to explore the pathway to build a harmonious socialist society. However, no thinker’s thought can’t be perfect, Adam Smith’s moral philosophy itself is a kind of moral sentiments theory deviating from realistic society economy relation, and this greatly weakened the practice of morality thought. And this is just the inner defect of the theory.