Adam Smith’in Düalistik Öznesi

Although Adam Smith is especially known for his contributions in the field of economics, his works are interdisciplinary. The thinker has an academic interest that goes beyond the field of economics. His influence on the disciplines of ethics and political philosophy is at least as important as economics. It is very rare that those working in the fields of economics, ethics and political philosophy do not refer to the thinker. This indicates that he is an important thinker in the history of political thought. The thinker's political economy should be seen as only a part of his comprehensive understanding of ethics and political philosophy centered on human and society. While the thinker accepts altruistic motivation in the determination of morality in his Theory of Moral Sentiment, he defends an understanding of morality based on selfishness in his book The Wealth of Nations. This dualistic subject of the thinker causes problems in real life. The study first analyzes the thinker's altruistic subject who acts with sympathy in the social sphere and then his selfish subject in the economic sphere. Secondly, the intellectual rupture caused by these two different subjects of Smith is pointed out. Third, two objections to the thinker's approach are raised. Drawing on a communitarian grounding, this study argues that Smith's altruistic subject and virtue-related values in the social sphere are displaced by his selfish subject in the economic sphere.