苏格兰启蒙运动和市场经济人文基础

The Scottish Enlightenment and the Humanistic Foundation of Market Economy

苏格兰启蒙运动为当时正在西欧出现的市场经济做了人文主义思想上的准备。苏格兰启蒙运动思想家采用道德情感主义,解释了人类道德情感何以出现,阐述了人类社会秩序的道德根源。斯密说明了市场交易行为是社会范围人类道德情感在经济领域的自然体现,是合宜的,符合正义的美德。斯密还从伦理角度,从生产、交换、消费和分配各环节论证了市场经济的合宜性,奠定了古典经济学的基础,也为市场经济奠定了人文基础。不过,斯密体系中市场经济分配环节的伦理合宜性在资本和土地主导分配的情况下会变得薄弱,进而影响到市场经济整体的伦理合宜性。

The Scottish Enlightenment made the humanistic foundation of the nascent market economy at that time. The Scottish Enlightenment thinkers discussed how the human being have the morality and make societal interaction based on moral sentimentalism. Adam Smith who epitomized the Scottish moral sentimentalism used this method to explain the market interaction as a natural result of human morality in a great society, and the market economy also holds a virtue of justice. In accordance with the humanism, Adam Smith made the humanistic foundation of market economy through justifying production, exchange, consumption and distribution sections of market economy. However, in Adam Smith’s system on distribution of market economy, the ethical appropriateness is weakened when capital and land dominate the distribution, and thus influences the whole market economy.