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The Father of Classical Political Economy, Adam Smith, Believed People Are Driven by Morality

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Section 1- background information
Adam Smith, was born, or baptized, on June 5, 1723 in Kirkcaldy, then, as now, a small, decent, unprepossessing port on the Firth of Forth. Like so many of the Scottish intelligentsia, his family belonged to the middling ranks of Scottish society. (Phillipson, 2010: 9-11) Both of his parents came from the minor gentry and had the connections with the law, the army, and the world of office-holding on which the routines of Scottish public life and politics. Adam Smith senior was a man of some ability and ambition. He was baptized in 1679, and belonged to the Presbyterian gentry of north-east Scotland. He was educated in law at Aberdeen and Edinburgh. In 1710 Smith senior married Lilias …show more content…

Here Smith developed his strong passion for liberty, reason, and free speech. In 1740 he was awarded the Snell Exhibition and entered Balliol College, Oxford. In 1746 Smith left Oxford. . In 1748 Smith began delivering public lectures in Edinburgh under the patronage of the Lord Kames. In 1751 Smith Was appointed the Chair of Logic at University of Glasgow; the next year he was appointed the Chair of Moral Philosophy, which was the position of his old teacher Francis Hutcheson (Rae chapter 1 n.p.n.d, web 10 11-2013). In 1759 he published The Theory of Moral Sentiments, it was embodied several of his lectures from his roles at Glasgow. He was teaching subjects such as natural theology and ethics before moving into law and government. This book is a conglomerate of notes and lectures that he made in the department of Moral Philosophy at Glasgow. In 1762 the academic senate

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