Economic Justice in The Natural Law Tradition: Thomas Aquinas to Francis Hutcheson

Abstract

After three or more decades of mainly positivistic readings of the economics of Adam Smith, there was a decided movement following the bicentennial of the publication of the Wealth of Nations to broaden the agenda of Smithian studies. The publication in 1978 of the Report of 1762–63 of Smith's lectures in jurisprudence added impetus to this movement. In particular, historians of ideas began to pay increased attention to Smith's concern with justice in economic life. That attention has evoked renewed interest in certain of Smith's intellectual antecedents who may have played a part in shaping his ideas, but whose influence has remained a matter of relative neglect in modern scholarship.