ABSTRACT
In this essay, I attribute to Adam Smith the insight that explaining the historical origins and social conditions of possibility of social phenomena is part of the moral force of our practices. The importance of my investigation goes beyond a narrow interpretation of Smith. The approach I develop here can, for example, be applied to a very different moral philosopher, J.S. Mill, whose methodology in Chapter III of Utilitarianism, is very similar to the one I attribute to Smith. Moreover, Smith’s position is a useful response to an anti-historical strain of moral theorizing arising out of the now dominant neo-Kantian, Rawlsian contract tradition. Smith provides an example of how an interest in genealogical origins need not end up in the service of (Rousseau-ian, Nietzsche-ian, Foucault-ian) unmasking of morality.
