ABSTRACT
Smith lays out four purposes for government in both TMS and LJ: justice, police, revenue, and arms. Smith is thus very much in line with the secular, pragmatic view of government purposes that arose in the Enlightenment. Law varies, and should vary, with cultural and historical circumstance, for Smith, but there are some general ideas, of descriptive as well as normative varieties, that properly shape how every state adapts to its cultural and historical circumstances. Griswold’s challenge to the “liberalism-for-virtue” view of Smith takes a very different form. The moral principles guiding politics, for Smith, stem primarily from the importance of liberty and independence. Smith regards the thinking behind them as misguided, and reflective of a deep failure to grasp the basic principles of economics.
