Combining the methods of the modern philosopher with those of the historian of ideas, Knud Haakonssen presents an interpretation of the philosophy of law which Adam Smith developed out of - and partly in response to - David Hume's theory of justice. While acknowledging that the influences on Smith were many and various, Dr Haakonssen suggests that the decisive philosophical one was Hume's analysis of justice in A Treatise of Human Nature and the second Enquiry. He therefore begins with a thorough investigation of Hume, from which he goes on to show the philosophical originality of Smith's new form of natural jurisprudence. At the same time, he provides an over all reading of Smith's social and political thought, demonstrating clearly the exact links between the moral theory of The Theory of Moral Sentiments, the Lectures on Jurisprudence, and the sociohistorical theory of The Wealth of Nations. This is the first full analysis of Adam Smith's jurisprudence; it emphasizes its normative and critical function, and relates this to the psychological, sociological, and histroical aspects which hitherto have attracted most attention. Dr Haakonssen is critical of both purely descriptivist and utilitarian interpretations of Smith's moral and political philosophy, and demonstrates the implausibility of regarding Smith's view of history as pseudo-economic or 'materialist'.

努德•哈孔森（Knud Haakonssen），英國蘇剋塞斯大學教授，愛丁堡皇傢學會、丹麥皇傢學會、澳大利亞社會科學學會會員，並在波士頓大學和格拉斯哥大學擔任榮譽教授。主要研究領域為近現代早期的道德、政治和法律思想史及啓濛運動與宗教之間的關係，特彆是從格老秀斯到黑格爾的自然法、各種權利理論及康德之前的哲學概念。代錶作有The Science of A Legislator: The Natural Jurisprudence of David Hume and Adam Smith，Natural Law and Moral Philosophy: From Grotius to the Scottish Enlightenment, 並編有Hume: Political Essays, The Cambridge Companion to Adam Smith, Cambridge History of Eighteenth-Century Philosophy等。