The Scottish Enlightenment and the Theory of Spontaneous Order (Journal of the History of Philosophy Monographs)

“Every step and every movement of the multitude, even in what are termed enlightened ages, are made with equal blindness to the future; and nations stumble upon establishments, which are indeed the result of human action, but not the execution of any human design.”—Adam Ferguson

During the Scottish Enlightenment, David Hume, Adam Smith, Adam Ferguson, and other lesser thinkers described a theory of spontaneously generated social order. Ronald Hamowy discusses their contributions to this significant area of social theory, noting that the revolutionary aspect of these philosophers’ thoughts was “the proposition that social phenomena of a high degree of intricacy are not the product of intentional design.”

Hamowy shows that Hume is best known for his application of the theory to justice, developing it most thoroughly in the Treatise of Human Nature. Adam Smith’s first treatment of it is in the Theory of Moral Sentiment, published before the significant Wealth of Nations. There Smith uses it to explain the development of general rules that compose the moral fabric of societies.

All of these thinkers used their notion of spontaneously generated social order to explain systems of moral rules and social systems. In addition Adam Ferguson and David Hume applied the theory to language, as well as to economic development.