Paper short abstract

This paper will explore Adam Smith's account of religion as a model for a normative anthropology of religion.

Paper long abstract

Adam Smith, though a close assocate of David Hume, has an interestingly more subtle account of the role of religion in human life. It is, broadly speaking, an evaluative account rooted in a conception of human nature. In this way it provides a model for normative anthropology. The value of exploring this model lies in the light it might shed on the professed evaluative 'neutrality' of more modern anthropological approaches.