Adam Smith (1723-1790)

Adam Smith

Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759) Smith considered The Moral Sentiments as important as Wealth of Nations. Continued to revise throughout his life (last [sixth] edition, 1790) TMS Message: How may a society freed from the fetters and controls of feudalism and the church achieve moral order?

Social rules and codes of behavior “It is thus that the general rules of morality are formed. They are ultimately founded upon experience of what, in particular instances, our moral faculties, our natural sense of merit and propriety, approve, or disapprove of. We do not originally approve or condemn particular actions; because, upon examination, they appear to be agreeable or inconsistent with a certain general rule. The general rule, on the contrary, is formed, by finding from experience, that all actions of a certain kind, or circumstanced in a certain manner, are approved or disapproved of.” (p. 109-110)

“self-command”… “The man who acts according to the rules of perfect prudence, of strict justice, and of proper benevolence, may be said to be perfectly virtuous. But the most perfect knowledge of those rules will not alone enable him to act in this manner: his own passions are very apt to mislead him; sometimes to drive him and sometimes to seduce him to violate all the rules which he himself, in all his sober and cool hours, approves of. The most perfect knowledge, if it is not supported by the most perfect self-command, will not always enable him to do his duty.” (p. 143)

Tendency to admire the rich Not only self-deceit but a tendency to admire and worship the rich corrupts the moral sentiments: “This disposition to admire, and almost to worship, the rich and the powerful, and to despise, or, at least, to neglect persons of poor and mean condition, though necessary both to establish and to maintain the distinction of ranks and the order of society, is, at the same time, the great and most universal cause of the corruption of our moral sentiments.” (p. 86)

Maintenance of order and rank “It is because mankind are disposed to sympathize more entirely with our joy than with our sorrow, that we make parade of our riches, and conceal our poverty.” (p. 78) tendency to sympathize more with those higher in the social hierarchy. (pp. 86-87) this tendency is related to the acquisitive drive

Invisible hand “The produce of the soil maintains at all times nearly that number of inhabitants which it is capable of maintaining. The rich only select from the heap what is most precious and agreeable. They consume little more than the poor, and in spite of their natural selfishness and rapacity, though they mean only their own conveniency, though the sole end which they propose from the labours of all the thousands whom they employ, be the gratification of their own vain and insatiable desires, they divide with the poor the produce of all their improvements. They are led by an invisible hand to make nearly the same distribution of the necessaries of life, which would have been made, had the earth been divided into equal portions among all its inhabitants, and thus without intending it, without knowing it, advance the interest of the society, and afford means to the multiplication of the species.” (pp. 122-123)

Higher and lower levels of prudence Even if it does pay off for the individual, they are industrious and achieve some level of affluence, it is only “deserving of cold esteem” (p. 135) Prudence, in short, when directed merely to the care of the health, of the fortune, and of the rank and reputation of the individual, though it is regarded as a most respectable and even, in some degree, as an amiable and agreeable quality, yet it never is considered as one, either of the most endearing, or of the most ennobling of the virtues. It commands a certain cold esteem, but seems not entitled to any very ardent love or admiration. (p. 135)

“greed is good”? So *proper* self-regard—self-interested behavior moderated by self-command and a sense of duty, as well as the socially responsible adherence to social rules and obligations—can be socially beneficial under certain conditions. It is not the higher level of prudence, but it is a kind of prudence.

Self-interest or sympathy? “That whole account of human nature, however, which deduces all sentiments and affections from self-love, which has made so much noise in the world, but which, so far as I know, has never yet been fully and distinctly explained, seems to me to have arisen from some confused misapprehension of the system of sympathy.” (TMS, Part 7, Section 3, Paragraph 7)