R. H. Coase Graduate School

10

Selected Papers No. 50

families, continues to take place between

their parents. Their good agreement

improves the enjoyment of that friend-

ship-their discord would disturb it. As

they seldom live in the same family,

however, though of more importance

to one another than the greater part of

other people, they are of much less than

brothers and sisters. As their mutual

sympathy is less necessary, so it is less

habitual, and, therefore, proportionably

weaker. The children of cousins, being

still less connected, are of still less

importance to one another; and the

affection gradually diminishes as the

relation grows

m o r e   a n d   m o r e   re-

mote.14

Our feelings of natural affection, however,

go beyond the family, beyond even the

extended family :

Among well-disposed people the ne-

cessity or  conveniency

 of mutual accom-

modation very frequently produces a

friendship not unlike that which takes

place among those who are born to

live in the same family. Colleagues in

office, partners in trade, call one another

brothers, and frequently feel towards

one another as if they really were so.

. . . Even the trifling circumstances of

living in the same neighbourhood has

some effect of the same  kind.“15  Then

there are the inhabitants of our own

country and the members of the par-

t i c u l a r   g r o u p s   w i t h i n   a   c o u n t r y   t o

which we belong. “Every individual is

naturally more attached to his own

particular order or society than to any

other. His own interest, his own vanity,

the interest and vanity of many of his

friends and companions, are commonly

---

R. H. Coase

11

a good deal connected with it: he is

ambitious to extend its privileges and

immunities  - he is zealous to defend

them against the encroachments of

every other order or  society.16

Adam Smith’s view of benevolence seems

to be that it is strongest within the family

and that as we go beyond the family, to

friends, neighbours and colleagues, and then

to others who are none of these, the force

of benevolence becomes weaker the more

remote and the more casual the connection.

And when we come to foreigners or members

of other sects or groups with interests which

are thought to be opposed to ours, we find

not simply the absence of benevolence but

malevolence :

When two nations are at variance, the

citizen of each pays little regard to the

sentiments which foreign nations may

entertain concerning his conduct. His

whole ambition is to obtain the appro-

bation of his own fellow-citizens; and

as they are all animated by the same

hostile passions which animate himself,

he can never please them so much as by

enraging and offending their enemies.

The partial spectator is at hand: the

impartial one at a great distance. In

war and negotiation, therefore, the laws

of justice are very seldom observed.

Truth and fair dealing are almost

totally disregarded. . . . The animosity

of hostile factions, whether civil or

ecclesiastical, is often still more furious

than that of hostile nations, and their

conduct towards one another is often

still more atrocious. . . .  I7

The picture which Adam Smith paints of

human behaviour is not edifying. Man is

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12

Selected Papers No. 50

not without finer feelings; he is indulgent

to children, tolerant of parents, kind to

friends. But once this is said, it is also true

that he is dominated by self-love, lives in a

world of self-delusion, is conceited, envious,

malicious, quarrelsome and resentful. Adam

Smith’s view is in fact a description of man

much as we know him to be. This is not

the aspect of 

of 

Moral Sentiments

to which commentators normally draw our

attention. The book is usually thought of

a s   p r e s e n t i n g ,   a n d   h e r e   I   q u o t e   J a c o b

Viner,

“an unqualified doctrine of a har-

monious order of nature,

under divine

guidance, which promotes the welfare of

man through the operation of his individual

propensities."18

How this bland interpre-

tation came to be made of what is a very

unflattering account of human nature is

something to which I now turn.

Adam Smith did not address himself

directly to the question of whether there

was a natural harmony in man’s propensities.

However, it can be inferred from various

statements he made that Viner’s generalisation

is not far from the truth. Take as an

example what he says about the fact that

we judge people by what they do rather

than by what they intend to do, although

it would seem more reasonable if, in our

assessment of their characters, it was the

other way around:

Nature . . . when she implanted the

seeds of this irregularity in the human

breast, seems, as upon all other occa-

sions, to have intended the happiness

and perfection of the species. If the

hurtfulness of the design, if the ma-

levolence of the affection, were alone

the causes which excited our resentment,

we should feel all the furies of that

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