Selected Papers No. 50
Adam Smith’s
View of Man
R. H. Coase
Graduate School
of Business
The University
of Chicago
R. H. Coase was born in 1910 in London, En-
gland. He studied at the London School of Eco-
nomics from which he graduated in 1931. After
holding positions at the Dundee School of Eco-
nomics and the University of Liverpool, he
joined the faculty of the London School of Eco-
nomics in 1935. Mr. Coase continued at the
London School of Economics and was appointed
Reader in Economics with special reference to
Public Utilities in 1947. In 1951, Professor Coase
migrated to the United States and has held po-
sitions at the Universities of Buffalo, Virginia,
and Chicago. He is the Clifton R. Musser Pro-
fessor of Economics in the University of Chi-
cago Law School, and editor of the Journal
of
Law
and Economics. “Adam Smith’s View of
Man” was presented at a meeting of the Mont
Pelerin Society, St. Andrews, 1976.
Adam Smith’s
View of Man
Adam Smith was a great economist, perhaps
the greatest that there has ever been. Today
I am going to discuss his views on the nature
of man. My reason for doing this is not
because I think that Adam Smith possessed
an understanding of man’s nature superior
to that of his contemporaries. I would judge
that his attitudes were quite widely shared
in the eighteenth century, at any rate, in
Scotland, but no doubt elsewhere in eight-
eenth century Europe. Adam Smith was not
the father of psychology. But I believe his
views on human nature are important to
us because to know them is to deepen our
understanding of his economics. It is some-
times said that Adam Smith assumes that
h u m a n b e i n g s are motivated solely by
self-interest. Self-interest is certainly, in Adam
Smith’s view, a powerful motive in human
behaviour, but it is by no means the only
motive. I think it is important to recognise
this since the inclusion of other motives in
his analysis does
n o t w e a k e n b u t r a t h e r
strengthens Adam Smith’s argument for the
use of the market and the limitation of
government action in economic affairs.
Adam Smith does not set down in one
place his views on the nature of man. They
have to be inferred from remarks in The
Theory of
Moral Sentiments
and
The Wealth
of
Nations.
Adam Smith deals more exten-
sively with human psychology in
The Theory
of
Moral Sentiments,
the ostensible purpose
of which was to uncover the bases for what
may be termed our feelings and acts of
benevolence : “How selfish soever man may
‘ T h i s p a p e r a p p e a r e d i n
The Journal of Law and
Economics
Vol. 19(3), October 1976. All rights reserved.
2
Selected Papers No. 50
be supposed, there are evidently some prin-
ciples in his nature, which interest him in
t h e f o r t u n e o f o t h e r s , a n d r e n d e r t h e i r
happiness necessary to him though he derives
nothing from it, except the pleasure of seeing
it. . . . The greatest ruffian, the most hardened
violator of the laws of society, is not altogether
without it.“’
Adam Smith makes sympathy the basis
for our concern for others. We form our idea
of how others feel by considering how we
would feel in like circumstances.
T h e
realisation that something makes our fellows
miserable makes us miserable and when
something makes them happy, we are happy.
This comes about because, by an act of
imagination, we put ourselves in their place,
and, in effect, in our own minds become
those other persons. Our feelings may not
have the same intensity as theirs, but they
are of the same kind.
The propensity to sympathise is strength-
ened because mutual sympathy is itself a
pleasure : “nothing pleases us more than to
observe in other men a fellow-feeling with
all the emotions of our own breast."2
Because
mutual sympathy is itself pleasurable, it
“enlivens joy and alleviates grief. It enlivens
joy by presenting another source of satis-
faction; and it alleviates grief by insinuating
into the heart almost the only agreeable
sensation which it is at that time capable
of receiving."3 One consequence is noted by
Adam Smith : “Love is an agreeable, resent-
ment a disagreeable passion: and accordingly
we are not half as anxious that our friends
should adopt our friendships, as that they
should enter into our resentments. . . . The
agreeable passions of love and joy can satisfy
and support the heart without any auxiliary
pleasure. The bitter and painful emotions
R. H. Coase
3
of grief and resentment more strongly require
the healing consolation of sympathy."4
If the existence of sympathy makes us care
about others, the practice of putting ourselves
in the place of others, of imagining how
they feel, also has as a consequence that we
imagine how they feel about us. This includes
not only those directly affected by our actions,
but those third parties who observe how we
behave towards others. By this means we
are led to see ourselves as others see us.
This reinforces our tendency, when deciding
on a course of action, to take into account
the effects it will have on others.
The way in which Adam Smith develops
this argument affords a very good example
of his general approach. He says: “ . . . the
loss or gain of a very small interest of our
own appears to be of vastly more importance,
excites a much more passionate joy or sorrow,
a much more ardent desire or aversion, than
the greatest concern of another with whom
we have no particular connection."5 He
then considers a hypothetical example :
Let us suppose that the great empire
of China, with all its myriads of in-
habitants, was suddenly swallowed up
by an earthquake, and let us consider
how a man of humanity in Europe,
who had no sort of connection with
that part of the world, would be affected
upon receiving intelligence of this
dreadful calamity. He would, I imagine,
first of all express very strongly his
sorrow for the misfortune of that
unhappy people, he would make many
melancholy reflections upon the pre-
cariousness of human life, and the
vanity of all the labours of man, which
could thus be annihilated in a moment.
He would, too, perhaps, if he was a
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