![]() ![]() We do not originally approve or condemn particular actions because, upon examination, they appear to be agreeable or inconsistent with a certain general rule. 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. It is thus that the general rules of morality are formed. We become ambitious of performing the like and thus naturally lay down to ourselves a rule of another kind, that every opportunity of acting in this manner is carefully to be sought after. They excite all those sentiments for which we have by nature the strongest desire the love, the gratitude, the admiration of mankind. ![]() Every body is eager to honour and reward them. Other actions, on the contrary, call forth our approbation, and we hear every body around us express the same favourable opinion concerning them. ![]() We thus naturally lay down to ourselves a general rule, that all such actions are to be avoided, as tending to render us odious, contemptible, or punishable, the objects of all those sentiments for which we have the greatest dread and aversion. We resolve never to be guilty of the like, nor ever, upon any account, to render ourselves in this manner the objects of universal disapprobation. It satisfies us that we view them in the proper light, when we see other people view them in the same light. This still further confirms, and even exasperates our natural sense of their deformity. We hear every body about us express the like detestation against them. Some of their actions shock all our natural sentiments. Our continual observations upon the conduct of others, insensibly lead us to form to ourselves certain general rules concerning what is fit and proper either to be done or to be avoided. Nature, however, has not left this weakness, which is of so much importance, altogether without a remedy nor has she abandoned us entirely to the delusions of self-love. If we saw ourselves in the light in which others see us, or in which they would see us if they knew all, a reformation would generally be unavoidable. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.“This self-deceit, this fatal weakness of mankind, is the source of half the disorders of human life. Lectures on Political Economy, Vol 1, Part 3. Elements of a Philosophy of the Human Mind, ed. Adam Smith’s Philosophy: The Invisible Hand and Spontaneous Order. New Edition, Revised, Corrected, and Improved. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations with A Life of the Author, An Introductory Discourse, Notes, and Supplemental Dissertations, ed. Hurst, Rees, Orme and Brown: Archibald Constable and Co. Erasing the Invisible Hand: Essays on An Elusive and Misused Concept in Economics. 2, Papers and Proceedings of the Hundred and Sixth Annual Meeting of the American Economic Association, May 1994, 319–322. Scotland and Scotsmen in the Eighteenth Century, from the MSS. A Historical Sketch of Liberty and Equality. The Scope and Method of Economics, RES 769, p. In Adam Smith’s Invisible Hands: Comment on Gavin Kennedy. History of Economic Ideas XVIII (3): 105–119. Paul Samuelson and the Invention of the Modern Economics of the Invisible Hand. Journal of the History of Ideas 72 (1): 29–49. Adam Smith and the History of the Invisible Hand. What Did Adam Smith Mean by the Invisible Hand? Journal of Political Economy 108 (3): 441–465. Richard Cantillon’s Essay on the Nature of Trade in General: A Variorum Edition, ed. Thoughts and Details on Scarcity, in Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, vol. Philosophy and Political Economy in Some of Their Historical Relations. New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics, 2nd ed. The Invisible Hand in Economics How Economists Explain Unintended Consequences. The Science of Wealth Adam Smith and the Framing of Political Economy. General Competitive Analysis, Holden-Day, p. The New Palgrave: A Dictionary of Economics, vol. ![]()
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