Reading Adam Smith's The Theory of Moral Sentiments 6

Men and women, invisible hands, the pursuit of riches

I’ve been reading Adam Smith’s The Theory of Moral Sentiments: my most recent post is here, and you can read TMS here. This morning I read a short essay I hadn’t seen before by Amartya Sen on why he values TMS and its approach to ethics - I recommend it.

Part IV of TMS is quite short, and has the not awfully edifying title “Of the Effects of Utility upon the Sentiment of Approbation.” But there is a lot here.

He begins by talking about the beauty we find in the usefulness (utility) of objects - no disinterested Kantian beauty here. We admire a house for the practicality of its design, as well as purely aesthetic features. Smith gives the example of a watch that keeps perfect time - an expensive thing to have in his day - and how its precision is appreciated, and bought and paid for, even by the man who could not be on time to an appointment to save his life. We appreciate not just the design of Inspector Morse’s 1960 Jaguar Mark II, but also how, in our imagination, even if never having driven one (and I haven’t), we imagine it must perform (even if most of our driving is simply to the grocery store).¹ We see expensive things and think: wouldn’t it be great to have such conveniences, such “precision engineered” objects? Wouldn’t we be pleased?

But we have years of research to confirm what Smith already, easily observed: our drive for riches does not, even if successful, leave us much more pleased at all.

The poor man’s son, whom heaven in its anger has visited with ambition, when he begins to look around him, admires the condition of the rich. He finds the cottage of his father too small for his accommodation, and fancies he should be lodged more at his ease in a palace. He is displeased with being obliged to walk afoot, or to endure the fatigue of riding on horseback. He sees his superiors carried about in machines, and imagines that in one of these he could travel with less inconveniency. He feels himself naturally indolent, and willing to serve himself with his own hands as little as possible; and judges that a numerous retinue of servants would save him from a great deal of trouble. He thinks if he had attained all these, he would sit still contentedly, and be quiet, enjoying himself in the thought of the happiness and tranquillity of his situation. He is enchanted with the distant idea of this felicity. It appears in his fancy like the life of some superior rank of beings, and, in order to arrive at it, he devotes himself for ever to the pursuit of wealth and greatness. To obtain the conveniencies which these afford, he submits in the first year, nay, in the first month of his application, to more fatigue of body and more uneasiness of mind, than he could have suffered through the whole of his life from the want of them. He studies to distinguish himself in some laborious profession. With the most unrelenting industry he labours night and day to acquire talents superior to all his competitors. He endeavours next to bring those talents into public view, and with equal assiduity solicits every opportunity of employment. For this purpose he makes his court to all mankind; he serves those whom he hates, and is obsequious to those whom he despises. Through the whole of his life he pursues the idea of a certain artificial and elegant repose which he may never arrive at, for which he sacrifices a real tranquillity that is at all times in his power, and which, if in the extremity of old age he should at last attain to it, he will find to be in no respect preferable to that humble security and contentment which he had abandoned for it. It is then, in the last dregs of life, his body wasted with toil and diseases, his mind galled and ruffled by the memory of a thousand injuries and disappointments which he imagines he has met with from the injustice of his enemies, or from the perfidy and ingratitude of his friends, that he begins at last to find that wealth and greatness are mere trinkets of frivolous utility, no more adapted for procuring ease of body or tranquillity of mind, than the tweezer-cases of the lover of toys; and like them, too, more troublesome to the person who carries them about with him than all the advantages they can afford him are commodious.

Well, would it be better if our poor man’s son never had any ambition? No. Because on the whole our society would be much the poorer for it. It is the drive for betterment, especially in that of others, that has given us the lifestyles to which we have become accustomed. It is how we have the standard of living that we do, the advances in medicines and education and art and material circumstances. This is where Smith introduces, years before it recurs in The Wealth of Nations, the invisible hand:

it is well that nature imposes upon us in this manner. It is this deception which rouses and keeps in continual motion the industry of mankind. It is this which first prompted them to cultivate the ground, to build houses, to found cities and commonwealths, and to invent and improve all the sciences and arts, which ennoble and embellish human life; which have entirely changed the whole face of the globe, have turned the rude forests of nature into agreeable and fertile plains, and made the trackless and barren ocean a new fund of subsistence, and the great high road of communication to the different nations of the earth.

We admire the person who is able to invest in their futures, to become an artist, or inventor, or scientist, or manufacturer, who make sacrifices in their standard of living now so that they might have more later. We do this even though in the backs of our minds we suspect that in the end this will not make them “happier” people, more contented with their lot once they have achieved some fame or riches.

So how do people fall for this “deception”, as Smith calls it? The impartial spectator. We admire people who have through hard work and sacrifice have created something worthwhile, whether in the private sector or, as Smith discusses, through public works and contributions to government. We want the approbation we give to others we admire, and so we act with prudence, diligence, generosity.

Smith has a provocative side discussion of what he sees as a difference between men and women: that women in their generous acts are guided more by a natural sympathy with others, but that men have less of this natural sympathy, but more sense of the eyes of the impartial spectator. I have seen people argue that often when we make a sacrifice for someone else it is out of a sense of duty rather than empathy, so it is a contemporary question, but I hadn’t seen it put in these terms before. I know there’s a branch of research in philanthropy that looks at differences between men and women, but I don’t pretend to know the findings…

1. In the recent series on Acorn, Dalgleish drives a 1971 E-type, but if I had the choice I would follow Morse. It goes without saying that neither of these men are happy.