"How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortune of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it except the pleasure of seeing it," Smith wrote.
Its deeply Scottish Presbyterian fulminations against materialistic desires for "trinkets of frivolous utility", and lofty observation that man has some principles "which interest him in the fortune of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it", can be made to sound almost socialist.
Or try this for an eloquent defence of why the welfare state benefits not just the poor: "How selfish man be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature which interest him in the fortunes of others and render their happiness necessary to him though he derives nothing from it except the pleasure of seeing it," wrote Adam Smith in the Theory of Moral Sentiments.
This quotation appears on the very first page of the "Theory of Moral Sentiments":How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortune of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it except the pleasure of seeing it.Smith voices similar opinions when he mentions the "invisible hand".
And Adam Smith (1759/1853, I, I, 1. 1) tells us that "pity or compassion [is] the emotion we feel for the misery of others, when we either see it, or are made to conceive it in a very lively manner" and these emotions "interest [man] in the fortunes of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it except the pleasure of seeing it".
From the first lines of the book Smith is clear about where his theory will take him, "How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortune of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it except the pleasure of seeing it".
How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortunes of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it, except the pleasure of seeing it.
This sentence says that "How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortune of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it except the pleasure of seeing it".
The recent reaction to the US boats derive was nothing short of unusual and remarkable.
I believe that this so-called "crisis of anti-Americanism" derives from nothing more complex than a bitter sense of disenfranchisement.
