What I've Been Reading

I have a friend who likes to say that when he reads The Theory of Moral Sentiments it often feels like Smith "giveth on one page, and taketh away on another." That rings true, and in the end, I think a lot of the fun of reading Smith lies in patiently trying to figure out how all the moving parts build off of one another and ultimately hang together into one integrated system.

The genesis of "Das Adam Smith Problem" was because people failed (still failing) to look at his insights as an integrated system and started cherry-picking their favorite pet peeves to feed their confirmation bias.

Max's 2015 Card - Adam Smith in memory of his best friend David Hume. According to Smith, Hume was his perfect example of a wise and virtuous human being.  

Our Great Purpose: Adam Smith on Living a Better Life by Ryan Patrick Hanley.

Adam Smith's insights are like a never-ending Russian Doll sans any dimensionality reduction. It's been close two decades since I started reading him and every time, I learn so much from him.

Pretty much 99.99% of people have encountered in 45 years on this planet miss this key difference.

Smith's belief that living a good life requires bringing together action and reflection not only to his philosophy of living, but also distinguishes his project from other sorts of efforts in this vein.  

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Smith, to put it bluntly, knew that there is all the difference in the world between learning how to get ahead in life and learning how to live life well. 

Ryan Patrick weaves Smith's philosophy from one chapter to another beautifully based on one quote for each chapter which answers part of the question and remaining unanswered ones weaved into the next chapter and so on in a typical Smithian way.

I consider Smith, Montaigne, Hume, Buddha, and the Stoics as rare breeds - They were the original Data Scientists of Human Nature. John Gray is the only contemporary one that I can think of.

Smith's philosophy of living is shaped by his interest in this ancient question of what it means to have an "excellent and praise-worthy character." Yet his way of answering this ancient question is very modern. A member in good standing of the Enlightenment, Smith is committed to empirical methods: observation and study of real data. His vision, and indeed the vision of wise and virtuous man, of the prefect and the praiseworthy and the noble and the honorable, is grounded in his study of real people in the real world. Both Smith and his wise and virtuous man are always observers-spectators-describing details of what they've seen in different men and moments. This approach is part of what makes Smith's book readable, even today. In so doing, he trains us to become good spectators in our own right, better able to see and recognize good acts, good characters, and good lives when we come across them - in Smith's words, he aims "to make us know the original when we meet with it."

There are so many lessons we can learn from Smith. I tried to condense as much I can to kick start those learnings to become wise and virtuous as perhaps the nature of human fragility will allow.

So, let's try for ourselves, for the sake of society, for the sake of all living beings and as an obligation for having given a chance to dwell this beautiful planet for an infinitesimal time.

On Self-Interest: 
I think this is the most misunderstood (probably on purpose) of all of Smith's insights. The context of self-interest pertains to bodily needs to take care of oneself. Even Bhagavata Gita and Buddhism talk about this - if one cannot take care of oneself then he/she cannot take care of his/her family nor society.

The difference between needs (bodily ones defined by nature) and wants (greed defined by sapiens).

Smith's position on the goodness of self-interest is more nuanced than Mr.Gekko's. Self-interest, he thinks, can be pursued in a moral way. But it can also be (and often is) pursued in an immoral way. A key part of the challenge of living life well consists of understanding the difference between these two ways. 

On Caring for Others: 
Nature not only inclined us towards self-interest but also we are wired to be naturally concerned about the well being of others (to state the oblivious - outside of one's family).

"It's simply not the case that I can be fully happy when I know that you are really miserable. And this he thinks is true of even the most self-centered people in the world. "How selfish soever" they might be, even they are happier when the people they live with are happier.

On Acting for Others:
There is so much of David Hume's influence on Smith's philosophy and in turn, Buddism was a big influence on Hume's philosophy. Action, Action, and Action - that is the core of Buddhist philosophy sans any magic and heaven syndrome.

I lost count of number many people I know who (still) say it's "bad" to treat animals cruelty and kill them for gastro-intestinal pleasures but they gluttonize without any sense of civic sense in less than a day or so of feeling bad.

The difference between feeling for others (benevolence) and acting for others (beneficence). Smith, as it turns out, has little good to say about the kind of people who merely feels for others - the kind who likes to profess (and often very loudly professes) his "good inclinations and kind wishes," and is prone to "fancy himself the friend of mankind, because in his heart he wishes well." For Smith, good wishes don't count for very much unless they're followed by the hard work it takes to realize the object of our wishes. It's too easy for that kind of person to feel good about himself just because he feels bad for others. But Smith thinks there's nothing to admire in that. What really deserve our praise and admiration are not the warm feeling we can feel in private or in a passive state, but the "action" and "exertion" that take effort and energy.  And Smith leaves no doubt that the work will be hard, telling us in the line that follows that someone who wants to live up to this will have to "call forth the whole vigor of his soul" and "strain every nerve." Living this sort of life will not be for the faint of heart.

On Imagination:
Smith covers our "subjective" needs. It has some of the deepest roots for most of our miseries (including religious magics to magics of markets to current silicon valley technological magic).

The body has its limits. The imagination, on the other hand, is essentially limitless. Among its other unique features, imagination can transcend physical limits, and can move about, as it were, without regard to the limits of time and space. This enables it to do certain things that no other part of our selves can do. But its limitlessness also means that there may be no limits to what it wants. 

On Bettering Our Condition: 
Smith lays out that wealth is one of the important elements in society and he believed in markets since it would help poor people who are "out of the sight of mankind". He was aware of wealth correlates to signaling stating that we love wealth since it enables us for our need for "love of distinction.".

But he cautions:

Wealth gets what our imaginations want. But it doesn't get us the "ease" our bodies want. Nor does it bring us the "tranquility" that our minds want. 

On Miseries and Disorders:
I laid out the importance of ordinary life using Smith's story of a poor man's son.

Unhappiness lies in over-valuing what we lack, and under-valuing what we have.

On the Healthy Mind:
Happiness is a thing of mind rather than the body isn't a revolutionary idea. After all; the Stoics argued this thousands of years ago, and mindfulness experts continue to emphasize it today. But what makes Smith's invocation of this idea so noteworthy is his understanding of its implications for our economic life.

On Tranquility and Pleasure: 
Smith by linking these two categories of tranquility and enjoyment together, suggests we can't have one without the other. It isn't the case then that we can renounce enjoyment and still find happiness. 
Instead, if we hope to do justice to the full range of our natures, we have to find a way of living that brings tranquility and enjoyment together - a way of living that strikes a middle path between the ascetic who deprives himself of enjoyment in search of tranquility and the poor man's son who deprives himself of tranquility in search of enjoyment. 

On Worshipping Wealth:
Living our lives well requires that we figure out a productive way to navigate the divide between what the world says is good and what is in fact genuinely good for us. 

On Friendship:
Smith was extremely lucky to have David Hume as his best friend. He has a very direct answer to the question of who makes the best friend:

The attachment which is founded upon the love of virtue, as it is certainly of all attachments, the most virtuous; so it is likewise the happiest, as well as most permanent and secure. 

Wow, that is one beautiful and best way to put it. Montaigne in fact started writing his essays after his best friend La Boetie passed away.

On Pleasure (& his differences with Aristotle): 
And of course, I am aligned with Smith.

Man is an anxious animal and must have care swept off by something that can exhilarate the spirits.

To say that "man is an anxious animal," as Smith does here, is to take a considerable step beyond what Aristotle famously said when he said that "man is a political animal." Almost all the difference between Smith and Aristotle, and between ancient and modern political thought, is encapsulated here. 

Aristotle and Smith had their differences but they agree on one major thing - moderation (of pleasures and other things).

On Hatred and Anger:

"Hatred and anger are the greatest poison to the happiness of a good mind."

I think we all know that now and we don't need Adam Smith to state the obvious. But the genius of Smith lies in his exception to the above rule when he coined the phrase "sympathetic indignation" or "sympathetic resentment."

This is the hatred or anger that good people instinctively feel when they see the innocent and weak hurt by selfish and strong. A young man assaults an old woman to steal her purse: any person of ordinary decent who has the misfortune to see this can't help but feel visceral indignation toward the young, and desire that he pay the price for what he's so unjustly done. This instinctive desire for vengeance is what leads us to support those institutions of justice that bring order to society. So hatred or anger of this sort may be painful for a good person to experience, but it is clearly good for society. 

Carol Travi's book Anger: The Misunderstood Emotion is one of my favorite books and it covers a lot of ground on the importance of anger as part of our emotional toolkit.

On Being Loved & On Loving & On Being Lovely: 
I think Max's card above is based on brilliant insight from Smith. Thank you, sir.

Plus How Adam Smith Can Change Your Life: An Unexpected Guide to Human Nature and Happiness by Russ Roberts covers more ground on this topic.

On Flourishing:
Here we see an idealist in Smith but within the limits of human nature (he never proposes any magic nor utopia).

I am not a big fan of predictions on abstract matters, I am going to bet on one now. If and if only things go "well", future generations, future AI algorithms, future genetics and a myriad of other "stuff" will incorporate lots of insights from Adam Smith.

When we imagine an ideal, and fix it in our minds, we have something to aim at. An ideal of this sort gives us a sense of where we want to go, and even gives us a way to measure whether or not the path that we've chosen to take is getting us closer to where we want to go. 

On Seeing Ourselves: 
I cannot stress enough on the importance of this insight. This one phrase, the "impartial spectator" had one of the greatest influences in my life.

Smith knows that we often willfully overlook certain aspects of ourselves that we don't like in order to focus on other things about ourselves that we do like. He calls this, memorably, the "mysterious veil of self-delusion,", and insists that most of us find it hard (even painful) when we're presented with the whole truth about ourselves.

There are tons of writings on the impartial spectator. To put it bluntly, Smith's whole idea was that each and every one of us should have an impartial spectator and that is a rudimentary necessity for "invisible hand" to operate effectively. We all know what happened - humans conveniently killed the impartial spectator and embraced some abstract "invisible hand" with phrases like "greed is good", "quant" and so on.

On Dignity:
If we do our job well and fully inhabit the perspective of an impartial spectator of ourselves, we'll come to realize that we have no claims to thinking ourselves better than others.

When we embrace our "real littleness" we not only allow ourselves to let go of ourselves, but we also open ourselves up to others in a way that allows us to see what matters to them, and indeed, ultimately, why they themselves matter.

On Equality: 
Smith aligns with American exceptionalism of the self-evident truth that all men are created equal by nature and they differ only from habit, custom, and education.

Smith's claim about the natural equality of human beings thus distances him from Plato and Socrates. But it also brings him closer to our world. 

On Choice:
This is one my favorite all times passages from Theory of Moral Sentiments - the two different roads in life that we can choose from:

We desire both to be respectable and to be respected. We dread both to be contemptible and to be contemned. But, upon coming into the world, we soon find that wisdom and virtue are by no means the sole objects of respect; nor vice and folly, of contempt. We frequently see the respectful attentions of the world more strongly directed towards the rich and the great, than towards the wise and the virtuous. We see frequently the vices and follies of the powerful much less despised than the poverty and weakness of the innocent. To deserve, to acquire, and to enjoy the respect and admiration of mankind, are the great objects of ambition and emulation. Two different roads are presented to us, equally leading to the attainment of this so much desired object; the one, by the study of wisdom and the practice of virtue; the other, by the acquisition of wealth and greatness. Two different characters are presented to our emulation; the one, of proud ambition and ostentatious avidity. the other, of humble modesty and equitable justice. Two different models, two different pictures, are held out to us, according to which we may fashion our own character and behaviour; the one more gaudy and glittering in its colouring; the other more correct and more exquisitely beautiful in its outline: the one forcing itself upon the notice of every wandering eye; the other, attracting the attention of scarce any body but the most studious and careful observer. They are the wise and the virtuous chiefly, a select, though, I am afraid, but a small party, who are the real and steady admirers of wisdom and virtue. The great mob of mankind are the admirers and worshippers, and, what may seem more extraordinary, most frequently the disinterested admirers and worshippers, of wealth and greatness.

On Self and Others: 
Smith again raises about Aristotle and other ancient philosophers (who were focused more on life and character skills).

Virtue isn't simply a skill or strength. It's more than that. "Virtue is excellence, something uncommonly great and beautiful, which rises above what is vulgar and ordinary." 

On Perfection:
This is a prefect cure for the current self-centered me, me, and more me world.

When we perfect our natures by adopting the virtues that enable us to feel so much for others and so little for ourselves, we also promote the perfection of society. This comes out in the claim that his particular type of individual produces in society a "harmony of sentiments and passions." Moreover, Smith insists not only that perfection of this sort fosters harmony among mankind, but that it "alone" can produce harmony. In any case, the key point here is that it is not just the individual who benefits from the pursuit of self-perfection, but "mankind". 

On Wisdom and Virtue: 
The Smith believes every man in his mind has the capacity to be wise and virtuous - the only difference between wise and virtuous people is the work they put into developing this idea in their life.

Now, this why I love Smith so much - departs from Christianity and other religious 'magic' and focuses on earthly actions.

Christianity has a different idea of perfection to be sure, but it too teaches that if we hope to see perfection we need revelation, a gift of grace bringing sight to the blind and enabling us to bear witness to a perfection transcending the things of this world. But Smith's wise and virtuous man takes a different route. The perfection he sees isn't one that is in some sense "out there", requiring a special revelation to see, but one that is in fact very much a thing of our own world "down here" - and indeed in two senses. 

On Humility and Beneficence: 
So one consequence of a wise and virtuous man's wisdom is that this wisdom serves to teach him "real modesty" and "humility." Wisdom thus leads to virtue by precluding pride and restraining egocentrism. In this sense, the wise and virtuous person's wisdom complements and completes the work of both the impartial spectator and the awful virtues. But the wisdom of such a person also shapes her relationship with others. 

On Praise and Praiseworthiness:
The wise and virtuous person doesn't care much about praise and to take it even further, he is also conscious of the fact that there will never be any praise bestowed upon him (reread the two different roads analogy).

Smith's paradox: by sacrificing our interests we realize a deeper self-interest. Or put it differently: only by forgoing familiar pleasures and doing painful work do we come in time to experience the highest pleasures. 

"Self-approbation" is the answer to why someone would put up with that.

Smith's answer is that such people do what they do because they care more for their approval than for the approval of others. "Self-approbation", that is "if not the only, is at least the principal object" with which a wise and virtuous person is concerned, of indeed "the love of it, is the love of virtue." 

On Socrates:
I often call Smith a master of human nature. He has the unique ability to flush out even hidden "agenda" behind some of the philosophical virtue seeking and pure self-interested bullshit.

So the natural question that arises is how do Socrates and Jesus live up to the Smith's paragon of a wise and virtuous person who transcends the ordinary boundaries of human excellence.

As admirable as Socrates's self-command (for example, lack of fear of death) maybe, something about Socrates' approach to philosophy troubles Smith. Put too simply:  Socrates' philosophy may have liberated him from a fear of death, but it failed to liberate him from other sorts of self-regarding concerns including especially the love of attention that has been such a focus of our inquiry to this point. In this vein, Smith goes so far as to lump Socrates in with Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar, invoking all three as cases of "excessive self-admiration."

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Smith thinks nature has made us for action. And thus however wise they may be, philosophers can't be considered both wise and virtuous if their sublime speculations draw them away from those "active duties" with which nature has charged us. 

On Jesus:
Unlike Socrates, who appears more than once in the Theory of Moral Sentiments, Jesus isn't mentioned once in the text. That said, the religion founded in Jesus' name is, mentioned three times (and interestingly enough, all three times it was about love).

Smith eschews magic "out there" syndrome (we already know his philosophy is meant for action "out here" on earth). He uses religion only as a guide to morality and nothing else.

I agree with Smith here since of all the different moral tools available to humans, religion is one of them (and not the only one). But we all know that humans stopped practicing morality and follow mindless rituals from religion (Sunday am ritual, treating animals as products made for us, etc.)

On Hume:
At the end, who does Smith considers (if not Socrates and Jesus) the paragon of his vision of a wise and virtuous man?

Max's card above answers that question. It is none other than his best friend David Hume.

Upon the whole, I have always considered him both in his lifetime and since his death, as approaching as nearly to the idea of a perfectly wise and virtuous man, as perhaps the nature of human frailty will permit. 

As perhaps the nature of human frailty will permit.. - what a beautiful phrase!! It's not that Smith is biased towards his best friend Hume but even Hume's doctor Joseph Black, described his patient in his final days as "quite free from anxiety and in such a happy composure of mind, that nothing could exceed it."

Max was exactly (maybe even better) mindset during his final weeks and days. I wish, my body and mind would allow me to die the same way.

The key to all this was Hume was an atheist during Christian and religious fanaticism was at its peak and omnipresent. And Smith aligned with Hume at the risk of being a social pariah. This speaks volumes of their characters and their friendship.

I am wasn't gifted to have such a friendship with any human but nature gave something even better by sheer random luck of meeting Max. What a journey it has been and I couldn't have asked for more. I love you, Max, for everything you taught me and you became my impartial spectator with a face.

Hume and Smith's friendship is captured brilliantly in the book The Infidel and the Professor: David Hume, Adam Smith, and the Friendship That Shaped Modern Thought by Dennis C. Rasmussen

On God: 
Smith agrees - "that a certain kind of idea of God can in fact promote our moral action." 

To remind everyone again, Smith uses God for love and moral action - and doesn't bring magic nor "out there" heaven syndrome. He wants us to use some good moral laws prescribed by God to act wisely and virtuously here on earth without any dreams of a ticket to heaven.

On Stoicism:
Lots of ink has been spilled on the question of Smith's Stoicism, but I cannot adjudicate the whole dispute here. Instead, I'll end this inquiry into Smith's philosophy of living by noting just one point of agreement with the Stoics. The Stoics, Smith says, taught that wisdom leads to an appreciation of one' s place in our good and providentially ordered world. It also leads us to want to contribute to the order and goodness of the world through our own actions. 


On the surface, a lot of Smith's unique insights about human nature might seem like falling into the "ought" bucket of his friend David Hume's famous "is vs ought" dictum. But in reality, the greatest insight that Smith offers us is that there so much still untapped in the "is" bucket of human nature.

A society driven by signaling traits has subsided (maybe almost eradicated) our better angles of some of the "is" traits so much we have deluded ourselves (including thyself) that this is the "normal" human condition. 

It's about time that we understand that a lot of the so-called utopian dreams are within our reach. Alas, If and only if we make an effort and try.