Combining Adam Smith with Charles Darwin's ideas
Adam Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments (TMS) talks about how only wise and virtuous people can have lasting friends. Vice is capricious, says Smith-and by definition, good life long friendships are born on stability and trust, which can only be found amongst virtuous people. Thieves and dishonest people can't be friends of each other---they will always screw over the other party to destroy the friendship's investments.
My experiences in life with humans have confirmed this to a very high degree.
Enter Darwin. Darwin observed that our characteristics are inherited-that nurture can't do mucho. In his autobiography he pointed out to how different his siblings were to him and to each other, even though brought up in the same family. This I can confirm from my own family and observations of many other families around me.
I believe that this "virtue" which Smith talks about, this "honesty", is genetic. (Being genetic, it has a propensity (a probability, not a certainty) to be hereditary-but that's another topic). This is tied in to my earlier post about how I believe that people who are faithful to their partners are genetically designed to be so. They are all the same-genetically faithful, honest, virtuous, etc.
In reality, dishonest people may learn to be honest and fake it...but it needs a discerning eye and lots of experience to see this. I have been fooled many a time by both men and women, but seems like I am getting better at recognizing the genetically unfaithful (dishonest) people...:-)
If Smith were born after Darwin he would surely have incorporated Darwin's acute observations about humans and animals into his TMS-and I suppose it would have been along these lines.
Sanjay
My experiences in life with humans have confirmed this to a very high degree.
Enter Darwin. Darwin observed that our characteristics are inherited-that nurture can't do mucho. In his autobiography he pointed out to how different his siblings were to him and to each other, even though brought up in the same family. This I can confirm from my own family and observations of many other families around me.
I believe that this "virtue" which Smith talks about, this "honesty", is genetic. (Being genetic, it has a propensity (a probability, not a certainty) to be hereditary-but that's another topic). This is tied in to my earlier post about how I believe that people who are faithful to their partners are genetically designed to be so. They are all the same-genetically faithful, honest, virtuous, etc.
In reality, dishonest people may learn to be honest and fake it...but it needs a discerning eye and lots of experience to see this. I have been fooled many a time by both men and women, but seems like I am getting better at recognizing the genetically unfaithful (dishonest) people...:-)
If Smith were born after Darwin he would surely have incorporated Darwin's acute observations about humans and animals into his TMS-and I suppose it would have been along these lines.
Sanjay
Labels: adam smith, darwin
posted by Sanjay "John" Gandhi at 9:45 PM
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