Smith and Individualism

Adam Smith wrote that people “actually desire, not only to be loved, but to be lovely”, where by “lovely” he means “worthy of love”. This elegant oft-quoted line from Theory of Moral Sentiments contains many important insights about our need for recognition and connection. The line also suggests a plausible way of linking individualism with mutual respect - eliciting some insights from Smith’s fellow liberal, Immanuel Kant - while avoiding problems found in many Stoic and egoist accounts.   

A common Stoic view is that, one’s desires notwithstanding, it ultimately matters little whether one is loved since pursuit of rational virtue is the summum bonum, and the agent is in control of that pursuit without needing outside emotional support. The pursuit of virtue is necessary and sufficient for a meaningful happy life, and contingent external goods such as love, while preferable to their absence, are not essential. A common egoist view is that the quality of one’s character and achievements is subordinate to the value of them being in one’s overall interest. If self-interest however construed conflicts with virtue or excellence, go with self-interest when possible, even if that means sacrificing others’ interests or compromising any other ideals one has. 

A Smithian account denies both Stoicism and egoism as construed here: we need recognition and love for a good life, while a “lovely” character requires principled cultivation of other-regarding virtues like justice and beneficence, even if acting from these motives conflicts at times with our interests. The proof is in the pudding: the fact that many of us desire both love - and worthiness of love - from an early age is strong evidence that our sensibilities orient us toward justly earning what’s good in life, even if we don’t always live up to this aspiration or articulate it clearly.

What could constitute “loveliness” is somewhat culturally and historically contingent, however. Aristotle’s great-souled man is a reflection of ancient Greek values and norms, so his vision of loveliness differs from Smith’s 18th century Enlightenment commercial world, where more modern conceptions of virtues like prudence, justice, and beneficence were growing in prominence. Social circles and trade networks expanded to allow for mutually greater spheres of empathy, widespread positive-sum material gains, increased toleration of pluralism, and as a result of these mutually reinforcing features: growing recognition of individuals not groups as the loci of value, and as equal members of human societies transcending clan, religious order, race/ethnicity, or inherited social station. 

Pluralism also offered more room for epistemic humility through increased skepticism of any recognized universal authority on religion or social organization. This wasn’t radical skepticism but rather a growing belief that no “chosen” person or group has a monopoly on the path to truth. Whatever our disagreements, we can’t presume to demand others’ submission to our ways of life. Greater appreciation of the value of freedom of conscience and association meant that nobody could claim the authority to speak for some overarching goal that all of us must collectively pursue, be it a particular view of religious salvation, imperial expansion, etc.     

That said, we can’t merely pay lip service to individual freedoms in light of pluralism. For us to enjoy our freedom as equal members of open and diverse communities, we must recognize not only obligations others have to respect our freedom, but cherish our mutual obligation to respect theirs. Smithian individualists see ourselves and others as ends in themselves, not tools for some larger social goal. And as individuals, we tend not to be (or regard ourselves as) psychopathic goal-gobbling sharks, others be damned, but empathic beings. When we wrong another in the pursuit of some goal, we feel not only emptiness at the false currency of cheating to “achieve” that goal, we aptly feel guilt and remorse at wronging the other. We even have fellow-feeling toward those whom our actions do not affect: we cheer for our favorite artists and athletes, feel indignant when witnessing a stranger treated unjustly, and even feel emotions toward fictional characters’ successes or tribulations.

Individual freedom is connected with responsibility, both for oneself and how one treats others. We can rightly take pride in the prosocial goals we achieve and the value we bring to the world – whether material or spiritual – but the flip side of this coin is that we take ownership of our mistakes and misdeeds when they happen. Individual freedom requires us to have the responsibility to respect each other’s space and legitimate expectations, which means that we acknowledge wrongdoing if we compromise such, just as we would expect acknowledgment of wrongdoing if someone did something similar to us.

Here we can see the Kantian element of Smith: no personal freedom can be secure as worthy of respect if we don’t respect our fellow humans as equals. Respect is the sort of attitude that must generalize toward persons whose features one deems worthy of it. Conceptually, and perhaps psychologically, you can’t arbitrarily respect the personhood of some but not others. If you don’t see them as worthy of respect, it follows that you can’t validly see yourself as worthy of respect, let alone love. Persons’ dignity is not selective - it’s universal if we are to recognize it at all.

If you don’t see yourself as worthy of respect, you don’t take yourself seriously. Individualism is about personal freedom but more than that – it’s about taking each other’s humanity, including our own agency, seriously. When we desire to be loved by other persons, we thereby presume all others are valid sources of worth and recognition. When we desire to be lovely, we thereby consider ourselves responsible for treating all other persons as valid sources of worth and recognition in our interactions with them, while expecting the same responsibility by them toward ourselves. These considerations not only make us worthy of love, they make freedom possible for everyone.

Want to read more?
Janet Bufton's Of Jerks and Justice | Adam Smith Works
Heather King's Why Adam Smith Belongs in "The Good Place" | Adam Smith Works
William Glod's Why It's OK to Make Bad Choices (routledge.com)
James Otteson's Adam Smith's Marketplace of Life

For Teachers:
Why Teach "The Theory of Moral Sentiments?" | Adam Smith Works