More resources on eco renovation .

Whilst that might be an extreme example, my experience over the last 18 months means I am not suprised. As we discussed, I have been managing the phased redundancy of my team locally, and the biggest worry that has surfaced over the that time has been that people were terrified that we would change our minds and decisee they had to stay in their jobs - to the extent that I have even headr Union reps arguing over trhe lack of guarantees that have been given regarding redundancies - and I thought their job was job protection!!

Thanks for that point.
The part of the quote:
“When our passive feelings are almost always so sordid and so selfish, how comes it that our active principles should often be so generous and so noble?”

is the most interesting.

Maybe instead of “FairTrade”, “Ranforest Friendly”, “Dolphin Friendly”, “Sustainable Timber” etc being optional labels on all our shopping trips, we should have the converse. Force all purveyors of these products into disclosing the true social & environmental cost of their products.

Maybe this could move people into their “active principles” zone and away from their “passive feelings” one ?

In fact, we already have Free Range eggs where we actively seek to reduce suffering of chickens. Why not “Socially Responsible Clothing” where we are able to improve the lives of developing country workers ? “Workers who made these clothes had a minimum of x days holiday per annum and max of x hours per week and were paid x% of the average wage.”

Smith asks: what would the man do if he was offered a choice of losing his finger or saving the 100 million from the earthquake?

On Nick’s current prediction he would prefer to save his little finger. Not sure? Right pose the hypothetical question to people who have read the piece that Nick quotes but who have not read the whole quotation.

Now read the full quotation, which Nick does not quote (it might spoil his conclusions about human nature):

“To prevent, therefore, this paltry misfortune to himself, would a man of humanity be willing to sacrifice the lives of a hundred millions of his brethren, provided he had never seen them? Human nature startles with horror at the thought, and the world, in its greatest depravity and corruption, never produced such a villain as could be capable of entertaining it. But what makes this difference? When our passive feelings are almost always so sordid and so selfish, how comes it that our active principles should often be so generous and so noble? When we are always so much more deeply affected by whatever concerns ourselves, than by whatever concerns other men; what is it which prompts the generous, upon all occasions, and the mean upon many, to sacrifice their own interests to the greater interests of others? It is not the soft power of humanity, it is not that feeble spark of benevolence which Nature has lighted up in the human heart, that is thus capable of counteracting the strongest impulses of self-love. It is a stronger power, a more forcible motive, which exerts itself upon such occasions. It is reason, principle, conscience, the inhabitant of the breast, the man within, the great judge and arbiter of our conduct. It is he who, whenever we are about to act so as to affect the happiness of others, calls to us, with a voice capable of astonishing the most presumptuous of our passions, that we are but one of the multitude, in no respect better than any other in it; and that when we prefer ourselves so shamefully and so blindly to others, we become the proper objects of resentment, abhorrence, and execration. It is from him only that we learn the real littleness of ourselves, and of whatever relates to ourselves, and the natural misrepresentations of self-love can be corrected only by the eye of this impartial spectator. It is he who shows us the propriety of generosity and the deformity of injustice; the propriety of resigning the greatest interests of our own, for the yet greater interests of others, and the deformity of doing the smallest injury to another, in order to obtain the greatest benefit to ourselves. It is not the love of our neighbour, it is not the love of mankind, which upon many occasions prompts us to the practice of those divine virtues. It is a stronger love, a more powerful affection, which generally takes place upon such occasions; the love of what is honourable and noble, of the grandeur, and dignity, and superiority of our own characters.” (TMS III.3.4: pp 136-7)

Yes, the man would choose to lose his little finger rather than 100 million are killed in the Chinese earthquake. This gives a somewhat different picture of the man than just taking the first part alone.

I think this point is sometimes lost on ‘quick’ readers, who miss Smith’s description of the man in question here – he is a ‘man of humanity’ (check the first sentence), and not a miserable, selfish person, that Nick (a ‘man of the world’?) portrays, which rather spoils Nick’s (and many others’) forced example.

Always read Adam Smith, a moral philosopher, in context, which is why so many quotations from his books lead to false conclusions.