Abstract
It is abundantly clear that Vilfredo Pareto held Adam Smith in high regard for his contributions to political economy, yet, in his Trattato di Sociologia Generale, there is no mention of Smith’s The Theory of Moral Sentiments. This study presents a comparison of these two great studies of sentiment, utility and action. It is established that there is a basic compatibility between Pareto’s conception of non-logical action in the Sociologia and Smith’s distinction in the TMS between regular and irregular sentiments, yet the two thinkers investigated these conceptions and distinctions from very different, sometimes inconsistent, perspectives. We also offer some reasons why there has been considerable debate over an alleged inconsistency between Smith’s political economy and his philosophical study of sentiments, but no such similar debate in relation to Pareto’s political economy and his sociological study of sentiments.
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Notes
As Athol Fitzgibbons has noted, the figure of the impartial spectator may come about first from an external agent to the individual, such as the guardian of a child, growing over time into a tribunal within each one’s breast when decisions affecting other people are to be made (Fitzgibbons 2003:63–65). McLure and Arthmar (2023:221–224) also discuss the relationship between Smith’s impartial spectator and Pareto’s Sociologia.
Pareto used the term derivations to indicate all kinds of explanations combining events in an imaginary chain of causes and conceived by human beings to justify their non-logical actions. “The usual purpose of a derivation, in fact, is to satisfy with pseudo-logic the need of logic, of thinking, that the human being feels” (Pareto, Sociologia 1916, § 975 [1935:592]).
The phrase «the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people» was coined by Francis Hutcheson (Fleischacker 2020).
This explains why Hollander (2016) compares Smith with Hutcheson and Hume when making the case for regarding the first one as a develo** an ‘ethical utilitarianism’ in TMS.
There is also “a fairly standard view among philosophers that [the] TMS is a book in the utilitarian tradition.” (Witztum and Young 2013:573).
Amos Witztum, Jeffrey T. Young (2013:600) also reject the contention that Smith is utilitarian, although they do so because ‘happiness’ does not feature as a motivator of human actions and moral judgements.
As a selfish passion, a prudent act of self-interest falls between acts of the social passions and the unsocial passions and, as such, it “is never either so graceful as is sometimes the one set, nor is ever so odious as is sometimes the other” (Smith, TMS 1759, I, ii,v,§ 1, [1976:40]).
Sentiments are not, of course, rational per se, but Smithian action under the influence of sentiments need not be ‘rational’ because the agent does not necessarily act to maximise utility due to the influence of propriety. Witztum and Young made a similar point when they observed that Smith “does not view human beings as rational in the modern sense and as motivated to maximise something called ‘utility’” (2013:575).
“[E]vil which is done without design should be regarded as a misfortune to the doer as well as to the sufferer.” (Smith, TMS 1759, II.iii.III.§ 3, [1976:106]) and, as such, a “man of humanity, who accidentally, and without the smallest degree of blameable negligence, has been the cause of the death of another man, feels himself piacular, though not guilty” (Smith, TMS 1759, II.iii.III.§ 3, [1976:107]). For a discussion of Smith’s position on ‘blame’ when harm resulting from action is not due to ill will or culpable ignorance, see Hankins (2016). See also Schliesser (2017:121–136), for a very detailed analysis of Smith’s account of the piacular feeling; and Paganelli and Simon (2022:277), for an overview of the main points raised in the secondary literature on that subject.
Pareto offers the following examples of genus 4α non-logical actions: the creation of the Greek language and the policy actions of King William I to promote the welfare and greatness of Prussia (Sociologia, 1916 § 151 [1935:84, 87]). Perhaps it should also be noted that Pareto’s genus 3α non-logical actions concern the situation where the objective end of an action would be accepted if the agent knew what it was. However, actions classified within genus 3, as well as actions that fall within genus 1, have no subjective purpose and, in Pareto’s view, “are of scant importance to the human race” (Pareto, Sociologia 1916, § 154 [1935:79]). For that reason, genera 1 and 3 actions are not considered in this essay.
We thank Paul Oslington for raising this point.
A precursor in the use of marginal utility in social analysis, Hermann H. Gossen, in Entwickelung der Gesetze des menschlichen Verkehrs, und der daraus fliessenden Regeln für menschliche Handeln (translated as The Laws of Human Relations and the Rules of Human Action Derived Therefrom, 1983), published in 1854, also criticized monopolies and any restriction of commerce. Pareto (1895) appears to have implicitly drawn on Chap. 3 (A criticism of absolute value) of Gossen’s book when criticising Francesco Ferrara and Domenico Berardi for confusing absolute value with relative value when considering the subjective approaches to value theory.
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MM wrote the initial draft. RA reviewed and revised the initial draft. MM then visited RA at the University of Buckingham where they discussed the document and agreed on the final version of the paper. Both authors reviewed the submitted manuscript.
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This article is a truncated version of “Sentiment, Action, and Utility: Vilfredo Pareto’s Sociologia in Relation to Adam Smith’s The Theory of Moral Sentiments” from the proceedings of the conference Vilfredo Pareto A Cento Anni della Scomparsa convened by the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei in Rome on 15–16 May 2023. The authors thank Maria Pia Paganelli and Paul Oslington for their comments on the draft prepared for the abovementioned conference.
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McLure, M., Arthmar, R. Vilfredo Pareto’s Sociologia in relation to Adam Smith’s the theory of moral sentiments. Int Rev Econ (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12232-024-00461-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12232-024-00461-y