To be and to appear to be: Adam Smith’s response to Mandeville and Rousseau on the problem of the moral status of self-love

This paper defends the hypothesis that Smith’s theory of sympathy and the impartial spectator was developed as a response to the problem of the moral status of sociability founded on self-love, as bequeathed by the selfish anthropology advocated by Mandeville and denounced by Rousseau. Differently from those who see complete opposition in the relationship between Smith and Rousseau, this means that the former agrees with the latter’s criticism of Mandeville’s anthropology. Nevertheless, it is argued that, in Smith’s view, Rousseau was wrong to incorporate a Mandevillian-inspired psychology into his description of the workings of modern society, since it does not correctly explain human behavior and interaction. In this sense, the often emphasized sympathies of Smith for Rousseau’s criticisms of commercial society should be mitigated, inasmuch as the latter are founded on a mostly mistaken view of the principle of sociability based on self-love.