Sir, Of course David Wilson and William Dixon ( Letters, December 21) are correct in reminding us that economics is an offshoot of moral philosophy. Adam Smith held the chair of Moral Philosophy in Glasgow University as he wrote The Wealth of Nations.
But that tome is only part of his work, the part descriptive of economic society. His thinking cannot be completely understood without reading his prescriptive work — The Theory of Moral Sentiments — in which he analyses our economic interests as being naturally and morally influenced by the “sympathy” that each of us has for our fellow humans, individually and at large. Building a social imperative on the first book alone without the counterbalance of the other is, in a more modern author’s conceit, like cutting the daemon from the child.
We see the consequences of that selective reading of economics texts. Please read Smith in the round; there’s little time to lose.
Dr Clark McGinn
Harrow-on-the-Hill, Middx, UK
Letters in response to this letter:
Smith saw that the poor deserve to be educated / From Sharon Footerman, London, UK
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