“It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner,” wrote Adam Smith, famously, in The Wealth of Nations, “but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love.”
True enough. And yet my recent experience is that there is much to be said for addressing ourselves not to people’s self-love but to their humanity.
