ABSTRACT
Adam Smith wrote, in 1759 in The Theory of Moral Sentiments, about deceit and the consequences for deceiver and deceived in this uncompromising and unadorned way:
It is always mortifying not to be believed, and it is doubly so when we suspect that it is because we are supposed to be unworthy of belief and capable of seriously and willfully deceiving. To tell a man that he lies, is of all affronts the most mortal. But whoever seriously and willfully deceives is necessarily conscious to himself that he merits this affront, that he does not deserve to be believed, and that he forfeits all title to that sort of credit from which alone he can derive any sort of ease, comfort, or satisfaction in the society of his equals (Smith, 1817: II, 208).
