ABSTRACT
We start with the excavation of the first of Adam Smith’s two books, The Theory of Moral Senti ments, published in 1759, to Smith’s evident dissatisfaction, since he re vised it six times until his death in 1790. The subject is the unraveling of a mystery: What holds society together? Why do innately self-seeking humans usually act de cently to one another? Our credulity is strained to think that the fear of punishment explains it all. The po lice would have to be everywhere. The question is about nothing less than the origin of morality.
