Self-love and Conditionality

Abstract

In a 1764 lecture Smith spoke of ‘self-love’ three times:

Man, in the same manner, works on the selflove of his fellows by setting before them a sufficient temptation to get what he wants; the language of this disposition is, give me what I want, and you shall have what you want. It is not from benevolence, as the dogs, but from the selflove than man expects any thing. The brewer and the baker serve us not from benevolence but from selflove. No man but a beggar depends on benevolence, and even they would die in a week were their entire dependance [sic] upon it.¹