prior probability

Of all the Adam Smith enigmas or unsolved mysteries that I identified in a previous post (see here), perhaps the most significant and underexplored one is Smith’s fateful decision to renounce his religious vocation and leave Oxford at the age of 23 (sometime in the summer of 1746) without a degree. At the time, the young Adam Smith was attending Balliol College on a Snell Exhibition he had won in 1740, and as a Snell student, he was entitled to 11 years of funding to pursue his undergraduate and graduate studies at Oxford. So, what happened? Why did Adam Smith “ditch” Oxford, so to speak? And did this decision, perhaps the most momentous inflection point in the Scottish scholar’s life, have anything to do with his views on religion?

By way of background, the Snell Exhibition was a special scholarship established in the 17th century that to this day is awarded to a small number of students from Scotland attending the University of Glasgow. (For a detailed history of the Snell Foundation and the Snell Exhibition award, see W. Innes Addison, The Snell Exhibitions: from the University of Glasgow to Balliol College, Oxford, published in 1901.) Among other things, Snell students were awarded an annual stipend and entitled to study at Balliol College for up to 11 years, but in the 17th and 18th centuries one of the conditions of this award was that one had to join the clergy upon completing one’s studies at Oxford. For his part, Adam Smith was elected a Snell exhibitioner on 4 March 1740 and then matriculated at Balliol College on 7 July 1740. The young Smith remained at Oxford for the next seven years of his life–specifically, until 15 August 1746, according to university records. (See Addison 1901, p. 43.)

As it happens, during this span of time (i.e. the seven years from July 1740 to August 1746 that Smith studied at Oxford) no less than seven or eight other students from Scotland — and perhaps as many as nine or ten — had been awarded Snell Exhibitions and had then obtained their degrees at Balliol College, and furthermore, many of Smith’s contemporary Snell classmates would eventually become clergymen upon completing their Snell exhibitions. In addition, all of these Snell students had attended the University of Glasgow, so the young Adam Smith may have personally known some of them from his early student days at Glasgow, where Smith studied from 1737 to 1740.

Specifically, during Smith’s three academic years at Glasgow (1737/38, 1738/39, and 1739/40) two cohorts of Glasgow students were awarded Snell Exhibitions: a future Lieutenant-General, Stewart Douglas (b?–1795), and a future royal chaplain, Andrew Wood (c1715–1772), both of whom were elected Snell exhibitioners on 25 October 1738, as well as the future moral philosopher and political economist Adam Smith (1723–1790) and one Charles Suttie (c1723–d?) (about whom little is known), who were elected on 4 March 1740. (See Addison 1901, pp. 42-44.) Of these four Glasgow classmates and Snell awardees, however, only three went on to study at Oxford: Smith, Suttie, and Wood. The fourth Snell awardee, Stewart Douglas, never matriculated at Balliol College. (See ibid., at p. 42: “There is no trace of [Stewart Douglas] having ever been at Balliol College ….”)

Although we do not know how close Adam Smith was to either Wood or Suttie (the other two Snell students who studied at Oxford along with Smith in the 1740s), we do know that Andrew Wood had matriculated at Balliol College on 5 December 1738, obtained his B.A. in 1742 and M.A. in 1745, and then vacated his Snell Exhibition in 1749, upon the expiration of his 11-year award. (See Addison 1901, p. 42.) In addition, we know that Wood took Holy Orders in the Church of England after completing his studies and that he was later appointed Chaplain to the King in 1760. (Ibid.). What about Charles Suttie? All we know about Suttie is that he had matriculated at Balliol College on 14 July 1740–just one week after Smith had matriculated there–and more intriguing yet, we also know that Suttie had vacated his Snell Exhibition in 1745–just one year before Smith decided to vacate his! (See Addison 1901, p. 44.) Did Smith decide to follow Suttie’s lead, or was the timing of their departures from Oxford just a coincidence? Alas, we do not know why Suttie vacated his Snell Exhibition or what became of him after 1745. (Ibid.)

In addition to Andrew Wood and Charles Suttie, as many as seven or eight other Scottish students from the University of Glasgow may have also been enrolled at Balliol College during Adam Smith’s tenure there. Do the identity and biographical details of these other Snell students shed any light on Adam Smith’s time at Oxford? Stay tuned; I will further explore this possibility in my next post on Tuesday, April 18.

This beautiful ballad by Dark Latin Groove was my one of favorite songs in the summer of 1996.

Alternative title: Beyond invisible hands and impartial spectators

In economics, philosophy, and the history of ideas, Das Adam Smith Problem refers to a possible paradox involving Adam Smith the political economist and Adam Smith the moral philosopher, or more specifically, to a deep internal contradiction in his two great works: (1) the invisible hand of The Wealth of Nations, where Smith develops a simple but testable theory of political economy based on self-interest and “self-regarding” behavior, and (2) the impartial spectator of The Theory of Moral Sentiments, where the Scottish philosopher develops a more complex and convoluted but pro-social theory of ethics based on sympathy and “other-regarding” behavior. Although Adam Smith scholars continue to debate whether “Das Adam Smith Problem” is a real problem or not (at the very least, the literature on this topic has already reached Borgesian proportions; see here, for example), I will withhold judgment for now and refrain from joining this scholarly fray.

Instead, I will share 12 of my previous blog posts (in chronological order) in which I point out many other additional “Adam Smith Problems” based on my own researches of the Scottish philospher’s life and work:

1. Adam Smith in Love? (11 October 2020): Why did Smith never marry?
2. Smith in the City: Colbert de Castle-Hill (4 June 2022): Who are “Madam Nicol” and the “lady of Fife”, i.e. two of the ladies that Abbé Colbert refers to in a private September 1766 letter addressed to Smith?
3. Metaphors, markets, and morality (part 2): some questions about Adam Smith’s impartial spectator (22 June 2022): Why didn’t Smith identify or at least think through the many possible objections to his theory of impartial spectators?
4. Adam Smith’s blind spot? (27 June 2022): Why does Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations fail to anticipate one of the most important sources of economic growth, such as entrepreneurs and inventors?
5. Malloy’s Adam Smith enigma (28 June 2022): Does Adam Smith’s invisible hand really need an impartial spectator to function properly?
6. Balliol College and the road to Adam Smith’s Damascus (30 March 2023): Why did Smith give up his religious vocation during his studies at Balliol College?
7. Another surprise twist on the road to Smith’s Damascus (4 April 2023): Why did Smith agree to become a travelling tutor to a future duke he had never met?
8. Quesnay’s contradiction (5 April 2023): How does Smith resolve what I like to call “Quesnay’s contradiction”, i.e. the desirability of free markets without political freedom?
9. Adam Smith as a mystery non-fiction author (5 April 2023): Why did Smith never complete his promised book on “law and government”?
10. Adam Smith’s enigmas (11 April 2023): Why did Smith waste the last 12 years of his life as a customs commissioner?
11. Another Adam Smith Enigma (12 April 2023): Why did Smith instruct his literary executors to destroy most of his unpublished works upon his death? (i.e. what did Smith have to hide?)
12. And last but not least Additional Adam Smith enigmas (13 April 2023): A list of eight more “Adam Smith problems”.

To conclude: the plural of Das Adam Smith Problem is “Die Adam Smith Probleme”.

One of the most famous episodes in the history of modern mathematics occurred on August 8, 1900 at the Sorbonne, when German mathematician David Hilbert presented ten unsolved problems during that year’s International Congress of Mathematics. Following Hilbert’s lead, in this post I will try to draw up a comprehensive list of “unsolved mysteries” in Adam Smith studies. Thus far, I have explored two puzzles from the last phase of the Scottish philosopher’s life: his decision to become a commissioner of customs in 1778 (see here), and his decision to have most of his unpublished papers destroyed upon his death (here). Today, I will identify several other Smithian enigmas from the first 40 or so years of his life:

1. Adam Smith’s religion. Why did Smith renounce his religious vocation, and what, in general, were his views on religion? By way of background, the young Adam Smith was awarded a Snell Exhibition to attend Oxford’s Balliol College, but this scholarship was a religious one: recipients of the Snell award were supposed to become clergymen after completing their studies. Smith, however, never did so. Why not?
2. The marriage question: Unlike Charles Darwin, Karl Marx, or David Ricardo, Adam Smith was a lifelong bachelor. Did the father of economics have any love affairs during his youth (when he was student at Balliol College) or later (during his grand tour days in France), and why and when did he vow (pun intended!) to never marry?
3. The travelling tutor years. Why was the Scottish philosopher willing to renounce his prestigious Glasgow professorship — perhaps as early as 1759 or 1760; see here — in order to become a “mere” travelling tutor? In summary, Adam Smith was overseas from 1764 to 1766, the only time in his life that he had lived or travelled beyond British shores, and during that span of time Smith was the future 3rd Duke of Buccleuch (Duke Henry)’s private tutor. Why?

In addition to these three open questions, Adam Smith’s grand-tour days with Duke Henry raises many other minor mysteries. For the record, I identify a few of these unanswered “grand tour” questions below:

1. Horace Walpole. What was the nature of the relationship between the English homosexual aesthete Horace Walpole and the Scottish philosopher and the future duke? As it happens, Walpole’s first visit to Paris coincided for several weeks with Adam Smith’s last visit to the City of Light, and the names of Smith and his pupil Duke Henry are mentioned almost two dozen times in Walpole’s Paris travel journal. (For more information about this mystery, see my work-in-progress “Adam Smith’s Paris through the Eyes of Horace Walpole”, which is available here.)
2. Paris address. We know that for most of 1766 Adam Smith and his pupil Duke Henry resided at the Hôtel du Parc Royal on the rue du Colombier (now rue Jacob) in the fashionable Saint Germane quarter of Paris (see, for example, section 3 of my work on “Adam Smith in the City of Lights: First Impressions”, available here), but where exactly was this place located and what was it like to live there?
3. Love affair in Abbeville? As I discuss on pages 141-142 of my 2021 “Adam Smith in Love” paper (see here), one source reports of a possible love affair between Adam Smith and a “Madame Nicole” that may have occurred in the French town of Abbeville. (As an aside, Abbeville was a familiar overnight destination on the royal road between Calais and Paris.) Who was this Madame Nicole, and when did this visit occur: in early 1764 (after Smith had first arrived in the port of Calais with Duke Henry), in late 1766 (on Smith and Duke Henry’s return trip to England), or sometime in between?
4. Château de Compiègne. This royal residence was not only the French king’s favorite hunting lodge; it was Adam Smith and Duke Henry’s home away home during the months of August and September of 1766. (“Compiègne” appears on the heading of all of Smith’s letters at this time.) Did they meet Louis XV or give chase to any wild animals while they were there?
5. Post-Grand Tour: Dalkeith House. One year after his return from France, Duke Henry returned to his ancestral home Dalkeith Palace in Scotland. We know that Adam Smith resided there for two months in the fall of 1767 (see, for example, Bonnyman 2014, pp. 59-60), but what exactly was he doing there during those months?

Rest assured, I will address each of these Smithian enigmas in due time …

Enigma #2: Why did Adam Smith instruct his literary executors to destroy most of his unpublished works upon his death?

As I mentioned in my previous post, I am writing up a new series of blog posts devoted to the many mysteries still surrounding the life of Adam Smith, puzzles and paradoxes that remain open to this day. Today’s post is devoted Smithian Enigma #2: why did the Scottish philosopher instruct his literary executors, Joseph Black and James Hutton (pictured below), to destroy his unpublished manuscripts, correspondence, and other private papers? (See, for example, Ian Simpson Ross 2010, pp. 404-405; see also page 149 of my peer-reviewed paper “Adam Smith in Love”, which is available here, by the way.)

In summary, Adam Smith was reportedly working on, in his own words, “an account of the general principles of law and government, and of the different revolutions which they had undergone in the different ages and periods of society; not only in what concerns justice, but in what concerns police, revenue, and arms, and whatever else is the object of law.” But this great work never saw the light of day, for it was presumably destroyed on Smith’s orders by his literary executors. Among the possible reasons or motives the Scottish philosopher may have had are these:

1. Smithian prudence. Most Smith scholars, like Ian Simpson Ross (2010, p. 405), lay the blame on “Smith’s prudence” as the main motivating factor. In other words, maybe Adam Smith, who like Charles Dickens was “shocked by the misuse of private letters of public men”, just wanted to minimize the potential for such misuse.
2. Literary reputation. Simpson Ross (ibid.) also singles out Adam Smith’s “concern for his literary reputation” as another motivating factor. On this view, the Scottish philosopher was simply a punctilious literary perfectionist who would rather have his unfinished works thrown to a bonfire than saved for posterity.
3. Bayesian updating. Perhaps Smith’s grand theory about “the general principles of law and government” had changed over time, or maybe he even renounced his views about these matters. Either way, it might make sense to destroy one’s work if that work no longer reflects one’s true views.
4. A Smithian secret? Above and beyond Smith’s lost manuscript on “the general principles of law and government”, perhaps Smith also had something to hide, a secret so surprising and salacious that it would inflict lasting damage to his reputation as a moral philosopher, a possibility I consider in my 2021 paper “Adam Smith in Love”.

Perhaps the truth is some combination of all these reasons. Also, what other Smithian mysteries remain unsolved? In my next post, I will attempt to provide a comprehensive list of all the “Adam Smith enigmas” that I have encountered in my researches.

Enigma #1: Why did Adam Smith become a Commissioner of Scottish Customs in 1778?

Following up on my recent series on “Walter Bagehot and Adam Smith”, I have decided to write up a new series of blog posts devoted to the many puzzles or paradoxes about the Scottish philosopher’s life and work that remain open to this day, beginning with Smithian Enigma #1: Adam Smith’s surprising decision (surprising to us, at least) to become a Commissioner of Scottish Customs in 1778. To the point, why did a bookworm and scholar like Smith decide to give up his intellectual pursuits (for the most part) in order to become an anti-trade, pro-protectionist bureaucrat for the remainder of his life? A review of the relevant scholarly literature (see, for example, here and here) reveals several possible reasons or motives:

1. Financial security. One possibility, perhaps the simplest and most plausible one, is that Adam Smith, who would reach the ripe old age of 55 in 1778, was enticed by the pecuniary aspect of the position of commissioner — i.e. a position that paid 600£ per annum, or double the amount of Smith’s annual pension from the 3rd Duke of Buccleuch and quadruple his previous salary as a professor of moral philosophy. (See Anderson, Shughart II, & Tollison, 1985, p. 751, who credit Walter Bagehot, 1876, p. 38 with this theory.) On this view, Smith was simply trading off his scholarly pursuits for financial security.
2. Regulatory sabotage. Another possibility is that Smith was a “free trade saboteur”, so to speak — i.e. that Smith became a commissioner in order to infiltrate the inner sanctum of the Customs Office and implement his intellectual agenda by nudging government policy toward free trade. (See again Anderson, Shughart II, & Tollison, 1985, p. 751, who attribute a more watered-down version of this theory to E. G. West, 1976, pp. 126-128.) Alas, not only is there no evidence that Smith engaged in regulatory sabotage; on the contrary, all the available evidence shows that Commissioner Adam Smith prosecuted smugglers to the full extent of the law and energetically enforced protectionist policies during his tenure as commissioner!
3. Pragmatic accommodation. Yet another possibility is that there is no enigma to see here, that Smith was, in fact, a realpolitik pragmatist who did not really believe in or take literally his own free trade/limited government rhetoric. (See once again Anderson, Shughart II, & Tollison, 1985, p. 751, who cite Jacob Viner, 1966, p. 144, pp. 150-151, as well as T. D. Campbell & Ian Simpson Ross, 1981, pp. 87-88, for this proposition. See also Book 5 of Smith’s Wealth of Nations, which can be read as a ringing defense of strong central governments.) Alternatively, a more charitable interpretation is that Smith may not have fully appreciated the ultimate and unavoidable conflict between his free trade and “natural liberty” rhetoric and his defense of limited government when he first wrote his magnum opus.
4. Scholarly fatigue. Last but not least, Gary Anderson, William Shughart II, and Robert Tollison (1985, p. 752) themselves offer their own preferred theory as to why Smith became a bureaucrat: “the most plausible explanation for Smith’s choice of the commission is simply that he was tired of scholarly work.” Later, Anderson, Shughart II, & Tollison add that Smith was not only “tired of economics and scholarship” but that he also “found his work at customs satisfying and interesting” (p. 757). Alas, considering that Smith was a lifelong bookworm who later made substantial revisions to both of his great works while he was still a commissioner (namely, to the 3rd edition of The Wealth of Nations, published in 1783, and to the 6th and last edition The Theory of Moral Sentiments, published in 1790), this last conjecture is improbable at best.

So, which of these four hypotheses is most likely to be true? Perhaps, in some form or another, all of them? And more generally, in the realm of historical conjecture, how does one decide which theory or possibility is most likely to be true? Stay tuned; I will proceed to “Smithian Enigma #2” in my next post …

Mine are onions, tomatoes, and jalapeño peppers, along with cilantro and fresh-squeezed limes, the key ingredients in “pico de gallo” or salsa fresca.

Is the prosecution’s case against Mr Trump plausible or preposterous? See also here and here. Or put another way, is the Manhattan District Attorney upholding or destabilizing the rule of law by going after the former president at this time? And more abstractly, what is “rule of law”? These are just some of the questions the students in my honors section and I will discuss this week.

“He is not here; he has risen!” —Luke 24:6-7