prior probability

Below is an excerpt from Chapter 3 (“TMS Problems”) of my forthcoming survey of open Adam Smith problems with Salim Rashid (footnotes are below the fold):

“Was Smith a closet consequentialist? Next, we want to share our favorite open problem from the pages of Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments (TMS). To the point, one of the most controversial—as well as memorable—passages in TMS occurs when Smith is explaining why crimes must be punished: ‘All men, even the most stupid and unthinking, abhor fraud, perfidy, and injustice, and delight to see them punished. But few men have reflected upon the necessity of justice to the existence of society, how obvious soever that necessity may appear to be.’ (TMS, II.ii.3.9) It is here, in Book II of TMS,[1] that Smith introduces the sleepy sentinel:

A centinel … who falls asleep upon his watch, suffers death by the laws of war, because such carelessness might endanger the whole army. This severity may, upon many occasions, appear necessary, and, for that reason, just and proper. When the preservation of an individual is inconsistent with the safety of a multitude, nothing can be more just than that the many should be preferred to the one. (TMS, II.ii.3.11)

“There are many competing interpretations of this passage (see, e.g., Paganelli and Simon 2022; pp. 281-282; Ueno 2021, pp. 306-307), for at the same time, immediately after writing that ‘the preservation of an individual is inconsistent with the safety of a multitude, nothing can be more just than that the many should be preferred to the one’, Smith then explains why condemning the sleepy sentinel to death would be deemed to be too harsh a penalty by most people:

Yet this punishment, how necessary soever, always appears to be excessively severe. The natural atrocity of the crime seems to be so little, and the punishment so great, that it is with great difficulty that our heart can reconcile itself to it. Though such carelessness appears very blamable, yet the thought of this crime does not naturally excite any such resentment, as would prompt us to take such dreadful revenge. A man of humanity must recollect himself, must make an effort, and exert his whole firmness and resolution, before he can bring himself either to inflict it, or to go along with it when it is inflicted by others. (Ibid.)

“Was this a mere hypothetical example, or was Smith thinking of an actual historical precedent? The Articles of War of the Royal Navy, which were originally enacted in the 1650s and amended by acts of Parliament in 1749 and in 1757, make sleeping during one’s watch an offense punishable by death.[2] Specifically, Section XXVII of the Royal Navy Articles of War of 1757 states:

Sleeping, negligence, and forsaking a station. No person in or belonging to the fleet shall sleep upon his watch, or negligently perform the duty imposed on him, or forsake his station, upon pain of death, or such other punishment as a court martial shall think fit to impose, and as the circumstances of the case shall require.

“By the same token, Article VI of Section XIV of the Articles of War of the British Army,[3] which was first enacted in 1663 (Childs 1994, p. 53), also make sleeping during one’s watch an offense punishable by death:

Of Duties in Quarters, in Garrison, or in the Field. Whatever Centinel shall be found sleeping upon his Post, or shall leave it before he shall be regularly relieved, shall suffer Death, or such other Punishment as shall be inflicted by the Sentence of a Court-martial.

“Furthermore, one British military historian, writing three decades after Smith’s death, refers to an anecdote involving Epaminondas, a Greek general and statesman of the 4th century BC: ‘Epaminondas, in making the circuit of his camp, slew a sentinel whom he found sleeping, using this memorable saying, “that he did him no harm, leaving him only as he found him”.’[4] Although we can find no other reference to this anecdote, did Smith have this example in mind?”

My colleague and friend Salim Rashid and I have been working on a new book-length manuscript tentatively titled Adam Smith Problems. (Here is our first draft.) In summary, we survey a wide variety of open problems and unsolved mysteries regarding Adam Smith the political economist (Chapters 1 & 2), Adam Smith the moral philosopher (Chapter 3), Adam Smith the rhetorician and law scholar (Chapter 4), Adam Smith the disenchanted student (Chapter 5) and the college dropout (Chapter 6), Adam Smith the professor (Chapter 7), Adam Smith the tourist and tutor (Chapter 8), Adam Smith the devotee of Voltaire (Chapter 9), Adam Smith the beloved (Chapters 10 & 11), and Adam Smith the customs commissioner (Chapter 12), just to name a few. Starting tomorrow, we will explore some open questions about Smith’s most famous work, The Wealth of Nations.

Alain and I expanded on the introduction to our work-in-progress, “The Philosopher’s Muses: Adam Smith in the Salons of Paris“, by adding the following passages (footnotes omitted):

“Adam Smith resided in the Faubourg Saint-Germain in Paris for several months in 1766. In addition, several pieces of primary evidence — correspondence and journal entries to or from several of Smith’s close contacts at the time, including his fellow Scotsmen, Seignelay Colbert de Castlehill (the Abbé Colbert) and David Hume, as well as the historian Edward Gibbon and the aesthete Horace Walpole — confirm that Smith met three of the leading salonnières of Paris during his 1766 sojourn in Paris: the Comtesse de Boufflers (1725-1800), Madame du Deffand (1696-1780), and the Duchesse d’Enville (1716-1797). Before proceeding any further, these sources are reprinted in chronological order below for reference:

“1-A. Horace Walpole

“The earliest of our primary sources is an entry dated 30 March 1766 in Horace Walpole’s travel journal: ‘To Mme du Deffand. Mr Smith came.’ (reprinted in Lewis 1739, p. 310) At the time, Walpole and Smith were both residing in the same Parisian townhouse in the Faubourg Saint-Germain.

“1-B. Comtesse de Boufflers to David Hume

“Another piece of evidence is a 6 May 1766 letter from the Comtesse de Boufflers addressed to David Hume. Among other things, the Comtesse de Boufflers confirms that she has met Adam Smith: ‘Je vous ai dit, ce me semble, que j’ai fait connoissance avec M. Smith, et que, pour l’amour de vous, je l’avois fort accueilli.’ (reprinted in Burton 1849, pp. 237-238)

“1-C. Colbert de Castlehill to Adam Smith

“A third piece of evidence is a passage in a letter dated 18 September 1766 addressed directly to Adam Smith:

Et tu, Adam Smith, philosophe de Glasgow, héros et idole des high-broad Ladys, que fais tu, mon cher ami? Comment gouvernes tu La duchesse d’Anville et Mad. de Boufflers, ou ton coeur est il toujours épris des charms de Mad. Nicol et des apparent apparens que laches de cette autre dame de Fife, que vous aimees tant? (reprinted in Alcouffe & Massot-Bordenave 2020, pp. 260-261; see also Mossner & Ross 1987, p. 167, Corr. No. 91)

“Although the identity of the letter’s author is disguised under an abbreviated pseudonym — ‘Le Gr. Vic. Eccossois’ or Grand Viccaire Eccossois — by all accounts this French-speaking “Great Scottish Vicar” was none other than Seignelay Colbert de Castle-Hill, also known as Abbé Colbert, a fellow Scotsman and Smith’s ‘chief guide and friend’ during his extended 18-month sojourn in the South of France.

“1-D. Edward Gibbon to Adam Smith

“Our last primary source is an 18 November 1777 letter from the great Edward Gibbon addressed to Adam Smith:

After a very pleasant summer passed in Paris where I often heard your name, and saw several of your friends particularly the Dutchess Danville, and the Countess de Bouflers, I returned to England about the beginning of this Month. (reprinted in Mossner & Ross 1987, Corr. No. 187)

“Although Gibbon wrote this letter over ten years after Smith’s 1766 sojourn in Paris, the English historian not only mentions two of the leading salonnières of the City of Light by name, the Duchesse d’Enville and Comtesse de Boufflers (both of whom are also mentioned in Colbert’s 18 September 1766 letter); more importantly, he also refers to them as ‘friends’ of Smith.”

The best and most conplete website on all things Adam Smith — Adam Smith Works or ASW for short — has just published my “Plea to Adam Smith Scholars“! (Previously, ASW published my synopsis on “Adam Smith’s Lost Loves.”)

I mentioned in a previous post (see here) that I was hoping to complete by 8 August the first draft of a book-length manuscript that I have been working on for some time. The good news is that I am just about done, but with that said, I am going to need a few more days to proofread my work and tie up a few loose ends. I will therefore report back on Monday, 18 August.

Shout to the editors of The Journal of Public Finance and Public Choice for selecting my forthcoming academic article “Adam Smith’s Blind Spot” as part of the Editors’ Choice collection for the journal. The collection consists of six research papers in all, and you may view my work as well as the rest of the collection here: Editors Choice JPFPC

Most importantly, this means that my article will be free to access until 31 January 2026.

More details are available here.