prior probability

Here is another extended excerpt from my forthcoming research article “Adam Smith in Love“:

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Why did Adam Smith remain a bachelor his entire life? Did he at least have any love affairs? Here is a catalogue of my three most recent “Adam Smith in Love” blog posts:

1. Love and Liberty
2. Adam Smith “on” Love
3. Adam Smith et l’affaire du Chevalier de la Barre

(Also, here is a complete catalogue of my first set of “Adam Smith in Love” blog posts.)

I am sooo late to this party, but here it goes. On the left: Sydjia and I in July 2011 in Amsterdam. On the right: us in July 2020 in Tarpon Springs, Fla.

Hat tip: @pickover

My next “advanced topics in law” lecture will explore what Harvard Law Professor Charles Fried (pictured below) refers to as “the promise principle.”[1] In brief, the proposition that “promises ought to be kept”[2] is one of the most important normative ideals or value judgements in daily life.[3] The promise principle is so pervasive that it informs such diverse domains as business deals,[4] politics,[5] and personal relationships.[6] But why?

Broadly speaking, there are three major theories of promising. Autonomy-based or “normative power” or “will” theories of promises are premised on the idea that promises are self-imposed obligations. Broadly, speaking, all these variants of the will theory of promises generally focus on the promisor’s subjective intentions when she make a promise. Although no one is required to make a promise, once you do, you are under a self-imposed obligation to keep your word. The main problem with the will theory, however, is that it is self-refuting. If the source of a promissory obligation is the promisor’s sincere intention or will to make a binding promise on herself, then the promisor’s subsequent intention to break her promise should have the effect of producing a self-release from her original promissory obligation. That is, if one can will into existence a binding promise on oneself, then one should be able to undo a promise via one’s will as well.

Since the will theory is self-refuting, some scholars have embraced an alternative “expectations” theory of promissory obligations. In brief, this theory views the making of promises as an “expectation-producing mechanism.” That is, when a person (the promisor) makes a promise, he is making a promise to another person (the promisee), and by making a promise, the promisor is creating an expectation in the promisee that he (the promisor) will not later break his promise. To break a promise, then, is to deceive the promisee.[7] The problem with this theory, however, is that it is open to exploitation and manipulation by the promisee. (Can you see why, or do I have to spell it out for you?)

Yet another theory is the consequentialist view of promissory obligations. Generally speaking, consequentialist or pragmatic theories take a forward-looking or probabilistic view towards promises: when deciding whether to keep or break a promise, what matters are the probable consequences of one’s promise-keeping or promise-breaking behavior.[8] In other words, the goodness or badness of a given promise (e.g. a promise to do X) depends entirely on the consequences resulting from keeping or breaking the promise to do X. Alas, it is the forward-looking nature of consequentialist theories that prove to be their ultimate undoing, for how does one go about figuring out or guessing what these probable promissory consequences will be?[9] At the “micro” level or in the aggregate?[10]

The common law, however, takes a different approach to the promise principle. As I shall explain in my next lecture, only a small subset of promises are legally enforceable–namely, those backed by “bargained-for consideration” …

[1] See Charles Fried, Contract as Promise (Harvard Univ. Press, 1981).

[2] See, e.g., Book 3, Part 2, §5 of David Hume, A Treatise on Human Nature (David Fate Norton & Mary J. Norton, eds.) (Oxford Univ. Press, 2000). See also Allen Habib, Promises, in Edward N. Zalta, ed., The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2018).

[2] Cf. Mary Midgley, “The Game Game,” Philosophy, Vol. 49 (1974), p. 235 (“[P]romising is everywhere a kingpin of human culture.”).

[4] See, e.g., Stewart Macaulay, “Non-contractual Relations in Business: A Preliminary Study,” American Sociological Review, Vol. 28 (1963), p. 58 (“Businessmen often prefer to rely on ‘a man’s word’ in a brief letter, a handshake, or ‘common honesty and decency’–even when the transaction involves exposure to serious risks.”).

[5] See, e.g., Ed Kilgore, “2020 Candidates Begin Signing Unity Pledge, with Sanders Taking the Lead,” New York Magazine (Apr. 26, 2019). See also Gregory Krieg, GOP Candidates Back Off Pledge to Support Nominee, CNN (Mar. 30, 2016).

[6] See, e.g., Johanna Peetz & Lara Kammrath, “Only Because I Love You: Why People Make and Why They Break Promises in Romantic Relationships,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol. 100 (2011).

[7] See, e.g., Páll S. Ardal, “And that’s a Promise,” Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. 18 (1968), p. 234.

[8] See, e.g., Simon Blackburn, Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy, pp. 74-75 (Oxford Univ. Press, 2d ed., 2005).

[9] There is also the problem of “utility monsters,” i.e. individuals who derive large amounts of utility from their bad acts. See Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia, p. 41 (Basic Books, 1974). That is, consequentialist theories (both micro and macro) are problematic to the extent they are unable to provide an agreed-upon or universal definition of “utility” or offer guidance on how to measure such “utility.”

[10] For reference, the “micro” approach is usually referred to as act utilitarianism. By contrast, the aggregate or “macro” approach is generally referred to as rule utilitarianism or indirect utilitarianism.

Note: I made significant revisions to this part of my “Adam Smith in Love” series of blog posts. (Check out my blog post of November 10, 2020.)

When Adam Smith first arrived in Paris in early 1764, little did he know that a tumultuous and world-changing Revolution would sweep over the City of Lights in just a few years. The Kingdom of France that Smith visited and lived in for two years–from February 1764 through October 1766–was the France of the Ancien Régime, an Old World domain in which Catholicism was the official state religion, a feudal and autocratic kingdom composed of three great estates–the clergy, the nobility, and the common people.

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I have been researching and writing about Adam Smith’s enigmatic love life and have thus titled my latest work-in-progress “Adam Smith in Love.” But Adam Smith also wrote about love. In fact, Smith made several philosophical observations about love and romance in his first major published work The Theory of Moral Sentiments, an intellectual masterpiece that deserves a place of honor in our Western philosophical canon, along with the works of Plato and Aristotle, Hume and Kant. By way of background, Smith first presents his now-influential theory of virtue, a theory based on the notion of “mutual sympathy” or fellow feeling. (See summary, bottom left.) To see the spirit of Smith’s moral theory, there is no better place to begin than with the famous opening sentence of The Theory of Moral Sentiments (hereinafter “TMS“), which begins as follows: 

For Smith, then, our ability to feel “mutual sympathy” with others–i.e., feelings of anger, happiness, gratitude, pain, etc. depending on the circumstances–is the source of morality. For example, in the first paragraph of the TMS chapter titled “Of the Passions which take their origin from the body,” Smith illustrates his theory of mutual sympathy with the following graphic illustration of physical pain:

But then, in the very next paragraph, Smith proceeds to compare and contrast “passions which take their origin from the body” (such as physical pain) with “those passions which take their origin from the imagination” (such as love). More to the point, in what could be described as a tender and auto-biographical reference to his first failed love affair–i.e. the early romantic liaison described by Smith’s first biographer Dugald Stewart in Note K; see here for more details–, Smith observes that “[a] disappointment in love, or ambition, will, upon this account, call forth more sympathy than the greatest bodily evil.” Below is the complete quote for the reader’s reference. After describing the sympathy elicited by physical pain, Smith specifically states:

Smith even goes onto say: 

What is Adam Smith trying to tell us with these passages about disappointed love and lost mistresses? Specifically, when Smith is writing about a “disappointment in love” or the “loss of a mistress,” is he referring to his own lost love–i.e. to the “Fife lady whom he had loved very much,” to the “young lady of great beauty and accomplishment” to whom Adam Smith was “for several years attached.” (Stewart, Note K.) Yet, Smith himself will conclude that romantic love is a “ridiculous” passion. We will see why soon …

I will resume my series on “Adam Smith in Love” soon; in the meantime, here is Bailey Sok’s stupefying choreography of one my favorite English-language songs of 2020. Added bonus: here is Miss Sok’s Instagram.

Talk about an October surprise; this is a huge development! Is Facebook next? We’ll update this post in the hours ahead ….