Reading Adam Smith after Darwin: On the evolution of propensities, institutions, and sentiments

This paper calls attention to Smith's “Considerations Concerning the First Formation of Languages” in order to facilitate understanding Adam Smith from an evolutionary perspective. In particular, such an evolutionary view can be discerned in how Smith saw that generic “natural sentiments” are applied and articulated, in light of local circumstances, into “moral sentiments.” In doing so, the paper calls attention to the developmental interplay between the propensities of human nature in Smith's thought. First, it argues that at the start of Wealth of Nations Smith signals that human nature is not fixed. Second, it connects this evidence with an infamous passage on infanticide in The Theory of Moral Sentiments in order to argue that Smith is committed to a thin group selection of institutions. Third, it argues that in “Considerations Concerning the First Formation of Languages” one can find building blocks for the claim that mind and language co-develop over time. It claims that in TMS there is a distinction between natural sentiments and moral sentiments. Natural sentiments are evolved (presumably through cultural selection) and moral sentiments are developed (through acculturation within society).