The paradox of friendship-and-love: distinguishing dishonesty from insincerity à la Adam Smith

Purpose

This paper is motivated by a simple question: Does the satisfaction of friendship-and-love differ from the satisfaction of consumption of substantive goods such as clothing and shelter? The answer of standard economics is straightforward: all satisfactions can be reduced to a common metric, called “utility,” “wellbeing” or “welfare.” Most social scientists and nonstandard economists disagree. They maintain that the two satisfactions are incommensurable. However, such scientists generally fail to pinpoint exactly what makes the two genera of satisfaction incommensurable. This paper aims to pinpoint the difference between the two genera of satisfaction with the aid of Adam Smith’s moral theory.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper’s method relies on a close reading of Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments (TMS). Indeed, it focuses on a short chapter at the outset of TMS, where Smith identifies what he calls “mutual sympathy” as the source of the satisfaction of friendship-and-love.

Findings

Adam Smith stumbled on what this paper calls the “paradox of friendship-and-love”: Given that fellow-feelings mirror the original emotions, why does the sharing of a sad event with a friend rather generate the opposite, joy? To solve this paradox, Smith distinguishes between everyday satisfaction, what economists call “wellbeing” and what this paper calls “substantive utility,” on the one hand, and the joy of friendship-and-love, what this paper calls “transcendent utility,” on the other hand. One’s transcendent feeling is always pleasant, i.e. irrespective of the substrate event. This “always” pleasant feature of transcendent feeling sets friendship-and-love apart from substantive utility.

Research limitations/implications

The proposed solution to the paradox has a theoretical implication. Namely, the distinction between two genera of satisfaction entails corresponding distinction between two genera of approval/disapproval that is pertinent to business ethics: i) informed by substantive satifaction, the first genus is the approval of honest choice (i.e. rational) and disapproval of dishonest choice (i.e. nonrational); and ii) informed by transcendent satisfaction, the second genus is the approval of sincere behavior, which does not manipulate friendship for an ulterior motive, or the disapproval of insincerity.

Practical implications

The proposed solution to the paradox has a practical implication. This solution allows us to understand taboos that prohibit the commodification of goods – such as taboos prohibiting the buying-and-selling of human kidneys, votes and sex. Such taboos simply prohibit the conflation or substitution between substantive satisfaction and the satisfaction of friendship-and-love. The existence of taboos should prove the incommensurability thesis regarding the two genera of satisfaction.

Originality/value

This paper offers a new solution to the paradox of friendship. This paper offers a new interpretation of Smith’s moral theory relying on rational choice theory.

Other Information

Published in: International Journal of Ethics and Systems
License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
See article on publisher's website: https://doi.org/10.1108/ijoes-01-2025-0057