Origin of Moral Sentiments

A couple of days ago, Don Boudreaux at Cafe Hayek had this very interesting post linking to a recent New York Times op-ed on moral rules.

What was perhaps most interesting to Don (and to me) was that much of the recent research cited in the Times piece comes to the same conclusion Adam Smith arrived at in 1759 in The Theory of Moral Sentiments.

I've said it before on this blog and I'll repeat it, if you're teaching economics and you've only read An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, you're only half-way there. If you've not read either, you owe it to yourself and your students to read both. You and your students will gain much from it.