Love of Dominion in Mandeville and Smith

Abstract

In explaining why slavery persists despite its economic inefficiency in The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith claimed that the “pride of man makes him love to domineer.” In this article, I argue that we can better understand Smith’s views on the love of dominion through, first, comparison with Bernard Mandeville’s account of the passion and, second, consideration of Smith’s distinction between vanity and pride. I show that where Mandeville thought our love of dominion could be satisfied by persuading others to do as we wish, Smith precludes this possibility by drawing a much sharper contrast between domineering over and persuading others, from which it follows that finding ways to assuage our love of dominion is a more challenging problem for Smith than it is for Mandeville. I then turn to Smith’s (largely neglected) distinction between vanity and pride to contend that the most plausible way of explaining the love of dominion, in accordance with the moral psychology of The Theory of Moral Sentiments, is as a manifestation of pride rather than vanity. In doing so, I distil two distinct models of why we seek to exercise power over others from Smith’s thought: one based on vanity and persuasion, the other on pride and domineering.

Why do humans seek to exercise power over one another? Perhaps some do so for genuinely public-spirited or benevolent reasons: they want to improve the lives of those subject to their rule. Others might do so for their own advantage, as a means to material gain and prosperity. A more disquieting answer, however, is that humans pursue power simply because they love to domineer, taking pleasure in subjecting others to their will. This is the idea to which Adam Smith appeals in The Wealth of Nations (hereafter WN) when discussing the prevalence of slavery throughout so much of human history:

The pride of man makes him love to domineer, and nothing mortifies him so much as to be obliged to condescend to persuade his inferiors. Wherever the law allows it, and the nature of the work can afford it, therefore, he will generally prefer the service of slaves to that of freemen. (WN III.ii.10) ¹

Smith writes here that we “love to domineer,” and elsewhere he similarly refers to “the love of domination and authority,” the “love of domination and tyrannizing,” “the love of dominion and authority” (LJ(A) iii.114, iii.117, iii.130), and our “tyranic disposition” (LJ(B) 134). As the case of slavery illustrates, to describe this as the love of dominion is especially apt, given the term’s connotations with property and the idea of having a right to use our property in whatever way we see fit (cf. LJ(A) i.17). ²

Smith was by no means alone in appealing to the love of dominion to explain important aspects of human behavior. As Daniel Luban (2012, 277) observes, the term is a “clear echo of Augustine’s libido dominandi,” and we encounter similar ideas amongst Smith’s nearer predecessors. Thomas Hobbes ([1651] 2012, 254) asserted that humans “naturally love Liberty, and Dominion over others.” John Locke ([1693] 1989, §103) insisted that we can observe the “Love of Power and Dominion” even in children. Mary Astell ([1700], 1996, 15) claimed that if supreme power is not fixed within society, then “there will be a perpetual Contention about it, such is the Love of Dominion.” And David Hume ([1748] 1985, 480) declared that our “primary instincts lead us, either to indulge ourselves in unlimited freedom, or to seek dominion over others.”

The most important predecessor for the purposes of this article, however, is Bernard Mandeville, and particularly the second volume of his most famous work, The Fable of the Bees. Smith read this text closely and it is thus a possible source for some of his own ideas, ³ but nothing in the following analysis turns on the historical question of whether he saw himself as responding to Mandeville. The principal reason for comparing Mandeville and Smith, instead, is that they both consider how persuasion and the love of dominion interact, yet they each theorize this relationship differently. We can better understand what is at stake in Smith’s position, I propose, by juxtaposing it with Mandeville’s.

The main aim of this article is to deepen (and complicate) our understanding of the role that love of dominion plays in Smith’s thought. ⁴ To this end, the article makes two more specific and interrelated contributions. The first involves assessing the character of the problem that our love of dominion raises for societies. It is here that comparison with Mandeville is especially illuminating. On Mandeville’s account, I argue, our love of dominion can be satisfied either by persuading others to do what we want them to do or by coercing them to do so. If anything, there are reasons to think that those who exercise power over others will prefer persuasion to coercion. This is not the case for Smith, however, precisely because he holds that having to persuade others is an affront to our love of dominion. Given that the desire to persuade others lies behind Smith’s explanation of our propensity to truck, barter, and exchange, it follows that engaging in commercial exchange will not necessarily moderate our love of dominion. By identifying the social remedies that are unavailable to Smith, I show why our love of dominion poses a deeper problem for him than it does for Mandeville.

The second contribution of this article concerns how, if at all, the love of dominion can be explained in terms of Smith’s wider moral psychology. After all, the notion that humans love to domineer might come as a surprise to readers of The Theory of Moral Sentiments (hereafter TMS), which contains no discussion of any such passion and instead accords a central role to sympathy—that is, our fellow-feeling with the sentiments of others. ⁵ In the most detailed attempt to reconcile the love of dominion with the moral psychology of TMS, Luban (2012, 292) draws on Smith’s account of the corruption of our moral sentiments to argue that love of dominion is a form “of vanity—of the tendency, rooted in human corruption, to seek esteem through vertical relations of superiority.” ⁶ Insofar as we can draw on TMS to explain the love of dominion, I maintain that the passion is better understood as a manifestation of pride—much as the quote from WN suggests—rather than vanity. ⁷ While pride and vanity share some resemblances, Smith adds a lengthy discussion of the two vices to the 1790 edition of TMS to establish that they are, “in many respects, very different from one another” (TMS VI.iii.34). In WN he likewise draws a sharp contrast between domineering over and persuading others, and I contend that where the desire to persuade others is more closely related to vanity, the love of dominion is more closely related to pride. We can thus distil two different models of why we seek to exercise power over others in Smith’s thought, corresponding (roughly) to the distinction between vanity and pride.

Mandeville on Love of Dominion and Persuasion

The idea that humans love to domineer can be glimpsed in several of Mandeville’s works. In explaining why the clergy must be subject to civil government and not immune from the law in Free Thoughts on Religion, the Church, and National Happiness, he remarks that “Pride and Ambition are so riveted in our Nature, that there is no Profession, nor no set of Men, but what would Lord it and Tyranize over all the rest if they could” (Mandeville [1720] 2017, 156). Mandeville regularly highlights the tyrannical tendencies of the clergy, as he does the ways in which men tyrannize over women and enslave them in marriage (Mandeville 1709, especially 30, 86, 127; Mandeville [1709–1710] 1999, especially 119, 171–74, 202). The first time he refers explicitly to the love of dominion is in “An Essay on Charity, and Charity-Schools” from the expanded 1723 edition of (the first volume of) The Fable of the Bees. When children play with puppies and kittens, he observes, they enjoy being able to “do with them what they please,” and “the Pleasure they receive from this is originally owing to the love of Dominion and that usurping Temper all Mankind are born with” (FB I, 281). On none of these occasions, however, does Mandeville discuss the love of dominion in any detail.

Mandeville accords the passion far greater prominence in the second volume of The Fable of the Bees, published in 1729. ⁸ He claims that the “Desire of Dominion is a never-failing Consequence of the Pride, that is common to all Men; and which the Brat of a Savage is as much born with, as the Son of an Emperour” (FB II, 204). Speculating about the condition of uneducated humans in a “wild State of Nature,” he posits that parents would regard their children (and subsequently grandchildren) as their own property, over whom they possess a right to govern. The passion can accordingly be understood as “a visible Desire after Government” or a “Thirst of Dominion” (FB II, 201–5), and elsewhere Mandeville writes in similar terms of our “domineering Spirit,” “Instinct of Sovereignty,” and “Desire of Superiority” (FB II, 132, 223, 271–75, 281, 310, 313). Love of dominion is central to Mandeville’s account of the origin of society because it explains why some individuals seek to govern others, whether that be parents over their children or leaders over larger groups as society gradually develops (on the latter, see FB II, 265–266). Were it not for this passion, “Multitudes could never have been form’d into Societies” (FB II, 205). However, as the love of dominion is satisfied by exercising power over others, the passion must be tempered for humans to live peacefully together. The laws of all countries thus aim to “cure and disappoint that natural Instinct of Sovereignty,” which otherwise leads people to claim anything they can as their own (FB II, 271).

Mandeville appears to use terms such as the “Desire of Dominion” and “Instinct of Sovereignty” interchangeably, without defining them precisely. His claim that the desire of dominion is a consequence of pride is the most helpful starting point for understanding the nature of the passion. Pride leads us to overvalue ourselves in comparison with any impartial assessment of our qualities or conduct (FB I, 124). As we are conscious of overvaluing ourselves, we desire social esteem to quell the anxiety we feel about our self-worth (FB II, 129–30). ⁹ The “true Object” of pride is “the Opinion of others,” and the proud man’s greatest wish is that “he may be well thought of, applauded, and admired by the whole World” (FB II, 64). Love of dominion is one manifestation of pride, which involves exercising power over others to support the “good Opinion, we have of ourselves” (FB II, 204). Mandeville does not explain exactly why pride leads us to desire dominion, but it is plausible to assume that when others submit to our power then this reinforces our (over-valued) sense of self-worth; it makes us feel superior, and thereby satisfies our pride.

The flipside of the love of dominion need not be submissiveness. ¹⁰ Children not only fear but also love and esteem their parents, and this mix of fear, love, and esteem constitutes reverence. Mandeville implies that reverence is key to making our subjection to any form of government “sincere,” leading us to acknowledge those who exercise power over us as authoritative. Pride is a sufficient motive for those who seek power “to maintain the Authority once gain’d” (FB II, 201–3), ¹¹ and we can infer that the pride of those in power will be better satisfied if they are not only feared but also loved and esteemed by those they govern. Even though love of dominion leads us to view other people as in some sense our own property, then, it does not necessarily entail treating them merely as submissive objects to be controlled through coercion and fear. Indeed, on Mandeville’s account, the arts of persuasion may be one (non-coercive) way of satisfying our love of dominion, or at least of satisfying our pride in a way that prevents our love of dominion from arising.

Persuasion is central to Mandeville’s explanation of the origin of speech. He first explains the importance of the love of dominion in relation to a “Savage Pair” in “the wild State of Nature” (FB II, 201, 204), and his analysis of the origin of speech likewise commences with conjectures about how “a wild Pair” could have made themselves intelligible to one another in “the wild State of Nature” (FB II, 286–87). As with many other social phenomena, Mandeville argues that languages must have developed gradually over a great deal of time. He contends that the “first Design of Speech was to persuade others.” We might seek to persuade others of the credibility of our own beliefs, or—and more importantly for present purposes—we might seek to persuade others to do things that we would be able to compel them to do were they under our power. When very young children who are first learning to speak point at something and say its name, they are usually trying to persuade someone to get it for them. Speech and action “corroborate one another,” and our tone of voice and body language help to persuade other people to do as we wish. This can all be explained, Mandeville claims, in terms of the “natural Ambition and strong Desire Men have to triumph over, as well as persuade others” (FB II, 289–91).

Crucially, Mandeville does not imply here that triumphing over and persuading others are two competing (or even distinct) desires. It is more plausible to read him as appealing to a single desire of triumphing over and persuading others, which closely resembles his remarks on the love of dominion or desire of superiority. ¹² The key point is that, much like the love of dominion, the desire to triumph over and persuade others is satisfied by getting other people do what we want them to do. Elsewhere Mandeville writes that individuals are subdued and governed by “Superior Force, or by Persuasion,” (FB I, 347) and, from the perspective of those exercising power, coercive force and persuasion appear to be two alternative means of satisfying the same basic desire.

Beyond observing that the laws of all countries seek to counteract our love of dominion, Mandeville says relatively little about the role that the passion plays once law-governed societies have been established. He argues at greater length that polite manners are the most sophisticated solution to the more general problems of conflict generated by pride. ¹³ When we try to persuade someone through calm and polite discourse, we present ourselves as appealing to their reason, rather than to their passions, and we seek to sway their judgement without them experiencing it as an exertion of our will over theirs (FB II, 291–92). Whether or not it still makes sense to explain this in terms of satisfying our love of dominion, Mandeville at least regards this as the most effective means of satisfying our underlying pride while avoiding the use of coercion. Either way, it remains the case that our desire to persuade others can be channeled in ways that satisfy our pride and thus help to address the problems that the love of dominion would otherwise generate. On Mandeville’s account, then, there is no reason to assume that our love of dominion leads us to prefer coercing others to persuading them. As we shall see next, the same cannot be said of Smith’s understanding of the relationship between love of dominion and persuasion.

Smith on Love of Dominion and Persuasion

In discussing slavery in Book 3 of WN, Smith declares that the “pride of man makes him love to domineer” (WN III.ii.10). Slavery is economically inefficient (see also LJ(A) iii.111–14; WN I.viii.41, III.ii.9–12, IV.ix.47), but slaveholders are often willing to bear the extra cost of keeping slaves to satisfy their love of dominion. ¹⁴ There are limits to how much they will bear. At the time he was writing, Smith thought that tobacco and especially sugar plantations in the West Indies were so profitable that they could afford this expense, whereas corn plantations in Pennsylvania could not (WN III.ii.10). ¹⁵

Smith went further than most of his contemporaries in insisting that slavery could never be economically efficient, and his arguments on this score could be regarded as “uncompromising and probably overstated” (Salter 1996, 240). ¹⁶ In this section, I refrain from evaluating his case for the economic inefficiency of slavery and instead focus on his claims regarding the love of dominion. In particular, I show that our love of dominion cannot be satisfied through persuasion, on Smith’s account, and suggest that the problem of how to overcome or assuage the passion is therefore more demanding for him than it is for Mandeville.

Before turning to the relationship between love of dominion and persuasion, I first consider how seriously we should take Smith’s claim that the pride of man makes him love to domineer, which has generated some disagreement amongst Smith scholars. At one pole, Ryan Patrick Hanley (2009, 171–172) contends that the love of dominion “dominates the moral psychology of [Smith’s] economic and jurisprudential writings in particular” and “also does important work in Smith’s moral theory.” At the other, Barry Weingast (2020, 299) argues that Smith’s invocation of the love of dominion in relation to slavery appears anomalous when compared to his more usual approach of explaining social phenomena in terms of self-interest and the desire for sympathetic approbation.

Is Smith’s claim that the pride of man makes him love to domineer anomalous? That he does not refer explicitly to love of domineering elsewhere in WN counts in favor of Weingast’s position. On the few occasions where Smith mentions pride, however, he often does so to explain why certain practices continue even though they are not in the interest of the relevant parities, much as slavery is not in the interest of slaveholders. For example, he maintains that the institution of primogeniture endures because it supports “the pride of family distinctions,” despite being “contrary to the real interest of a numerous family” by making beggars of all the children except the eldest son (WN I.iii.1). He likewise argues that although it would make sense for Britain to voluntarily give up authority over all its colonies, such “sacrifices, though they might frequently be agreeable to the interest, are always mortifying to the pride of every nation” (WN IV.vii.c.66). Even within WN, then, Smith appeals to the idea that pride leads us to act in ways that are contrary to our real (or economic) interest beyond his analysis of slavery.

Smith discusses love of dominion and slavery at greater length in the Lectures on Jurisprudence (hereafter LJ) that he delivered in the 1760s. The clearest anticipation of the WN passage occurs in Smith’s explanation of why slavery is harsher and even less likely to be abolished in democratic governments than in monarchical or arbitrary ones. The legislators in democratic governments own slaves themselves, and while

their real interest would lead them to set free their slaves and cultivate their lands by free servants or tenents, yet the love of domination and authority and the pleasure men take in having every (thing) done by their express orders, rather than to condescend to bargain and treat with those whom they look upon as their inferiors and are inclined to use in a haughty way; this love of domination and tyrannizing, I say, will make it impossible for the slaves in a free country ever to recover their liberty. (LJ(A) iii.114)

Smith was not much more optimistic about the prospects of abolishing slavery in monarchies, and he concludes that “the love of dominion and authority over others” makes slavery perpetual in most societies (LJ(A) iii.117). In the first set of lectures for which we have student transcripts, from 1762–63, he states that this “love of dominion and authority over others” is “naturall to mankind” (LJ(A) iii.130), and in the second set, from 1766, he claims of this “tyranic disposition” that it “may almost be said to be natural to mankind” (LJ(B) 134).

The prominence Smith accords to the love of dominion in LJ is striking, and it would be difficult to deny that the passion is central to his analysis of slavery in the 1762–63 lectures. Yet many of the strongest claims about the love of dominion from LJ do not find their way into WN, even in passages where the latter covers very similar ground. Smith could have decided to tone down some of his boldest and most critical views aired in the lectures for his published works. ¹⁷ Another possibility, however, is that he had modified his views on slavery and the love of dominion by the 1770s. He might have become less pessimistic about the prospects of abolishing slavery than he had previously been. ¹⁸ More importantly, for present purposes, in WN Smith no longer claims that love of dominion is (almost) natural, and, for the first time, he links the passion to pride. ¹⁹ Where LJ gives the impression that love of dominion is foundational, WN presents it as a derivation of pride.

With these considerations in mind, three points are worth highlighting in relation to the question of how seriously we should take Smith’s claim that the pride of man makes him love to domineer. First, he accords love of dominion greater explanatory weight in LJ than WN, which suggests that he may well have reconsidered his views at some point between the early 1760s and 1770s. We should be cautious about reading claims that occur only in LJ into WN without considering why Smith decided not to include them in his published work. Second, while Smith eschews some of his strongest claims in WN, the fact that he includes the passage about loving to domineer indicates that he still deemed this of some importance for explaining the persistence of slavery. Third, the passage appears less anomalous when read alongside Smith’s other examples of how pride leads people to act in ways contrary to their interests, which are more prominent in WN than in LJ. Taken together, these considerations should leave us wary about either overstating or dismissing the importance of the love of dominion. ²⁰

One continuity between Smith’s discussions of slavery in LJ and WN is the opposition between domineering and persuasion. To recall, the “pride of man makes him love to domineer, and nothing mortifies him so much as to be obliged to condescend to persuade his inferiors” (WN III.ii.10; also LJ(A) iii.114). Elsewhere in WN, Smith similarly contrasts “management and persuasion” with “force and violence,” and claims that those in power often disdain to use the former even though they are “the easiest and the safest instruments of government” (WN V.i.g.19). In these cases, we could infer that (something like) the love of dominion is operating in the background, as those who love to domineer would prefer to use force and violence than persuasion.

This point is especially significant given that persuasion plays a pivotal role in Smith’s explanation of economic activity. In the second chapter of WN, he famously remarks that the division of labor is the “consequence of a certain propensity in human nature . . . to truck, barter, and exchange one thing for another.” He then suggests that this propensity is most probably “the necessary consequence of the faculties of reason and speech” (WN I.ii.1–2), and although he does not expand on this point in WN, the corresponding passage in LJ adds that the “disposition of trucking” is founded on “the naturall inclination every one has to persuade.” When we haggle with someone else, we are trying to persuade them that it is in their interest to take our money (LJ(A) vi.56). The relationship between persuasion and speech is also evident in TMS, where Smith associates “the desire of persuading” with “the faculty of speech, the characteristical faculty of human nature” (TMS VII.iv.25).

For both Mandeville and Smith, the desire to persuade others is central to explaining the origin of speech. ²¹ In Smith’s case, the importance of persuasion extends to his analysis of the division of labor and economic exchange more broadly. We can thus distinguish market interactions based on persuasion from forms of domination and coercion, including slavery, which are instead based on the love of dominion (see also Lewis 2000, 284–89). This is not to deny, of course, that powerful economic agents sometimes rely more on the instruments of domination than on those of persuasion, as illustrated not only by the existence of the slave trade but also by the conduct of mercantile corporations such as the British East India Company, which “oppresses and domineers in the East Indies” (WN 1.viii.26). ²²

Like Mandeville, Smith presents coercion and persuasion as distinct ways of getting others to do what we want them to do. In the previous section, I argued that, for Mandeville, persuasion can satisfy our love of dominion. Smith, however, presents the two as more deeply opposed. We could say that, for Smith, persuasion involves taking the agency of the other person seriously in a way that sharply differentiates it from coercion (for related discussion, see also Fleischacker 2004, 91–94; Montes 2019, 5–6). Our love of dominion is frustrated by taking the agency of others seriously, or at least by treating others as our equals. Mandeville also implies that persuasion involves taking the agency of the other person seriously, as it typically involves appealing to their reason; yet, insofar as persuasion allows us to sway someone else’s deliberations towards our own ends, he gives no indication that this offends our love of dominion.

Some caution is in order when comparing Mandeville’s and Smith’s views on love of dominion. Smith’s remarks are all taken from his discussion of slavery, whereas Mandeville does not analyze slavery. Although they each address the love of dominion with different problems in mind, if we generalize from their comments on the relationship between love of dominion and persuasion in specific cases, then we can tentatively conclude that love of dominion poses a greater social problem for Smith than it does for Mandeville. The reason for this is straightforward: to the extent that love of dominion is a problem, persuasion cannot be the answer to that problem for Smith in the way that it could be for Mandeville. Where Mandeville thought that mastering the arts of polite discourse could satisfy our love of dominion, for Smith the only thing that satisfies our love of dominion appears to be domination itself. Economic self-interest might trump (without satisfying) the love of dominion in some cases, but only in markets with tight profit margins. In other markets, powerful economic agents will typically be willing to forsake some monetary gain to satisfy their love of dominion. As his analysis of slavery demonstrates, Smith was under no illusion that economic self-interest could be relied upon to overcome our pride and love of domineering.

Pride, Vanity, and Love of Dominion

If the foregoing analysis is accurate, then love of dominion poses an especially intractable problem for Smith (in a way that it does not for Mandeville), since the passion cannot be satisfied by persuading others to do as we wish. In this section, I turn from the social problems generated by love of dominion to the question of how, at a psychological level, we should understand the passion. In particular, I address the interpretative puzzle of how (if at all) we can explain Smith’s claims about the love of dominion in LJ and WN in terms of the moral psychology of TMS. As Smith does not discuss our love of dominion in TMS, any attempt to understand the passion in terms of his wider moral psychology involves a certain amount of speculative reconstruction. One way of trying to make sense of the love of dominion is by relating it to Smith’s discussion of vanity, which is central to his analysis of why we sympathize with the rich and powerful and which (in the 1790 edition of TMS) he associates with the corruption of our moral sentiments (Luban 2012, especially 288–92). While vanity-based considerations can explain key aspects of how the distinction of ranks is upheld, I argue that they cannot account for how our love of dominion operates. To take seriously Smith’s claim that it is the pride of man that makes him love to domineer, I instead focus on the differences between vanity and pride. Doing so allows us to distil two distinct models of why we seek to exercise power over others, with vanity more closely related to the desire to persuade others and pride to the love of dominion.

The closest Smith comes in TMS to explaining why we desire to exercise power over others is in a passage on ambition and the desire of real superiority, which I drew upon in the previous section but which is now worth setting out at length:

The desire of being believed, the desire of persuading, of leading and directing other people, seems to be one of the strongest of all our natural desires. It is, perhaps, the instinct upon which is founded the faculty of speech, the characteristical faculty of human nature. . . . Great ambition, the desire of real superiority, of leading and directing, seems to be altogether peculiar to man, and speech is the great instrument of ambition, of real superiority, of leading and directing the judgments and conduct of other people. (TMS VII.iv.25)

In this passage, ambition and the desire of real superiority are closely linked to persuasion and speech. As we have seen, Mandeville and Smith both associate persuasion with the origin of speech. Where, for Mandeville, persuasion can satisfy our love of dominion, I have argued that, for Smith, the two are opposed. If this is the case, then we should be able to explain the desire of persuading and leading others—and, in turn, the desire of real superiority—in this passage without recourse to anything like the love of dominion. ²³ Put differently, we should expect to find Smith offering an alternative explanation of how the desire to persuade others operates to that outlined by Mandeville. And this is what we do find. Smith’s starting point is the observation that we are naturally disposed to believe other people. As young children, we instinctively believe everything we are told, with experience only later leading us to question our credulity. We esteem and respect those who guide our judgement and regard them as “our leader and director.” Much as admiring others gives rise to the desire of being admired ourselves, so too the experience of being led and directed by others gives rise to the “wish to become ourselves leaders and directors” (TMS VII.iv.23–24). Our desire to persuade, then, is based on the underlying desire of being esteemed for the same reasons that we esteem others. ²⁴

This account of ambition and the desire of real superiority complements the analysis of the origin of ambition and the distinction of ranks from Part I of TMS. Smith claims that humans are more disposed to sympathize with others’ joys than with their sorrows. As we all desire the sympathetic approbation of other people, this disposition leads us to “make parade of our riches, and conceal our poverty.” The main reason we work hard and seek to better our condition is that we desire to be observed “with sympathy, complacency, and approbation. . . . It is the vanity, not the ease, or the pleasure, which interests us” (TMS I.iii.2.1). When we consider the condition of the rich and powerful, we (mistakenly) view it as “almost the abstract idea of a perfect and happy state,” and imagining ourselves in this position gives rise to sympathetic approbation. This leads us to defer to the authority of the rich and powerful and to sympathize with their misfortunes, which serves to uphold “the distinction of ranks, and the order of society” (TMS I.iii.2.2–3).

Smith’s reasons for thinking that we admire the rich and powerful are well known, but for present purposes, it is more important to consider how the rich and powerful exercise their authority. Smith argues that those born into positions of high rank learn to conduct themselves in such a way that others will easily submit to their authority. It is a nobleman’s manners and way of presenting himself that “mark that elegant and graceful sense of his own superiority,” which is usually “sufficient to govern the world.” Borrowing from Voltaire, Smith observes that while Louis XIV possessed few virtues, his grace and majesty allowed him to become the most powerful monarch in Europe. “The sound of his voice, noble and affecting, gained those hearts which his presence intimidated” (TMS I.iii.2.4). As Smith adds when discussing the corruption of our moral sentiments, our disposition to both admire and imitate the rich and powerful allows them to lead the fashion of the age, especially in terms of dress, language, and manners (TMS I.iii.3.7). Although these passages do not refer explicitly to persuasion, the way that the powerful maintain their superiority over others more closely resembles the arts of persuasion than those of domination. ²⁵

Could we explain slaveholders’ love of dominion in terms of Smith’s analysis of the origin of ambition and the distinction of ranks? There are some continuities between the two. The reason the poor man is ashamed of his poverty is that others scarcely have “any fellow-feeling with the misery and distress which he suffers” (TMS I.iii.2.1). The greater the inequality, the less we sympathize with those at the bottom. This corresponds with Smith’s explanation of why slavery is more severe in rich countries than in poor ones. In a poor country, there is less inequality between the master and the slave, and slaves (and servants) are consequently treated with greater humanity and kindness. “Those persons most excite our compassion and are most apt to affect our sympathy who most resemble ourselves, and the greater the difference the less we are affected by them” (LJ(A) iii.106–109). ²⁶ Slaveholders who love to domineer do not sympathize with their slaves, and the inequality between the two positions can help to clarify why sympathy is not operative (Garrett 2024, 8; Sagar 2022, 66–67; Weinstein 2006, 94–95). Yet this does not account for the presence of the slaveholders’ love of dominion in the first place.

If we apply Smith’s analysis of the origin of ambition and the distinction of ranks to slaveholders, then it would follow that the reason slaveholders love to domineer is because of the sympathetic approbation they expect to receive from others. However, Smith does not appeal to these considerations when discussing love of dominion in LJ or WN, and his analysis there counts strongly against this way of joining the dots. Even if we suppose that slaveholders receive sympathetic approbation from other slaveholders (or from free persons who do not hold slaves in the same society), Smith denies that slaves look upon their domineering masters with sympathetic approbation. In “rich and polished” countries, in particular, wealthy nobles live in “continuall fear of their slaves” and use the most severe and inhumane methods to keep them in “continuall terror” (LJ(A) iii.103–6). Subjects might be naturally disposed to defer to their monarch, but slaves are not naturally disposed to defer to their master. Where the highest ranks in society typically enjoy an “easy empire over the affections of mankind” (TMS I.iii.2.6), slaveholders possess no such authority over their slaves and must instead rely on the most brutal forms of coercion to maintain their power. The disposition to sympathize with the rich and powerful that upholds the distinction of ranks and order of society, then, does not extend to the relationship between slaves and their masters.

Smith’s analysis of the origin of ambition and the distinction of ranks revolves around vanity more than pride (especially TMS I.iii.2.1). But pride and vanity are not the same. ²⁷ I noted earlier that pride is more prominent in WN than in the parallel passages from LJ, and Smith adds his most detailed analysis of pride to the sixth edition of TMS in 1790, after his claim that the pride of man makes him love to domineer had appeared in print. The differences between pride and vanity have passed under the radar of much Smith scholarship (for notable exceptions, see Walraevens 2019; Santori 2025), yet they point towards a more plausible explanation of the love of dominion.

While pride and vanity each involve “excessive self-estimation,” the two vices differ in terms of sincerity. The “proud man is sincere, and . . . convinced of his own superiority,” whereas the “vain man” is insincere and “is very seldom convinced of that superiority which he wishes you to ascribe to him.” The proud man thinks that justice demands that others view him in the high regard in which he holds himself, and he feels “indignant resentment” when others fail to do so. When the vain man does not receive the regard he courts, by contrast, he is mortified that others have seen through his pretensions but understands that he is in no position to take offence (TMS VI.iii.34–36). ²⁸ Although the proud man is usually sincere, when he does indulge in falsehoods they are often more harmful as they are directed at lowering the standing of other people rather than elevating his own. He looks upon others with “malignity and envy” and is indignant at (what he takes to be) “their unjust superiority.” He is less concerned with contriving to present himself as superior and more with undermining the high esteem in which others are held (TMS VI.iii.41). Indeed, irrespective of whether he embraces falsehoods about others, the proud man more generally looks down upon everyone else:

He disdains to court your esteem. He affects even to despise it, and endeavours to maintain his assumed station, not so much by making you sensible of his superiority, as of your own meanness. He seems to wish, not so much to excite your esteem for himself, as to mortify that for yourself. (TMS VI.iii.35)

Smith’s analysis of pride is not all negative. He allows that in cases where there is “real superiority,” pride is accompanied by many respectable virtues, including integrity and “the most inflexible firmness and resolution” (TMS VI.iii.42). ²⁹ He concludes that in most cases it is better to be a little too proud than too humble (TMS VI.iii.52). However, even if the proud man is content in the “absurd conceit of his own superiority” (TMS VI.iii.45), he will remain “constantly dissatisfied” by the sentiment of indignation that he feels towards others who are held in high esteem (TMS VI.iii.51).

Can this discussion of pride help to explain why the pride of man makes him love to domineer? Up to a point, at least. From the foregoing summary, we could infer that the proud man—unlike the vain man—would take it as an affront to his pride to “be obliged to condescend to persuade his inferiors” (WN III.ii.10). If the proud man is a slaveholder, then he would not desire the sympathetic approbation of his slaves, but he would desire that the slaves recognize themselves as inferior and subject to his command. On Smith’s account, even those who do not require the approval of others to confirm their own sense of self-worth, such as the proud man, may still feel a sense of indignation if they consider themselves to have been treated unjustly. ³⁰

In TMS, Smith focuses mainly on how both the proud man and the vain man relate to their equals and superiors (TMS VI.iii.39–40). We must extrapolate to consider how either vanity or pride could explain our love of dominion, which arises in relation to (those we regard as) our inferiors. ³¹ Yet, insofar as TMS offers any clues on this score, it seems more plausible to understand the love of dominion as stemming from pride rather than vanity, especially once we consider how the domineering person expects to be treated by their inferiors. What is more, the distinction between vanity and pride (roughly) tracks that between persuasion and domineering. Vanity and pride can both explain why we desire to exercise power over others, but they do not do so in the same way. The vain man is more inclined to persuade others, the proud man to domineer. ³²

This conclusion is somewhat speculative, as TMS does not offer any explicit account of the love of dominion. Readers of WN familiar with the moral psychology of TMS may well be surprised to encounter Smith’s claim that the pride of man makes him love to domineer, and the only readers who are likely to search TMS for clues about how to explain the love of dominion are those already aware of his claim from WN (and, for scholars today, the similar passages in LJ). My view is that Smith’s analysis of pride offers the most plausible way of explaining the love of dominion in terms of the moral psychology of TMS, but it is not an entirely satisfactory resolution to this puzzle. Pride does not play an especially prominent role in TMS, and prior to the 1790 edition Smith had not analyzed the passion in any detail. ³³ If Smith really did think that love of dominion is central to explaining the persistence of a social institution as widespread and troubling as slavery, then we could reasonably have expected him to say more about how this passion originates and operates in a book dedicated to studying our moral sentiments.

Conclusion

Mandeville and Smith both claim that love of dominion is based on pride (FB II, 204; WN III.ii.10). Yet their accounts of how our love of dominion operates nonetheless diverge in key respects. The main difference, I have maintained, concerns how they understand the relationship between love of dominion and persuasion. Where Mandeville holds that our love of dominion can be satisfied by persuading others to do as we wish, the opposition Smith draws between domineering and persuasion precludes this possibility, from which it follows that finding ways to moderate our love of dominion is a more challenging problem for Smith than it is for Mandeville.

I have further argued that the most plausible way to explain the love of dominion in terms of Smith’s wider moral psychology involves attending to the differences between pride and vanity, which he spells out fully only in the 1790 edition of TMS. Indeed, with this distinction at hand, it becomes apparent that Smith conceptualizes pride more narrowly than Mandeville, which sheds further light on the differences between their respective claims that pride lies behind our love of dominion. It is telling, in this regard, that when discussing licentious systems of moral philosophy, Smith criticizes Mandeville for presenting all praiseworthy acts as motivated by vanity (TMS VII.ii.4.7–12), despite the fact that Mandeville appeals far more frequently to pride. Mandeville’s conception of pride is closer to Smith’s conception of vanity, which is probably why Smith substitutes vanity for pride when examining Mandeville’s ideas. For Mandeville, much as there is no sharp contrast between pride and vanity, so too our love of dominion can be satisfied through either coercion or persuasion. For Smith, by contrast, vanity and pride motivate us to exercise power over others in different ways, and where our vanity is more likely to be satisfied by persuading others to do as we wish, it is only pride that makes us love to domineer.