Roberts: Humans fundamentally desire to be respected and worthy of respect
Russ Roberts · EconTalk Host Russ Roberts on Key Economic Concepts for Founders · Y Combinator · Aug 7, 2019 · at 20:57
Russ Roberts discusses Adam Smith's moral philosophy from The Theory of Moral Sentiments regarding human motivation.
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“Man naturally desires not only to be loved, but to be lovely, and by love, Smith didn't just mean romantic, he meant respect and honor, et cetera, and lovely, he meant worthy of honor, worthy of respect. Think about, thinking about that as an aspect of a central part of human nature, Is incredibly powerful. It gives you insight into why people do some weird things in your life. You go, like, why are they so, and the answer is, oh yeah, man actually desires not only to be loved, but to be lovely. So we care about our self-respect. We care about the respect of others.”
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