Vilfredo Pareto’s Sociologia in relation to Adam Smith’s the theory of moral sentiments

It is abundantly clear that Vilfredo Pareto held Adam Smith in high regard for his contributions to political economy, yet, in his Trattato di Sociologia Generale, there is no mention of Smith’s The Theory of Moral Sentiments. This study presents a comparison of these two great studies of sentiment, utility and action. It is established that there is a basic compatibility between Pareto’s conception of non-logical action in the Sociologia and Smith’s distinction in the TMS between regular and irregular sentiments, yet the two thinkers investigated these conceptions and distinctions from very different, sometimes inconsistent, perspectives. We also offer some reasons why there has been considerable debate over an alleged inconsistency between Smith’s political economy and his philosophical study of sentiments, but no such similar debate in relation to Pareto’s political economy and his sociological study of sentiments. © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2024.