“The weakening of kinship ties in Europe, which led to the rise of impersonal commerce, allowed for more modern moralists to identify the unique aspects of commutative justice, elaborating precise and accurate rules in jurisprudence.”
Justice should be blind, in a sense, but people should not be blind to nuances in the meanings of justice. In The Theory of Moral Sentiments (TMS), Adam Smith outlined a tri-layered understanding of justice. I relate the Smithian understanding of justice to the growing literature on kinship networks. I argue that the weakening of kinship networks in Western Europe changed the nature of commercial transactions. The rise of impersonal commercial transactions helped clarify a Smithian understanding of justice, subsequently adumbrated in the tradition of natural jurisprudence. Together, such developments fostered the emergence of liberal politics, conducing to the Great Enrichment.
A Smithian understanding of justice
In TMS, Smith directly treats the polysemy of the word justice. One meaning is commutative justice, “which consists in abstaining from what is another’s” (TMS 269.10); he refers to his early exposition of “[t]he most sacred laws of justice” which guard person, property, and promises-due (84.2). The second meaning is distributive justice, “which consists in proper beneficence” and “in the becoming use of what is our own” (TMS 269-70.10). He does not give a special name to the third meaning but, Daniel Klein (2023a) denominates it estimative justice, which is violated “when we do not seem to value any particular object with that degree of esteem, or to pursue it with that degree of ardor which to the impartial spectator it may appear to deserve or to be naturally fitted for exciting” (TMS 270.10). In brief, estimative justice requires a proper estimation or judgment of objects.
Commutative justice is unique relative to how Smith describes the other virtues. Special features associated with commutative justice include:
- The rules of commutative justice are precise and accurate (TMS 175.11, 327.1).
- The rules mostly tell people what not to do, that is, they are mostly negative. Apart from having to keep your promises, doing nothing will be enough to follow the rules of commutative justice (TMS 82.9).
- Unlike the other two justices, when it comes to commutative justice, feedback is given only for violations. No congratulations are bestowed for abiding by its rules (TMS 82.9, 330.8).
- Following the rules of commutative justice, at least among jural equals (e.g., citizen to citizen), is indispensable for a society to function (TMS 175.11, 86.4, 211.16). If neighbors and other jural equals readily often mess with each other’s stuff, the society will disintegrate.
- There is a stricter obligation to be commutatively just than to practice the other virtues, and there are harsh repercussions for violating commutative justice (TMS 79–80.5, 175.10, 269.10).
- Not messing with other people’s stuff has a flipside in others not messing with your stuff, called either security (as in home security against ordinary burglars) or liberty (for one’s relationship with government).
Smith provides an analogy to the rules of writing to contrast the precise and accurate nature of the rules of commutative justice with the “loose, vague, and indeterminate” nature of all the other virtues (TMS 176.11, 327.1). Commutative justice is like grammar, whose rules, also, are precise and accurate. All the other virtues are like aesthetics, which has rules that are loose, vague, and indeterminate. Grammar is profoundly different than aesthetics. You avoid violations of grammar by leaving a blank sheet of paper blank, but a blank sheet is an aesthetic failure. Commutative justice constitutes a social grammar, in relationships between citizens in a polity. It is indispensable but insufficient for a flourishing society, which requires the practice of the looser, positive virtues in addition to mutual abstention from infringing upon the person, property, and promises-due of one another.
Two errors among moralists
Smith claims that some moralists have erred in their accounts of virtue by neglecting either the precise or the indeterminate. One error is to try to make precise what is by nature indeterminate. Smith cites the medieval Catholic casuists as the principal exemplars. A second error is to consider all rules as loose, vague, and indeterminate, and to fail to mark out the specialness of commutative justice. Smith writes: “all the ancient moralists... have contented themselves with describing in a general manner the vices and virtues... but have not affected to lay down many precise rules that are to hold good unexceptionably in all particular cases” (TMS 328.3, emphasis added). Later, he reiterates: “In none of the ancient moralists, do we find any attempts towards a particular enumeration of the rules of [commutative] justice” (341.37).
In his critique of the ancients, Smith asserts that an emphasis on and adumbration of commutative justice is new to the early modern period of European history. He identifies that new adumbration with jurisprudence, or natural jurisprudence. In the final paragraph of the work (apart from the appendix on language), he highlights Hugo Grotius as the key breakthrough (341.37). Although scholars such as Brian Tierney remind us that commutative justice was exposited prior to Grotius, especially in the writings of the Hispanic Scholastics such as Francisco Suarez and Leonard Lessius (whom Grotius studied closely), the extensive articulation and emphasis on commutative justice is especially characteristic of what we call “the modern era.” It forms the center piece of the distinctly modern political tradition that Adam Smith and his friends dubbed “liberal” in the eighteenth century.
Why would all the ancient moralists fail to identify the unique attributes of commutative justice? And if the uniqueness of commutative justice was so hard to realize, how would moral philosophers discover it, and why would that discovery take place in Europe? Answers to these questions, I believe, might be found in the structure of kinship networks and the evolution of kinship network structures in Europe. (The evolution of kinship networks should be seen within a larger narrative; see Siedentop 2014; Fustel de Coulanges 1956 [1864].) My emphasis on kinship networks supports the claim of J.G.A. Pocock (1983, 249) that “[l]iberalism is the child of jurisprudence.”
Strong kinship networks in Old Europe
Kinship networks can be defined as a group of interconnected social relationships among people who are considered to be “kin,” or family, which may be established through biology, adoption, marriage, partnership, or other close social relationships (Mair 2021). Kinship networks can be strong or weak. Societies with strong kinship networks have large family units with dense social connections throughout the network, and weak kinship networks consist of smaller family units and considerably less dense family connections.
For most of history strong kinship networks have been the norm. Strong kinship networks are characterized by co-residency of extended families, descent-based communal organizations, and norms that promote cousin marriage. Norms that promoted cousin marriage historically played a crucial role in maintaining dense familial networks. Strong-kinship interactions are highly personalized and governed by familial hierarchies and respect for elders. Norms of sharing and familial support helped insure people against risks. Further, kinship networks also provided a reliable institution for common defense and provision of other public goods. Thick relationships discouraged family members from shirking. Familial affection and the discipline of repeated dealings created a strong sense of trust among members of these large, extended families. However, these benefits came at the cost of limiting interaction with people outside of one’s kinship network. There was a wide difference between in-group trust and general trust.
Consanguinity reforms of the eleventh century
The dominance of strong kinship network waned in medieval Western Europe. What changed?
Deepak Lal (1999, 84–94), Joseph Henrich (2020), and others identify the spread of the Roman Catholic Church across Western Europe and its teaching relating to marriage and family practices. In the eleventh century, the Catholic Church prohibited marriage to blood relatives all the way out to 6th cousins, affinal kin (in-laws), and to spiritual kin (related to God-parents), and encouraged neolocal residence (new couples do not live with their extended family), individual property ownership, and inheritance by personal testament (Henrich, 2020, p. 165-6). The positions taken by the Catholic Church all began to erode the strength of kinship networks.
The prohibitions on cousin marriage, affinal marriage, or marriage of spiritual kin impelled people to marry outside of their traditional family networks. The practice of marrying outside of one’s family or clan weakened kinship networks. The encouragement of neolocal residence, individual property ownership, and inheritance by personal testament all worked to increase the independence of family members from one another. Neolocal residence increased the physical separation between more distantly related nuclear families (e.g., you live farther away from cousins). Increasing the scope of what is considered private property and encouraging inheritance by personal testimony allowed nuclear families to have greater autonomy from the interests of their more extended family members. As kinship networks weakened, the difference between in-group trust and general trust shrank, participatory organizations expanded, and people began to develop a greater respect for impersonal rules, as their interactions with others had become more impersonal.
Smith did not make any connection between kinship structure and the ancient moralists not laying down precise and accurate rules, but he was not blind to the importance of kinship network structures. He saw that there were differences in “authority of law” and family structure in “pastoral” and commercial societies (TMS 222-3.12-3). Pastoral societies often lack authority of law, so remote members of family units band together to provide mutual defense (TMS 222.12). Commercial societies, on the other hand, have greater protection from the authority of law, so family members disperse and regard for distant relatives quickly dissipates (TMS 223.13). Patrick Fitzsimmons analyzes Smith’s arguments against polygamy in his Lectures on Jurisprudence and demonstrates how the decline of polygamy transformed kinship network structures and reduced the frequency of cousin marriage.
Discovering the uniqueness of commutative justice
In impersonal commercial transactions, commutative justice is primary. When shopping in the modern store, all that is necessary to complete a transaction is honoring contracts and respecting private property. In a strong kinship network, however, more social virtues come into play. People are embedded in a hierarchical familial structure. Should you charge a distant family member less if they just helped you take care of your children, and should you charge them more if they just angered a rival community, putting you at greater risk of being attacked? Should you give a discount to your elders? Is it right to lend at interest to family members?
Smith wrote: “What is called affection is in reality nothing but habitual sympathy” (220.7). In clannish societies, the members are enmeshed in social relations and habitual sympathies. In a free market, we welcome vibrant competition among suppliers. In a clannish society it would be unacceptable to compete openly against your cousins.
Producing and transacting in strong kinship networks, then, involve thick sentiments and affections, and, upon those, virtues such as friendship, loyalty, gratitude, honor, and other matters of distributive justice. Thus, economic life within strong kinship networks relies heavily on moral rules that are loose, vague, and indeterminate. The pervasiveness of these virtues in transacting essentially prohibited the emergence of firm posted prices. If every transaction is unique, personal, and governed by loose, vague, and indeterminate rules, any posted price would be subject to change, modification, and exception.
The consanguinity changes led to more trading outside of one’s own kinship network. The role of other sentiments and virtues began to wane as kinship networks weakened. That opened up possibilities and presented problems. Trading outside of one’s own family network was extremely difficult. The stark contrast between the frequency of interaction within one’s kinship network and outside of it leads to a significant difference between in-group trust and generalized trust (Henrich, 2020, 46-8, 207). Frequently, long distance trade networks were family networks that had spread out geographically to facilitate long distance trade, like the Maghribi traders, the Hui, and the Assur merchants (Henrich 2020, 306-7).
In a posthumously published fragment, Max Weber recognizes that impersonal commerce was not how commerce was practiced for most of history but instead was a novel development within the medieval West. He writes, “the fixed price, without preference for any particular buyer, and strict business honesty are highly peculiar features of the regulated local neighborhood markets of the medieval Occident, in contrast to the Near and Far East” (Weber 1978).
Duman Bahrami-Rad et al. find a negative relationship between kinship intensity and market integration (2022). The negative relationship makes sense in light of the lack of a social grammar within kinship networks. The lack of trust between various kinship groups acts as a barrier to trade that hinders market integration between groups. Within groups, the highly personalized nature of commercial transactions and the vagueness of moral rules surrounding pricing inhibited market integration within kinship networks. Having posted, stable, fixed prices significantly lower the search costs for entrepreneurs to engage in arbitrage. By stripping away the loose, vague, and indeterminate moral rules surrounding commerce, fixed pricing systems were able to emerge, which allowed for more ease in price competition.
Bahrami-Rad et al. (2022) also found that kinship intensity was negatively related to economic growth. Smith recognized that the administration of commutative justice is necessary for economic growth. He writes that “above all, that equal and impartial administration of justice which renders the rights of the meanest British subject respectable to the greatest, and which, by securing to every man the fruits of his own industry, gives the greatest and most effectual encouragement to every sort of industry” (WN 610.54). Smith is talking about justice in the commutative sense, as the impartial justice of the British is contrasted with the irregular and partial administration of justice by the Spanish and Portuguese, which leads creditors there to be “altogether uncertain of repayment” (WN 610.53).
It is important to underscore that recognizing commutative justice is not the same as recognizing its unique attributes. All civilizations to some degree have had notions of commutative justice. Any society that did not enforce some semblance of commutative justice would tear itself to pieces and cease to exist. That is not to say that commutative justice is all that is required for a good society. Commutative justice is necessary for a society to exist, but the bonds of beneficence between its members are what brings it life.
Social grammar, the moral authorization of honest income, and the Great Enrichment
Commutative justice is also unique among the virtues because not messing with other people’s stuff has a flipside in others not messing with your stuff, which is liberty. Therefore, identifying the precise and accurate rules of commutative justice clarifies the meaning of liberty, which is critical for the development of liberalism.
Clarifying commutative justice and liberty also set the stage for a revolution in moral attitudes regarding work. As commutative justice became more focal, the idea of pursuing honest income became more focal. As work shed clannish considerations, people had the moral authorization to pursue a greater variety of economic opportunities. Erik Matson (2022) writes of dual moral authorizations, namely, of the pursuit of honest income and of the presumption of liberty.
Why did all the ancient moralists fail to lay down precise and accurate rules of conduct concerning commutative justice? My argument is that the ancient moralists were, like all ancient peoples, embedded in strong kinship networks. Strong kinship networks inhibit impersonal commerce because of the nature of interactions in strong kinship networks. Most interactions are highly personalized, and identity is rooted in the role one plays in the family. Impersonal commerce helps isolate commutative justice and reveal its uniqueness. Commutative justice is the salient social virtue at play in impersonal commerce, so impersonality helps isolate its unique attributes. A key attribute is that it alone among the virtues has rules that are precise and accurate—or grammar-like. Strong kinship networks inhibited ancient moralists from developing that social grammar. The weakening of kinship ties in Europe, which led to the rise of impersonal commerce, allowed for more modern moralists to identify the unique aspects of commutative justice, elaborating precise and accurate rules in jurisprudence. Such developments gave birth to Smith’s “liberal plan” in domestic policy and the Great Enrichment.
References
Bahrami-Rad, D., Beauchamp, J., Henrich, J., & Schulz, J. (2022). Kin-based institutions and economic development. Available at SSRN 4200629.
Fitzsimmons, Patrick. Adam Smith on Polygamy and Kin Networks. Just Sentiments, Adam Smith Works, December 28, 2022. Link
Fustel de Coulanges, Numa Denis. 1956 [1864]. The Ancient City. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday Anchor Books. Link to selection.
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Lal, Deepak. 1999. Unintended Consequences: The Impact of Factor Endowments, Cullture, and Politics in Long-Run Economic Performance. MIT Press.
Mair, C.A. (2021). Kinship Networks. In: Gu, D., Dupre, M.E. (eds) Encyclopedia of Gerontology and Population Aging. Springer, Cham. Link
Matson, Erik. Adam Smith’s Synergistic Moral Authorizations. Just Sentiments, Adam Smith Works, June 22, 2022. Link
Pocock, J. G. A. 1983. Cambridge Paradigms and Scotch Philosophers: A Study of the Relations between the Civic Humanist and the Civil Jurisprudential Interpretation of Eighteenth-century Social Thought. In Wealth and Virtue: The Shaping of Political Economy in the Scottish Enlightenment, edited by I. Hont and M. Ignatieff: 235–52. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Siedentop, Larry. 2014. Inventing the Individual: Origins of Western Liberalism. London: Allen Lane.
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