Friendship in Commercial Society: Eighteenth-Century Social Theory and Modern Sociology

Abstract

Sociological theory prevailingly holds that the normative exclusion of instrumental and contractual orientations from personal relationships is historically prior, and theoretically antipodal, to market society. In contrast, Adam Smith. David Hume, and others of the 18-century Scottish Enlightenment propose that commercial society sharply distinguishes self-interested from sympathetic relations and is therefore necessary for the spread of personal relations based on sympathy and sentiment. If this is correct, commercial society promotes rather than discourages personal relations that are normatively free of instrumental and calculative orientations. Taking friendship as prototyical os such relations, this essay considers the contributions of the Scottish Enlightenment to the study of personal relations in historical and modern times.