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Adam Smith

Making Compassionate Decisions: The Role of Empathy in Decision Making

You don’t have to look hard to find quotes expounding the need for more empathy in society. As with Barack Obama’s quote above, we are encouraged to actively build empathy with others — …

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The Chessboard Fallacy

“In the great chess-board of human society, every single piece has a principle of motion of its own.” — Adam Smith *** One of our favorite dictums, much referenced here, is an idea by …

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A Parable of Contentment and Happiness

“Who is rich? He who is satisfied with his lot.” — Ben Zoma *** A short parable on contentment today, from Plutarch’s Life of Pyrrhus, one of a series of biographies by the great …

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The Inner Scorecard: How Warren Buffett Mastered Life

“The big question about how people behave is whether they’ve got an Inner Scorecard or an Outer Scorecard. It helps if you can be satisfied with an Inner Scorecard.” — Warren Buffett …

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The Darwin Economy – Why Smith’s Invisible Hand Breaks Down

In The Darwin Economy: Liberty, Competition, and The Common Good Robert H. Frank, an economics professor at Cornell’s Johnson Graduate School of Management, takes on the debate of who was a …

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Just Babies: The Origins of Good and Evil

Morality is hard to define, but all non-psychopaths experience strong gut reactions to certain moral violations. One way to understand it is from an evolutionary perspective. Our sense of morality is …

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