Adam Smith's View on Human Nature

Recently, I found an excellent paper from Ronald Coase which summarizes the basic concept of Adam Smith on human nature. I would urge my readers to read the whole paper (first published in The University of Chicago's Journal of Law and Economics) as I think it provides a correct summary and a strong insight on how economists and also lawyers should think about human nature. The final paragraph of Coase's paper is very important that I will just copy it here for ease of reading. Enjoy! " It is wrong to believe, as is commonly done, that Adam Smith had as his view of man an abstraction, an “economic man,” rationally pursuing his self-interest in a single-minded way. Adam Smith would not have thought it sensible to treat man as a rational utility-maximizer. He thinks of man as he actually is-dominated, it is true, by self-love but not without some concern for others, able to reason but not necessarily in such a way as to reach the right conclusion, seeing the outcomes of