British advocatesfor the “interests” were even more eager than their French counterparts to please themselves as well as God.
With a more commercial economy, and greater religious diversity, they cheerfully believed that God himself, or at least a God-Given Nature, would sanctify the pursuit of selfinterest.
One of the more naive efforts at such reconciliation came from the Earl of Shaftesbury, who insisted that men were naturally benevolent. One of the more cynical efforts came from Bernard Mandeville, who laid religious concerns entirely aside to urge uninhibited self-indulgence. The clergyman Joseph Butler and his chaplain Josiah Tucker outlined the most successful formula: God himself ordained that self-interest and morality should coincide. A similar approach allowed both David Hume and Adam Smith to insist that innate moral sentiments would temper the pursuit of self-interest.These innate moral sentiments were presumably shared by men and women. However, women were held to a higher standard of sexual responsibility than men on the grounds that their infidelities would have disastrous results. Because they were under the sway of passions, rather than interests, their choices could not be trusted. In this respect, Smith followed Locke's lead, prescribing individual freedom in the market, but male authority within the family.