Coincidently just finished Russ Robert’s explanation of Adam Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments as Pope Francis issued his encyclical on climate change. Coincidence because one believes in moral suasion of individuals while the other practices it but doesn’t believe in it. Smith, according to Roberts, prefers social messaging, such as giving tobacco smoking a negative aura that reduces its use rather than making an authoritarian decree against it. Francis on the other hand issues a Papal Encyclical to authoritarian experts on the technicalities of flagrant energy use when his move to modest living quarters despite a tradition of papal opulence says much more to his flock and others about the morality of lower consumption.
June 23rd
Thank you David Brooks for Franciscans and Fracking and clarifying my misgivings of Pope Francis' encyclical on global warming which distrusts the spontaneous order of individuals acting freely in their own self interest.
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