EPERN is excited to host Maria Pia Paganelli, who will be shedding light on her new paper, "Adam Smith and Sympathetic Cosmopolitanism."

Is cosmopolitanism something to explain or is it the lack of cosmopolitanism something to explain? Is cosmopolitanism an end result or a starting point? The answer depends on the anthropological assumptions one makes. If human beings are assumed to be isolated individuals, then cosmopolitanism is something to explain, a possible end result. But if human beings are assumed to be intrinsically social, then cosmopolitanism is a starting point and what needs to be explained is its absence. I suggest that for Adam Smith humans are intrinsically social and thus his starting point is cosmopolitanism. Given human natural sociability, part of Smith’s task is to explain the absence of cosmopolitanism, which he attributes to either dire living conditions or the ability of some special interest groups to affect public opinion to their benefits.

Maria Pia Paganelli is a professor of economics at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas. She is renowned for her specialization in the history of economic thought, particularly of the 18th century, with a deep focus on figures such as Adam Smith and David Hume. In her research, Paganelli examines the dynamics of self-interest in relation to institutional environments, behavioral economics, evolutionary biology, and neuroeconomics. She has contributed extensively to journals like History of Political Economy, The Journal of the History of Economic Thought, and History of Economic Ideas. Additionally, she authored the "Routledge Guidebook of Smith's Wealth of Nations" in 2020. Paganelli currently leads the International Adam Smith Society and serves as the president of the History of Economics Society.