The UK’s Queen Elizabeth used her Christmas Day speech to make a powerful plea for tolerance, referring to the Biblical story of the Good Samaritan.

It is a timeless story of a victim of a mugging who was ignored by his own countrymen but helped by a foreigner, and a despised foreigner at that. The implication drawn by Jesus is clear. Everyone is our neighbour, no matter what race, creed or colour. The need to look after a fellow human being is far more important than any cultural or religious differences.

Adam Smith makes a strikingly similar point in his Theory of Moral Sentiments.

How selfish soever man maybe supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortune of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it except the pleasure of seeing it. Of this kind is pity or compassion, the emotion which we feel for the misery of others, when we either see it, or are made to conceive it in a very lively manner.

Smith says that while we cannot feel the passions of others directly, we can imagine how we would respond in similar circumstances, and thus feel 'sympathy' with their plight. We might today use 'empathy.'

Some suppose this sits at odds with the pursuit of their own interest which features more prominently in The Wealth of Nations, but the two works are not contradictory. The ‘self-love’ referred to is not to be equated with selfishness, but takes its place under prudence as one of the virtues, alongside justice and benevolence. It consists in a proper regard for our preservation, he says.

To use self-interest as a guide in economic activity is both appropriate and efficient, but those who feel no compassion for their fellow humans seem less than fully human themselves.