Constrained and Unconstrained Vision

«Wheres in Adam Smith moral and socially beneficial behavior could be evoked froma man only by incentives, in William Godwin man's understanding and disposition were capable of intentionally creating social benefits. Godwin regarded the intention to benefit others as being "of the essence of virtue", and virtue in turn as being the road to human happiness. Unintentional social benefits were treated by Godwin as scarcely worthy of notice. His was the unconstrained vision of human nature, in which mas was capable of directly feeling other people's needs as more important than his own, and therefore of consistently acting impartially, even when his own interests or those of his family were involved. This was not meant as an empirical generalization about the way most people currently behaved. It was meant as a statement of the underlying nature of human potential.
Conceding current egocentric behavior did not imply that it was a permanent feature of human nature, as human nature was conceived in the unconstrained vision. Godwin said: "Men are capable, no doubt, of preferring an inferior interest of their own to a superior interest of others; but this preferrence arises from a combination of circumstances and is not the necessary and invariable law of our nature." Godwin referred to "men as they hereafter may be made," in contrast to Burke's view: "We cannot change the Nature of thins and of men - but must act upon them the best we can".»

Thomas Sowell, A Conflict of Visions