The Theory of Moral Sentiments

In response to the first question established above—“wherein does virtue consist?”—moral philosophers throughout history have cited propriety, prudence, benevolence, or some other factor. Smith examines each of these in the ensuing four chapters.

The list of moral philosophers for whom virtue consists in propriety includes Plato, Aristotle, and Zeno. For Plato, virtue occurred when “three different parts of our nature,” a mixture of reason and passions, “were in perfect concord with one another” (248-49). Aristotle saw virtue as “a kind of middle between two opposite vices,” or as “a habit of moderation” (251).

Smith devotes the bulk of this chapter to Zeno, in particular to the ancient “Stoical doctrine” Zeno founded (252). Zeno touted “that perfect rectitude of conduct which constituted the essence of virtue” and in this sense was “not very different” from Aristotle and others (253). The Stoics, however, insisted that man must attempt to view the universe from God’s perspective, to “enter into the sentiments of” God, at which point “all the events of human life must be in a great measure indifferent” (255). Hence, the Stoics regarded even suicide as “a matter of the most serious and important deliberation,” but one that, under certain circumstances, might be proper (259). Following an extended review of suicide’s history among the ancients, Smith concludes that “[t]he plan and system which Nature has sketched out for our conduct, seems to be altogether different from that of the Stoical philosophy” (268), largely because the Stoical philosophy “teaches us to interest ourselves earnestly and anxiously in no events […] except in those which concern a department where we neither have nor ought to have any sort of management or direction,” i.e., the will of God (269).

Epicurus’s ancient system makes virtue consist in prudence. Achieving bodily pleasure and avoiding bodily pain are, according to Epicurus, the “sole ultimate objects of natural desire and aversion” (271). Pleasure, however, often comes with a cost, and sometimes the cost is heavy enough to unsettle the mind. The “most perfect state of human nature,” therefore, consists in “ease of body” and “security or tranquillity [sic] of mind” (272). Prudent behavior helps establish this “perfect state.” For this reason—for its “utility” (273)—prudence is the most important of all Epicurean virtues. Even an act of justice “is no more than discreet and prudent conduct with regard to our neighbors” (273). Smith deems the Epicurean system “altogether inconsistent with that which I have been endeavoring to establish” (274).

The idea that virtue consists in benevolence dates to antiquity, but its “soberest and most judicious” exponent was Smith’s contemporary, Dr. Francis Hutcheson (277). Author of the highly influential “moral sense” theory, Hutchison believed that “virtue must consist in pure and disinterested benevolence alone” (277-78). Self-love, or the “comfortable applause of our own consciences,” in Hutcheson’s view, “diminished the merit of a benevolent action” (279). Smith expresses great respect for Hutcheson, but he also concludes that Hutcheson’s system suffers from the “defect, of not sufficiently explaining from whence arises our approbation of the inferior virtues of prudence, vigilance, circumspection, temperance, constancy, firmness” (279).

Smith examines the “pernicious” system of Dr. Bernard Mandeville (283). According to Smith, Mandeville’s Fable of the Bees (1706) made no distinction between virtue and vice. In Mandeville’s account, “whatever is done from a sense of propriety” is actually “being done from a love of praise and commendation,” or from vanity (283). Smith objects to Mandeville’s cynical conclusion, not because Smith believes that actions undertaken from a sense of propriety are always free from the motive of self-love but because self-love, in Smith’s view, “may frequently be a virtuous motive of action,” for “the desire of doing what is honorable and noble […] cannot with any propriety be called vanity” (284). Indeed, Mandeville’s mistake is representing “every passion as wholly vicious” and thereby treating “everything as vanity, which has any reference, either to what are, or to what ought to be the sentiments of others” (287).

In response to the second question established at the beginning of Part 7—“by what power or faculty in the mind is it” that the virtuous character “is recommended to us?”—moral philosophers throughout history have cited self-love, reason, or sentiment. Smith examines each of these in the ensuing three chapters. Notably, he regards the answer to this second question as “a mere matter of philosophical curiosity” (289-90).

Sir Thomas Hobbes deduced the principle of approbation from self-love. The problem with Hobbes, Mandeville, and others of their ilk is that they fail to understand the role of sympathy, which “cannot, in any sense, be regarded as a selfish principle” (293). Hence, their “whole account of human nature,” focused so exclusively on “self-love,” appears “to have arisen from some confused misapprehension of the system of sympathy” (292).

The systems that identify reason as the principle of approbation include various responses to Sir Thomas Hobbes and his followers. Hobbes’s 17th-century doctrine, which Smith deemed “offensive to all sound moralists,” posited “no natural distinction between right and wrong” (292-93). Those who cited reason as the source of approbation did so in large part “to confute so odious a doctrine” as Hobbes’s (293). However, Smith concludes that “though reason is undoubtedly the source of the general rules of morality,” it is nonetheless “absurd and unintelligible to suppose that the first perceptions of right and wrong can be derived from reason” rather than from “immediate sense and feeling” (294).

Of the systems that make sentiment the principle of approbation, Dr. Francis Hutcheson’s “moral sense” has been most influential (295). Here, Smith concurs with Hutcheson’s assertions that approbation cannot originate in self-love or reason. Hutcheson’s “moral sense,” however, which Smith describes as “a peculiar power of perception, somewhat analogous to the external senses” (296-97), appears objectionable, partly because our approbation is more like an emotion than a known sense. On the whole, Smith objects not only to the moral sense but also to “every account of the principle of approbation, which makes it depend on a peculiar sentiment, distinct from every other” (300).

In Part 3, Chapter 6, Smith compared the rules of justice, “precise and accurate,” to those of grammar, and the rules of all other virtues, “loose, vague, and indeterminate,” to “those which critics lay down for the attainment of what is sublime and elegant in composition” (301). Here, Smith identifies two sets of authors who have attempted to organize the rules of morality. The first set of authors has applied the “loose method” that Smith deems appropriate. This set includes “all the ancient moralists” (301).

The second set of authors “endeavor to lay down exact and precise rules for the direction of every circumstance of our behavior” (303). Smith divides this second set into two distinct groups: 17th- and 18th-century philosophers of “natural jurisprudence,” and “the casuists of the middle and latter ages of the Christian church” (303). Philosophers of jurisprudence concern themselves only with what the law might demand in the name of justice. Casuists observe no such limits on the rules they devise. To illustrate the difference between the two, Smith presents the contentious example of a highwayman (robber) who uses the threat of force to compel a traveler (victim) to promise to pay him a certain sum. If the traveler, under threat of force, does promise to pay, is the traveler then obliged to do so? Philosophers of jurisprudence would consider the question “absurd” and answer in the negative, whereas casuists, citing the sanctity of a promise, might conclude that the obligation stands (304).

Having established the difference between “loose method” and “precise rules” moralists, and having further divided the “precise rules” moralists into philosophers of jurisprudence and casuists, Smith proceeds to unravel the history and substance of casuist thought, which he ultimately rejects.

Casuist doctrine does not confine itself to general rules of justice but instead “embraces many other parts of Christian and moral duty” (307). This appears to have originated with the “custom of auricular confession” sanctioned by “Roman Catholic superstition,” whereby “the thoughts of every person, which could be suspected receding in the smallest degree from the rules of Christian purity, were to be revealed to the confessor” and a “numerous and artful clergy” had “insinuated themselves into the confidence of almost every private family” (307). Three different types of moral transgressions “came before the tribunal of the confessor” and thereby “fell under the cognizance of the casuists”: transgressions against the rules of justice, of chastity, and of veracity (308-09). Having already argued that only the rules of justice allow for exactness and precision, Smith naturally criticizes casuist efforts to impose exactness and precision upon other virtues. Smith concludes that the casuists “attempted, to no purpose, to direct by precise rules what it belongs to feeling and sentiment only to judge of” (312). In short, “casuistry ought to be rejected altogether” (313).