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Adam SmithThe Theory of Moral Sentiments
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1759A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
Sympathy and the Nature of Virtue
The concept of sympathy holds the key to Smith’s entire theory of moral sentiments. It represents a middle ground between Francis Hutcheson’s “moral sense” and David Hume’s self-interest. It does not go as far as Hutcheson in positing the existence of a natural force, akin to the known physical senses, by which human beings perceive the good and then act with benevolence. It does, however, preserve Hutcheson’s insistence that our moral sentiments originate in something natural—that they are not mere calculations of self-interest.
Smith defines sympathy as “fellow-feeling with any passion whatever” (19). It is a broad yet accurate definition that encompasses more than simple condolences. In fact, sympathy is how we take any interest in the ideas and actions of others. We take pleasure in discovering that others sympathize with us, meaning their sentiments agree with our own. When we laugh at the same jokes or enjoy the same stories, we sympathize. In short, “[t]o approve of the passions of another […] as suitable to their objects, is the same thing as to observe that we entirely sympathize with them” (25). Furthermore, “the effect of sympathy is instantaneous” (31), which means it cannot be the result of reasoned calculations.
If sympathy explains our interest in the ideas and actions of others, if we take pleasure in finding that others share our sentiments (and are mortified when they do not), and if the effect of sympathy is instantaneous, then might this natural instinct also constitute the source of our moral judgments? Smith believes it does. Gratitude and resentment, for instance, are the feelings from which we assign merit or demerit to others’ conduct. Put simply, if I am grateful to you, then I approve of your conduct. Sympathy allows us to feel a measure of gratitude or resentment even when that conduct is not directed toward us. Thus, the man
appears to deserve reward, who, to some person or persons, is the natural object of a gratitude which every human heart is disposed to beat time to, and thereby applaud: and he, on the other hand, appears to deserve punishment, who in the same manner is to some person or persons the natural object of a resentment which the breast of every reasonable man is ready to adopt and sympathize with (73).
The nature of virtue—what it is and what makes human beings approve of it—has occupied moral philosophers since antiquity. Sympathy, in Smith’s view, is a prerequisite to virtuous behavior. Indeed, “[t]he man of the most perfect virtue […] is he who joins, to the most perfect command of his own original and selfish feelings, the most exquisite sensibility both to the original and sympathetic feelings of others” (143). This quotation represents the fusion of Hutcheson’s moral sense and Hume’s self-interest in Smith’s concept of sympathy.
Although Smith accommodates and, in some ways, even advances Hume’s argument for self-interest as the wellspring of human motives and therefore of human behavior, Smith rejects the idea that our moral judgments originate in self-love. When a man loses a child, the childless man who consoles him does so not because the childless man imagines how he would feel in that tragic event but because the childless man imagines how he would feel if he were to trade places with the grieving father. In this case, the childless man’s grief is “entirely” for the father and “not in the least” for himself (292). “Sympathy,” therefore, “cannot in any sense be regarded as a selfish principle” (291).
The Impartial Spectator
If sympathy denotes the natural process by which we form our moral judgments, then the impartial spectator represents the actual judge. When the impartial spectator resides inside of us, acting as a kind of conscience, Smith calls this the “inhabitant of the breast,” or “the man within,” or something of the like (129). This conscience, though natural in its origins and instantaneous in its effects, does not resemble any of the known senses. It is a product of our encounters with other people.
When we naturally approve of others’ ideas or behavior, we sympathize with them. In turn, we naturally desire their sympathy. When this happens, they become the actual spectators of our conduct, of whose presence we are constantly aware. When those actual spectators are no longer present, their capacity for (and perhaps eventual real) judgment remains, and they become to us a kind of imagined spectator. The “control of our passive feelings must be acquired,” therefore, “from that great discipline which Nature has established for the acquisition of this and every other virtue: a regard to the sentiments of the real or supposed spectator of our conduct” (136).
Our selfish passions are powerful, as David Hume insisted, and excessive solitude makes us “feel too strongly whatever relates to ourselves,” in which case the “man within the breast, the abstract and ideal spectator of our sentiments and conduct, requires often to be awakened and put in mind of his duty, by the presence of the real spectator” (144). The presence of others, real or imagined, who do not feel what we feel, at least not with the intensity at which we feel it, is essential to the control of our own behavior. Indeed, “[t]he propriety of our moral sentiments is never so apt to be corrupted, as when the indulgent and partial spectator is at hand, while the indifferent and impartial one is at a great distance” (145).
Smith concludes that all virtuous behavior occurs with the impartial spectator in mind. The man “who governs his whole behavior and conduct according to those restrained and corrected emotions […] is alone the real man of virtue, the only real and proper object of love, respect, and admiration” (227). Furthermore, Nature has ensured that such restraint meets with our approval, for the “degree” of every “emotion, passion, and habit” that the impartial spectator finds “most agreeable” also happens to be “most agreeable to the person himself” (243). Not even the ancient philosophers understood the connection between virtue and the impartial spectator. Plato, Aristotle, and Zeno (the founder of Stoicism) located virtue in propriety, but they gave “no distinct measure by which this fitness or propriety of affection can be ascertained and judged of”—a measure that Smith argues “can be found nowhere but in the sympathetic feelings of the impartial and well-informed spectator” (270).
God’s Design, Wisdom, and Benevolence
Given his emphasis on sympathy and the impartial spectator as natural phenomena that help us restrain our selfish passions and guide us toward the virtuous, Smith’s entire moral philosophy would be incomprehensible apart from his belief in an all-wise and benevolent God. In punishment and reward, in the general rules of morality, and in the very concept of universal benevolence, Smith frequently recurs to his faith in God’s design.
Harmful actions often follow from harmful thoughts, but not all harmful thoughts result in harmful actions. Hence actions “are by the author of nature rendered the only proper and approved objects of human punishment and resentment,” while thoughts and feelings “are placed by the great Judge of hearts beyond the limits of every human jurisdiction,” proving that “every part of nature […] demonstrates the providential care of its Author” (106). Every attempt to punish thoughts and feelings, expressed in speech or merely suspected by presumptuous inquisitors, constitutes “the most insolent and barbarous tyranny” (107). Likewise, when the actual spectators of our conduct have reached harsh and erroneous conclusions, when we have been judged unfairly in the mortal world, our “only effectual consolation […] lies in an appeal to a still higher tribunal,” meaning God, who cannot be swayed by deception or manipulation (125). In this and many other instances, “happiness in this life is […] dependent upon the humble hope and expectation of a life to come” (126).
As for the “general rules of conduct,” here God’s design is unmistakable (152). From childhood, we learn to behave in accordance with the rules we observe. These rules acquire a “reverence […] first impressed by nature,” later “confirmed by reasoning” and “sanctified by a belief that they are the commands and laws of the Deity, who will finally reward the obedient, and punish the transgressors of their duty” (153-54). The rules exist not for sport but to guide “our conduct in this life” (154). Having originated in God’s design, their lawfulness is “promulgated by those vice-regents which he has thus set up within us” (155).
Finally, cognizance of God’s design allows us to focus our energies on those worldly concerns that are most near to us and thereby affect us most directly. This is not the same thing as acting purely from self-interest. Rather, it reflects a “magnanimous resignation to the will of the great Director of the universe” (219) and an understanding that the “administration of the great system of the universe […] is the business of God and not of man” (220). The tendency to conflate proper spheres of activity and influence represents Smith’s primary critique of Stoic philosophy, which “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, the department of the great Superintendent of the universe” (269).
