Adam Smith
The Theory of Moral Sentiments
Introduction
• Why are we studying Smith: what can
someone who died over 200 years ago have
to say to us?
• Links to this course: what are we all up to
this semester, last semester?
– Last semester: an introduction to the social
world by examining concrete issues, centering
around poverty
– This semester: focus on how people think
about the social world
– “Race for the Double Helix”, “On Being a
Scientist”; as ways of talking about how
science is done, and stressing its social
dimensions
– Kuhn, and The Structure of Scientific
Revolutions; the notions of paradigm and
scientific revolution, to help us understand what
it is we can say about the social world
– “Groupthink”, as a way to help us understand
human conduct as it occurs in small groups
– Metaphors We Live By; a way to understand
that, in large part, we communicate by
metaphor; it is a major way in which we
provide order for society
– Metaphor and story (along with facts and logic)
as ways of imposing order on what we see
happening around us: that is, as ways of doing
science
Smith and This Framework
• The social world as
– Human conduct and behavior, as
• Individuals
• Groups
– A set of events, processes, organizations, and
rules of conduct that humans generate
• Niels Bohr: “It is wrong to think that the
task of physics is to find out how nature is.
Physics concerns what we can say about
nature. . . . We are suspended in language .
. . The word ‘reality’ is also a word, a word
we must learn to use correctly.”
• Smith, and
– His use of rhetoric to talk about the social
world
– His use of metaphor in thinking about the social
world
– As providing a new paradigm
– As an “exemplar”
• As part of a long-standing conversation
about the social world:
– What’s society like?
– Where did it come from?
– Where is it going?
• More specifically: How is human society
possible if the individuals comprising
society make decisions based on selfinterest? Is it possible to reconcile
individual, social interests?
• Theory of Moral Sentiments: approaches
this question from the perspectives of
psychology, ethics
• Why read the original?
– People make many claims about what Smith
said; are those claims correct?
– “Seeing the struggle”
Some Background
• The Eighteenth Century “Climate of
Opinion”: Newton’s influence
• Smith, and doing for the social world what
Newton did for the natural world:
– Why order, not chaos?
– Is there an underlying principle (Newton, and
gravity) and a story connecting that principle
with what we see around us?
• Hume, Hutcheson, and the Scottish
Enlightenment
• Reaction against Hobbes
• Ancient philosophy, especially the Stoics
• Smith’s project: a comprehensive social
science
• The Theory of Moral Sentiments as fitting
into this project: provides
– A psychology
– An ethical framework
– A way to help us understand the evolution of
institutions
Smith and Human Nature
• Following Aristotle and many others:
Humans are meant to live in society
• Concern for what’s virtuous: how do we
determine the propriety of an action?
– Motives
– Consequences
– Locus in agent, recipient of action
• Goal: Find the basis for ethical judgments
in human psychology
• Begin with idea of propensities (tendencies;
dispositions; sentiments) to act in certain
ways if placed in certain situations
• Generates an ethic: Smith sees moral
feelings as a sufficient basis for moral
judgments
• That is: we judge an action as wrong when
we have a feeling of disapproval when we
consider that action
• We might say: humans construct society on
the basis of some kind of moral philosophy
• The idea of propriety
– Smith’s way of talking about whether or not an
action is “right”
– In judging propriety we judge the
appropriateness of the motives for the action to
the agent’s (actor’s) situation
• The motive as a sentiment-a feeling: anger; love;
gratitude
• Why feel this sentiment? Because of something in
the situation
• Was the anger (for example) proportionate to the
provocation? And how do we decide?
• We imagine
– Being in the same situation
– What my reaction would be
• Thus, we
– Approve another’s action if it is one with which we can
sympathize
– Do not approve if we can not “enter into” the feelings
motivating the act
• This helps us understand Smith’s idea of
sympathy, as a way of understanding how
humans make moral judgements
– Is it equivalent to “I feel your pain”?
– A sense of “fellow-feeling”
– Importance of imagination: Putting ourselves
in the place of another
– Or: Entering into another point of view
– Continued stress on humans as social;
sympathy as a social act: If we can’t
sympathize with one another, we can’t live
together
• This is a way to judge the actions of others;
How do we judge our own actions?
– Begin again with certain tendencies of human
nature:
• To want others to feel toward us in a way consistent
with the way we feel about ourselves
• To want to be worthy of approval by others
– We can feel the motivating feeling for the
action
– Could another person (specifically: could an
impartial spectator ) go along with this feeling?
– That is: someone
• Well-informed about the situation
• But not related in any particular way to any of the
persons in this situation
– So: I can approve of my act if the Impartial
Spectator can sympathize with the feelings
motivating my action
– I must disapprove of my act if the Impartial
Spectator can not sympathize with the feelings
motivating my action
– To decide whether the Impartial Spectator
would approve, what must I do?
• Imagine myself in the Spectator’s place
• Then imagine myself (as the Spectator) imagining
the agent’s (that is, my own!) feelings
• Then decide whether this Spectator (this imaginary
person) could enter into those (that is, my) feelings.
• Robert Burns, and “To a Louse”
– What’s required here?
• Adequate knowledge of the situation of the actor
• Impartiality; fairness; detachment; as the perspective
for judgment
• Sympathy
• Imagination
– These judgments always have a social reference
• What else can we say about the notion of
the Impartial Spectator?
– Is it the same as conscience? Smith says no;
rather, is a way to explain where conscience
might come from
• We come to judge our own conduct by imagining
whether an impartial spectator would approve or
disapprove of it
• That is: conscience is a social product; a mirror of
social feeling
• Helps understand how conscience might be formed
• Basis in our desire to be thought to be praiseworthy
– Is it the same as social norms? Maybe not:
• Not an actual bystander
• Rather: myself, but in the character of an imagined
spectator
• The person within (the Impartial Spectator) may
judge differently from the person without (the actual
spectator)
– Linked to
• Existence of imagination
• Our social situation
– Do we need to appeal to some higher, or
external, standard in judging someone’s
motives? Smith says no:
• No higher principles by which we can correct a
perception: there are only other perceptions
• No independent, abstract standard of propriety
• We can only ask: would a well-informed, impartial
human feel the same way?
– So: Moral judgments the product of interaction
of
• Human faculties
• The social environment
– That is, morality is natural: a part of human
nature, being anchored in the moral sentiments
– As well as being social: moral judgments can
be rendered only by taking on the other’s point
of view
Moral Rules
• Will the Impartial Spectator be sufficient to
assure moral conduct; to guarantee that
society doesn’t degenerate into the “war of
all against all”?
• Potential problem: Hard to judge our own
actions impartially! The existence of selfdeceit
• How to proceed? Role for, importance of,
moral rules
– Rules as generalizations based on our attempts
to sympathize with particular actions
– That is: based on experience of what, in
particular instances, our moral faculties . . .
approve or disapprove of
– A role here for reason
– Moral rules formed by experience: that all
actions of a certain kind are (dis-)approved of.
– And they are supported by habit; education; and
the state, by providing justice
• Why obey such rules?
– Our desire to be praiseworthy
– Threat of God’s punishment
On Virtue
• Why be virtuous? Concern for the approval
of others
• From society’s point of view: virtue as
limiting the pursuit of self-interest
• Again: goal is to find a basis for ethical
judgments in human psychology
• What’s virtue? Smith considers several
dimensions:
–
–
–
–
Prudence
Benevolence
Justice
Self-command
• Morality requires a balance among these
dimensions
• Prudence
– Practical wisdom: the ability to make the right
decision in particular situations
– Basic concern: our own happiness
– Self-love; achieving the necessary conditions
for self-preservation: food; clothing; shelter
– The strongest motive
• Benevolence
– Concern for the happiness of others
– The highest motive of human behavior
– An “ . . . ornament embellishing the building
...“
– How far does benevolence extend: can we rely
on it for virtuous action? The orders of concern
• Justice
– Prudence, benevolence as necessary but not
sufficient conditions for achieving human
virtue
– Why? Humans as potentially unruly; must be
held within bounds (the Hobbesian problem)
– The most important rules of behavior for social
order, stability
– Point: Unclear that society can emerge from
humans acting on principle of self-love
– What problems arise as we move from the
individual to small groups to large groups (civil
society)?
– Justice as society’s means of self-defense
against opportunistic behavior; a way to make
sure the race is fair
• Self-Command
– We may think of this as strength of character
– One of the Stoic virtues
– Smith’s way to talk about how the Impartial
Spectator’s judgments are to be enforced
– Generated by the sense of propriety, under the
guidance of the Impartial Spectator
– That is: the Impartial Spectator creates the
respect for other people that prevents our own
intemperate behavior
In the End . . .
• Can self-interest be worthy of moral
approval?
– Frugality often approved of
– The “watch passage”, and the “unanticipated
consequences of purposive individual action”:
the Invisible Hand at work
• Existence of a Design
– The Newtonian paradigm applied to the social
world; sympathy replacing gravity as the
organizing principle
– The machine metaphor
– A scientific study of morality; a commonsensical, accessible analysis; a realistic view of
human nature
• The Enlightenment project
– Knowledge accessible through observation,
human reason
– Not just from received doctrine
• Reconciliation of private, common good
– Is benevolence enough? Human frailty and the
failure to realize the Design
– Theory of Moral Sentiments as a guide for
approximating the Design: a second-best
solution
• Role for government: Does Nature generate
social harmony?
– Necessity for rules, and the state
• To create, preserve order in human interactions
• Factional interests could interfere with the operation
of the invisible hand
– How do such rules/institutions evolve? “Moral
sentiments as having adaptive significance”
– Associated dangers: can we construct a
planned utopia?