Once More With Feeling:
The Scottish Enlightenment,
Sympathy, and Social
Welfare
Jonathan Hearn
Professor of Political and Historical Sociology
School of Social and Political Science
University of Edinburgh
Structure
• I. Rediscovering the sentimental Scots
• II. Examining sympathy
• III. Implications of social welfare
I. Rediscovering the
sentimental Scots
Bacon
• Empiricism
• Naturalism
• Causation
Hume
Smith
II. Examining sympathy
II. Examining sympathy
David Hume
II. Examining sympathy
• “The same principle produces, in many instances, our sentiments of
morals, as well as those of beauty. No virtue is more esteem’d than
justice, and no vice more detested than injustice; nor are there any
qualities, which go farther to the fixing of the character, either as
amiable or odious. Now justice is a moral virtue, merely because it
has that tendency to the moral good of mankind; and indeed, is
nothing but an artificial invention to that purpose. The same may be
said of allegiance, of the laws of nations, of modesty, and of good
manners. All of these are human contrivances for the interest of
society. And since there is a very strong sentiment of morals, which
has always attended them, we must allow, that the reflecting on the
tendency of characters and mental qualities, is sufficient to give us
the sentiments of approbation and blame. Now as the means to an
end can only be agreeable, where the end is agreeable; and as the
good of society, where our own interest is not concern’d, or that of
our friends, pleases only by sympathy: It follows that sympathy is the
source of the esteem, which we pay to all the artificial virtues”
(Hume 1978: 577).
II. Examining sympathy
• “How selfish soever man may be 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” (Smith 1984: 9).
II. Examining sympathy
Adam Smith
II. Examining sympathy
• Two further
issues:
• Propinquity
matters.
• The bias of
sympathy
III. Implications for social
welfare
• Social welfare then and
now
• ‘The culture of poverty’
• Social distance
• From social engineering
to the analysis of
sentiment?
References
•
Berry, Christopher J. (1997) Social Theory of the Scottish Enlightenment. Edinburgh: EUP.
•
Hume, David (1975) Enquiries Concerning Human Understanding and Concerning the Principles of
Morals, 3rd edn, P. H. Nidditch (ed.), Oxford: Oxford UP.
•
Hume, David (1978) A Treatise of Human Nature, 2nd edn, P. H. Nidditch (ed), Oxford: Oxford UP.
•
Lewis, Oscar (1966) ‘The Culture of Poverty’, Scientific American 215(4): 19-25.
•
Mounce, H. O. (1999) Hume’s Naturalism. London: Routledge.
•
Roberts, Russ (2014) How Adam Smith can Change Your Life. London: Penguin.
•
Sen, Amartya (2011) ‘Keynote Address: Uses and Abuses of Adam Smith’, History of Political
Economy 43:2.
•
Smith, Adam (1981) An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, 2 vols, R. H.
Campbell and A. S. Skinner (eds), Indianapolis: Liberty Fund.
•
Smith, Adam (1984) The Theory of Moral Sentiments, D. D Raphael and A. L. Macfie (eds),
Indianapolis: Liberty Fund.