The Theory of Moral Sentiments
Adam Smith, 2010
Adam Smith, 2010
Contents
First draft (1.1.1-2.2.1): 1/26/2022
Part one describes what it means to have feelings or passion. It lists the types of passions and describes how they vary. All this to lay out how we come to consider actions proper (virtuous and worthy of approbation) or improper (a vice worthy of disapprobation).
1.1.1 of sympathy. This chapter describes what gives rise to sympathy. The sources and circumstances. The exceptions and imperfections and extremities. Two examples are also covered in depth which include the mother’s sympathy with her ill infant and our general sympathy with the dead.
1.1.2 of the pleasure of mutual sympathy. This chapter is more advanced. It discusses the interaction between one’s feelings and the feelings of others. Sympathy, Smith says, enlivens joy and alleviates grief. A cool example here is that “we are even put out of humor if our companion laughs louder or longer at a joke than we think it deserves.”
1.1.3 of the manner in which we judge the propriety or impropriety of the affections of other men, by their concord or dissonance with our own. This chapter discusses how we feel about other people’s feelings. It describes how we perceive others are under or overreacting.
1.1.4 the same subject continued. Smith extends the previous discussion taking into account admiration and consolation. We admire feelings that we approve of when this approval is heightened by wonder and surprise. We console others who have met misfortune by forcing them to sympathize with our emotional distance. “The presence of a mere acquaintance will really compose us, still more than that of a friend.”
1.1.5 of the amiable and respectable virtues. With the distinction between feelings worthy of approval and feelings worthy of admiration thus described, Smith lays out what constitutes perfect and virtuous feelings. The most proper feelings are perfect but imperfect feelings can still be virtuous given human imperfection.
Human passions are perceived as decent only as a function of other people’s ability to sympathize with them.
1.2.1. Of the passions which take their origin from the body. Strong expressions of such passions as hunger and sex are disagreeable. Commanding such appetites is done only by the virtue of temperance. Other such passions include pain. Not expressing pain when it appears warranted to the spectator inspires in him admiration.
1.2.2. Of those passions which take their origin from a particular turn or habit of the imagination. This chapter is about love. The passion of love appears ridiculous to the spectator, but because it gives rise to secondary passions that others can sympathize with, and most of them are good, it appears less disagreeable than other passions.
1.2.3. Of the unsocial passions. This chapter is about hatred and resentment. These passions have some utility and can certainly inspire sympathy. They can also be admirable if they appear reluctant and as a consequence of repeated provocations.
1.2.4. Of the social passions. Generosity, humanity, kindness, passion, mutual friendship and esteem are the social passions that generally inspire approbation in a sympathetic spectator. Still, extreme kindness can inspire regret if not disapprobation if we deem it unfit for the world, making prey of the person who receives it.
1.2.5. Of the selfish passions. Selfish passions include grief and joy when expressed on account of one’s own private good or bad fortune. “We are generally most disposed to sympathize with small joys (habitual cheerfulness) and great sorrows.“
1.3.1. That though our sympathy with sorrow is generally a more lively sensation than our sympathy with joy, it commonly falls much more short of the violence of what is naturally felt the person principally concerned. This chapter reiterates statements made in 1.1.3 and 1.1.4.
1.3.2. Of the origin of ambition, and of the distinction of Ranks. Smith asks why we anxiously toil in the pursuit of wealth. Surely, material comfort is a driver, but being the object of attention, approbation, even envy are strong drivers too. "Scarce a word, scarce a gensture, can fall from him that is altogether neglected." Smith continues to point out that sympathy is more readily shared with people of higher rank beceause we romanticize the happiness we imagine they feel. We therefore also tend to seek their pleasure and do not tend to revolt and disturb any peace or order. Nobles are not held in high regard due to their justice or knowledge or judgement or heroic valor. Rather, they are esteemed due to their manners. People born to inferior ranks must not work on their manners lest they be considered pompous. Instead they must acquire knowledge, be patient in labor, resolute in danger, and firm in distress. They must acquire dependants to balance the dependants of the great. Men born into rank and distinction will not venture to pursue such risky things. Lastly, even pain or punishment can be honorable as long as it does not inspire the contempt of mankind or keeps his misery to himself. “Before a gay assembly, a gentleman would be more mortified to appear covered with filth and rags than with blood and wounds.”
1.3.3. Of the corruption of our moral sentiments, which is occasioned by this disposition to admire the rich and the great, and to despise or neglect persons of poor and mean condition. Vice and folly are unjustly bestowed upon poverty and weakness. Respect and admiration, typically due to wisdom and virtue, are given to wealth and greatness instead. When the rich make mistakes we forgive them but not so for the poor. With our admiration directed this way, the rich and the great dictate what is fashionable.
2.1.1. That whatever appears to be the proper object of gratitude, appears to deserve reward; and that, in the same manner, whatever appears to be the proper object of resentment, appears to deserve punishment. Actions that we consider as proper and approved objects of gratitude are actions that we like to reward. Actions that we like to punish on the other hand are ones we consider proper and approved objects of resentment.
2.1.2. Of the proper objects of gratitude and resentment. Of course, our consideration of whether objects are worthy of gratitude or resentment is affected by other people’s consideration. We sympathize with people’s joys and what makes them grateful just as we sympathize with their sorrows and what makes them resentful.
2.1.3. That when there is no approbation of the conduct of the person who confers the benefit, there is little sympathy with the gratitude of him who receives it: and that, on the contrary, when there is no disapprobation of the motives of the person who does the mischief, there is no sort of sympathy with the resentment of him who suffers it. We are pleased with sentiments that we readily adopt, be they sentiments of gratitude or resentment.
2.1.4. recapitulation of the foregoing chapters. We have to first sympathize with the person being affected by someone else’s actions to to feel what the former feels of gratitude or resentment. Not just because someone is grateful or resentful must we feel the same way as they do.
2.1.5. The analysis of the sense of merit and demerit. Our sense of merit and demerit are compound sentiments. To consider an action worthy of merit, we must sympathize with the sentiments of the actor and with the gratitude of the person acted upon (the benefactor). To consider an action worthy of demerit in contrast, we must disapprove of the actions of the actor while sympathizing with the resentment of the person acted upon (the sufferer).
In a long footnote, Smith considers extreme resentment as revenge which spectators will naturally disapprove of. Smith highlights that these chapters do not cover what is right or wrong but instead how man deems things as right or wrong. He also considers how the great Director or Author of nature endowed mankind with a desire of the welfare and preservation of society not via reason but by instinct.
2.2.1. Comparison of those two Virtues. TBC...