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 self-interest? 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 self-deceit

• 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 common-

sensical, 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?