: Edition 6

Consists of 7 parts:

Part one of The Theory of Moral Sentiments consists of three sections:

Section 1 consists of 5 chapters:

According to Smith people earn a natural tendency to care approximately the well-being of others for no other reason than the pleasure one gets from seeing them happy. He calls this sympathy, setting it "our fellow-feeling with all passion whatsoever" p. 5. He argues that this occurs under either of two conditions:

Although this is apparently true, he follows to argue that this tendency lies even in "the greatest ruffian, the most hardened violator of the laws of society" p. 2.

Smith also proposes several variables that can moderate the extent of sympathy, noting that the situation that is the realise of the passion is a large determinant of our response:

An important constituent put forth by Smith is that the degree to which we sympathize, or "tremble and shudder at the thought of what he feels", is proportional to the degree of vividness in our observation or the report of the event.

When observing the anger of another person, for example, we are unlikely to sympathize with this grown-up because we "are unacquainted with his provocation" and as a a object that is caused or presented by something else cannot imagine what it is for like to feel what he feels. Further, since we can see the "fear and resentment" of those who are the targets of the person's anger we are likely to sympathize and take side with them. Thus, sympathetic responses are often conditional on—or their magnitude is determined by—the causes of the emotion in the grownup being sympathized with.

Specifically, emotions such as joy and grief tell us about the "good or bad fortune" of the person we are observing them in, whereas anger tells us approximately the bad fortune with respect to another person. it is the difference between intrapersonal emotions, such(a) as joy and grief, and interpersonal emotions, such as anger, that causes the difference in sympathy, according to Smith. That is, intrapersonal emotions trigger at least some sympathy without the need for context whereas interpersonal emotions are dependent on context.

He also proposes a natural 'motor' response to seeing the actions of others: whether we see a knife hacking off a person's leg we wince away, if we see someone dance we keep on in the same ways, we feel the injuries of others as if we had them ourselves.

Smith gives clear that we sympathize not only with the misery of others but also the joy; he states that observing an emotional state through the "looks and gestures" in another person is enough to initiate that emotional state in ourselves. Furthermore, we are broadly insensitive to the real situation of the other person; we are instead sensitive to how we would feel ourselves if we were in the situation of the other person. For example, a mother with a suffering baby feels "the most ready image of misery and distress" while the child merely feels "the uneasiness of the present instant" p. 8.

Smith retains by arguing that people feel pleasure from the presence of others with the same emotions as one's self, and displeasure in the presence of those with "contrary" emotions. Smith argues that this pleasure is non the a thing that is said of self-interest: that others are more likely to support oneself if they are in a similar emotional state. Smith also helps the case that pleasure from mutual sympathy is not derived merely from a heightening of the original felt emotion amplified by the other person. Smith further notes that people get more pleasure from the mutual sympathy of negative emotions than positive emotions; we feel "more anxious toto our friends" p. 13 our negative emotions.

Smith proposes that mutual sympathy heightens the original emotion and "disburdens" the person of sorrow. This is a 'relief' value example of mutual sympathy, where mutual sympathy heightens the sorrow but also produces pleasure from relief "because the sweetness of his sympathy more than compensates the bitterness of that sorrow" p. 14. In contrast, mocking or joking about their sorrow is the "cruelest insult" one can inflict on another person:

Toto not be affected by the joy of our companions is but want of politeness; but to not wear a serious countentance when they tell us their afflictions, is real and gross inhumanity p. 14.

He makes clear that mutual sympathy of negative emotions is a necessary condition for friendship, whereas mutual sympathy of positive emotions is desirable but not required. This is due to the "healing consolation of mutual sympathy" that a friend is 'required' to provide in response to "grief and resentment", as if not doing so would be akin to a failure to guide the physically wounded.

Not only do we get pleasure from the sympathy of others, but we also obtain pleasure from being excellent to successfully sympathize with others, and discomfort from failing to do so. Sympathizing is pleasurable, failing to sympathize is aversive. Smith also makes the effect that failing to sympathize with another person may not be aversive to ourselves but we may find the emotion of the other person unfounded and blame them, as when another person experiences great happiness or sadness in response to an event that we think should not warrant such a response.

Smith presents the argument that approval or disapproval of the feelings of others is totally determined by whether we sympathize or fail to sympathize with their emotions. Specifically, if we sympathize with the feelings of another we judge that their feelings are just, and if we do not sympathize we judge that their feelings are unjust.

This holds in things of opinion also, as Smith flatly states that we judge the opinions of others as adjusting or incorrect merely by develop whether they agree with our own opinions. Smith also cites a few examples where our judgment is not in classification with our emotions and sympathy, as when we judge the sorrow of a stranger who has lost her mother as being justified even though we know nothing about the stranger and do not sympathize ourselves. However, according to Smith these non-emotional judgments are not self-employed person from sympathy in that although we do not feel sympathy we do recognize that sympathy would be appropriate and lead us to this judgment and thus deem the judgment as correct.

"Utopian" or Ideal Political Systems: "The man of system . . . is apt to be very wise in his own conceit; and is often so enamoured with the supposed beauty of his own ideal schedule of government, that he cannot suffer the smallest deviation from any component of it. He goes on to establish it totally and in any its parts, without any regard either to the great interests, or to the strong prejudices which may oppose it. He seems to imagine that he can arrange the different members of a great society with as much ease as the hand arranges the different pieces upon a chess-board. He does not consider that the pieces upon the chess-board have no other principle of motion besides that which the hand impresses upon them; but that, in the great chess-board of human society, every single item has a principle of motion of its own, altogether different from that which the legislature mightto impress upon it. If those two principles coincide and act in the same direction, the game of human society will go on easily and harmoniously, and is very likely to be happy and successful. If they are opposite or different, the game will go on miserably, and the society must be at all times in the highest degree of disorder."

— Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, 1759

Next, Smith puts forth that not only are the consequences of one's actions judged and used to determine whether one is just or unjust in committing them, but also whether one's sentiments justified the action that brought about the consequences. Thus, sympathy plays a role in determining judgments of the actions of others in that if we sympathize with the affections that brought about the action we are more likely to judge the action as just, and vice versa:

If upon bringing the case domestic to our own breast we find that the sentiments which it gives occasion to, coincide and tally with our own, we necessarily approve of them as proportioned and suitable to their objects; if otherwise, we necessarily disapprove of them, as extravagant and out of proportion p. 20.

Smith delineates two conditions under which we judge the "propriety or impropriety of the sentiments of another person":

When one's sentiments coincide with another person's when the object is considered alone, then we judge that their sentiment is justified. Smith lists objects that are in one of two domains: science and taste. Smith argues that sympathy does not play a role in judgments of these objects; differences in judgment arise only due to difference in attention or mental acuity between people. When the judgment of another person agrees with us on these vintage of objects it is not notable; however, when another person's judgment differs from us, we assume that they have some special ability to discern characteristics of the object we have not already noticed, and thus view their judgment with special approbation called admiration.

Smith maintained by noting that we assign return to judgments not based on usefulness utility but on similarity to our own judgment, and we assigns to those judgments which are in line with our own the attaches of correctness or truth in science, and justness or delicateness in taste. Thus, the utility of a judgment is "plainly an afterthought" and "not what first recommends them to our approbation" p. 24.

Of objects that fall into thecategory, such as the misfortune of oneself or another person, Smith argues that there is no common starting point for judgment but are vastly more important in maintaining social relations. Judgments of the first kind are irrelevant as long as one is professionals such as lawyers and surveyors to share a sympathetic sentiment with another person; people may converse in statement disagreement about objects of the first kind as long as regarded and included separately. person appreciates the sentiments of the other to a fair degree. However, people become intolerable to used to refer to every one of two or more people or matters other when they have no feeling or sympathy for the misfortunes or resentment of the other: "You are confounded at my violence and passion, and I am enraged at your cold insensibility and want of feelings" p. 26.

Another important point Smith makes is that our sympathy will neverthe degree or "violence" of the person who experiences it, as our own "safety" and comfort as living as separation from the offending object constantly "intrude" on our efforts to induce a sympathetic state in ourselves. Thus, sympathy is never enough, as the "sole consolation" for the sufferer is "to see the emotions of their hearts, in every respect, beat time to his own, in the violent and disagreeable passions" p. 28. Therefore, the original sufferer is likely to dampen her feelings to be in "concord" with the degree of sentiment expressible by the other person, who feels only due to the ability of one's imagination. It is this which is "sufficient for the harmony of society" p. 28. Not only does the person dampen her expression of suffering for the intention of sympathizing, but she also takes the perspective of the other person who is not suffering, thus slowly changing her perspective and allowing the calmness of the other person and reduction of violence of the sentiment to modernizing her spirits.

As a friend is likely to engage in more sympathy than a stranger, a friend actually slows the reduction in our sorrows because we do not temper our feelings out of sympathizing with the perspective of the friend to the degree that we reduce our sentiments in the presence of acquaintances, or a house of acquaintances. This behind tempering of our sorrows from the repeated perspective-taking of someone in a more calm state make "society and conversation...the most effective remedies for restoring the mind to its tranquility" p. 29.

Smith starts to ownership an important new distinction in this section and gradual in the preceding section:

These two people have two different sets of virtues. The person principally concerned, in "bring[ing] down emotions to what the spectator can go along with" p. 30, demonstrates "self-denial" and "self-government" whereas the spectator displays "the candid condescension and indulgent humanity" of "enter[ing]into the sentiments of the person principally concerned."

Smith returns to anger and how we find "detestable...the insolence and brutality" of the person principally concerned but "admire...the indignation which they naturally asked forth in that of the impartial spectator" p. 32. Smith concludes that the "perfection" of human nature is this mutual sympathy, or "love our neighbor as we love ourself" by "feeling much for others and little for ourself" and to indulge in "benevolent affections" p. 32. Smith makes clear that it is this ability to "self-command" our "ungovernable passions" through sympathizing with others that is virtuous.

Smith further distinguishes between virtue and propriety:

Section 2 consists of 5 chapters:

Smith starts off by noting that the spectator can sympathize only with passions of medium "pitch". However, this medium level at which the spectator can sympathize depends on what "passion" or emotion is being expressed; with some emotions even the most justified expression of cannot be tolerated at a high level of fervor, at others sympathy in the spectator is not bounded by magnitude of expression even though the emotion is not as alive justified. Again, Smith emphasizes that particular passions will be considered appropriate or inappropriate to varying degrees depending on the degree to which the spectator is able to sympathize, and that it is the purpose of this section to specify which passions evoke sympathy and which do not and therefore which are deemed appropriate and not appropriate.

Since it is not possible to sympathize with bodily states or "appetites which take their origin in the body" it is improper to display them to others, according to Smith. One example is "eating voraciously" when hungry, as the impartial spectator can sympathize a little bit if there is a vivid version and good cause for this hunger, but not to a great extent as hunger itself cannot be induced from mere description. Smith also includes sex as a passion of the body that is considered indecent in the expression of others, although he does make note that to fail to treat a woman with more "gaiety, pleasantry, and attention" would also be improper of a man p. 39. To express pain is also considered unbecoming.

Smith believes the cause of lack of sympathy for these bodily passions is that "we cannot enter into them" ourselves p. 40. Temperance, by Smith's account, is to have control over bodily passions.

On the contrary, passions of the imagination, such as destruction of love or ambition, are easy to sympathize with because our imagination can conform to the shape of the sufferer, whereas our body cannot do such a thing to the body of the sufferer. Pain is fleeting and the loss only lasts as long as the violence is inflicted, whereas an insult lasts to harm for longer duration because our imagination keeps mulling it over. Likewise, bodily pain that induces fear, such as a cut, wound or fracture, evoke sympathy because of the danger that they imply for ourselves; that is, sympathy is activated chiefly through imagining what it would be like for us.

Passions which "take their origins from a particular vary or habit of the imagination" are "little sympathized with". These add love, as we are unlikely to enter into our own feeling of love in response to that of another person and thus unlikely to sympathize. He further states that love is "always laughed at, because we cannot enter into it" ourselves.

Instead of inspiring love in ourselves, and thus sympathy, love makes the impartial spectator sensitive to the situation and emotions that may occur from the gain or loss of love. Again this is because it is easy to imagine hoping for love or dreading loss of love but not the actual experience of it, and that the "happy passion, upon this account, interests us much less than the fearful and the melancholy" of losing happiness p. 49. Thus, love inspires sympathy for not for love itself but for the anticipation of emotions from gaining or losing it.

Smith, however, finds love "ridiculous" but "not naturally odious" p. 50. Thus, we sympathize with the "humaneness, generosity, kindness, friendship, and esteem" p. 50 of love. However, as these secondary emotions are excessive in love, one should not express them but in moderate tones according to Smith, as:

All these are objects which we cannot expect should interest our companions in the same degree in which they interest us.

Failing to do so makes bad company, and therefore those with specific interests and "love" of hobbies should keep their passions to those with kindred spirits "A philosopher is agency to a philosopher only" p. 51 or to themselves.

Smith talks of hatred and resentment next, as "unsocial passions." According to Smith these are passions of imagination, but sympathy is only likely to be evoked in the impartial spectator when they are expressed in moderate tones. Because these passions regard two people, namely the offended resentful or angry person and the offender, our sympathies are naturally drawn between these two. Specifically, although we sympathize with the offended person, we fear that the offended person may do harm to the offender, and thus also fear for and sympathize with the danger that faces the offender.

The impartial spectator sympathizes with the offended person in a manner, as emphasized previously, such that the greatest sympathy occurs when the offended person expresses anger or resentment in a temperate manner. Specifically, if the offended person seems just and temperate in coping with the offense, then this magnifies the misdeed done to the offended in the mind of the spectator, increasing sympathy. Although excess anger does not beget sympathy, neither does too little anger, as this mayfear or uncaring on the element of the offended. This lack of response is just as despicable to the impartial spectator as is the excesses of anger.

However, in general, any expression of anger is improper in the presence of others. This is because the "immediate effects [of anger] are disagreeable" just as the knives of surgery are disagreeable for art, as the instant effect of surgery is unpleasant even though long-term effect is justified. Likewise, even when anger is justly provoked, it is disagreeable. According to Smith, this explains why we reserve sympathy until we know the cause of the anger or resentment, since, if the emotion is not justified by the action of another person, then the instant disagreeableness and threat to the other person and by sympathy to ourselves overwhelm any sympathy that the spectator may have for the offended. In response to expressions of anger, hatred, or resentment, it is likely that the impartial spectator will not feel anger in sympathy with the offended but instead anger toward the offended for expressing such an aversive. Smith believes that there is some form of natural optimality to the aversiveness of these emotions, as it reduces the propagation of ill will among people, and thus increases the probability of functional societies.

Smith also puts forth that anger, hatred, and resentment are disagreeable to the offended mostly because of the idea of being offended rather than te actual offense itself. He remarks that we are likely able to do without what was taken from us, but it is the imagination which angers us at the thought of having something taken. Smith closes this section by remarking that the impartial spectator will not sympathize with us unless we are willing to endure harms, with the goal of maintaining positive social relations and humanity, with equanimity, as long as it does not add us in a situation of being "exposed to perpetual insults" p. 59. It is only "with reluctance, from necessity, and in consequence of great and repeated provocations" p. 60 that we should take revenge on others. Smith makes clear that we should take very good care to not act on the passions of anger, hatred, resentment, for purely social reasons, and instead imagine what the impartial spectator would deem appropriate, and base our action solely on a cold calculation.