New Essays on Adam Smith’s Moral Philosophy

6. The Theory of Moral Sentiments and Smith’s Account of Sympathy

Tony Pitson 115 The Theory of Moral Sentiments and Smith’s Account of Sympathy Tony Pitson I. INTRODUCTION The philosophical importance of Adam Smith’s appeal to the notion of sympathy in his Theory of Moral Sentiments (TMS) is widely recognised. It has, indeed, been suggested that sympathy provides the central unifying theme or foundation of Smith’s book (Campbell, Adam Smith’s Science of Morals, 89; Griswold, Adam Smith and the Virtues of Enlightenment, 811 ). Sympathy is clearly central to Smith’s moral psychology and it may even provide the basis for the economic theory of his Wealth of Nations (Darwall, “Sympathetic Liberalism”, 146–147). One of the issues arising from this concerns the part played by sympathy in the moral theory that Smith develops in TMS and the comparison, in this respect, with Book 3 of Hume’s Treatise. But there is also the question of the nature of Smith’s account of sympathy itself, which, once again, invites comparison with Hume. It is the latter on which I shall focus. While it is true that Smith employs the notion of sympathy in a variety of ways in TMS, it is possible to identify central features of his understanding of this notion: ones that give rise to a number of important philosophical issues. I thus begin with a brief survey of Smith’s remarks about sympathy in the opening chapters of TMS, and I note some of the questions that come to mind in considering them. After exploring certain of these questions in more detail I say something about the relevance of Smith on sympathy to the “simulation” view of what is involved in our understanding of each other. I conclude with remarks in defense of the role of sympathy in Smith and Hume and an assessment of the distinctive features of Smith’s account of this notion. I. SMITH’S NOTION OF SYMPATHY Smith introduces the notion of sympathy in relation to pity and compassion as “original passions of human nature” that we feel for the misery of others. It seems clear that sympathy is not to be identified with such passions. Rather, sympathy is essentially a matter of “fellow-feeling”—for example, sharing the other person’s state of distress—so that as a result we come to feel pity or compassion for that person.2 In other words, we feel sorry for someone because 1 Complete bibliographic information for references can be found in the Select Bibliography at the end of this essay. 2 This notion of sympathy—which is in any case implicit in the etymology of the word—does not of course originate with Smith. Samuel Johnson, in his Dictionary 116 new essays on adam smith’s moral philosophy we feel distress with them (Campbell, Adam Smith’s Science of Morals, 94; see also Snow, “Empathy”, 66). Sympathy as fellow-feeling is achieved, according to Smith, by changing places in imagination with the sufferer. Smith goes on to suggest that whatever the passion experienced by the original subject, an analogous emotion will be aroused in any “attentive spectator” who reflects on the other person’s situation. Thus “sympathy” is used here “to denote our fellowfeeling with any passion whatever” (TMS, 9–10).3 We should note an important complication in this account of sympathy. It seems evident that we must be able to recognize the passions of others in order for something analogous to occur in us as spectators. But if, as Smith says, “we have no immediate experience of what other men feel”, there arises a question as to how recognition of their feelings is possible. This is where Smith again appeals to sympathy: by placing ourselves in the other person’s situation and imagining what we should then feel, we are able to form some idea of that person’s feelings, and, as a result, to be so affected that we experience some degree of the same emotion. In other words, sympathy has an epistemological dimension (in so far as it explains how we are able to conceive what other people are feeling) as well as an affective one, even if Smith himself does not always clearly distinguish them. On this account, then, sympathy is essentially a two-stage process in which fellow-feeling depends on our ability to form an idea of what the other person feels by putting ourselves in his place; this, in turn, provides the basis for feelings such as pity and compassion. II. QUESTIONS ABOUT SMITH...