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The Theory of Moral Sentiments
The foundation for a general system of morals, this 1749 work is a landmark in the history of moral and political thought. Readers familiar with Adam Smith from The Wealth of Nations will find this earlier book a revelation. Although the author is often misrepresented as a calculating rationalist who advises the pursuit of self-interest in the marketplace, regardless of the human cost, he was also interested in the human capacity for benevolence — as The Theory of Moral Sentiments amply demonstrates.
The greatest prudence, Smith suggests, may lie in following economic self-interest in order to secure the basic necessities. This is only the first step, however, toward the much higher goal of achieving a morally virtuous life. Smith elaborates upon a theory of the imagination inspired by the philosophy of David Hume. His reasoning takes Hume's logic a step further by proposing a more sophisticated notion of sympathy, leading to a series of highly original theories involving conscience, moral judgment, and virtue.
Smith's legacy consists of his reconstruction of the Enlightenment idea of a moral, or social, science that embraces both political economy and the theory of law and government. His articulate expression of his philosophy continues to inspire and challenge modern readers.
The greatest prudence, Smith suggests, may lie in following economic self-interest in order to secure the basic necessities. This is only the first step, however, toward the much higher goal of achieving a morally virtuous life. Smith elaborates upon a theory of the imagination inspired by the philosophy of David Hume. His reasoning takes Hume's logic a step further by proposing a more sophisticated notion of sympathy, leading to a series of highly original theories involving conscience, moral judgment, and virtue.
Smith's legacy consists of his reconstruction of the Enlightenment idea of a moral, or social, science that embraces both political economy and the theory of law and government. His articulate expression of his philosophy continues to inspire and challenge modern readers.
368 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1759
About the author
Adam Smith
1,210 books1,875 followersFor other authors of this name, see Adam Smith.
Adam Smith FRSA FRS FRSE was a Scottish philosopher and economist who was a pioneer in thinking on political economy and a key figure during the Scottish Enlightenment. He wrote two classic works, The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759) and An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776). The latter, often abbreviated as The Wealth of Nations, is considered his magnum opus and the first modern work that treats economics as a comprehensive system and as an academic discipline.
Authorities recorded his baptism on 16 June 1723 at Kirkcaldy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Smith
Adam Smith FRSA FRS FRSE was a Scottish philosopher and economist who was a pioneer in thinking on political economy and a key figure during the Scottish Enlightenment. He wrote two classic works, The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759) and An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776). The latter, often abbreviated as The Wealth of Nations, is considered his magnum opus and the first modern work that treats economics as a comprehensive system and as an academic discipline.
Authorities recorded his baptism on 16 June 1723 at Kirkcaldy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Smith
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 241 reviews
June 12, 2020
Though Adam Smith is regarded as the father of modern economics from the core of his heart he was a sound philosopher. He was a professor of moral philoshy and logic in Scotland. His most of the economic ideas are derived from the method of introspection.
The theory of moral sentiment brought him into the limelight in the 1760s. This one is the finest treatise on moral philosophy and sentiments.
The theory of moral sentiment brought him into the limelight in the 1760s. This one is the finest treatise on moral philosophy and sentiments.
July 23, 2021
So, there's a lot of good and very little bad with this book. Adam Smith, the same Adam Smith that practically every Capitalist apologist uses as his go-to man to prop up Capitalism also wrote a bonafide philosophy book that runs the entire gamut of morality, ethics, and how people mistake their perceptions of the good for what actually IS good.
This is ironic, considering how many ways the fundamental idea of Capitalism (and not the bastardized and totally gamed version we have now) is considered the Prime Ideal, ignoring the slippery slope of all the bad actors that have turned it into something that only vaguely resembles the observations Adam Smith once talked about. But this is also outside of the scope of this book.
THIS book is a heartfelt attempt to break down popular morality (now hundreds of years out of date) and analyze it against what is actually good.
The takeaway?
His prose is fantastically clear and coherent and his assumptions are remarkably common sense. I found myself simply nodding along to every point and thinking about all the coming-of-age movies I saw as a kid and folding every connection together as if they had always belonged together.
This is a longish book and he makes a lot of points, mind you, but they can all be broken down pretty simply as be good to others, don't get caught up in SEEMING virtuous, but BE virtuous, and your collective society will be better off for it.
Again, NICELY ironic, modern capitalism. And don't forget to not put your thumb on the scales, weaponize debt, or obfuscate the living *uc* out of your business practices, especially when the ones who always pay the price are the ones least able to absorb the cost.
You know, the OPPOSITE of Adam Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments.
This is ironic, considering how many ways the fundamental idea of Capitalism (and not the bastardized and totally gamed version we have now) is considered the Prime Ideal, ignoring the slippery slope of all the bad actors that have turned it into something that only vaguely resembles the observations Adam Smith once talked about. But this is also outside of the scope of this book.
THIS book is a heartfelt attempt to break down popular morality (now hundreds of years out of date) and analyze it against what is actually good.
The takeaway?
His prose is fantastically clear and coherent and his assumptions are remarkably common sense. I found myself simply nodding along to every point and thinking about all the coming-of-age movies I saw as a kid and folding every connection together as if they had always belonged together.
This is a longish book and he makes a lot of points, mind you, but they can all be broken down pretty simply as be good to others, don't get caught up in SEEMING virtuous, but BE virtuous, and your collective society will be better off for it.
Again, NICELY ironic, modern capitalism. And don't forget to not put your thumb on the scales, weaponize debt, or obfuscate the living *uc* out of your business practices, especially when the ones who always pay the price are the ones least able to absorb the cost.
You know, the OPPOSITE of Adam Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments.
June 30, 2012
Probably the most mind-blowing book I read when I was an undergrad and one of the few that I find myself going back to again and again. Smith does for morality what Darwin did to biodiversity - took a phenomenon widely assumed to have been bluntly imposed from above and showed it to be rather something that naturally emerges from the interaction of individuals endowed with certain properties (in this case, instincts both for self-preservation and empathy/sympathy). I finished with an exciting way to conceptualize human relations, and greater skepticism for claims that morality is "just a cultural construct" that can be discounted or arbitrarily molded.
September 28, 2021
Adam Smith is usually remembered for his works on political economy as layed out in his An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776). And even then, most experts and laymen approach this one-sided version of Smith in a myopic view. In general, this picture of Smith is summed up as: “human beings are driven primarily by selflove and rationally pursue their self-interest. Happiness consists in the fulfilment of this pursuit, and is best accommodated by an absolute free exchange of material means.”
This is not meant as a straw men, but as a simplification of the common understanding of Adam Smith’s theories. What most people forget is that 17 years prior to his Wealth of Nations, Smith had already published a very fundamental first work, The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759), which, ironically, actually served as the framework for the book he is most remembered for.
In the Theory of Moral Sentiments, Smith treats of two different questions: In what consists virtue? And how does the mind produce moral judgements? In other words: what is virtue and how do we know what actions, of ourselves or of other people, are virtuous and what actions are vicious?
The book itself spans more than 400 pages, and is as broad as it is deep in its treatment of all the issues and intricacies involved in the building up of a moral theory. Fortunately, Smith’s main ideas and the general framework can be summed up rather easily.
Sentiments are the building blocks of our morality. Whenever we act or see someone else act we feel all sorts of emotions. These emotions determine, largely, whether we approve or disapprove of the said action. Contrary to the earlier mentioned (simplistic) interpretations of Smith, we feel emotions when we observe actions of ourselves or others due to sympathy. Of course the degree to which we can sympathize with others and the degree to which our own emotions are stirred in our breasts when observing the actions of someone else differs according to the involved action, the person involved, its consequences and motives, etc.
This view seemingly sets the door wide open to moral relativism: every action has its own unique character, consequences and motives – and hence every action becomes a unique object for our moral judgements. But Smith’s conception of sympathy actually blocks this road: human nature is such that we seek self-approvement as well as the approvement of others. This view is deeply rooted in a universal conception of human beings: we are all similar in our constitution, notwithstanding race, gender, class, and what not. We want to love ourselves and to be loved by others, and this immediately puts restraint on certain (types of) actions and an incentive on certain (types of) other actions.
Actually, what Smith does is synthesize three different conceptions of virtue into a bigger, more general framework which offers broad outlines for our moral actions yet is not bogged down by the particularism and casuistry of most moral philosophy. Smiths synthesis allows for systematic theorizing yet fully accords with the vagueness and ambiguity of practical morality.
For Smith, actions are valued on three accounts: propriety, prudence and beneficence. An action is proper when it suits the situation and social expectations, meaning that virtue (on this account) consists in self-command – we have to control our appetites and desires in order to make our actions fit the social context. An action is prudent when it serves the pursuit of self-interests, meaning that virtue consists in adapting our actions to our own goal (self-happiness). An action is beneficent when it serves the interests of others, meaning that virtue consists in adapting our actions to the goal of others (happiness).
This moral triad – propriety, prudence, beneficence – is in reality a dynamic process in which an equilibrium is constantly sought. When we act too proper this will hamper our own happiness as well that of others. Similarly when we emphasize our own happiness (or that of others) over all the rest, this will hamper the happiness of others (or that of ourselves). In other words, whenever we tend to stray too far in one direction, we suffer the social consequences of our actions and we are dragged back to a viable moral equilibrium.
Most of the time this being dragged back to a viable moral equilibrium is only an imagination. That is, we intuitively feel or consciously reflect the undesirability of said action and its effects on the world. So here we see Smiths dualism between self-love and love of others dragging us in two different directions: even if we would literally only act out of self-love, others will start to hate us, refuse to cooperate with us, and disapprove of our character, making us suffer in isolation and feeling the pain of rejection.
Now, the final question is: How do we evaluate actions? How do our moral judgements come to pass? Based on all of the above, the answer to this question is easy to see. Partisanship blinds us and pulls us from the moral equilibrium: whether we view our actions solely from our perspective or from the perspective of others, and whether we view the actions of others solely from our perspective or from the perspective of others – all of these positions of judgments are highly partisan. So what do we do? We imagine an impartial spectator, who views the actor, his or her actions, and the person who is the intended object of the said action.
This spectator is neutral regarding to actor, action and object and views the emotions of all involved from an impartial perspective. This allows for the evaluation of the propriety of the emotions, but also for judgements about the intensity of these emotions, the effects of the action on all involved, etc. In effect, this means we unconsciously adapt our emotions to the situation and we integrate the effects of our actions upon others in our own motivations and feelings.
Now, having said all this – and remembering the fact that Smith viewed this theory of moral sentiments as the framework of ordering society – it is easy to see how the current and common view of Smith as the promotor of free market capitalism is rather one-sided and myopic.
In The Theory of Moral Sentiment Smith actually says that any society which promotes the safety and welfare of all its citizens has to draw up institutions which regulate social interactions -be they political, economic, cultural, or whatnot – in such a way that they deeply resonate with our own nature and are perfectly in line with the moral equilibrium as sketched above. That is, regulations should seek to strike a balance between different moral values: self-interest, interest of others, and the general interest.
Smith explicitly states (in his Wealth of Nations): if regulations benefit the workmen they are just and equitably, if regulations benefit the masters [i.e. the wealthy, the powerful] they are not necessarily just and equitable. What Smith means is that within political economics plural institutional structure and social values triumph the profit motive. A society in which the many suffer from poverty and danger for the benefit of the view is not a just and equitable society. The key role of government is to order society in such a way that the general welfare is promoted – and in so far as free market enterprise accords with this general interest it should be promoted, but in so far as it threatens individual freedom and the welfare of the powerless and poor, it should be regulated.
Basically, Smith means that justice should be the foundation of society; laws regulate and order society in such a way that the safety and the welfare of all is promoted; subjecting politics, economics, and morality to natural justice – that is, the conception of a universal human nature and the intrinsic value of every person due to this common constitution.
This, by the way, is a highly outdated religious conception of the world and of society, yet also a very modern one at that: the recognition of the fundamental equality of all human beings according to their similar nature, and thus similar desires, flaws, weaknesses, perfections, etc. And it goes fully against the current transcendental idealist conceptions of justice, like e.g. Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Kant and Rawls – which seek a perfection which is non-existent and thus are doomed to fail as moral theories.
Smith on the other hand, and the whole realism tradition at that, base their moral theories on actual human beings in the actual world where actual actions actually make a difference. This is more of a comparative approach than the earlier mentioned social contractivist thinking. We can theorize about how unjust slavery is and speculate on all sorts of things related, yet what matters is the actual effects of the institution of slavery on actual people and how a society in which slavery exist actually differs from societies in which slavery is forbidden. This latter approach is not only much more in touch with reality, it also spurs us to action in cases of injustice much more than any idealist approach is able to do. For Smith what matters is the actual promotion of actual justice and equity in this world, instead of theorizing about it. This is deeply rooted in the empiricist tradition of the Enlightenment and it is easy to see how this view inspired later thinkers as diverse as Mary Wollstonecraft, Karl Marx and John Stuart Mill. I can’t help by ending this review of an amazing book by one of the founding fathers of liberalism with quoting Karl Marx, emphasizing both the importance of Smith for all sorts of later thinkers notwithstanding their political views as well as the need to understand Smith in a complete sense instead of the common one-sided, myopic view:
“Philosophers have thus far only tried to interpret the world; the point is to actually change it.”
This is not meant as a straw men, but as a simplification of the common understanding of Adam Smith’s theories. What most people forget is that 17 years prior to his Wealth of Nations, Smith had already published a very fundamental first work, The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759), which, ironically, actually served as the framework for the book he is most remembered for.
In the Theory of Moral Sentiments, Smith treats of two different questions: In what consists virtue? And how does the mind produce moral judgements? In other words: what is virtue and how do we know what actions, of ourselves or of other people, are virtuous and what actions are vicious?
The book itself spans more than 400 pages, and is as broad as it is deep in its treatment of all the issues and intricacies involved in the building up of a moral theory. Fortunately, Smith’s main ideas and the general framework can be summed up rather easily.
Sentiments are the building blocks of our morality. Whenever we act or see someone else act we feel all sorts of emotions. These emotions determine, largely, whether we approve or disapprove of the said action. Contrary to the earlier mentioned (simplistic) interpretations of Smith, we feel emotions when we observe actions of ourselves or others due to sympathy. Of course the degree to which we can sympathize with others and the degree to which our own emotions are stirred in our breasts when observing the actions of someone else differs according to the involved action, the person involved, its consequences and motives, etc.
This view seemingly sets the door wide open to moral relativism: every action has its own unique character, consequences and motives – and hence every action becomes a unique object for our moral judgements. But Smith’s conception of sympathy actually blocks this road: human nature is such that we seek self-approvement as well as the approvement of others. This view is deeply rooted in a universal conception of human beings: we are all similar in our constitution, notwithstanding race, gender, class, and what not. We want to love ourselves and to be loved by others, and this immediately puts restraint on certain (types of) actions and an incentive on certain (types of) other actions.
Actually, what Smith does is synthesize three different conceptions of virtue into a bigger, more general framework which offers broad outlines for our moral actions yet is not bogged down by the particularism and casuistry of most moral philosophy. Smiths synthesis allows for systematic theorizing yet fully accords with the vagueness and ambiguity of practical morality.
For Smith, actions are valued on three accounts: propriety, prudence and beneficence. An action is proper when it suits the situation and social expectations, meaning that virtue (on this account) consists in self-command – we have to control our appetites and desires in order to make our actions fit the social context. An action is prudent when it serves the pursuit of self-interests, meaning that virtue consists in adapting our actions to our own goal (self-happiness). An action is beneficent when it serves the interests of others, meaning that virtue consists in adapting our actions to the goal of others (happiness).
This moral triad – propriety, prudence, beneficence – is in reality a dynamic process in which an equilibrium is constantly sought. When we act too proper this will hamper our own happiness as well that of others. Similarly when we emphasize our own happiness (or that of others) over all the rest, this will hamper the happiness of others (or that of ourselves). In other words, whenever we tend to stray too far in one direction, we suffer the social consequences of our actions and we are dragged back to a viable moral equilibrium.
Most of the time this being dragged back to a viable moral equilibrium is only an imagination. That is, we intuitively feel or consciously reflect the undesirability of said action and its effects on the world. So here we see Smiths dualism between self-love and love of others dragging us in two different directions: even if we would literally only act out of self-love, others will start to hate us, refuse to cooperate with us, and disapprove of our character, making us suffer in isolation and feeling the pain of rejection.
Now, the final question is: How do we evaluate actions? How do our moral judgements come to pass? Based on all of the above, the answer to this question is easy to see. Partisanship blinds us and pulls us from the moral equilibrium: whether we view our actions solely from our perspective or from the perspective of others, and whether we view the actions of others solely from our perspective or from the perspective of others – all of these positions of judgments are highly partisan. So what do we do? We imagine an impartial spectator, who views the actor, his or her actions, and the person who is the intended object of the said action.
This spectator is neutral regarding to actor, action and object and views the emotions of all involved from an impartial perspective. This allows for the evaluation of the propriety of the emotions, but also for judgements about the intensity of these emotions, the effects of the action on all involved, etc. In effect, this means we unconsciously adapt our emotions to the situation and we integrate the effects of our actions upon others in our own motivations and feelings.
Now, having said all this – and remembering the fact that Smith viewed this theory of moral sentiments as the framework of ordering society – it is easy to see how the current and common view of Smith as the promotor of free market capitalism is rather one-sided and myopic.
In The Theory of Moral Sentiment Smith actually says that any society which promotes the safety and welfare of all its citizens has to draw up institutions which regulate social interactions -be they political, economic, cultural, or whatnot – in such a way that they deeply resonate with our own nature and are perfectly in line with the moral equilibrium as sketched above. That is, regulations should seek to strike a balance between different moral values: self-interest, interest of others, and the general interest.
Smith explicitly states (in his Wealth of Nations): if regulations benefit the workmen they are just and equitably, if regulations benefit the masters [i.e. the wealthy, the powerful] they are not necessarily just and equitable. What Smith means is that within political economics plural institutional structure and social values triumph the profit motive. A society in which the many suffer from poverty and danger for the benefit of the view is not a just and equitable society. The key role of government is to order society in such a way that the general welfare is promoted – and in so far as free market enterprise accords with this general interest it should be promoted, but in so far as it threatens individual freedom and the welfare of the powerless and poor, it should be regulated.
Basically, Smith means that justice should be the foundation of society; laws regulate and order society in such a way that the safety and the welfare of all is promoted; subjecting politics, economics, and morality to natural justice – that is, the conception of a universal human nature and the intrinsic value of every person due to this common constitution.
This, by the way, is a highly outdated religious conception of the world and of society, yet also a very modern one at that: the recognition of the fundamental equality of all human beings according to their similar nature, and thus similar desires, flaws, weaknesses, perfections, etc. And it goes fully against the current transcendental idealist conceptions of justice, like e.g. Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Kant and Rawls – which seek a perfection which is non-existent and thus are doomed to fail as moral theories.
Smith on the other hand, and the whole realism tradition at that, base their moral theories on actual human beings in the actual world where actual actions actually make a difference. This is more of a comparative approach than the earlier mentioned social contractivist thinking. We can theorize about how unjust slavery is and speculate on all sorts of things related, yet what matters is the actual effects of the institution of slavery on actual people and how a society in which slavery exist actually differs from societies in which slavery is forbidden. This latter approach is not only much more in touch with reality, it also spurs us to action in cases of injustice much more than any idealist approach is able to do. For Smith what matters is the actual promotion of actual justice and equity in this world, instead of theorizing about it. This is deeply rooted in the empiricist tradition of the Enlightenment and it is easy to see how this view inspired later thinkers as diverse as Mary Wollstonecraft, Karl Marx and John Stuart Mill. I can’t help by ending this review of an amazing book by one of the founding fathers of liberalism with quoting Karl Marx, emphasizing both the importance of Smith for all sorts of later thinkers notwithstanding their political views as well as the need to understand Smith in a complete sense instead of the common one-sided, myopic view:
“Philosophers have thus far only tried to interpret the world; the point is to actually change it.”
August 28, 2009
This book is not easy to read. At times the book is tedious and somewhat difficult to understand. It is long and it sometimes seems wordy. That said, it contains some of the best prose in philosophy, and the numerous insights are incredible.
Most people have heard the common defense of capitalism in the Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations:
"It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest."
They assume Smith is the prototypical defender of man as primarily selfish, materialistic, and concerned only with the utilitarian and practical aspects of economics. Nothing could be further from the truth. Even in the Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith shows that man is much more than homo economicus, the economic man.
All morality is based on sympathy and how we interpret the perceptions of others, including the impartial spectator that Adam Smith claims is part of us. That is the essence of Smith’s morality and it doesn’t conflict with the Wealth of Nations as he expands and extends these ideas in the Theory of Moral Sentiments. There is a lot of information and a lot of insight throughout the book. As I was reading the Theory of Moral Sentiments I also was reading, Born to be Good. It was striking how Adam Smith, sitting in his armchair, had a better understanding of human nature than the PhD author of this popular psychology book. It brought to mind Richard Feynman’s view of social science which you can see on YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EZcpT...). It doesn’t appear social science has advanced much since the times of Smith, but maybe I’ll change my opinion about that since I’m now reading a much better book, The Happiness Hypothesis.
I also watched some of Crimes and Misdemeanors while reading the Theory of Moral Sentiments. People think of Adam Smith as being cynical about morality based they remember him from of his defense of classical liberalism and capitalism in Wealth of Nations. Like the author who wrote Born to be Good, they assume Ayn Rand and Adam Smith share the same philosophy. I have not yet read The Wealth of Nations from beginning to end, and it has been a while since I have read major portions of it, but I’m pretty sure anyone who understands Adam Smith would not hold this opinion. Woody Allen is the real cynic. Although Adam Smith recognizes that men are not perfect and society cannot be perfected, he believes there is a moral sense inherent in man and that guilt, regret, and remorse are indicators. I think Smith would say Dostoevsky’s Raskolnikov is a more accurate depiction of man than Woody Allen’s Judah. However, this doesn't mean there are no Judah’s.
I really enjoyed the insights in the passages about the Chinese earthquake and how similar they are to current psychological research regarding active versus passive acts in moral decision making (the railroad switch). I also loved reading about the man of system and how relevant it is to today’s current political economy. Even though it is hard, it is worth reading at least some of Adam Smith, so I will provide these short two passages to give you a taste of his genius:
The Chinese Earthquake - Part III chapter 3
“If he [this man:] was to lose his little finger tomorrow, he would not sleep tonight; but, provided he never saw them [i.e, the people of China:], he would snore with the most profound security over the ruin of a hundred million of his brethren, and the destruction of that immense multitude seems plainly an object less interesting to him than this paltry misfortune of his own
…
To prevent, therefore, this paltry misfortune to himself, would a man of humanity be willing to sacrifice the lives of a hundred millions of his brethren, provided he had never seen them? Human nature startles with horror at the thought, and the world, in its greatest depravity and corruption, never produced such a villain as could be capable of entertaining it.”
…
Human nature startles with horror at the thought, and the world, in its greatest depravity and corruption, never produced such a villain as could be capable of entertaining it.
The Man of System – Part VI chapter 2
"The man of system, on the contrary, is apt to be very wise in his own conceit; and is often so enamoured with the supposed beauty of his own ideal plan of government, that he cannot suffer the smallest deviation from any part of 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 piece has a principle of motion of its own, altogether different from that which the legislature might chuse to impress upon it...."
see http://www.scottmooreart.com/gallery/... for an artist’s rendition of this idea).
Most people have heard the common defense of capitalism in the Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations:
"It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest."
They assume Smith is the prototypical defender of man as primarily selfish, materialistic, and concerned only with the utilitarian and practical aspects of economics. Nothing could be further from the truth. Even in the Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith shows that man is much more than homo economicus, the economic man.
All morality is based on sympathy and how we interpret the perceptions of others, including the impartial spectator that Adam Smith claims is part of us. That is the essence of Smith’s morality and it doesn’t conflict with the Wealth of Nations as he expands and extends these ideas in the Theory of Moral Sentiments. There is a lot of information and a lot of insight throughout the book. As I was reading the Theory of Moral Sentiments I also was reading, Born to be Good. It was striking how Adam Smith, sitting in his armchair, had a better understanding of human nature than the PhD author of this popular psychology book. It brought to mind Richard Feynman’s view of social science which you can see on YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EZcpT...). It doesn’t appear social science has advanced much since the times of Smith, but maybe I’ll change my opinion about that since I’m now reading a much better book, The Happiness Hypothesis.
I also watched some of Crimes and Misdemeanors while reading the Theory of Moral Sentiments. People think of Adam Smith as being cynical about morality based they remember him from of his defense of classical liberalism and capitalism in Wealth of Nations. Like the author who wrote Born to be Good, they assume Ayn Rand and Adam Smith share the same philosophy. I have not yet read The Wealth of Nations from beginning to end, and it has been a while since I have read major portions of it, but I’m pretty sure anyone who understands Adam Smith would not hold this opinion. Woody Allen is the real cynic. Although Adam Smith recognizes that men are not perfect and society cannot be perfected, he believes there is a moral sense inherent in man and that guilt, regret, and remorse are indicators. I think Smith would say Dostoevsky’s Raskolnikov is a more accurate depiction of man than Woody Allen’s Judah. However, this doesn't mean there are no Judah’s.
I really enjoyed the insights in the passages about the Chinese earthquake and how similar they are to current psychological research regarding active versus passive acts in moral decision making (the railroad switch). I also loved reading about the man of system and how relevant it is to today’s current political economy. Even though it is hard, it is worth reading at least some of Adam Smith, so I will provide these short two passages to give you a taste of his genius:
The Chinese Earthquake - Part III chapter 3
“If he [this man:] was to lose his little finger tomorrow, he would not sleep tonight; but, provided he never saw them [i.e, the people of China:], he would snore with the most profound security over the ruin of a hundred million of his brethren, and the destruction of that immense multitude seems plainly an object less interesting to him than this paltry misfortune of his own
…
To prevent, therefore, this paltry misfortune to himself, would a man of humanity be willing to sacrifice the lives of a hundred millions of his brethren, provided he had never seen them? Human nature startles with horror at the thought, and the world, in its greatest depravity and corruption, never produced such a villain as could be capable of entertaining it.”
…
Human nature startles with horror at the thought, and the world, in its greatest depravity and corruption, never produced such a villain as could be capable of entertaining it.
The Man of System – Part VI chapter 2
"The man of system, on the contrary, is apt to be very wise in his own conceit; and is often so enamoured with the supposed beauty of his own ideal plan of government, that he cannot suffer the smallest deviation from any part of 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 piece has a principle of motion of its own, altogether different from that which the legislature might chuse to impress upon it...."
see http://www.scottmooreart.com/gallery/... for an artist’s rendition of this idea).
October 6, 2015
Introduction & Notes
Suggestions for Further Reading
A Note on the Text
--The Theory of Moral Sentiments
--Considerations concerning the first formation of languages
Biographical Notes
Textual Notes
Index
Suggestions for Further Reading
A Note on the Text
--The Theory of Moral Sentiments
--Considerations concerning the first formation of languages
Biographical Notes
Textual Notes
Index
November 15, 2016
It really is a shame this book wasn't the cornerstone of economics instead of its more famous counterpart. While I truly appreciate the insights delivered in "Wealth of Nations" and have read sections of it countless times during my PhD studies, I find this book to be more informative of the type of economics I want to study. I strongly recommend this book for anyone who is interested in how individuals make decisions, as many of the insights "discovered" in behavioral economics actually came from this text.
December 9, 2021
I once used to read philosphical works a lot. Back then, I came across someone saying it is a young man's game and thought that it was a snobbish comment. However my own love for philosophy dried out very quickly, I still maintain that to call it a young man's game is snobbish.
Russell defends the supposed uselessness of philosophy on grounds that when a part of it becomes useful, it takes form of some other science. Aristotle has been called father of sciences. While Adam Smith and Sigmeund Freud who are considered fathers of their respective fields - economics and psychology; had as much as the element of Philospher in them as forerunners of their sciences. Studies of economics, mind, physics, law, governments, composition of earth, geometry etc were all philosphy before they grew as seperated and sometimes 'useful' sciences.
Even today and in worlds of exact sciences too, the most valued scientists such as Stephan Hawking, Richard Dawkins etc continue to have an element of philospher in them, clearly visible in thier works.
I think what differentiates them most when compared to other classic philosphers is that their studies, their ideas are more observational rather than their pure fancies. They are forever talking about things that actually are rather than as they 'should be'. No philosphers who make assumptions that have nothing to do with real world interest me much.
Adam Smith falls in this category. His wealth of nations doesn't need much praies and actually turned economics into a separate science. In here though he is talking about morality, a subject that continues to part of philosphy despite all the Kants and Nietzsches it has seen.
Smith's approach to it is not trying to define rights or wrongs - or how they should be defined. Instead he is focused on how morality is nothing but our sentiments. His theory of an inner being with a higher moral compass is interesting. I think I read somewhere Dawkins agree to someone else whom he quoted as saying morality is the feeling that you are being watched.
Equally is interesting is his ideas about how little we are affected by tragedies that happen at a physical distance. He also points out how out sentiments, reflected in our laws, are affected by both intentions of a person as well as consequences of his actions. He distinguishes vanity from pride.
Except for a few starking observations; I don't think there is a lot of uselessness in it except for those who have curious mind (like me). He is very clear and in the observations he make and often looking at same thing from different aspects without ever giving his own opinion.
Russell defends the supposed uselessness of philosophy on grounds that when a part of it becomes useful, it takes form of some other science. Aristotle has been called father of sciences. While Adam Smith and Sigmeund Freud who are considered fathers of their respective fields - economics and psychology; had as much as the element of Philospher in them as forerunners of their sciences. Studies of economics, mind, physics, law, governments, composition of earth, geometry etc were all philosphy before they grew as seperated and sometimes 'useful' sciences.
Even today and in worlds of exact sciences too, the most valued scientists such as Stephan Hawking, Richard Dawkins etc continue to have an element of philospher in them, clearly visible in thier works.
I think what differentiates them most when compared to other classic philosphers is that their studies, their ideas are more observational rather than their pure fancies. They are forever talking about things that actually are rather than as they 'should be'. No philosphers who make assumptions that have nothing to do with real world interest me much.
Adam Smith falls in this category. His wealth of nations doesn't need much praies and actually turned economics into a separate science. In here though he is talking about morality, a subject that continues to part of philosphy despite all the Kants and Nietzsches it has seen.
Smith's approach to it is not trying to define rights or wrongs - or how they should be defined. Instead he is focused on how morality is nothing but our sentiments. His theory of an inner being with a higher moral compass is interesting. I think I read somewhere Dawkins agree to someone else whom he quoted as saying morality is the feeling that you are being watched.
Equally is interesting is his ideas about how little we are affected by tragedies that happen at a physical distance. He also points out how out sentiments, reflected in our laws, are affected by both intentions of a person as well as consequences of his actions. He distinguishes vanity from pride.
Except for a few starking observations; I don't think there is a lot of uselessness in it except for those who have curious mind (like me). He is very clear and in the observations he make and often looking at same thing from different aspects without ever giving his own opinion.
July 16, 2011
If you’ve heard of Adam Smith, it’s probably because of his book The Wealth of Nations, which launched the study of economics, or his concept of “the invisible hand” by which individuals, each looking out only for their own personal gain, end up unwittingly contributing to the prosperity of society as a whole.
I have not read The Wealth of Nations, but I’m currently reading Smith’s earlier book, The Theory of Moral Sentiments.
When people argue about the application of moral values, usually implicit in their arguments is the theory that morality either arises from a system or that it ought to be systematized. In these arguments, showing that some ethical assertion or other is unsystematic or is systematically inconsistent seems equivalent to showing it to be disproven or wrong.
Therefore much ethical philosophy has involved systematizing morality in various ways and then trying to test the soundness of the resulting systems.
“Experimental” ethical philosophy takes a different tack: taking human moral judgement as a pre-systematization given and trying to describe its contours rather than force it into a rationally-invented mold.
The Theory of Moral Sentiments is in this camp, though Smith’s “experimentation” isn’t very rigorous — mostly amounting to introspection and examination of the opinions of well-considered men of his time, place, and class.
Anyone writing a book of experimental ethics today would spend a little time writing a prelude like this one that explains the difference in outlook and goals that motivates such a project and distinguishes it from most other ethical philosophy. Smith, though — curiously — just jumps in and starts describing human moral judgement without any such throat-clearing.
It is not until part two of the book, in a footnote that looks as though it were added to respond to critics who misunderstood this very nature of his project, that he makes things explicit:
To Smith, the instinct to make moral judgements, like the instincts that make us hungry or horny, is built-in. And like those, the acts it prompts us to do tell us something about human nature and about how our creator (or Creator) intends to guide us.
We feel hunger to prompt us to sustain our bodies; we feel lust to prompt us to reproduce. Our feelings of resentment, gratitude, and other such moral emotions, Smith feels, must also have been implanted in us for the purpose of guiding our behavior toward certain ends. Rather than assuming the ends ahead of time and then trying to systematize an ethics that conforms to them, wouldn’t it be wiser (Smith feels) to carefully examine these emotions and try to derive these ends from what we find?
Our moral emotions serve us. They sustain us and help us to propagate by prompting us to actions that strengthen useful friendships and discourage human enemies, predators & parasites. For example, our acts and declarations of gratitude, prompted by our moral emotions, further encourage those who have shown themselves to be able & inclined to do us useful service.
Smith, — remarkably, in 1759 — had written a book of evolutionary psychology. He didn’t know that was what he was doing, of course (Darwin’s On the Origin of Species was still a century away), but his book is agnostic enough about the nature of this creator who “implanted the seeds of [moral emotion] in the human breast” — sometimes it is “Nature,” other times “the author of nature,” other times “God” or “the Deity” — that it is not particularly awkward to fill in the blank today, now that we know the answer. Smith at times comes awfully close to this himself, as for instance when he describes the different emotional bonds that connect parents and children:
The edition I got from the library was published by Regnery Publishing for the “Conservative Leadership Series” of the “Conservative Book Club.” It’s not a very good advertisement for that brand, being riddled with typographical errors, misspellings (applause ringing in our “cars,” for instance), missing words, and other awkwardnesses that demonstrate that optical character recognition software is no substitute for a dutiful editor. I suspect that a book club selection like this is meant more for ostentatious display than for reading, however, so perhaps such niceties are superfluous.
In some ways, Adam Smith is a sensible choice for the conservative pantheon. His free-trade / free-market viewpoints, once considered de rigueur for good liberals, are now mostly honored (and mostly in the breach) by American conservatives. But this book doesn’t seem to harmonize well with contemporary American conservativism: Moral descriptivism is far too godless. I expect most Conservative Book Club members would be horrified if their children were being taught by some liberal professor about how morality was implanted in us by nature to promote the survival of the individual and the propagation of the species, and that you could derive morality from human ethical emotions without any reference to preexisting moral absolutes.
But back to Smith: When I first read Smith’s description of conscience, I was lulled by how sensible it seemed and at first I didn’t notice what an unusual explanation (for its time, anyway) it was. To Smith, “conscience” isn’t the insight by which we discern good & evil or the nagging voice prompting us to resist temptation, but is instead the faculty by which we simulate the perspective of an impartial observer who observes our own headspace and behavior, using the same criteria we naturally use when judging others. It is an application of the same, innate judgements we already have access to by virtue of being human, but using a difficult and specialized variety of imagination in which we cast that judgement through a point of view that is not our own and not (as) prejudiced by self-interest.
Because this process is so difficult, especially when our minds are distracted by particularly strong temptations or crisis circumstances of quick change and the need for rapid action, we tend to supplement our consciences by inventing and memorizing heuristics that we can apply to situations so that we can quickly flag those that require conscientious scrutiny. This process of inventing heuristics, Smith believes, is the source of the ethical philosopher’s suspicion that ethics is or ought to be systematized:
The book has some flaws. For one thing, Smith is wordy and repetitive. He seems to think if a point is worth making, it’s worth making three times just to make sure. I’ve never read a book that cried out more for a Readers’ Digest abridged edition. But aside from points of style, the major flaw is Smith’s insistence that an examination of human morality is equivalent to an examination of the opinions of well-bred, enlightenment-minded, well-to-do English men of the 18th century. His curiosity isn’t sufficient to consider other points of view as also being manifestations of human nature, or as anything but inferior versions of the mature morality of his fellows. Some of his conclusions follow comfortably and obviously from his biased choice of exemplars, and are unconvincing to the modern, more cosmopolitan reader.
But it’s ahead of its time and thought-provoking, and a well-needed perspective on ethical philosophy that ought to be more influential today than it appears to be.
I have not read The Wealth of Nations, but I’m currently reading Smith’s earlier book, The Theory of Moral Sentiments.
When people argue about the application of moral values, usually implicit in their arguments is the theory that morality either arises from a system or that it ought to be systematized. In these arguments, showing that some ethical assertion or other is unsystematic or is systematically inconsistent seems equivalent to showing it to be disproven or wrong.
Therefore much ethical philosophy has involved systematizing morality in various ways and then trying to test the soundness of the resulting systems.
“Experimental” ethical philosophy takes a different tack: taking human moral judgement as a pre-systematization given and trying to describe its contours rather than force it into a rationally-invented mold.
The Theory of Moral Sentiments is in this camp, though Smith’s “experimentation” isn’t very rigorous — mostly amounting to introspection and examination of the opinions of well-considered men of his time, place, and class.
Anyone writing a book of experimental ethics today would spend a little time writing a prelude like this one that explains the difference in outlook and goals that motivates such a project and distinguishes it from most other ethical philosophy. Smith, though — curiously — just jumps in and starts describing human moral judgement without any such throat-clearing.
It is not until part two of the book, in a footnote that looks as though it were added to respond to critics who misunderstood this very nature of his project, that he makes things explicit:
…[T]he present inquiry is not concerning a matter of right, if I may say so, but concerning a matter of fact. We are not at present examining upon what principles a perfect being would approve of the punishment of bad actions; but upon what principles so weak and imperfect a creature as man actually and in fact approves of it.…
To Smith, the instinct to make moral judgements, like the instincts that make us hungry or horny, is built-in. And like those, the acts it prompts us to do tell us something about human nature and about how our creator (or Creator) intends to guide us.
We feel hunger to prompt us to sustain our bodies; we feel lust to prompt us to reproduce. Our feelings of resentment, gratitude, and other such moral emotions, Smith feels, must also have been implanted in us for the purpose of guiding our behavior toward certain ends. Rather than assuming the ends ahead of time and then trying to systematize an ethics that conforms to them, wouldn’t it be wiser (Smith feels) to carefully examine these emotions and try to derive these ends from what we find?
In every part of the universe we observe means adjusted with the nicest artifice to the ends which they are intended to produce; and in the mechanism of a plant, or animal body, admire how every thing is contrived for advancing the two great purposes of nature, the support of the individual, and the propagation of the species. But in these, and in all such objects, we still distinguish the efficient from the final cause of their several motions and organizations. The digestion of the food, the circulation of the blood, and the secretion of the several juices which are drawn from it, are operations all of them necessary for the great purposes of animal life. Yet we never endeavour to account for them from those purposes as from their efficient causes, nor imagine that the blood circulates, or that the food digests of its own accord, and with a view or intention to the purposes of circulation or digestion. … But though, in accounting for the operations of bodies, we never fail to distinguish in this manner the efficient from the final cause, in accounting for those of the mind we are very apt to confound these two different things with one another. When by natural principles we are led to advance those ends, which a refined and enlightened reason would recommend to us, we are very apt to impute to that reason, as to their efficient cause, the sentiments and actions by which we advance those ends, and to imagine that to be the wisdom of man, which in reality is the wisdom of God.
Our moral emotions serve us. They sustain us and help us to propagate by prompting us to actions that strengthen useful friendships and discourage human enemies, predators & parasites. For example, our acts and declarations of gratitude, prompted by our moral emotions, further encourage those who have shown themselves to be able & inclined to do us useful service.
Smith, — remarkably, in 1759 — had written a book of evolutionary psychology. He didn’t know that was what he was doing, of course (Darwin’s On the Origin of Species was still a century away), but his book is agnostic enough about the nature of this creator who “implanted the seeds of [moral emotion] in the human breast” — sometimes it is “Nature,” other times “the author of nature,” other times “God” or “the Deity” — that it is not particularly awkward to fill in the blank today, now that we know the answer. Smith at times comes awfully close to this himself, as for instance when he describes the different emotional bonds that connect parents and children:
Nature, for the wisest purposes, has rendered in most men, perhaps in all men, parental tenderness a much stronger affection than filial piety. The continuance and propagation of the species depend altogether upon the former, and not upon the latter.
The edition I got from the library was published by Regnery Publishing for the “Conservative Leadership Series” of the “Conservative Book Club.” It’s not a very good advertisement for that brand, being riddled with typographical errors, misspellings (applause ringing in our “cars,” for instance), missing words, and other awkwardnesses that demonstrate that optical character recognition software is no substitute for a dutiful editor. I suspect that a book club selection like this is meant more for ostentatious display than for reading, however, so perhaps such niceties are superfluous.
In some ways, Adam Smith is a sensible choice for the conservative pantheon. His free-trade / free-market viewpoints, once considered de rigueur for good liberals, are now mostly honored (and mostly in the breach) by American conservatives. But this book doesn’t seem to harmonize well with contemporary American conservativism: Moral descriptivism is far too godless. I expect most Conservative Book Club members would be horrified if their children were being taught by some liberal professor about how morality was implanted in us by nature to promote the survival of the individual and the propagation of the species, and that you could derive morality from human ethical emotions without any reference to preexisting moral absolutes.
But back to Smith: When I first read Smith’s description of conscience, I was lulled by how sensible it seemed and at first I didn’t notice what an unusual explanation (for its time, anyway) it was. To Smith, “conscience” isn’t the insight by which we discern good & evil or the nagging voice prompting us to resist temptation, but is instead the faculty by which we simulate the perspective of an impartial observer who observes our own headspace and behavior, using the same criteria we naturally use when judging others. It is an application of the same, innate judgements we already have access to by virtue of being human, but using a difficult and specialized variety of imagination in which we cast that judgement through a point of view that is not our own and not (as) prejudiced by self-interest.
Because this process is so difficult, especially when our minds are distracted by particularly strong temptations or crisis circumstances of quick change and the need for rapid action, we tend to supplement our consciences by inventing and memorizing heuristics that we can apply to situations so that we can quickly flag those that require conscientious scrutiny. This process of inventing heuristics, Smith believes, is the source of the ethical philosopher’s suspicion that ethics is or ought to be systematized:
It is thus that the general rules of morality are formed. They are ultimately founded upon experience of what, in particular instances, our moral faculties, our natural sense of merit and propriety, approve, or disapprove of. We do not originally approve or condemn particular actions because, upon examination, they appear to be agreeable or inconsistent with a certain general rule. The general rule, on the contrary, is formed by finding from experience that all actions of a certain kind, or circumstanced in a certain manner, are approved or disapproved of.
When these general rules, indeed, have been formed, when they are universally acknowledged and established by the concurring sentiments of mankind, we frequently appeal to them as to the standards of judgement, in debating concerning the degree of praise or blame that is due to certain actions of a complicated and dubious nature. They are upon these occasions commonly cited as the ultimate foundations of what is just and unjust in human conduct; and this circumstance seems to have misled several very eminent authors to draw up their systems in such a manner as if they had supposed that the original judgments of mankind with regard to right and wrong were formed like the decisions of a court of judicatory, by considering first the general rule, and then, secondly, whether the particular action under consideration fell properly within its comprehension.
The book has some flaws. For one thing, Smith is wordy and repetitive. He seems to think if a point is worth making, it’s worth making three times just to make sure. I’ve never read a book that cried out more for a Readers’ Digest abridged edition. But aside from points of style, the major flaw is Smith’s insistence that an examination of human morality is equivalent to an examination of the opinions of well-bred, enlightenment-minded, well-to-do English men of the 18th century. His curiosity isn’t sufficient to consider other points of view as also being manifestations of human nature, or as anything but inferior versions of the mature morality of his fellows. Some of his conclusions follow comfortably and obviously from his biased choice of exemplars, and are unconvincing to the modern, more cosmopolitan reader.
But it’s ahead of its time and thought-provoking, and a well-needed perspective on ethical philosophy that ought to be more influential today than it appears to be.
April 13, 2008
Along with On The Wealth of Nations, I re-read this every couple of years. It is Smith's predecessor and guide book to the ideas in On The Wealth of Nations. It is the moral underpinning that needs to be present for a capitalist nation not to become a nation of exploitative, money hungry, soulless power mongers using people as economic ends to gain superiority by an over-valuing of wealth. Alas, we did not take heed.
September 9, 2019
I thought this book was exceedingly great. I enjoyed everything within it very well indeed. It is only a matter of sitting down and concretely analyzing ethics scientifically and then you will be able to see the perspective from Adam Smith's point of view. My edition (the penguin classics) also included a writing by Adam Smith on the formation of languages that I much enjoyed as well.
I would recommend this to anyone just trying to get into Adam Smith or moral philosophy in general. Five stars.
I would recommend this to anyone just trying to get into Adam Smith or moral philosophy in general. Five stars.
March 31, 2014
The "Theory of Moral Sentiments" is based on Smith's assertion that we are both social ("mutally sympathetic") and self-interested beings, and that social order must be based on these two fundamental classes of moral sentiments.
On this foundation, Smith derives three virtues that promote social order. The first is propriety, which is self-command over the passions. This virtue is based on Smith's observation that, as individuals seek their own freedom, the freedom of one is not more important than the other's. Self-command therefore generates admiration ("approbation") and its lack generates disapproval. Smith writes at considerable length about the "the manhood of self-command," admiring in particular the Stoics (and the North American "savage") who, in Taoist fashion, control what is in their own power and accept what is not. The central thrust of self-command is the negative form of justice, which is to do no harm (i.e., to respect the freedom of others). Given the length Smith spends on this virtue, he may regard it as the most important of the three. The second virtue is prudence. Here, Smith acknowledges with the Epicureans that we seek pleasure and avoid pain, and that prudence involves accepting pain now for greater pleasure later or foregoing pleasure now to avoid pain later, which is in essence the same thing. We also avoid, for example, ostentatious displays so that we don't incite envy. The third virtue is benefice which is - and this is not so clear in Smith - promoting the generic happiness of humankind because god is said to command it (not because we are especially inclined to do so). This involves the positive form of justice which is to actively promote the happiness of others. Our task (and that of our leaders) is "to produce the greatest quantity of happiness." These three virtues work together as too much of one detracts from the other. Too much self-command neglects our softer side; too much self-love ignores the "amiable" side'; too much benefice lacks the discipline to protect one's self-interest.
Although tedious and difficult to read, Smith is better than other classical writers about identifying who we are and how we operate. At times, writing 100 years before Darwin's Origin, he sounds as though he is a modern NeoDarwinan as our most basic life impulse is not just survival but replication ("...self-preservation, and the propagation of the species, are the great ends which nature seems to have proposed in the formation of all animals.") Freedom to pursue self-interest serves as the means to these life ends. When we each pursue our self-interest, we conflict with others who do the same, thereby necessitating the three Smithian virtues to preserve order. Overseeing our application of these virtues is the fictitious impartial spectator who in conscience-like fashion reminds us that our freedom is, in the grand cosmic scheme, not more important than another's. That self-control is a challenge, Smith is well aware. Unlike most other writers, but like Veblen later, Smith identifies the prevalence of rank and reputation as driving forces because these have a direct bearing on our ability to command resources to survive, including garnering the assistance of others. Also, unlike most other theorists, Smith discusses throughout this long book the importance of looking good to one's community. This conformist tendency, which foreshadows Darwin's assertion about our tribal nature, has survival value as we receive benefits and avoid harm when we maintain ourselves as group members in good standing.
Also better than most theorists, Smith identifies the role of imagination in magnifying pleasure and pain. The body, he says, experiences both in an immediate way. With mind and imagination, we can hold vast amounts of past pain and we can entertain vast hopes for future pleasure. Interestingly, Smith gives us a beginning theory of boredom when he writes that "Our imagination, which in pain and sorrow seems to be confined and cooped up within our own persons, in times of ease and prosperity expands itself to every thing around us." This hope for "the pleasures of wealth and greatness" is a "deception which rouses and keeps in continual motion the industry of mankind."
Smith, like most other theorists, lodges "motive" in the external world so that we react to stimuli. He refers seamlessly to "objects of fear" and to "objects of self-interest" but this somewhat misrepresents the dialectical exchange between the self and the world. Why do objects create fear if we do not first have the capacity for fear inside? Is the motive - that which moves us - inside or outside? It is the same question with the more general notion of self-interest. Why do we seek food, sexual mates, conformity to the group, and rank and reputation unless we have an internal need for such things because they serve our self-interest? After all, Smith does say that the passions of pride and resentment and "ambition, animosity, the love of honour and the dread of shame, the desire of victory, superiority, and revenge" all "defend us against injuries," and that the passions "founded in love of pleasure" all "provide for the support and necessities of the body."
Smith takes human nature as it is in all its flaws (e.g., we live for the opinions of others, to be loved and admired; we admire the rich and indulge them in their excesses and sins because they are industrious as compared to those good-natured people who are slothful or to "the effeminate man") and Smith builds on that weak foundation by specifying what we ought to be (follow the three virtues). Where Smith's theory breaks down is in his assumption that we are all the same. That is at odds with the variability of human nature that lies at the heart of Darwinian evolution. We are not all the same. Self-regard and other-regard both serve self-interest, but we all have more of one than the other. That's particularly true of self-interest, which is relatively void of other-regardedness, particularly for those who are not of our group. If the rich and powerful, or Joe Blow, can screw others and get away with it, what do they care about benefice or what the impartial spectator thinks? And that's the problem with free markets and unfettered capitalism.
On this foundation, Smith derives three virtues that promote social order. The first is propriety, which is self-command over the passions. This virtue is based on Smith's observation that, as individuals seek their own freedom, the freedom of one is not more important than the other's. Self-command therefore generates admiration ("approbation") and its lack generates disapproval. Smith writes at considerable length about the "the manhood of self-command," admiring in particular the Stoics (and the North American "savage") who, in Taoist fashion, control what is in their own power and accept what is not. The central thrust of self-command is the negative form of justice, which is to do no harm (i.e., to respect the freedom of others). Given the length Smith spends on this virtue, he may regard it as the most important of the three. The second virtue is prudence. Here, Smith acknowledges with the Epicureans that we seek pleasure and avoid pain, and that prudence involves accepting pain now for greater pleasure later or foregoing pleasure now to avoid pain later, which is in essence the same thing. We also avoid, for example, ostentatious displays so that we don't incite envy. The third virtue is benefice which is - and this is not so clear in Smith - promoting the generic happiness of humankind because god is said to command it (not because we are especially inclined to do so). This involves the positive form of justice which is to actively promote the happiness of others. Our task (and that of our leaders) is "to produce the greatest quantity of happiness." These three virtues work together as too much of one detracts from the other. Too much self-command neglects our softer side; too much self-love ignores the "amiable" side'; too much benefice lacks the discipline to protect one's self-interest.
Although tedious and difficult to read, Smith is better than other classical writers about identifying who we are and how we operate. At times, writing 100 years before Darwin's Origin, he sounds as though he is a modern NeoDarwinan as our most basic life impulse is not just survival but replication ("...self-preservation, and the propagation of the species, are the great ends which nature seems to have proposed in the formation of all animals.") Freedom to pursue self-interest serves as the means to these life ends. When we each pursue our self-interest, we conflict with others who do the same, thereby necessitating the three Smithian virtues to preserve order. Overseeing our application of these virtues is the fictitious impartial spectator who in conscience-like fashion reminds us that our freedom is, in the grand cosmic scheme, not more important than another's. That self-control is a challenge, Smith is well aware. Unlike most other writers, but like Veblen later, Smith identifies the prevalence of rank and reputation as driving forces because these have a direct bearing on our ability to command resources to survive, including garnering the assistance of others. Also, unlike most other theorists, Smith discusses throughout this long book the importance of looking good to one's community. This conformist tendency, which foreshadows Darwin's assertion about our tribal nature, has survival value as we receive benefits and avoid harm when we maintain ourselves as group members in good standing.
Also better than most theorists, Smith identifies the role of imagination in magnifying pleasure and pain. The body, he says, experiences both in an immediate way. With mind and imagination, we can hold vast amounts of past pain and we can entertain vast hopes for future pleasure. Interestingly, Smith gives us a beginning theory of boredom when he writes that "Our imagination, which in pain and sorrow seems to be confined and cooped up within our own persons, in times of ease and prosperity expands itself to every thing around us." This hope for "the pleasures of wealth and greatness" is a "deception which rouses and keeps in continual motion the industry of mankind."
Smith, like most other theorists, lodges "motive" in the external world so that we react to stimuli. He refers seamlessly to "objects of fear" and to "objects of self-interest" but this somewhat misrepresents the dialectical exchange between the self and the world. Why do objects create fear if we do not first have the capacity for fear inside? Is the motive - that which moves us - inside or outside? It is the same question with the more general notion of self-interest. Why do we seek food, sexual mates, conformity to the group, and rank and reputation unless we have an internal need for such things because they serve our self-interest? After all, Smith does say that the passions of pride and resentment and "ambition, animosity, the love of honour and the dread of shame, the desire of victory, superiority, and revenge" all "defend us against injuries," and that the passions "founded in love of pleasure" all "provide for the support and necessities of the body."
Smith takes human nature as it is in all its flaws (e.g., we live for the opinions of others, to be loved and admired; we admire the rich and indulge them in their excesses and sins because they are industrious as compared to those good-natured people who are slothful or to "the effeminate man") and Smith builds on that weak foundation by specifying what we ought to be (follow the three virtues). Where Smith's theory breaks down is in his assumption that we are all the same. That is at odds with the variability of human nature that lies at the heart of Darwinian evolution. We are not all the same. Self-regard and other-regard both serve self-interest, but we all have more of one than the other. That's particularly true of self-interest, which is relatively void of other-regardedness, particularly for those who are not of our group. If the rich and powerful, or Joe Blow, can screw others and get away with it, what do they care about benefice or what the impartial spectator thinks? And that's the problem with free markets and unfettered capitalism.
April 11, 2021
Reading Adam Smith, like Hume or Gibbon, takes you into a century where the prose styles were more classical than today. I was fortunate to study Latin in high school, but Smith had Greek and Latin studies from an early age. His references to Aristotle, Plato, the Stoics and Cicero are central to his work. But his immediate predecessor was Francis Hutcheson of the University of Glasgow, who divided moral philosophy into four parts: Ethics and Virtue; Private rights and Natural liberty; Familial rights (called Economics); and State and Individual rights (called Politics). In contrast to Hutcheson, Smith, in The Theory of Moral Sentiments, divided moral systems into: 1) Categories of the nature of morality: These included Propriety, Prudence, and Benevolence; and 2) Categories of the motive of morality: These included Self-love, Reason, and Sentiment. Hutcheson had abandoned the psychological view of moral philosophy, claiming that motives were too fickle to be used as a basis for a philosophical system. Instead, he hypothesised a dedicated "sixth sense" to explain morality. This idea, to be taken up by David Hume (see Hume's A Treatise of Human Nature), claimed that man is pleased by utility.
Smith rejected his teacher's reliance on this special sense. Starting in about 1741, Smith set on the task of using Hume's experimental method (appealing to human experience) to replace the specific moral sense with a pluralistic approach to morality based on a multitude of psychological motives. Throughout the work the Smith demonstrates a superior ability to observe in detail the human experience. The Theory of Moral Sentiments begins with the following assertion:
"How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortunes of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it, except the pleasure of seeing it. Of this kind is pity or compassion, the emotion we feel for the misery of others, when we either see it, or are made to conceive it in a very lively manner. That we often derive sorrow from the sorrows of others, is a matter of fact too obvious to require any instances to prove it; for this sentiment, like all the other original passions of human nature, is by no means confined to the virtuous or the humane, though they perhaps may feel it with the most exquisite sensibility. The greatest ruffian, the most hardened violator of the laws of society, is not altogether without it."
Smith departed from the "moral sense" tradition of Shaftesbury, Hutcheson, and Hume, as the principle of sympathy takes the place of that organ. "Sympathy" was the term Smith used for the feeling of these moral sentiments. It was the feeling with the passions of others. It operated through a logic of self projection, in which a spectator imaginatively reconstructed the experience of the person he watches. This process allows a person to build and maintain a sense of propriety which sense is of utmost importance for Smith's theory. Also important is the relevance of this book for Smith's more famous tome, The Wealth of Nations, published in 1776. P. J. O'Rourke has this to say about this connection:
"The Wealth of Nations was part of a larger enterprise in moral philosophy. The first installment of Adam Smith's great undertaking was The Theory of Moral Sentiments, published 17 years before Wealth. Smith finished an extensive revision of Moral Sentiments the year before he died. He considered it his most important work. The book is not much read or referred to nowadays, but his theories in The Wealth of Nations cannot be understood without The Theory of Moral Sentiments.
"Smith devoted most of his career to the project of bettering human existence. A modern person_or a modern person who doesn't wear Birkenstocks_is tempted to laugh. It is a hilariously big job. But most of us have undertaken hilariously big jobs such as raising children. We were lured into the enterprise by the, so to speak, pleasures of conception. New beginnings are always fun. And the prospect of making wholesale improvements in ordinary life was as novel and fascinating in the 18th century as the prospect of making life simpler and less stressful and blocking e-mail spam are today." (P.J. O'Rourke, "Smith's Law,'" The Weekly Standard July 17, 2006).
Adam Smith's book was well-received and sold well. More importantly it influenced thinkers from political philosophers to literary stylists. Just read Jane Austen (Sense and Sensibility) to get a flavor of Smith's influence. This is an important and original book to read for all who are interested in the development of the philosophy of the enlightenment.
Smith rejected his teacher's reliance on this special sense. Starting in about 1741, Smith set on the task of using Hume's experimental method (appealing to human experience) to replace the specific moral sense with a pluralistic approach to morality based on a multitude of psychological motives. Throughout the work the Smith demonstrates a superior ability to observe in detail the human experience. The Theory of Moral Sentiments begins with the following assertion:
"How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortunes of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it, except the pleasure of seeing it. Of this kind is pity or compassion, the emotion we feel for the misery of others, when we either see it, or are made to conceive it in a very lively manner. That we often derive sorrow from the sorrows of others, is a matter of fact too obvious to require any instances to prove it; for this sentiment, like all the other original passions of human nature, is by no means confined to the virtuous or the humane, though they perhaps may feel it with the most exquisite sensibility. The greatest ruffian, the most hardened violator of the laws of society, is not altogether without it."
Smith departed from the "moral sense" tradition of Shaftesbury, Hutcheson, and Hume, as the principle of sympathy takes the place of that organ. "Sympathy" was the term Smith used for the feeling of these moral sentiments. It was the feeling with the passions of others. It operated through a logic of self projection, in which a spectator imaginatively reconstructed the experience of the person he watches. This process allows a person to build and maintain a sense of propriety which sense is of utmost importance for Smith's theory. Also important is the relevance of this book for Smith's more famous tome, The Wealth of Nations, published in 1776. P. J. O'Rourke has this to say about this connection:
"The Wealth of Nations was part of a larger enterprise in moral philosophy. The first installment of Adam Smith's great undertaking was The Theory of Moral Sentiments, published 17 years before Wealth. Smith finished an extensive revision of Moral Sentiments the year before he died. He considered it his most important work. The book is not much read or referred to nowadays, but his theories in The Wealth of Nations cannot be understood without The Theory of Moral Sentiments.
"Smith devoted most of his career to the project of bettering human existence. A modern person_or a modern person who doesn't wear Birkenstocks_is tempted to laugh. It is a hilariously big job. But most of us have undertaken hilariously big jobs such as raising children. We were lured into the enterprise by the, so to speak, pleasures of conception. New beginnings are always fun. And the prospect of making wholesale improvements in ordinary life was as novel and fascinating in the 18th century as the prospect of making life simpler and less stressful and blocking e-mail spam are today." (P.J. O'Rourke, "Smith's Law,'" The Weekly Standard July 17, 2006).
Adam Smith's book was well-received and sold well. More importantly it influenced thinkers from political philosophers to literary stylists. Just read Jane Austen (Sense and Sensibility) to get a flavor of Smith's influence. This is an important and original book to read for all who are interested in the development of the philosophy of the enlightenment.
November 15, 2010
a difficult book to read, but I was inspired by a series of podcasts that Russell Roberts and Dan Klein (George Mason U) did in the summer of 2009. An idea in the book that I liked is that, counterintuivity, an "impartial spectator" is better company when you're downtrodden than a friend or relative. What you need is not necessarily sympathy but the ability to look at your situation as an impartial spectator would. In the company of strangers, our natural tendency is to bring our emotions down to the level at which others can tolerate. People are inherently selfish (as Smith says, the foreknowledge of losing a single finger is more disruptive to our peace of mind than a horrible calamity in a far-away place), and it is other people and their unwillingness to indulge our self-love that gives us our moral characters. I see this with my 2 year old son, who is relatively even temperered, and self-controlled when interacting with his peers and teachers in pre-school, and impatient, wild, and tantrum-prone when with me and my wife.
November 8, 2022
Introduction
Scholars researching on Adam Smith often find it obfuscated and confused that there are two distinct modes of Smith’s theories: the economic Smith and the moral Smith. The economic Smith grapples with promotion of one’s self interests, division of labor, and modes of exchange and trade. The moral Smith urges for prudence, propriety, and generosity originated from one’s moral sentiments. The alarming divergence emerges from the seemly discrepancy between promoting self interest and promulgating sentiments of morals. Unbounded self interests lead to selfishness and indulgence. Possibly, as I speculate, Smith’s decorum of moral sentiments is to channel and to guide self interests. Propriety, prudence, and benevolence are wholesome and viable to place self interest under restraints and within boundaries.
However, I think Smith’s neglects of the role of rationality placed in morality render his theory of morals confusing his readership a bit. In this short review I am going to conduct a critique of this neglect of rationality in terms of utility, self interests, moral sentiments, and economic man. The major argument of mine: Smith’s moral theory though lacking in incorporation of rationality’s position does render theory of moral sentiments fallible in terms of utility and moral principles. But I also argue that rationality is also insufficient to fulfil its role in moral theories.
Utility and rationality
Before jumping to a discussion Smith’s utility and his ignorance of rationality, let’s first elaborate a bit about his conception of utility. Smith attaches great significance to utility, and regards utility as a sense of order and beauty. He compares utility with accordance and orderly beauty of chairs after rearrangement in the room. He esteems utility as a mankind virtue. However, Smith’s notion of utility as a virtue has nothing to do with frivolous and shallow ways of happiness and entertainment. To him, utility comes from beauty of order and harmony, even though one man has to suffer from ordeals and to endure pains in order to achieve order and harmony. Utility, in accordance to Smith’s idea, is a constituent of sentiments, or more precisely a kind of affections in close relation with morality. Moral sentiments, including utility, justice, benevolence, prudence, and probity are taken by Smith as those premium moral sentiments. My reading of Smith’s theory of moral sentiments informs that according to Smith morality is adjusted and modulated by affection and sentiments. He writes: “we naturally confound it in in our imagination with the order, the regular and harmonious movement of the system, the machine or economy by means of which it is produced” (Smith, 2010: p.214). These moral sentiments are applied when when one man is having a feeling of complying to the righteous deeds. One man is executing righteous deeds for answering to and for abiding with these premium moral sentiments. I don’t think an Adam Smith’s sense of man is in need of applying his faculties of rationality when he thinks and acts on in harmony with morality. Smith’s man of morality is not pertained to a man who deliberates on and takes into actions of doing the right things. The same to utility that one man with acquisition of the beauty and order of utility does not require the faculty of rationality to think through and operationalize his sense of this moral good, for utility as a premium sentiment of morals is already a key constitute of this man’s virtue. Again per my reading of Smith’s moral sentiments, utility is a kind of morals that seem to render naturally to a man.
I finds out three problems with Smith’s utility as a solely moral sentiment. My first critique concerns utility’s equation to a virtue in neglect of rationality. Utility to Smith consists of a good sentiment, through which one man is affected to ponder on and do the right thing. To me, his conception of utility, along with other moral sentiments, lead to my speculation that utility with other moral sentiments are comparable to moral principles. One man is to think and behave righteously in both his thoughts and deeds, which are dominated and guided by these good sentiments of morals. In the case of utility, one’s feeling of probity and righteousness is led and affected through his sense of utility. But if utility is comparable to a moral principle, here comes a crucial problem. Moral sentiments, like utility, are unstable and adjustable in comparison to moral principles. It is not likely to ignore the possibility that sentiments governed by utility would contradict with and even violate moral principles. And there are many vivid real-life examples that one’s compliance with utility would contradict with moral principles. For example, happiness of purchasing and buying fast fashion clothes will exceed that of caring for environmentalist protection. But is this moral? I don’t think so.
The second problem in terms of Smith’s utility ascertain concepts of quantity and quality of utility. These theories originate from philosophers predominantly Jeremy Bentham, and John Stuart Mill. Bentham prioritizes to assess quantity of utility, in contrast with Mill’s notion of evaluating utility with quality measures. Nevertheless, both Bentham and Mill are with great care to grant utility with moral merits. (But this is not the important things to discuss in this essay.) Borrowing ideas from Bentham and Mill’s sense of utility, I would like to interject my critiques of Smith’s conception of utility. My argument for this section pertains to the connection between rationality and utility in terms of the latter’s assessment per both quantity and quality. Utility requires to be rationalized, especially in the contextual settings that one is in need of to be calculating in order to select quantity of quality over quality of utility, or the other way around, to pick quality of utility over quantity of utility. Let me present one example here. A is working on a very difficult project, and the work time lasts four days or three days. There are two modes of working pace for him to make a selection. 1) work on the first day, rest on the second and on the third, and work on the fourth. The utility of these four day’s work is assessed, and the result is two points. A is reported to be equally happy during the two resting days, but nothing very special ; and 2) work on the first and the second days, and rest on the third; these three days’ work leads to a result of utility assessment- also two points. A is reported to be the most happy on the last days for both completion of the hard work and enjoying the resting time. There are nuances to be considered in this example, but one in numerous such life situations is faced with calculation and deliberation via means of rationality.
Self interests and rationality
From my reading of Smith’s notion of self interests, I think self interests comprise of two elements: self needs and desires. Self needs can be material or non-material subsistence, or psychological supports that sustain one man’s living and blossoming as a human being. Desires are man’s longing for certain materials or non-materials beyond his self needs. I read Smith as he being quite confident that man, with sufficient supply of rationality, is to know for sure his self interests. But does he really know his self-interests? Herein, I would like to enumerate a bit why man is incapable of knowing his self interests. Let’s first come to tackle the problem of self needs. Here is an illustration of how one man knows his self needs: X is hungry, and he thinks that he needs food. In this illustration, this man seems perfectly knowing his self needs - he needs food. However, this illustration, abstracted from realistic human situations and contexts, indicates an ideal state of self needs. Realistic human situations and contexts would present a different illustration: X had been at work since 9 am. He had a Greek yogurt about half an hour ago. Just now he realizes that two coworkers nearest to his cubicle have gone for lunch. “What are they eating for lunch now? Maybe one has cheese burger, and the other goes for salads with goat cheeses.” He pauses for a while, and then looks around, and finds out Jim (the manager) still in the office. “There are two forms to fill in, and I’d better update my work memo.” The moment he is about to get back to work, he realizes that he is hungry and needs food. But he does not take immediate actions on the thought of needing food. Instead, he turns on Apps on his smartphone, pondering about if he should order foods online. “Wait a second. There is a new Chinese noodle restaurant open nearby. And it is several days since I had Chinese food last time.”... What I want to do in this illustration is trying to depict a real situation of X being hungry and his speculation of his needs of food. From this scenario, X’s state of being hungry depends on the changes of his surrounding contexts and human affairs, as there are multiple elements (e.g. working hours, a Greek yogurt, two coworkers’ lunch, Jim still in the office) that may trigger him to have a self realization of his being hungry. The same to his thought (he needs food), which also cannot distance from many contextual and human bounds. Hence, that one is rational enough to know his self needs should bear some doubts and questions.
I consider it very difficult or even impossible to rationalize one’s desires. Does one man know his desires? Through his rationality? This question I think would be more difficult. To me, desires are deemed more implicit than self needs. Similar to self needs, desires cannot be abstracted from socially bounded contexts. But apart from this, the implicit attribute of desires, maybe according to Freud’s inquiries and in his terms, are more associated with one’s consciousness. Let me present a scenario that might look a little familiar: Y is a successful businesswoman in her mid-forties. Her mother is about to celebrate her seventy years old’s birthday and wants to hold a party. Y is preparing for the birthday party, but at some moments of the preparation period, she recollected some bitter past memories. From childhood, Y has been thought of her mother as a gruesome and cold-hearted woman, who is deemed inappropriate for motherhood. However, Y thinks that she doesn’t hate her mother, and just disfavors her as a unsuitable mother. Anyways, Y still plans hardworking for the birthday party, and wants to buy a good present for her mother. For example, a pearl necklace tinted with the color of gray will suit her mother the best. The necklace will cost about three hundred pounds, and it is not a high price for Y. But she did hesitate to make a decision of purchasing. “Mom has been always cold and distant to me. I could offer her a birthday card instead, and do not have to spend the extra three hundreds for her.”... Let’s examine this seemingly cliche example through the lens of consciousness. Y keeps on preparing the party and pondering about purchasing the necklace as a present for her mother, but she thinks that she disfavors her mother. Does Y know for sure about what she desires for in this scenario? Does she really disfavor her mother as she think so? Will she prepare a birthday card instead the necklace as she has been deliberating? I don’t think Y knows.
Moral sentiments and rationality
Smith aggrandizes the positionalities of moral sentiments, as he writes:“If virtue, therefore, does not consist in propriety, it must consist either in prudence or in benevolence. Besides these three, it is scarce possible to imagine that any other account can be given of the nature of virtue” (Smith, 2009: p. 318). In addition, he addresses adjustment and modulation among different moral sentiments by introducing the concept of “the impartial spectator”. One man is to act in accordance to morals as he is consistently and persistently assessed and judged by the impartial spectator. I find Smith’s theory of moral sentiments and the impartial spectator plausible, for three reasons. First, moral affections such as propriety, prudence, and benevolence cannot be gauged and attuned without moral standards. To me, propriety, prudence, and benevolence shall not be read as accurate and explicit principles of virtues. How much propriety, prudence, and benevolence are needed in different situations? What is the “precise” meanings for propriety, prudence, and benevolence when one man is deliberating and choosing if his thoughts and actions are complying with the right and just things. Second, Smith’s sense of moral sentiments lacks the intervention of rational faculties. One is in great need of rationality for assistance and intervention in our moral deliberation and judgement. Smith’s neglect of rationality does harm his theory of morals. The third problem concerns the role and position of the impartial spectator. With standards or principles of morals, I think it is difficult to know and acknowledge the spectator’s perspectives and foundations of morality. How does the spectator gauge and judge impartially? What does his impartiality come from? I think without moral principles and standards one is not likely to realize his minds and behaviors are impartially judged by “an invisible spectator”. I think the positions of the impartial spectator would be different depending on that one is situated within various scenarios. Does the impartial spectator move his position when one’s action and deliberation is to be evaluated and judged with equally just standards? I don’t think Smith establishes an elaboration on this.
Economic man and rationality
For this part, I try to interlink Smith’s theory of economics with homo economicus (economic man). I consider Smith’s ignorance of rationality in his formulation of economic theory fallible. That how extensively and intensively economics is to saturate with our everyday thinking patterns and deliberation methods, I think, is out of expectation of Adam Smith when he theorizes decorum of self interests, division of labor, and trading. Nowadays, one man is to calculate gains and lost in almost every spheres of daily livings. And one severe issue arises when the notion of homo economicus immerses one’s mindsets and behaviors and within the society in general - the standards of propriety, prudence, and benevolence have transformed and adapted within tenets of modern capitalism. The later philosopher Michel Foucault writes: “In neoliberalism, and it does not hide this; it proclaims it—there is also a theory of homo economicus, but he is not at all a partner of exchange. Homo economicus is an entrepreneur of himself. This is true to the extent that, in practice, the stake in all neoliberal analyses is the replacement every time of homo economicus as partner of exchange with a homo economicus as entrepreneur of himself, being for himself his own capital, being for himself his own producer being for himself the source of his earnings” (Foucault, 2008: p. 226).
Another issue related to economic man and rationality is purported to explicate the division between instrumental rationality and value-laden rationality. Back to Max Weber’s theoretical investigation of these two, it is not difficult to find that, when the economic man orientated with self interests and intentions to exchange and to trade, rationality of such homo economicus blurs the sharp division between what rationalities count instrumental and what are regarded as rationalities laden with values. Let’s further an explication via presenting a literary example. The renown English writer Virginia Woolf in her modernist novel, Mrs Dalloway, depicts how the protagonist Mrs. Dalloway, who intends to buy the flowers on her own in the morning, during a period of one day allows her thoughts and feelings to stream and pervade like flowing water. Mrs. Dalloway tries to recollect memories of her past and at the same time she is immersing back and forth within her concurrent daily living through streams of consciousness and meanings. She goes to the street, half-thinking, and half-intended (to buy the flowers by herself). It is possible to analyze this intention and to position “to buy the flowers” as one kind of instrumental rationality, for the series of actions - she goes to the street, looking for a flower shop, making selections, and the most importantly using her own means to pay for the product to the shop owner- could be regarded as instrumental and strategic. But is this so? Or maybe, it is likely that her intention is not that instrumental, but the ways she thinks and acts are garnished and laden with values to some degree. The values procured in her day of pondering and wondering including her indeed actions of purchasing at the flower shop, are of multiple meanings, hardly decipherable and explicit for themselves. It is becoming more of ordeal to examine the act (of buying the flowers), which could be considered as a simplistic mode of economic behavior series, provided that this act is contextualized in a reductionist aspect of aptitudes - she just goes to the street and buys the flowers on her own. In this way, thoughts and consciousness of the protagonist cannot be decoded as patterns of rationality emerged and submerged either with instrumentality or values. Intentions and values have become complexity of meanings and/or non-meanings bundled with Mrs. Dalloway’s existence for that single day - the day that begins, twirls, and folds with thoughts and meanings. All these complexity emerge and intensify after she mentioned to her husband on that morning that she decided to buy the flowers herself (Woolf, 2021: p. 1).
Conclusion
Rationality and moral principles are both viable and feasible to ground and guide morality. But rationality has its own pitfalls in constructing realities, especially for this review, the realities concerning economic behaviors. Mans, equipped and imbued with bounded rationality, should caution in application of rationality.
Reference list:
Adam Smith, (2009), Theory of moral sentiments, Penguin Classics.
Michel Foucault,(2008), The birth of biopolitics,London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Virginia Woolf, (2021), Mrs Dalloway, Warbler Classics.
Scholars researching on Adam Smith often find it obfuscated and confused that there are two distinct modes of Smith’s theories: the economic Smith and the moral Smith. The economic Smith grapples with promotion of one’s self interests, division of labor, and modes of exchange and trade. The moral Smith urges for prudence, propriety, and generosity originated from one’s moral sentiments. The alarming divergence emerges from the seemly discrepancy between promoting self interest and promulgating sentiments of morals. Unbounded self interests lead to selfishness and indulgence. Possibly, as I speculate, Smith’s decorum of moral sentiments is to channel and to guide self interests. Propriety, prudence, and benevolence are wholesome and viable to place self interest under restraints and within boundaries.
However, I think Smith’s neglects of the role of rationality placed in morality render his theory of morals confusing his readership a bit. In this short review I am going to conduct a critique of this neglect of rationality in terms of utility, self interests, moral sentiments, and economic man. The major argument of mine: Smith’s moral theory though lacking in incorporation of rationality’s position does render theory of moral sentiments fallible in terms of utility and moral principles. But I also argue that rationality is also insufficient to fulfil its role in moral theories.
Utility and rationality
Before jumping to a discussion Smith’s utility and his ignorance of rationality, let’s first elaborate a bit about his conception of utility. Smith attaches great significance to utility, and regards utility as a sense of order and beauty. He compares utility with accordance and orderly beauty of chairs after rearrangement in the room. He esteems utility as a mankind virtue. However, Smith’s notion of utility as a virtue has nothing to do with frivolous and shallow ways of happiness and entertainment. To him, utility comes from beauty of order and harmony, even though one man has to suffer from ordeals and to endure pains in order to achieve order and harmony. Utility, in accordance to Smith’s idea, is a constituent of sentiments, or more precisely a kind of affections in close relation with morality. Moral sentiments, including utility, justice, benevolence, prudence, and probity are taken by Smith as those premium moral sentiments. My reading of Smith’s theory of moral sentiments informs that according to Smith morality is adjusted and modulated by affection and sentiments. He writes: “we naturally confound it in in our imagination with the order, the regular and harmonious movement of the system, the machine or economy by means of which it is produced” (Smith, 2010: p.214). These moral sentiments are applied when when one man is having a feeling of complying to the righteous deeds. One man is executing righteous deeds for answering to and for abiding with these premium moral sentiments. I don’t think an Adam Smith’s sense of man is in need of applying his faculties of rationality when he thinks and acts on in harmony with morality. Smith’s man of morality is not pertained to a man who deliberates on and takes into actions of doing the right things. The same to utility that one man with acquisition of the beauty and order of utility does not require the faculty of rationality to think through and operationalize his sense of this moral good, for utility as a premium sentiment of morals is already a key constitute of this man’s virtue. Again per my reading of Smith’s moral sentiments, utility is a kind of morals that seem to render naturally to a man.
I finds out three problems with Smith’s utility as a solely moral sentiment. My first critique concerns utility’s equation to a virtue in neglect of rationality. Utility to Smith consists of a good sentiment, through which one man is affected to ponder on and do the right thing. To me, his conception of utility, along with other moral sentiments, lead to my speculation that utility with other moral sentiments are comparable to moral principles. One man is to think and behave righteously in both his thoughts and deeds, which are dominated and guided by these good sentiments of morals. In the case of utility, one’s feeling of probity and righteousness is led and affected through his sense of utility. But if utility is comparable to a moral principle, here comes a crucial problem. Moral sentiments, like utility, are unstable and adjustable in comparison to moral principles. It is not likely to ignore the possibility that sentiments governed by utility would contradict with and even violate moral principles. And there are many vivid real-life examples that one’s compliance with utility would contradict with moral principles. For example, happiness of purchasing and buying fast fashion clothes will exceed that of caring for environmentalist protection. But is this moral? I don’t think so.
The second problem in terms of Smith’s utility ascertain concepts of quantity and quality of utility. These theories originate from philosophers predominantly Jeremy Bentham, and John Stuart Mill. Bentham prioritizes to assess quantity of utility, in contrast with Mill’s notion of evaluating utility with quality measures. Nevertheless, both Bentham and Mill are with great care to grant utility with moral merits. (But this is not the important things to discuss in this essay.) Borrowing ideas from Bentham and Mill’s sense of utility, I would like to interject my critiques of Smith’s conception of utility. My argument for this section pertains to the connection between rationality and utility in terms of the latter’s assessment per both quantity and quality. Utility requires to be rationalized, especially in the contextual settings that one is in need of to be calculating in order to select quantity of quality over quality of utility, or the other way around, to pick quality of utility over quantity of utility. Let me present one example here. A is working on a very difficult project, and the work time lasts four days or three days. There are two modes of working pace for him to make a selection. 1) work on the first day, rest on the second and on the third, and work on the fourth. The utility of these four day’s work is assessed, and the result is two points. A is reported to be equally happy during the two resting days, but nothing very special ; and 2) work on the first and the second days, and rest on the third; these three days’ work leads to a result of utility assessment- also two points. A is reported to be the most happy on the last days for both completion of the hard work and enjoying the resting time. There are nuances to be considered in this example, but one in numerous such life situations is faced with calculation and deliberation via means of rationality.
Self interests and rationality
From my reading of Smith’s notion of self interests, I think self interests comprise of two elements: self needs and desires. Self needs can be material or non-material subsistence, or psychological supports that sustain one man’s living and blossoming as a human being. Desires are man’s longing for certain materials or non-materials beyond his self needs. I read Smith as he being quite confident that man, with sufficient supply of rationality, is to know for sure his self interests. But does he really know his self-interests? Herein, I would like to enumerate a bit why man is incapable of knowing his self interests. Let’s first come to tackle the problem of self needs. Here is an illustration of how one man knows his self needs: X is hungry, and he thinks that he needs food. In this illustration, this man seems perfectly knowing his self needs - he needs food. However, this illustration, abstracted from realistic human situations and contexts, indicates an ideal state of self needs. Realistic human situations and contexts would present a different illustration: X had been at work since 9 am. He had a Greek yogurt about half an hour ago. Just now he realizes that two coworkers nearest to his cubicle have gone for lunch. “What are they eating for lunch now? Maybe one has cheese burger, and the other goes for salads with goat cheeses.” He pauses for a while, and then looks around, and finds out Jim (the manager) still in the office. “There are two forms to fill in, and I’d better update my work memo.” The moment he is about to get back to work, he realizes that he is hungry and needs food. But he does not take immediate actions on the thought of needing food. Instead, he turns on Apps on his smartphone, pondering about if he should order foods online. “Wait a second. There is a new Chinese noodle restaurant open nearby. And it is several days since I had Chinese food last time.”... What I want to do in this illustration is trying to depict a real situation of X being hungry and his speculation of his needs of food. From this scenario, X’s state of being hungry depends on the changes of his surrounding contexts and human affairs, as there are multiple elements (e.g. working hours, a Greek yogurt, two coworkers’ lunch, Jim still in the office) that may trigger him to have a self realization of his being hungry. The same to his thought (he needs food), which also cannot distance from many contextual and human bounds. Hence, that one is rational enough to know his self needs should bear some doubts and questions.
I consider it very difficult or even impossible to rationalize one’s desires. Does one man know his desires? Through his rationality? This question I think would be more difficult. To me, desires are deemed more implicit than self needs. Similar to self needs, desires cannot be abstracted from socially bounded contexts. But apart from this, the implicit attribute of desires, maybe according to Freud’s inquiries and in his terms, are more associated with one’s consciousness. Let me present a scenario that might look a little familiar: Y is a successful businesswoman in her mid-forties. Her mother is about to celebrate her seventy years old’s birthday and wants to hold a party. Y is preparing for the birthday party, but at some moments of the preparation period, she recollected some bitter past memories. From childhood, Y has been thought of her mother as a gruesome and cold-hearted woman, who is deemed inappropriate for motherhood. However, Y thinks that she doesn’t hate her mother, and just disfavors her as a unsuitable mother. Anyways, Y still plans hardworking for the birthday party, and wants to buy a good present for her mother. For example, a pearl necklace tinted with the color of gray will suit her mother the best. The necklace will cost about three hundred pounds, and it is not a high price for Y. But she did hesitate to make a decision of purchasing. “Mom has been always cold and distant to me. I could offer her a birthday card instead, and do not have to spend the extra three hundreds for her.”... Let’s examine this seemingly cliche example through the lens of consciousness. Y keeps on preparing the party and pondering about purchasing the necklace as a present for her mother, but she thinks that she disfavors her mother. Does Y know for sure about what she desires for in this scenario? Does she really disfavor her mother as she think so? Will she prepare a birthday card instead the necklace as she has been deliberating? I don’t think Y knows.
Moral sentiments and rationality
Smith aggrandizes the positionalities of moral sentiments, as he writes:“If virtue, therefore, does not consist in propriety, it must consist either in prudence or in benevolence. Besides these three, it is scarce possible to imagine that any other account can be given of the nature of virtue” (Smith, 2009: p. 318). In addition, he addresses adjustment and modulation among different moral sentiments by introducing the concept of “the impartial spectator”. One man is to act in accordance to morals as he is consistently and persistently assessed and judged by the impartial spectator. I find Smith’s theory of moral sentiments and the impartial spectator plausible, for three reasons. First, moral affections such as propriety, prudence, and benevolence cannot be gauged and attuned without moral standards. To me, propriety, prudence, and benevolence shall not be read as accurate and explicit principles of virtues. How much propriety, prudence, and benevolence are needed in different situations? What is the “precise” meanings for propriety, prudence, and benevolence when one man is deliberating and choosing if his thoughts and actions are complying with the right and just things. Second, Smith’s sense of moral sentiments lacks the intervention of rational faculties. One is in great need of rationality for assistance and intervention in our moral deliberation and judgement. Smith’s neglect of rationality does harm his theory of morals. The third problem concerns the role and position of the impartial spectator. With standards or principles of morals, I think it is difficult to know and acknowledge the spectator’s perspectives and foundations of morality. How does the spectator gauge and judge impartially? What does his impartiality come from? I think without moral principles and standards one is not likely to realize his minds and behaviors are impartially judged by “an invisible spectator”. I think the positions of the impartial spectator would be different depending on that one is situated within various scenarios. Does the impartial spectator move his position when one’s action and deliberation is to be evaluated and judged with equally just standards? I don’t think Smith establishes an elaboration on this.
Economic man and rationality
For this part, I try to interlink Smith’s theory of economics with homo economicus (economic man). I consider Smith’s ignorance of rationality in his formulation of economic theory fallible. That how extensively and intensively economics is to saturate with our everyday thinking patterns and deliberation methods, I think, is out of expectation of Adam Smith when he theorizes decorum of self interests, division of labor, and trading. Nowadays, one man is to calculate gains and lost in almost every spheres of daily livings. And one severe issue arises when the notion of homo economicus immerses one’s mindsets and behaviors and within the society in general - the standards of propriety, prudence, and benevolence have transformed and adapted within tenets of modern capitalism. The later philosopher Michel Foucault writes: “In neoliberalism, and it does not hide this; it proclaims it—there is also a theory of homo economicus, but he is not at all a partner of exchange. Homo economicus is an entrepreneur of himself. This is true to the extent that, in practice, the stake in all neoliberal analyses is the replacement every time of homo economicus as partner of exchange with a homo economicus as entrepreneur of himself, being for himself his own capital, being for himself his own producer being for himself the source of his earnings” (Foucault, 2008: p. 226).
Another issue related to economic man and rationality is purported to explicate the division between instrumental rationality and value-laden rationality. Back to Max Weber’s theoretical investigation of these two, it is not difficult to find that, when the economic man orientated with self interests and intentions to exchange and to trade, rationality of such homo economicus blurs the sharp division between what rationalities count instrumental and what are regarded as rationalities laden with values. Let’s further an explication via presenting a literary example. The renown English writer Virginia Woolf in her modernist novel, Mrs Dalloway, depicts how the protagonist Mrs. Dalloway, who intends to buy the flowers on her own in the morning, during a period of one day allows her thoughts and feelings to stream and pervade like flowing water. Mrs. Dalloway tries to recollect memories of her past and at the same time she is immersing back and forth within her concurrent daily living through streams of consciousness and meanings. She goes to the street, half-thinking, and half-intended (to buy the flowers by herself). It is possible to analyze this intention and to position “to buy the flowers” as one kind of instrumental rationality, for the series of actions - she goes to the street, looking for a flower shop, making selections, and the most importantly using her own means to pay for the product to the shop owner- could be regarded as instrumental and strategic. But is this so? Or maybe, it is likely that her intention is not that instrumental, but the ways she thinks and acts are garnished and laden with values to some degree. The values procured in her day of pondering and wondering including her indeed actions of purchasing at the flower shop, are of multiple meanings, hardly decipherable and explicit for themselves. It is becoming more of ordeal to examine the act (of buying the flowers), which could be considered as a simplistic mode of economic behavior series, provided that this act is contextualized in a reductionist aspect of aptitudes - she just goes to the street and buys the flowers on her own. In this way, thoughts and consciousness of the protagonist cannot be decoded as patterns of rationality emerged and submerged either with instrumentality or values. Intentions and values have become complexity of meanings and/or non-meanings bundled with Mrs. Dalloway’s existence for that single day - the day that begins, twirls, and folds with thoughts and meanings. All these complexity emerge and intensify after she mentioned to her husband on that morning that she decided to buy the flowers herself (Woolf, 2021: p. 1).
Conclusion
Rationality and moral principles are both viable and feasible to ground and guide morality. But rationality has its own pitfalls in constructing realities, especially for this review, the realities concerning economic behaviors. Mans, equipped and imbued with bounded rationality, should caution in application of rationality.
Reference list:
Adam Smith, (2009), Theory of moral sentiments, Penguin Classics.
Michel Foucault,(2008), The birth of biopolitics,London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Virginia Woolf, (2021), Mrs Dalloway, Warbler Classics.
September 14, 2008
Adam Smith is a curious figure in the history of thought; economists don't read him because they view him as a philosopher, but philosophers don't read him because they view him as an economist. This curious dichotomy is represented in the Theory of Moral Sentiments, Smith's work on moral virtue. In many ways, Smith's work is a return to the "virtue theory" school of moral philosophy best represented in the ancient tradition by Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics.
Theory of Moral Sentiments is very readable (the edition I read was the Glasgow edition published by Liberty Fund) and well-annotated. As an attempt to reconcile a theory based on virtue with living in a capitalist society, the TMS is fairly unique in ethical philosophy and well worth reading.
Theory of Moral Sentiments is very readable (the edition I read was the Glasgow edition published by Liberty Fund) and well-annotated. As an attempt to reconcile a theory based on virtue with living in a capitalist society, the TMS is fairly unique in ethical philosophy and well worth reading.
January 6, 2022
Fantastisk.
Jag håller inte med om utgångspunkten - Smith verkar argumentera för att moral är en funktion av strävan efter sympati; att vi är goda mot varandra, eftersom vi vill bli uppskattade av varandra. Han avslutar till och med hela boken med att argumentera för att skammen att inte bli betrodd är den huvudsakliga orsaken till trovärdighet i mellanmänskliga relationer. För allt detta argumenterar han logiskt, med goda psykologiska observationer bakom varje påstående. Boken är onekligen insiktsrik - den får en att tänka igenom flera moraliska frågor som oftast lämnas därhän. Samtidigt förklarar boken inte godhet mot individer utanför den egna gruppen - om jag vill få respekt av de jag respekterar, kommer jag att vidmakthålla hedervärt beteende mot dem. Detta förklarar både ridderlighet och inbördes respekt och sanningsenlighet i ekonomiska system. Däremot kommer jag inte utifrån det argumentet att vara god mot de jag skulle se som undermänniskor eller ickemänniskor - de som saknar de sociala markörer som signalerar att de är personer och inte mänsklig boskap. Tänk skillnaden mellan tvåfödda och kastlösa i Indien, eller mellan fria och trälar i det förkristna norden. Eller för den delen mellan de som tillhör din ideologi och de som tillhör fiendesidan i ett politiserat samhälle nära inbördeskrig. Av vad vi vet om mänsklighetens tendens att agera med hjärtat och döda det som hotar de våra, borde just hanteringen av klassificatoriska fiender vara ett av nyckelfenomen som en moralisk teori måste hantera. Det begär efter ömsesidig respekt som Smith lägger till grund för moral, bör rimligen inte utsträckas till dessa, eftersom de i egenskap av fiender, är bortom varje förakt, och därmed individer vars uppskattning inte sökes. Jag kan inte påminna mig att Smith hanterar den invändningen - nu har jag läst denna bok under 6 månader och kan därmed ha glömt det, men jag ser inget svar i mina anteckningar från boken, och vanligen är jag rätt noggrann med sådana saker.
Under renässansen var detta en stor diskussion - var katoliker och protestanter tvungna av religiösa skäl att vidmakthålla god tro med varandra? Mer generaliserat: är jag tvungen att se dig som ett moraliskt subjekt även om jag hatar hur du agerar i världen, och därmed dig, eftersom ditt agerande straffar ut dig från människosläktet? Med moralisk psykologism som grund, så ser jag inte hur man kommer fram till ett positivt ställningstagande. Hur kan medmänsklighet utsträckas till den som inte längre kan ses som mänsklig? Men eftersom alla klassifikationer av grupper (möjligen bortom ättetillhörigheten, dvs den utsträckta familjen) är konstruerade, vilket förutsätter möjligheten att agera med respekt mot varandra under konstruktionsfasen, är det uppenbarligen möjligt att utöva moraliskt beteende även mot den som vi föraktar. Vilket omvänt naturligtvis gäller för smittan av hat också - min fiendes vän är min fiende enligt de flesta, även det är irrationellt, om än väldigt lätt för människor att falla in i. Med risk för att överpoängtera detta argument: Med Smiths grund, borde vi inte ha någon moral kvar, för vi borde bara utsträcka den till de som vi inte föraktar, och eftersom människor har lätt att känna sig moraliskt överlägsna, har vi lätt att förakta. Ändå finns ett samhälle och en presumtion av att den andra är respektabel, och att vi "borde" utsträcka respekt trots väldigt mycket motstånd.
Det gör att jag personligen hellre skulle argumentera för en moralisk instinkt, som jag menar är oberoende av psykologiska behov. Även om mänskligheten runt dig är för djävlig, strävar de allra flesta efter att vara bättre än sin omvärld - trots att deras förutsättningar inte motiverar det, rent sociologiskt. Här kan vi lägga in hur mycket kommentarer som helst om hur sociologiska förklaringar skapar inlärd hjälplöshet, men just nu är det faktiskt inte relevant. Det relevanta är att människor i allmänhet, för allt vad vi konstant misslyckas med att vara den vi vill vara, är bättre än vad våra omständigheter och fiendskaper och vår psykologi borde tillåta oss.
Lyckligtvis är Smiths hela argumentation metodologisk. Den förklaring han inledningsvis ställer upp är inte bärande för varför processen moral initieras, utan bara för hur processen moral fungerar. Det gör också att jag oreserverat rekommenderar denna bok. Den är inte bara moralfilosofiskt excellent, utan dessutom en utmärkt genomgång av praktiskt installerande av samhällsbevarande institutioner. Den förklarar väl det där som Napoleon lär ha sagt - att han värderade en Luthersk predikant till 2-3 kompanier soldater, vad gällde förmågan att pacificera och bygga motståndskraft i territorier.
Som sagt: utmärkt bok, skogstokiga postulat. Läs den.
Jag håller inte med om utgångspunkten - Smith verkar argumentera för att moral är en funktion av strävan efter sympati; att vi är goda mot varandra, eftersom vi vill bli uppskattade av varandra. Han avslutar till och med hela boken med att argumentera för att skammen att inte bli betrodd är den huvudsakliga orsaken till trovärdighet i mellanmänskliga relationer. För allt detta argumenterar han logiskt, med goda psykologiska observationer bakom varje påstående. Boken är onekligen insiktsrik - den får en att tänka igenom flera moraliska frågor som oftast lämnas därhän. Samtidigt förklarar boken inte godhet mot individer utanför den egna gruppen - om jag vill få respekt av de jag respekterar, kommer jag att vidmakthålla hedervärt beteende mot dem. Detta förklarar både ridderlighet och inbördes respekt och sanningsenlighet i ekonomiska system. Däremot kommer jag inte utifrån det argumentet att vara god mot de jag skulle se som undermänniskor eller ickemänniskor - de som saknar de sociala markörer som signalerar att de är personer och inte mänsklig boskap. Tänk skillnaden mellan tvåfödda och kastlösa i Indien, eller mellan fria och trälar i det förkristna norden. Eller för den delen mellan de som tillhör din ideologi och de som tillhör fiendesidan i ett politiserat samhälle nära inbördeskrig. Av vad vi vet om mänsklighetens tendens att agera med hjärtat och döda det som hotar de våra, borde just hanteringen av klassificatoriska fiender vara ett av nyckelfenomen som en moralisk teori måste hantera. Det begär efter ömsesidig respekt som Smith lägger till grund för moral, bör rimligen inte utsträckas till dessa, eftersom de i egenskap av fiender, är bortom varje förakt, och därmed individer vars uppskattning inte sökes. Jag kan inte påminna mig att Smith hanterar den invändningen - nu har jag läst denna bok under 6 månader och kan därmed ha glömt det, men jag ser inget svar i mina anteckningar från boken, och vanligen är jag rätt noggrann med sådana saker.
Under renässansen var detta en stor diskussion - var katoliker och protestanter tvungna av religiösa skäl att vidmakthålla god tro med varandra? Mer generaliserat: är jag tvungen att se dig som ett moraliskt subjekt även om jag hatar hur du agerar i världen, och därmed dig, eftersom ditt agerande straffar ut dig från människosläktet? Med moralisk psykologism som grund, så ser jag inte hur man kommer fram till ett positivt ställningstagande. Hur kan medmänsklighet utsträckas till den som inte längre kan ses som mänsklig? Men eftersom alla klassifikationer av grupper (möjligen bortom ättetillhörigheten, dvs den utsträckta familjen) är konstruerade, vilket förutsätter möjligheten att agera med respekt mot varandra under konstruktionsfasen, är det uppenbarligen möjligt att utöva moraliskt beteende även mot den som vi föraktar. Vilket omvänt naturligtvis gäller för smittan av hat också - min fiendes vän är min fiende enligt de flesta, även det är irrationellt, om än väldigt lätt för människor att falla in i. Med risk för att överpoängtera detta argument: Med Smiths grund, borde vi inte ha någon moral kvar, för vi borde bara utsträcka den till de som vi inte föraktar, och eftersom människor har lätt att känna sig moraliskt överlägsna, har vi lätt att förakta. Ändå finns ett samhälle och en presumtion av att den andra är respektabel, och att vi "borde" utsträcka respekt trots väldigt mycket motstånd.
Det gör att jag personligen hellre skulle argumentera för en moralisk instinkt, som jag menar är oberoende av psykologiska behov. Även om mänskligheten runt dig är för djävlig, strävar de allra flesta efter att vara bättre än sin omvärld - trots att deras förutsättningar inte motiverar det, rent sociologiskt. Här kan vi lägga in hur mycket kommentarer som helst om hur sociologiska förklaringar skapar inlärd hjälplöshet, men just nu är det faktiskt inte relevant. Det relevanta är att människor i allmänhet, för allt vad vi konstant misslyckas med att vara den vi vill vara, är bättre än vad våra omständigheter och fiendskaper och vår psykologi borde tillåta oss.
Lyckligtvis är Smiths hela argumentation metodologisk. Den förklaring han inledningsvis ställer upp är inte bärande för varför processen moral initieras, utan bara för hur processen moral fungerar. Det gör också att jag oreserverat rekommenderar denna bok. Den är inte bara moralfilosofiskt excellent, utan dessutom en utmärkt genomgång av praktiskt installerande av samhällsbevarande institutioner. Den förklarar väl det där som Napoleon lär ha sagt - att han värderade en Luthersk predikant till 2-3 kompanier soldater, vad gällde förmågan att pacificera och bygga motståndskraft i territorier.
Som sagt: utmärkt bok, skogstokiga postulat. Läs den.
December 13, 2021
This is a book of observations of how humans actually behave and what they aspire to be. I kept being surprised at how intuitive it was but how I had never thought about a lot of these ideas. Adam Smith digs into virtue, the four cardinal virtues, happiness, vice, and sentiments. One key idea was that we do and should align our behavior to an impartial spectator. What would this impartial spectator think of what I am about to do? I really enjoyed reading this book.
November 6, 2019
Remarkable. Smith's theory of an impartial spectator formulating our demand for fairness predates the categorical imperative and yet, Adam, the first, is under Kant's imposing shadow. Not fair. Perhaps because of the way economists (mistakenly) reduced his ideas in Wealth of Nations about human motivations as being attributable to self-interest alone. We're so much more.
March 20, 2007
Probably what the economists should have read before reading the "Wealth of Nations."
October 7, 2018
I'm glad to be finished! Yeah! The reason, however, I must confess, is that I didn't find Smith's work all that engaging. He discusses virtues in the greater context of social order, nobly promoting self-command, admiring the Stoics, and prudence. I liked a few things very much, for example, when he speaks of the Stoic's outlook on danger (pg 329). I also liked what he said (pg 209) when thinking of Hume, "an ingenious and agreeable philosopher, who joins the greater depth of thought to the greatest elegance of expression, and possesses the singular and happy talent of treating the abstruesest subjects not only with the most perfect perspicuity, but with the most lively eloquence."
We need to read both current and older works because that's where we'll find depth and elegance, perspicuity and eloquence. They are worth reading for, even if the gems among the rough are a little harder to find at times, yet nonetheless, they sparkle.
We need to read both current and older works because that's where we'll find depth and elegance, perspicuity and eloquence. They are worth reading for, even if the gems among the rough are a little harder to find at times, yet nonetheless, they sparkle.
Read
February 6, 2021It took me 13 and 1/2 months to read this book. Published in 1754, it is turgid. It's like wading through mud. And every time I was about ready to put it down I stumbled across something insightful.
This is the book Adam Smith wrote before he wrote The Wealth of Nations. From my point of view this is a prerequisite for understanding that tome.
It has not been an enjoyable experience. And yet I am glad that I finally waded through it. My copy is underlined with copious notes in the margins. And as I cast off on the voyage of rereading The Wealth of Nations I am sure I will return to this book.
In some ways I feel like this has been a masochistic experience and that I would be a sadist recommending it to anyone. However, if you really want to understand The Wealth of Nations this is the right of passage for that Journey.
This is the book Adam Smith wrote before he wrote The Wealth of Nations. From my point of view this is a prerequisite for understanding that tome.
It has not been an enjoyable experience. And yet I am glad that I finally waded through it. My copy is underlined with copious notes in the margins. And as I cast off on the voyage of rereading The Wealth of Nations I am sure I will return to this book.
In some ways I feel like this has been a masochistic experience and that I would be a sadist recommending it to anyone. However, if you really want to understand The Wealth of Nations this is the right of passage for that Journey.
March 19, 2024
In 1759 Smith published his first work, The Theory of Moral Sentiments. Didactic, exhortative, and analytic by turns, it lays the psychological foundation on which The Wealth of Nations was later to be built. In it Smith described the principles of “human nature,” which, together with Hume and the other leading philosophers of his time, he took as a universal and unchanging datum from which social institutions, as well as social behaviour, could be deduced.
It shows that our moral ideas and actions are a product of our very nature as social creatures. It argues that this social psychology is a better guide to moral action than is reason. It identifies the basic rules of prudence and justice that are needed for society to survive, and explains the additional, beneficent, actions that enable it to flourish.
Self-interest and sympathy. As individuals, we have a natural tendency to look after ourselves. That is merely prudence. And yet as social creatures, explains Smith, we are also endowed with a natural sympathy – today we would say empathy – towards others. When we see others distressed or happy, we feel for them – albeit less strongly. Likewise, others seek our empathy and feel for us. When their feelings are particularly strong, empathy prompts them to restrain their emotions so as to bring them into line with our, less intense reactions. Gradually, as we grow from childhood to adulthood, we each learn what is and is not acceptable to other people. Morality stems from our social nature.
Justice and beneficence. So does justice. Though we are self-interested, we again have to work out how to live alongside others without doing them harm. That is an essential minimum for the survival of society. If people go further and do positive good – beneficence – we welcome it, but cannot demand such action as we demand justice.
Virtue. Prudence, justice, and beneficence are important. However, the ideal must be that any impartial person, real or imaginary – what Smith calls an impartial spectator – would fully empathise with our emotions and actions. That requires self-command, and in this lies true virtue.
Morality, says Smith, is not something we have to calculate. It is natural, built into us as social beings. When we see people happy or sad, we feel happy or sad too. We derive pleasure when people do things we approve of, and distress when we believe they are doing harm.
Of course, we do not feel others’ emotions as strongly as they do. And through our natural empathy with others, we learn that an excess of anger, or grief, or other emotions distresses them. So we try to curb our emotions to bring them into line with those of others. In fact, we aim to temper them to the point where any typical, disinterested person – an impartial spectator, says Smith – would empathise with us.
Likewise, when we show concern for other people, we know that an impartial spectator would approve, and we take pleasure from it. The impartial spectator is only imaginary, but still guides us: and through experience we gradually build up a system of behavioural rules – morality.
Punishments and rewards have an important social function. We approve and reward acts that benefit society, and disapprove and punish acts that harm it. Nature has equipped us with appetites and aversions that promote the continued existence of our species and our society. It is almost as if an invisible hand were guiding what we do.
Justice. For society to survive, there must be rules to present its individual members harming each other. As Smith comments, it is possible for a society of robbers and murderers to exist – but only insofar as they abstain from robbing and murdering each other. These are the rules we call justice.
If people do not help others when they could, or fail to return a good deed, we may call them uncharitable or ungrateful. But we do not punish people to force them to do good: only for acts of real or intended harm. We force them only to obey the rules of justice, because society could not otherwise survive.
Conscience. But nature has given us something even more immediate than punishment, namely our own self-criticism. We are impartial spectators, not only of other people’s actions, thanks to conscience. It is nature’s way of reminding us that other people are important too.
Moral rules. In the process of making such judgements on a countless number of actions, we gradually formulate rules of conduct. We do not then have to think out each new situation afresh: we now have moral standards to guide us.
This constancy is beneficial to the social order. By following our conscience, we end up, surely but unintentionally, promoting the happiness of mankind. Human laws, with their punishments and rewards, may aim at the same results; but they can never be as consistent, immediate, or effective as conscience and the rules of morality engineered by nature.
Virtues. Smith ends The Theory Of Moral Sentiments by defining the character of a truly virtuous person. Such a person, he suggests, would embody the qualities of prudence, justice, beneficence and self-command.
Prudence moderates the individual’s excesses and as such is important for society. It is respectable, if not endearing. Justice limits the harm we do to others. It is essential for the continuation of social life. Beneficence improves social life by prompting us to promote the happiness of others. It cannot be demanded from anyone, but it is always appreciated. And self-command moderates our passions and reins in our destructive actions.
Freedom and nature, Smith concludes, are a surer guide to the creation of a harmonious, functioning society than the supposed reason of philosophers and visionaries.
It shows that our moral ideas and actions are a product of our very nature as social creatures. It argues that this social psychology is a better guide to moral action than is reason. It identifies the basic rules of prudence and justice that are needed for society to survive, and explains the additional, beneficent, actions that enable it to flourish.
Self-interest and sympathy. As individuals, we have a natural tendency to look after ourselves. That is merely prudence. And yet as social creatures, explains Smith, we are also endowed with a natural sympathy – today we would say empathy – towards others. When we see others distressed or happy, we feel for them – albeit less strongly. Likewise, others seek our empathy and feel for us. When their feelings are particularly strong, empathy prompts them to restrain their emotions so as to bring them into line with our, less intense reactions. Gradually, as we grow from childhood to adulthood, we each learn what is and is not acceptable to other people. Morality stems from our social nature.
Justice and beneficence. So does justice. Though we are self-interested, we again have to work out how to live alongside others without doing them harm. That is an essential minimum for the survival of society. If people go further and do positive good – beneficence – we welcome it, but cannot demand such action as we demand justice.
Virtue. Prudence, justice, and beneficence are important. However, the ideal must be that any impartial person, real or imaginary – what Smith calls an impartial spectator – would fully empathise with our emotions and actions. That requires self-command, and in this lies true virtue.
Morality, says Smith, is not something we have to calculate. It is natural, built into us as social beings. When we see people happy or sad, we feel happy or sad too. We derive pleasure when people do things we approve of, and distress when we believe they are doing harm.
Of course, we do not feel others’ emotions as strongly as they do. And through our natural empathy with others, we learn that an excess of anger, or grief, or other emotions distresses them. So we try to curb our emotions to bring them into line with those of others. In fact, we aim to temper them to the point where any typical, disinterested person – an impartial spectator, says Smith – would empathise with us.
Likewise, when we show concern for other people, we know that an impartial spectator would approve, and we take pleasure from it. The impartial spectator is only imaginary, but still guides us: and through experience we gradually build up a system of behavioural rules – morality.
Punishments and rewards have an important social function. We approve and reward acts that benefit society, and disapprove and punish acts that harm it. Nature has equipped us with appetites and aversions that promote the continued existence of our species and our society. It is almost as if an invisible hand were guiding what we do.
Justice. For society to survive, there must be rules to present its individual members harming each other. As Smith comments, it is possible for a society of robbers and murderers to exist – but only insofar as they abstain from robbing and murdering each other. These are the rules we call justice.
If people do not help others when they could, or fail to return a good deed, we may call them uncharitable or ungrateful. But we do not punish people to force them to do good: only for acts of real or intended harm. We force them only to obey the rules of justice, because society could not otherwise survive.
Conscience. But nature has given us something even more immediate than punishment, namely our own self-criticism. We are impartial spectators, not only of other people’s actions, thanks to conscience. It is nature’s way of reminding us that other people are important too.
Moral rules. In the process of making such judgements on a countless number of actions, we gradually formulate rules of conduct. We do not then have to think out each new situation afresh: we now have moral standards to guide us.
This constancy is beneficial to the social order. By following our conscience, we end up, surely but unintentionally, promoting the happiness of mankind. Human laws, with their punishments and rewards, may aim at the same results; but they can never be as consistent, immediate, or effective as conscience and the rules of morality engineered by nature.
Virtues. Smith ends The Theory Of Moral Sentiments by defining the character of a truly virtuous person. Such a person, he suggests, would embody the qualities of prudence, justice, beneficence and self-command.
Prudence moderates the individual’s excesses and as such is important for society. It is respectable, if not endearing. Justice limits the harm we do to others. It is essential for the continuation of social life. Beneficence improves social life by prompting us to promote the happiness of others. It cannot be demanded from anyone, but it is always appreciated. And self-command moderates our passions and reins in our destructive actions.
Freedom and nature, Smith concludes, are a surer guide to the creation of a harmonious, functioning society than the supposed reason of philosophers and visionaries.
Read
March 28, 2021I am not going to rate this because
a) My reading progress on this was spread too thin and was very stop start.
And b) I can finally start The Wealth of Nations in full earnest and reading the two together may be more beneficial.
a) My reading progress on this was spread too thin and was very stop start.
And b) I can finally start The Wealth of Nations in full earnest and reading the two together may be more beneficial.
January 12, 2022
Un livre très intéressant
March 8, 2022
ENGLISH
In Theory of Moral Sentiments, a book that precedes the great The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith proposes to explain and systematize the dynamics of sentiments that enthuse people in the most diverse situations in their daily lives. He works with very broad concepts such as virtue, merit and demerit, sense of justice and approval, etc.
It is a peculiar work, in which Smith uses a lot of sensitivity and shrewdness to describe with reasonable precision the feelings that are behind the most varied human behavior.
Smith constantly makes use of the abstract figures of the “impartial spectator” and the “inhabitant of the chest”. In modern experimental science jargon, this is a kind of “control group” of the human behavior — a kind of ideal reference to which people should use as a guide in their daily actions. In sum, common sense, thoughtfulness.
As the subject deals with general human sentiments analyzed focused on small matters, the abundant use of platitudes seems inevitable (i.e., the excerpt in which he affirms that brothers raised apart obviously tend to develop less affection for each other than those raised together, etc…).
Furthermore, it is very difficult to read this subject and not think that it is an archaic stage of the human sciences, especially those of a psychological and behavioral nature. Currently, Psychology and Neuroscience explain in a very objective way, either through a sophisticated theoretical approach, or through an experimental approach, many of the assertions of moral philosophers. It is for this same reason that works like this should be praised. The authors, without scientific resources for experimentation and relying exclusively on their own perceptions, philosophical conceptions and abstract extrapolations, reached very accurate conclusions, many of which later proved right by science.
This is the case, for example, of a bias called “loss aversion”, which Behavioral Economics borrowing insights from Psychology proved to exist centuries later. Smith says in this 1759 work that human beings feel the pain of loss much more than the pleasure of gain, something that in the 1970s Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky proved through behavioral experiments.
Another interesting point is the relationship of this work with Smith’s later The Wealth of Nations, considered the milestone of Economics. Apparently, due to the complete disparity of themes, there is no relationship between both works. However, as I described in my review of The Wealth of Nations (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...), it is possible to identify a logical continuity between both works.
In Theory of Moral Sentiments, Adam Smith deals with the feelings of individuals. In The Wealth of Nations he does not really deal with that. Perhaps the only passages with some relation to this theme refer to fairness in economic competition and the image of the “invisible hand”, the latter present in both works.
In Theory of Moral Sentiments, Smith preaches fair behavior in business, stating that a competitor who behaves unfairly against competitors tends to be frowned upon by the public and loses credibility as a result.
In regard to the invisible hand, Smith also refers in the Theory of Moral Sentiments to the situation in which individuals, acting freely according to their own interests, end up generating social benefits. In The Wealth of Nations, Smith does not dissect or differentiate the feelings that enthuse individuals in this process. This makes sense, as in such work Smith explains the functioning of the Economy as a system, and does not focus on the subjectivities of the parts that compose it (the human beings). It can be said that this had somehow been reserved for the Theory of Moral Sentiments.
An example of an analysis on this point is the passage in which he refutes Mandeville's point of view in The Fable of the Bees. In this well-known work, Mandeville maintains that any feeling that goes beyond the mere intention of subsistence of the individual would be classified as vanity; whence he extrapolates that a private vice — the exercise of vanity — would generate a public benefit, insofar as activity beyond mere survival tends to move the Economy. Smith, however, rebuts Mandeville by stating that human beings do have benevolent motivations that cannot be classified as mere vanity. The fact is that, in The Wealth of Nations, he does not deal with these distinctions, probably because he had addressed them in the previous work.
The edition I read ends with a Dissertation on the Formation of Languages, in which Smith uses his well-known intelligence and acumen to analyze the complexity of some modern languages and their likely relationship to ancient languages.
I can't tire to point out how clear though also wordy Adam Smith's writing style is. I confess that The Wealth of Nations interested me more in the subject — and this review clearly pulls a little to the side of Economics, although the Theory of Moral Sentiments does not deal with it, except for the indirect aspects pointed out above.
In any case, this economic-biased approach is relevant, as scholars of economics began to dispute whether the abandonment of the realist study of the individual as the starting point of economics should be attributed to Adam Smith or not. In my opinion, no, because in fact he sought to capture the human being and his sentiments on the one hand, and the functioning of the economy as a system on the other. But his work is so broad and so overflowing with the discipline of Economics that it is understandable why later scholars have sliced up the topics he tackled in such a way as to simplify something he did not approach so simplistically.
PORTUGUÊS
Em Teoria dos Sentimentos Morais, livro que antecede o grande A Riqueza das Nações, Adam Smith se propõe a explicar e sistematizar a dinâmica dos sentimentos que animam as pessoas nas mais diversas situações de seu cotidiano. Trabalha com conceitos muito amplos como virtude, mérito e demérito, senso de justiça e aprovação, etc.
É uma obra peculiar, na qual Smith usa muita sensibilidade e astúcia para descrever com razoável precisão os sentimentos que estão por trás dos mais variados comportamentos humanos.
Smith faz uso constante das figuras abstratas do “espectador imparcial” e do “habitante do peito”. No jargão da ciência experimental moderna, é uma espécie de “grupo controle” do comportamento humano – uma espécie de referência ideal que as pessoas devem usar como guia em suas ações diárias. Em suma: bom senso, ponderação.
Como o assunto trata de sentimentos humanos gerais analisados em questões comezinhas, o uso abundante de platitudes parece inevitável (p. ex., o trecho em que ele afirma que irmãos criados separados obviamente tendem a desenvolver menos afeto um pelo outro do que aqueles criados juntos, etc.).
Além disso, é muito difícil ler esse assunto e não pensar que é um estágio arcaico das ciências humanas, principalmente as de natureza psicológica e comportamental. Atualmente, a Psicologia e a Neurociência explicam de forma bastante objetiva, seja por meio de uma abordagem teórica sofisticada, seja por meio de uma abordagem experimental, muitas das afirmações dos filósofos morais. É por isso mesmo que merecem elogios trabalhos como este, em que os autores, sem recursos científicos para experimentação e confiando exclusivamente em suas próprias percepções, concepções filosóficas e extrapolações abstratas, chegaram a conclusões muito precisas, muitas delas posteriormente comprovadas pela ciência.
É o caso, por exemplo, de um viés chamado “aversão à perda”, que a Economia Comportamental, que toma emprestado insights da Psicologia, provou existir séculos depois. Smith diz neste trabalho de 1759 que os seres humanos sentem a dor da perda muito mais do que o prazer do ganho, algo que Daniel Kahneman e Amos Tversky provaram nos anos 1970 por meio de experimentos comportamentais.
Outro ponto interessante é a relação desta obra com a posterior obra de Smith A Riqueza das Nações, considerada o marco da Economia. Aparentemente, devido à completa disparidade de temas, não há relação entre as duas obras. No entanto, como descrevi na minha resenha de A Riqueza das Nações (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...), é possível identificar uma continuidade lógica entre os dois trabalhos.
Na Teoria dos Sentimentos Morais, Adam Smith lida com os sentimentos dos indivíduos. Em A Riqueza das Nações, ele realmente não lida com isso. Talvez as únicas passagens com alguma relação com esse tema se refiram à lealdade na competição econômica e à imagem da “mão invisível”, esta última presente em ambas as obras.
Na Teoria dos Sentimentos Morais, Smith prega o comportamento leal nos negócios, afirmando que um concorrente que se comporta de forma injusta na competição tende a ser mal visto pelo público e, consequentemente, perde credibilidade.
No que diz respeito à mão invisível, Smith também se refere, na Teoria dos Sentimentos Morais, à situação em que os indivíduos, agindo livremente de acordo com seus próprios interesses, acabam gerando benefícios sociais. Em A Riqueza das Nações, Smith não disseca nem diferencia os sentimentos que animam os indivíduos nesse processo. Isso faz sentido, pois em tal trabalho Smith explica o funcionamento da Economia como um sistema, e não enfoca as subjetividades das peças que o compõem (os seres humanos). Pode-se dizer que isso de alguma forma foi reservado para a Teoria dos Sentimentos Morais.
Um exemplo de análise sobre esse ponto é a passagem em que ele refuta o ponto de vista de Mandeville em A Fábulas das Abelhas. Nessa conhecida obra, Mandeville sustenta que qualquer sentimento que vá além da mera intenção de subsistência do ser humano seria classificado como vaidade; daí extrapola que um vício privado — o exercício da vaidade — geraria um benefício público, na medida em que a atividade para além da mera sobrevivência tende a movimentar a Economia. Smith, no entanto, refuta Mandeville afirmando que os seres humanos têm motivações benevolentes que não podem ser classificadas como mera vaidade. O fato é que, em A Riqueza das Nações, ele não trata dessas distinções, provavelmente porque as havia abordado no trabalho anterior.
A edição que li termina com a Dissertação sobre a Formação das Línguas, na qual Smith usa sua conhecida inteligência e perspicácia para analisar a complexidade de algumas línguas modernas e sua provável relação com as línguas antigas.
Não me canso de apontar o quão claro, embora também prolixo, é o estilo de escrita de Adam Smith. Confesso que A Riqueza das Nações me interessou mais pelo assunto – e esta resenha claramente puxa um pouco para o lado da Economia, embora a Teoria dos Sentimentos Morais não trate dela, exceto pelos pontuais aspectos indiretos mencionados acima.
De qualquer forma, essa abordagem de viés econômico é relevante, pois os estudiosos da Economia começaram a disputar se o abandono do estudo realista do indivíduo como ponto de partida da economia deveria ser atribuído a Adam Smith ou não. Na minha opinião, não, pois de fato ele procurou captar o ser humano e seus sentimentos por um lado, e o funcionamento da Economia como um sistema por outro. Mas seu trabalho é tão amplo e tão transbordante da disciplina da Economia que é compreensível que estudiosos posteriores tenham fatiado os temas abordados por ele de forma a simplificar algo que ele não abordou de forma tão simplista.
In Theory of Moral Sentiments, a book that precedes the great The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith proposes to explain and systematize the dynamics of sentiments that enthuse people in the most diverse situations in their daily lives. He works with very broad concepts such as virtue, merit and demerit, sense of justice and approval, etc.
It is a peculiar work, in which Smith uses a lot of sensitivity and shrewdness to describe with reasonable precision the feelings that are behind the most varied human behavior.
Smith constantly makes use of the abstract figures of the “impartial spectator” and the “inhabitant of the chest”. In modern experimental science jargon, this is a kind of “control group” of the human behavior — a kind of ideal reference to which people should use as a guide in their daily actions. In sum, common sense, thoughtfulness.
As the subject deals with general human sentiments analyzed focused on small matters, the abundant use of platitudes seems inevitable (i.e., the excerpt in which he affirms that brothers raised apart obviously tend to develop less affection for each other than those raised together, etc…).
Furthermore, it is very difficult to read this subject and not think that it is an archaic stage of the human sciences, especially those of a psychological and behavioral nature. Currently, Psychology and Neuroscience explain in a very objective way, either through a sophisticated theoretical approach, or through an experimental approach, many of the assertions of moral philosophers. It is for this same reason that works like this should be praised. The authors, without scientific resources for experimentation and relying exclusively on their own perceptions, philosophical conceptions and abstract extrapolations, reached very accurate conclusions, many of which later proved right by science.
This is the case, for example, of a bias called “loss aversion”, which Behavioral Economics borrowing insights from Psychology proved to exist centuries later. Smith says in this 1759 work that human beings feel the pain of loss much more than the pleasure of gain, something that in the 1970s Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky proved through behavioral experiments.
Another interesting point is the relationship of this work with Smith’s later The Wealth of Nations, considered the milestone of Economics. Apparently, due to the complete disparity of themes, there is no relationship between both works. However, as I described in my review of The Wealth of Nations (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...), it is possible to identify a logical continuity between both works.
In Theory of Moral Sentiments, Adam Smith deals with the feelings of individuals. In The Wealth of Nations he does not really deal with that. Perhaps the only passages with some relation to this theme refer to fairness in economic competition and the image of the “invisible hand”, the latter present in both works.
In Theory of Moral Sentiments, Smith preaches fair behavior in business, stating that a competitor who behaves unfairly against competitors tends to be frowned upon by the public and loses credibility as a result.
In regard to the invisible hand, Smith also refers in the Theory of Moral Sentiments to the situation in which individuals, acting freely according to their own interests, end up generating social benefits. In The Wealth of Nations, Smith does not dissect or differentiate the feelings that enthuse individuals in this process. This makes sense, as in such work Smith explains the functioning of the Economy as a system, and does not focus on the subjectivities of the parts that compose it (the human beings). It can be said that this had somehow been reserved for the Theory of Moral Sentiments.
An example of an analysis on this point is the passage in which he refutes Mandeville's point of view in The Fable of the Bees. In this well-known work, Mandeville maintains that any feeling that goes beyond the mere intention of subsistence of the individual would be classified as vanity; whence he extrapolates that a private vice — the exercise of vanity — would generate a public benefit, insofar as activity beyond mere survival tends to move the Economy. Smith, however, rebuts Mandeville by stating that human beings do have benevolent motivations that cannot be classified as mere vanity. The fact is that, in The Wealth of Nations, he does not deal with these distinctions, probably because he had addressed them in the previous work.
The edition I read ends with a Dissertation on the Formation of Languages, in which Smith uses his well-known intelligence and acumen to analyze the complexity of some modern languages and their likely relationship to ancient languages.
I can't tire to point out how clear though also wordy Adam Smith's writing style is. I confess that The Wealth of Nations interested me more in the subject — and this review clearly pulls a little to the side of Economics, although the Theory of Moral Sentiments does not deal with it, except for the indirect aspects pointed out above.
In any case, this economic-biased approach is relevant, as scholars of economics began to dispute whether the abandonment of the realist study of the individual as the starting point of economics should be attributed to Adam Smith or not. In my opinion, no, because in fact he sought to capture the human being and his sentiments on the one hand, and the functioning of the economy as a system on the other. But his work is so broad and so overflowing with the discipline of Economics that it is understandable why later scholars have sliced up the topics he tackled in such a way as to simplify something he did not approach so simplistically.
PORTUGUÊS
Em Teoria dos Sentimentos Morais, livro que antecede o grande A Riqueza das Nações, Adam Smith se propõe a explicar e sistematizar a dinâmica dos sentimentos que animam as pessoas nas mais diversas situações de seu cotidiano. Trabalha com conceitos muito amplos como virtude, mérito e demérito, senso de justiça e aprovação, etc.
É uma obra peculiar, na qual Smith usa muita sensibilidade e astúcia para descrever com razoável precisão os sentimentos que estão por trás dos mais variados comportamentos humanos.
Smith faz uso constante das figuras abstratas do “espectador imparcial” e do “habitante do peito”. No jargão da ciência experimental moderna, é uma espécie de “grupo controle” do comportamento humano – uma espécie de referência ideal que as pessoas devem usar como guia em suas ações diárias. Em suma: bom senso, ponderação.
Como o assunto trata de sentimentos humanos gerais analisados em questões comezinhas, o uso abundante de platitudes parece inevitável (p. ex., o trecho em que ele afirma que irmãos criados separados obviamente tendem a desenvolver menos afeto um pelo outro do que aqueles criados juntos, etc.).
Além disso, é muito difícil ler esse assunto e não pensar que é um estágio arcaico das ciências humanas, principalmente as de natureza psicológica e comportamental. Atualmente, a Psicologia e a Neurociência explicam de forma bastante objetiva, seja por meio de uma abordagem teórica sofisticada, seja por meio de uma abordagem experimental, muitas das afirmações dos filósofos morais. É por isso mesmo que merecem elogios trabalhos como este, em que os autores, sem recursos científicos para experimentação e confiando exclusivamente em suas próprias percepções, concepções filosóficas e extrapolações abstratas, chegaram a conclusões muito precisas, muitas delas posteriormente comprovadas pela ciência.
É o caso, por exemplo, de um viés chamado “aversão à perda”, que a Economia Comportamental, que toma emprestado insights da Psicologia, provou existir séculos depois. Smith diz neste trabalho de 1759 que os seres humanos sentem a dor da perda muito mais do que o prazer do ganho, algo que Daniel Kahneman e Amos Tversky provaram nos anos 1970 por meio de experimentos comportamentais.
Outro ponto interessante é a relação desta obra com a posterior obra de Smith A Riqueza das Nações, considerada o marco da Economia. Aparentemente, devido à completa disparidade de temas, não há relação entre as duas obras. No entanto, como descrevi na minha resenha de A Riqueza das Nações (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...), é possível identificar uma continuidade lógica entre os dois trabalhos.
Na Teoria dos Sentimentos Morais, Adam Smith lida com os sentimentos dos indivíduos. Em A Riqueza das Nações, ele realmente não lida com isso. Talvez as únicas passagens com alguma relação com esse tema se refiram à lealdade na competição econômica e à imagem da “mão invisível”, esta última presente em ambas as obras.
Na Teoria dos Sentimentos Morais, Smith prega o comportamento leal nos negócios, afirmando que um concorrente que se comporta de forma injusta na competição tende a ser mal visto pelo público e, consequentemente, perde credibilidade.
No que diz respeito à mão invisível, Smith também se refere, na Teoria dos Sentimentos Morais, à situação em que os indivíduos, agindo livremente de acordo com seus próprios interesses, acabam gerando benefícios sociais. Em A Riqueza das Nações, Smith não disseca nem diferencia os sentimentos que animam os indivíduos nesse processo. Isso faz sentido, pois em tal trabalho Smith explica o funcionamento da Economia como um sistema, e não enfoca as subjetividades das peças que o compõem (os seres humanos). Pode-se dizer que isso de alguma forma foi reservado para a Teoria dos Sentimentos Morais.
Um exemplo de análise sobre esse ponto é a passagem em que ele refuta o ponto de vista de Mandeville em A Fábulas das Abelhas. Nessa conhecida obra, Mandeville sustenta que qualquer sentimento que vá além da mera intenção de subsistência do ser humano seria classificado como vaidade; daí extrapola que um vício privado — o exercício da vaidade — geraria um benefício público, na medida em que a atividade para além da mera sobrevivência tende a movimentar a Economia. Smith, no entanto, refuta Mandeville afirmando que os seres humanos têm motivações benevolentes que não podem ser classificadas como mera vaidade. O fato é que, em A Riqueza das Nações, ele não trata dessas distinções, provavelmente porque as havia abordado no trabalho anterior.
A edição que li termina com a Dissertação sobre a Formação das Línguas, na qual Smith usa sua conhecida inteligência e perspicácia para analisar a complexidade de algumas línguas modernas e sua provável relação com as línguas antigas.
Não me canso de apontar o quão claro, embora também prolixo, é o estilo de escrita de Adam Smith. Confesso que A Riqueza das Nações me interessou mais pelo assunto – e esta resenha claramente puxa um pouco para o lado da Economia, embora a Teoria dos Sentimentos Morais não trate dela, exceto pelos pontuais aspectos indiretos mencionados acima.
De qualquer forma, essa abordagem de viés econômico é relevante, pois os estudiosos da Economia começaram a disputar se o abandono do estudo realista do indivíduo como ponto de partida da economia deveria ser atribuído a Adam Smith ou não. Na minha opinião, não, pois de fato ele procurou captar o ser humano e seus sentimentos por um lado, e o funcionamento da Economia como um sistema por outro. Mas seu trabalho é tão amplo e tão transbordante da disciplina da Economia que é compreensível que estudiosos posteriores tenham fatiado os temas abordados por ele de forma a simplificar algo que ele não abordou de forma tão simplista.
July 11, 2015
Если кому-то стоит напомнить, что "человек может существовать только в обществе", пусть это сделает Адам Смит, которого, кажется, меньше всего подозревают в этом мнении. Между тем, слова в кавычках -- это точная цитата, продолжающаяся сообщением, что природа предназначила человека к такому положению и одарила всем необходимым для этого.
Хотя общество может существовать и "среди купцов, сознающих пользу его и без взаимной любви", природа дала большее: "нравственное чувство", в чем-то подобное обычным внешним. Мы желаем чужой симпатии и при этом желаем быть заслуживающими симпатии ("нам хочется, чтобы мы были одновременно достойны уважения и чтобы нас уважали"). Поэтому мы смотрим на себя глазами живых, реальных наблюдателей, а также глазами идеального "беспристрастного и просвещенного наблюдателя", которого современный человек возможно предпочел бы назвать "совестью". Именно это внушает людям законы справедливости и другие правила нравственности, без хотя бы относительного торжества которых "человек боялся бы приблизиться к сборищу людей, как он боится вступить в пещеру, населенную львами". В "Теории нравственных чувств" Смит делает подробный разбор того, что делает поступки симпатичными или неприятными.
Беспристрастный наблюдатель Смита смотрит на положение человека и его поступки как на часть большой картины вещей, на которую попадают все разумные существа. От добродетельного человека Смит ожидает, что тот пожертвует своими личными интересами в пользу своего сословия, интересами сословия в пользу государства, а их принесет "в жертву еще более широким интересам всего мира". "Патриотизм", таким образом, не конечная цель нравственности, но все же остановка на пути к настоящей цели -- совершению поступков под влиянием не эгоистической, а космополитической перспективы.
Таким образом, быть патриотом -- неплохая реалистическая задача: "высочайшая мудрость рассудила, по-видимому, что сохранение всего человеческого рода будет более обеспечено, если основное внимание каждого человека будет устремлено на отдельное общество, соответствующее, так сказать, его способностям и разумению".
Одновременно "патриотизм" несет черты и неприятной Смиту в любых делах "партийности". В конфликте между двумя нациями "народ нейтральных стран суть единственные и беспристрастные судьи", однако в такие моменты в каждой из стран "не обращают большого внимания на мнение иностранцев": все "желают заслужить одобрение только своих сограждан, а так как в каждой нации все настроены на один и тот же лад, то ненависть в врагам есть единственный способ понравиться толпе с себя на родине". Это выливается в то, что "присутствует пристрастный наблюдатель и присутствует всюду, между тем как беспристрастный наблюдатель находится весьма далеко".
Взвешенный эгалитаризм беспристрастного наблюдателя заставляет по необходимости умерять свое себялюбие и простого человека (так, солдат иногда должен осознать, что "для любого другого, кроме него, жизнь его ничтожна сравнительно с жизнью каждого из его начальников"), так и короля. Для Смита "
самодержавные государи суть опаснейшие из всех политических мыслителей", чьи преобразования обычно направлены "к уничтожению всего, что оказывает сопротивление их деспотизму" и "к приведению отдельных лиц и главных сословий в такое положение, чтобы они могли оказать не большее сопротивление, чем самые слабые и незначительные сословия". На людей, напоминает Смит, нельзя смотреть как на "фигуры на шахматной доске". Такой взгляд легко делает развитие общества "беспорядочным и гибельным и весь общественный механизм приходит вскоре в совершенное расстройство". Такие стремления "нередко оказываются безумной самонадеянностью".
Моралист Адам Смит из "Теории нравственных чувств" не менее интересен, чем экономист Адам Смит из "Богатства народов". Только сложив вместе мысли Смита про жизнь среди по большей части близких людей из одной книги и про жизнь с незнакомцами "в обществе купцов" из другой книги, а мы все живем в обоих мирах, мы можем получить цельную картину общественной жизни.
Хотя общество может существовать и "среди купцов, сознающих пользу его и без взаимной любви", природа дала большее: "нравственное чувство", в чем-то подобное обычным внешним. Мы желаем чужой симпатии и при этом желаем быть заслуживающими симпатии ("нам хочется, чтобы мы были одновременно достойны уважения и чтобы нас уважали"). Поэтому мы смотрим на себя глазами живых, реальных наблюдателей, а также глазами идеального "беспристрастного и просвещенного наблюдателя", которого современный человек возможно предпочел бы назвать "совестью". Именно это внушает людям законы справедливости и другие правила нравственности, без хотя бы относительного торжества которых "человек боялся бы приблизиться к сборищу людей, как он боится вступить в пещеру, населенную львами". В "Теории нравственных чувств" Смит делает подробный разбор того, что делает поступки симпатичными или неприятными.
Беспристрастный наблюдатель Смита смотрит на положение человека и его поступки как на часть большой картины вещей, на которую попадают все разумные существа. От добродетельного человека Смит ожидает, что тот пожертвует своими личными интересами в пользу своего сословия, интересами сословия в пользу государства, а их принесет "в жертву еще более широким интересам всего мира". "Патриотизм", таким образом, не конечная цель нравственности, но все же остановка на пути к настоящей цели -- совершению поступков под влиянием не эгоистической, а космополитической перспективы.
Таким образом, быть патриотом -- неплохая реалистическая задача: "высочайшая мудрость рассудила, по-видимому, что сохранение всего человеческого рода будет более обеспечено, если основное внимание каждого человека будет устремлено на отдельное общество, соответствующее, так сказать, его способностям и разумению".
Одновременно "патриотизм" несет черты и неприятной Смиту в любых делах "партийности". В конфликте между двумя нациями "народ нейтральных стран суть единственные и беспристрастные судьи", однако в такие моменты в каждой из стран "не обращают большого внимания на мнение иностранцев": все "желают заслужить одобрение только своих сограждан, а так как в каждой нации все настроены на один и тот же лад, то ненависть в врагам есть единственный способ понравиться толпе с себя на родине". Это выливается в то, что "присутствует пристрастный наблюдатель и присутствует всюду, между тем как беспристрастный наблюдатель находится весьма далеко".
Взвешенный эгалитаризм беспристрастного наблюдателя заставляет по необходимости умерять свое себялюбие и простого человека (так, солдат иногда должен осознать, что "для любого другого, кроме него, жизнь его ничтожна сравнительно с жизнью каждого из его начальников"), так и короля. Для Смита "
самодержавные государи суть опаснейшие из всех политических мыслителей", чьи преобразования обычно направлены "к уничтожению всего, что оказывает сопротивление их деспотизму" и "к приведению отдельных лиц и главных сословий в такое положение, чтобы они могли оказать не большее сопротивление, чем самые слабые и незначительные сословия". На людей, напоминает Смит, нельзя смотреть как на "фигуры на шахматной доске". Такой взгляд легко делает развитие общества "беспорядочным и гибельным и весь общественный механизм приходит вскоре в совершенное расстройство". Такие стремления "нередко оказываются безумной самонадеянностью".
Моралист Адам Смит из "Теории нравственных чувств" не менее интересен, чем экономист Адам Смит из "Богатства народов". Только сложив вместе мысли Смита про жизнь среди по большей части близких людей из одной книги и про жизнь с незнакомцами "в обществе купцов" из другой книги, а мы все живем в обоих мирах, мы можем получить цельную картину общественной жизни.
April 14, 2011
"As to love our neighbour as we love ourselves is the great law of Christianity, so it is the great precept of nature to love ourselves only as we love our neighbour, or what comes to the same thing, as our neighbour is capable of loving us."
May 22, 2018
Say approbation one more time... also that last chapter wasn't even relevant.
July 6, 2022
After Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations, his Theory of Moral Sentiments is the next logical step (although it was written first). The whole idea of basing ethics on sentiment is wrongheaded from the start. It means, in effect, that we are to judge right and wrong in terms of agreeableness rather than the latter in terms of the former. Moreover, a starting point like this rules out any role of reason in establishing what could be right or wrong (as opposed to analyzing what we feel to be such on other grounds). Agreeableness can be defined in terms of sympathy and propriety, but the latter is really the more basic notion. A simplistic view would be to say that propriety exists when a subject’s passions agree with what they should be based on his circumstances; for instance, to be grateful to a benefactor would be proper, but to be ungrateful to the same would be improper. Sympathy, for Smith, consists more or less in a kind of pleasurable feeling that arises when we observe propriety and agree with it. To put it this way would be an oversimplification; better put, we feel sympathy when the other displays propriety as would be determined by a disinterested observer; that is to say, in order for the concept to have a more objective meaning (as we would want in judgments of beauty, too, a common trope in aesthetics), we should attempt to correct ourselves for and factor out individual peculiarities or pathologies; this amounts to an unattainable ideal, of course, but in practice we strive to ascertain what the ideal disinterested observer would see and to mold our sympathy to that.
There are problems with such a framework on which to erect a moral philosophy. First, nothing much grounds judgments of propriety other than convention; true, if convention were arbitrary or systematically too biased, society could not flourish very well, but this constitutes a weak constraint and by itself leaves Smith’s system unacceptable. For instance, sympathy with the plight of destitute mothers authorizes abortion on demand. Economic growth continues just about as well and standards of living improve just about as fast, whether or not abortion is prevalent (as long as the rate doesn’t get too out of hand). Second, in the absence of anything much better than convention, nothing exists to support real reform or social progress, as there is no independent criterion. If the reigning convention seems good enough to most everyone, then what would prompt people to change it or to decide in what direction to make a change? Third, sympathy as a fundamental principle of moral sentiments is not very useful solely from a pragmatic point of view; for then, there would be no resources to encourage people to grow in virtue, let alone holiness. If people’s sympathies work harmoniously together fine, or mostly well enough, even though the convention be unjust in some fashion, then a theory of moral sentiment would take no issue with the situation. Something else, a sense of obligation or duty to behave in a different manner, would have to intervene in order to disrupt the familiar and comfortable pattern of sympathies (whence the difficulty of rooting out long-standing prejudices such as WASP anti-Semitism at Ivy League universities or racist attitudes in the post-Civil War South). Hence, Smith’s approach tends to favor the view typical of aristocrats, especially in England, that good manners and polite conversation are what matter most, not virtue or sanctity per se.
Another criticism: convention seems to arise from deep-seated archetypes not very well subject to rational analysis or criticism, whence what one gets must be attributed for the most part to fortuitous causes. Moreover, since who knows whence these fortuitous archetypes come and they differ from society to society, cultural relativism seems to be inescapable. How can one criticize someone else for differing from oneself, if nothing grounds one’s own conventions and standards, either?
Smith’s views on virtue ethics are complex; for him virtue ends up being a mixture of propriety, prudence (the traditional Aristotelian phronesis, that is) and benevolence (which Hutcheson was well known around that time to advocate as the determinative principle of virtue). Such a bastard and impure concept evidently can’t be good for very much. In any case, it is hard to analyze anything without clearly delineated terms and hence hard to derive much philosophical insight from such a muddle; in a framework of this kind such as Smith’s, concepts such as intellect (from which knowledge of the good), will, intention, circumstance, norm or duty etc. can be at best secondary; to put it one way, one would have to refine their precise definitions by tuning against an objective function specified in terms of an inadequate theoretical construct, viz., sympathy as one’s goal and virtue as a function of three probably inconsistent (relative to this model) measures; how could such a diffuse and roundabout fitting procedure lead to sharply defined concepts of will etc., let alone ones that we would want?
The basic contention of Smithian free-market economics, that there is no need for us to self-regulate our behavior according to ethical principles and that the impersonal mechanism of the invisible hand can be relied upon to extract public good from private vice, or at best amoral behavior, may indeed be true as a first-order approximation. That is, everything will continue to function more or less well for the time being, for the most part. The problem is that, at second order, there will always be pathologies left inadequately accounted for, and that, human nature and greed being what they are and liberalism knowing no principle of self-restraint in theory, over the longer term these pathologies will be accentuated until they eventuate in a crisis that threatens the whole system, as happened in the financial markets in 2008.
Overall conclusion: if the Smithian theory of moral sentiments were to be made foundational to a society’s self-concept of ethics, the outcome would have to be something little better than a random walk or neutral drift in the space of possible systems of moral philosophy, guided by uncontrollable fortuitous factors such as fashion or cultural diffusion from whoever happens to be nearby. In substance, this is what we have had already for the two centuries in the West since the time of the Scottish Enlightenment, especially in Great Britain and the United States. The aporia of modern left-liberalism discussed above in our review of Burke (here) follow as long-term consequences, once the inner constraints holding back anti-social conduct fall away due to the ensuing anomie that afflicts the democratic nation-state shorn of its traditional civic supports (about which Tocqueville writes so much).
Among the illustrious minds of the Scottish Enlightenment, Christianity was already a spent force and it matters little whether, with Hume, one reject it altogether, or, with Adam Smith, retain a veneer of it without any conviction. The fundamental problem with Smith’s theory of moral sentiments is that, once the cultural vanguard in a society adopts his basically anti-intellectual approach to ethics, one enters into a descent of a slippery slope on which there will no longer be any rational criterion or standard to serve as an originative principle of correction and reform. Certainly, there would be nothing left to tie one back [religio] to the revelation of divine truth in our past. Decline, decadence and eventual all-around chaos become inevitable, the end-game we are just reaching in this third decade of the twenty-first century. The veneer, by now, has worn pretty thin. Somehow, we need to instill in young minds a sense of the need to return to an ideal of self-regulation rather than one of self-justificatory expressivism and moral outrage over the perceived faults of others, to which the regnant liberalism tends to lend predominance.
Like any prophecy, the ideology of political liberalism is to be judged by its fruit. Although things in the third millenium are looking better in the West than they did in the era of twentieth-century fascism and Soviet communism, there are, nevertheless, many aporia besetting us amply qualified by the above authors and other observers of the political scene. Our review of Adam Smith’s moral philosophy and its realization in free-market economics indicates why liberalism should be in principle, and is in fact, bereft of the internal resources with which to overcome and resolve these paradoxical contradictions. Both Deneen in Why Liberalism Failed and Millbank and Pabst in the Politics of Virtue make a persuasive case that these failings of the liberal order are congenital. Therefore, we are bound to seek a viable alternative to political liberalism to pursue in the future. Deneen merely vaguely alludes to the possibility that some such alternative is already in the works, and we need just attend to local, practical matters to hurry it along. But, if this were the case, a subtle analysis should disclose what this alternative will likely shape up to be. Deneen, though, lacks the keen eyesight of the visionary and thus is ill-equipped to the purpose. The more impressively philosophically grounded social theorists Millbank and Pabst promise more. Indeed, they do delineate the contours of a post-liberal politics of virtue. In large measure, what it would have to involve can be backed out from what liberalism is not (Deneen can do this much, too, and does, if but elliptically). Where the latter two authors shine is in their ability to discern the profound philosophical and even theological issues at stake and to illustrate them with topical citations from intellectual history (q.v. our reviews to follow momentarily, here and here).
Yet it is a long way from conjecturing, however aptly, what the future will bring, if conditions are to improve and we find our way out the current impasse, to knowing what will, in fact, bring the desired turn of events to pass. By analogy, at a certain stage of technological development, everyone can foresee what the next great thing will be—the lightbulb, the laser, the mobile phone, quantum cryptography, what have you—but only the single and rare inventor has the genius actually to hit upon the technical means by which to fashion the desired device. This reviewer fears Millbank and Pabst lack this genius. Why? Strip away the erudite critical apparatus and one will be left, for the most part, with commonplaces of the communitarian and virtue ethics schools. Although they surpass Deneen in the philosophical depth of their analysis by far, in the end they share his fault of being better at diagnosing the problem than at finding the solution by which to cure it. As we suggest above in passing, either Millbank or Pabst can presumably do better, if we look elsewhere to their main works up to now. Perhaps, we need only wait for their musings in their proper fields to ferment and mature and we shall, in coming years, witness the publication of a renewed tract on the politics of virtue that will obviate the defects of the present one. Let us hope so!
As Millbank and Pabst implicitly take for granted in the context of the doctrine of the analogy of being, as discussed briefly above, our task is to retrieve the antique jewels in a form suitably modified to make them appropriate to conditions in the present, post-modern age. But, applied more generally, this would be precisely how to characterize what a radical conservatism ought to be. Deneen’s statement that there are some good things to be learned from the tradition of liberalism is, of course, a truism. The radical conservative knows this very well. Being radical, he remembers what positive goals liberalism set out to accomplish and in large measure did, such as freedom, equality of rights, domestic peace; being conservative, he will wish to hold fast to this accomplishment rather than sacrifice it in order to let liberal principles attain their fullest possible development and realization, which misplaced willingness leads by the well-rehearsed mechanism to today’s chaos. As any Burkean appreciates, a little innocuous inconsistency is preferable to a thorough-going consistency prosecuted with a cold and merciless logic. But to have the strength of mind to arrest liberalism’s inner dialectic at a certain stage, or better yet to devise a better alternative that also secures the desired good, one has to go outside the confines of liberal political theory itself. Not many will be able to do so. Fortunately, we suggest, there will always remain a creative minority that can, however. That is one ground of optimism when facing an otherwise daunting future.
There are problems with such a framework on which to erect a moral philosophy. First, nothing much grounds judgments of propriety other than convention; true, if convention were arbitrary or systematically too biased, society could not flourish very well, but this constitutes a weak constraint and by itself leaves Smith’s system unacceptable. For instance, sympathy with the plight of destitute mothers authorizes abortion on demand. Economic growth continues just about as well and standards of living improve just about as fast, whether or not abortion is prevalent (as long as the rate doesn’t get too out of hand). Second, in the absence of anything much better than convention, nothing exists to support real reform or social progress, as there is no independent criterion. If the reigning convention seems good enough to most everyone, then what would prompt people to change it or to decide in what direction to make a change? Third, sympathy as a fundamental principle of moral sentiments is not very useful solely from a pragmatic point of view; for then, there would be no resources to encourage people to grow in virtue, let alone holiness. If people’s sympathies work harmoniously together fine, or mostly well enough, even though the convention be unjust in some fashion, then a theory of moral sentiment would take no issue with the situation. Something else, a sense of obligation or duty to behave in a different manner, would have to intervene in order to disrupt the familiar and comfortable pattern of sympathies (whence the difficulty of rooting out long-standing prejudices such as WASP anti-Semitism at Ivy League universities or racist attitudes in the post-Civil War South). Hence, Smith’s approach tends to favor the view typical of aristocrats, especially in England, that good manners and polite conversation are what matter most, not virtue or sanctity per se.
Another criticism: convention seems to arise from deep-seated archetypes not very well subject to rational analysis or criticism, whence what one gets must be attributed for the most part to fortuitous causes. Moreover, since who knows whence these fortuitous archetypes come and they differ from society to society, cultural relativism seems to be inescapable. How can one criticize someone else for differing from oneself, if nothing grounds one’s own conventions and standards, either?
Smith’s views on virtue ethics are complex; for him virtue ends up being a mixture of propriety, prudence (the traditional Aristotelian phronesis, that is) and benevolence (which Hutcheson was well known around that time to advocate as the determinative principle of virtue). Such a bastard and impure concept evidently can’t be good for very much. In any case, it is hard to analyze anything without clearly delineated terms and hence hard to derive much philosophical insight from such a muddle; in a framework of this kind such as Smith’s, concepts such as intellect (from which knowledge of the good), will, intention, circumstance, norm or duty etc. can be at best secondary; to put it one way, one would have to refine their precise definitions by tuning against an objective function specified in terms of an inadequate theoretical construct, viz., sympathy as one’s goal and virtue as a function of three probably inconsistent (relative to this model) measures; how could such a diffuse and roundabout fitting procedure lead to sharply defined concepts of will etc., let alone ones that we would want?
The basic contention of Smithian free-market economics, that there is no need for us to self-regulate our behavior according to ethical principles and that the impersonal mechanism of the invisible hand can be relied upon to extract public good from private vice, or at best amoral behavior, may indeed be true as a first-order approximation. That is, everything will continue to function more or less well for the time being, for the most part. The problem is that, at second order, there will always be pathologies left inadequately accounted for, and that, human nature and greed being what they are and liberalism knowing no principle of self-restraint in theory, over the longer term these pathologies will be accentuated until they eventuate in a crisis that threatens the whole system, as happened in the financial markets in 2008.
Overall conclusion: if the Smithian theory of moral sentiments were to be made foundational to a society’s self-concept of ethics, the outcome would have to be something little better than a random walk or neutral drift in the space of possible systems of moral philosophy, guided by uncontrollable fortuitous factors such as fashion or cultural diffusion from whoever happens to be nearby. In substance, this is what we have had already for the two centuries in the West since the time of the Scottish Enlightenment, especially in Great Britain and the United States. The aporia of modern left-liberalism discussed above in our review of Burke (here) follow as long-term consequences, once the inner constraints holding back anti-social conduct fall away due to the ensuing anomie that afflicts the democratic nation-state shorn of its traditional civic supports (about which Tocqueville writes so much).
Among the illustrious minds of the Scottish Enlightenment, Christianity was already a spent force and it matters little whether, with Hume, one reject it altogether, or, with Adam Smith, retain a veneer of it without any conviction. The fundamental problem with Smith’s theory of moral sentiments is that, once the cultural vanguard in a society adopts his basically anti-intellectual approach to ethics, one enters into a descent of a slippery slope on which there will no longer be any rational criterion or standard to serve as an originative principle of correction and reform. Certainly, there would be nothing left to tie one back [religio] to the revelation of divine truth in our past. Decline, decadence and eventual all-around chaos become inevitable, the end-game we are just reaching in this third decade of the twenty-first century. The veneer, by now, has worn pretty thin. Somehow, we need to instill in young minds a sense of the need to return to an ideal of self-regulation rather than one of self-justificatory expressivism and moral outrage over the perceived faults of others, to which the regnant liberalism tends to lend predominance.
Like any prophecy, the ideology of political liberalism is to be judged by its fruit. Although things in the third millenium are looking better in the West than they did in the era of twentieth-century fascism and Soviet communism, there are, nevertheless, many aporia besetting us amply qualified by the above authors and other observers of the political scene. Our review of Adam Smith’s moral philosophy and its realization in free-market economics indicates why liberalism should be in principle, and is in fact, bereft of the internal resources with which to overcome and resolve these paradoxical contradictions. Both Deneen in Why Liberalism Failed and Millbank and Pabst in the Politics of Virtue make a persuasive case that these failings of the liberal order are congenital. Therefore, we are bound to seek a viable alternative to political liberalism to pursue in the future. Deneen merely vaguely alludes to the possibility that some such alternative is already in the works, and we need just attend to local, practical matters to hurry it along. But, if this were the case, a subtle analysis should disclose what this alternative will likely shape up to be. Deneen, though, lacks the keen eyesight of the visionary and thus is ill-equipped to the purpose. The more impressively philosophically grounded social theorists Millbank and Pabst promise more. Indeed, they do delineate the contours of a post-liberal politics of virtue. In large measure, what it would have to involve can be backed out from what liberalism is not (Deneen can do this much, too, and does, if but elliptically). Where the latter two authors shine is in their ability to discern the profound philosophical and even theological issues at stake and to illustrate them with topical citations from intellectual history (q.v. our reviews to follow momentarily, here and here).
Yet it is a long way from conjecturing, however aptly, what the future will bring, if conditions are to improve and we find our way out the current impasse, to knowing what will, in fact, bring the desired turn of events to pass. By analogy, at a certain stage of technological development, everyone can foresee what the next great thing will be—the lightbulb, the laser, the mobile phone, quantum cryptography, what have you—but only the single and rare inventor has the genius actually to hit upon the technical means by which to fashion the desired device. This reviewer fears Millbank and Pabst lack this genius. Why? Strip away the erudite critical apparatus and one will be left, for the most part, with commonplaces of the communitarian and virtue ethics schools. Although they surpass Deneen in the philosophical depth of their analysis by far, in the end they share his fault of being better at diagnosing the problem than at finding the solution by which to cure it. As we suggest above in passing, either Millbank or Pabst can presumably do better, if we look elsewhere to their main works up to now. Perhaps, we need only wait for their musings in their proper fields to ferment and mature and we shall, in coming years, witness the publication of a renewed tract on the politics of virtue that will obviate the defects of the present one. Let us hope so!
As Millbank and Pabst implicitly take for granted in the context of the doctrine of the analogy of being, as discussed briefly above, our task is to retrieve the antique jewels in a form suitably modified to make them appropriate to conditions in the present, post-modern age. But, applied more generally, this would be precisely how to characterize what a radical conservatism ought to be. Deneen’s statement that there are some good things to be learned from the tradition of liberalism is, of course, a truism. The radical conservative knows this very well. Being radical, he remembers what positive goals liberalism set out to accomplish and in large measure did, such as freedom, equality of rights, domestic peace; being conservative, he will wish to hold fast to this accomplishment rather than sacrifice it in order to let liberal principles attain their fullest possible development and realization, which misplaced willingness leads by the well-rehearsed mechanism to today’s chaos. As any Burkean appreciates, a little innocuous inconsistency is preferable to a thorough-going consistency prosecuted with a cold and merciless logic. But to have the strength of mind to arrest liberalism’s inner dialectic at a certain stage, or better yet to devise a better alternative that also secures the desired good, one has to go outside the confines of liberal political theory itself. Not many will be able to do so. Fortunately, we suggest, there will always remain a creative minority that can, however. That is one ground of optimism when facing an otherwise daunting future.
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