Theory of Moral Sentiment
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. Smith in his Theory of Moral Sentiment discusses his view of the development of moral sentiments and of the impartial spectator. Smith analyzes the issues in terms of a moral psychology based on sympathy, and he defines sympathy as a form of compassion, "the emotion which we feel for the misery of others, when we either see it, or are made to conceive it in a very lively manner" (Smith 9). Sympathetic feelings may develop from our seeing emotion in another person, but for Smith feelings of sympathy are best aroused when we know the reason for the emotion. It is our view of the situation which produces the sympathy which links us all to some central attitudes and ideas. we are all participants as impartial spectators, with the idea of the impartial spectator being a personification of our conscience and so of our attitudes toward events and behaviors. We base our judgments on sympathy. When the passion of the principal person are such that they are in accord with the sympathetic emotions of the spectator, then the spectator sees these passions as just and proper. This arouses a sense of the propriety of the expressed emotion. We judge ourselves in the same way by considering in effect how we are viewed by the impartial spectator, and we can achieve this by looking at our own behavior as if it were being performed by someone else. Because of his emphasis on sympathy, Smith develops a moral view that is clearly social in nature, involving as it does the interplay
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se of what they have that others want: "Their benefits can extend but to a few; but their fortunes interest almost every body" (Smith 52). The system is such that those who are rich and powerful are viewed differently by the masses simply because they are rich and powerful. The relation seen as most dominant by Smith is a certain acceptance of the status quo in spite of the envy, for he says that we try to please those who are rich and powerful just for the sake of doing so, "without any other recompense but the vanity of the honor of obliging them" (Smith 42). The rich are the beneficiaries of unwarranted admiration and support as Smith continues to develop his views, and this would be a force that might distort the action of sympathy in judging both those in the rich class and those not in it.
Hume seems to see morality as a sort of mean in the operation of the passions, while Smith sees morality as a judgment based on sympathy for the situation that brought the passions into being.
Works Cited
Hume, David. A Treatise of Human Nature. New York: Oxford at the Clarendon Press, 1976.
Smith, Adam. The Theory of Moral Sentiments. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1984.
Section Two
6. The utility principle, which has a
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Approximate Word count = 2080
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page)
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