The Theory of Moral Sentiments(1759, 1790) - Adam Smith

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The Theory of Moral Sentiments(1759, 1790) - Adam Smith(1723-1790)

A Landmark Work in Moral Philosophy

The Theory of Moral Sentiments by Scottish philosopher and economist Adam Smith is a foundational work in ethics, morality, and human behavior, first published in 1759 in Scotland. This groundbreaking text explores the nature of moral judgment, the role of sympathy, and the inner "impartial spectator" that governs human actions—concepts that remain profoundly relevant today.

Sneak Peek:

"The same thing often happens with regard to all the other passions. A stranger passes by us in the street with all the marks of the deepest affliction; and we are immediately told that he has just received the news of the death of his father. It is impossible that, in this case, we should not approve of his grief."

Synopsis:

In this philosophical masterpiece, Adam Smith lays the foundation for moral philosophy and social ethics, presenting a theory of how humans develop a sense of right and wrong. He examines:

• The appropriateness of behavior and the social consequences of our actions.
• The relationship between sympathy, conscience, and moral judgment.
• How reward, punishment, and duty shape moral sentiment.

Serving as the intellectual groundwork for The Wealth of Nations, this work challenges readers to reflect on human nature, self-interest, and virtue. Smith's insights into justice, compassion, and the unseen forces that guide society remain timeless and thought-provoking.

ADAM SMITH (1723-1790) was born at Kirkcaldy, on the east coast of Scotland, in 1723, and received his early education at the local burgh school. He subsequently attended Glasgow University (1737- 1740), where he studied under Francis Hutcheson, and Balliol College, Oxford (1740-1746). Two years after his return to Scotland, Smith moved to Edinburgh, where he delivered lectures on rhetoric, which did much to establish his early reputation. In 1751 Smith was appointed Professor of Logic at Glasgow, but was translated to Hutcheson’s old chair of Moral Philosophy in 1752. He held this appointment until 1764, during which tenure he published, in 1759,  The Theory of Moral Sentiments. In 1764 Smith resigned his professorship to become tutor to the young Duke of Buccleuch, at the invitation of Charles Townshend. This office took him to France, where he traveled extensively, meeting many of the leading thinkers of the day, including Voltaire, Quesnai, Turgot, and Helvetius, and where he began writing The Wealth of Nations. The book was published in 1776, the same year the Declaration of Independence was adopted. In 1778 Smith became a resident of Edinburgh, on his appointment as Commissioner of Customs, and remained there until his death in 1790. He was elected Lord Rector of Glasgow University in 1787, in succession to his friend Edmund Burke. Smith’s life was relatively uneventful and his disposition absent-minded and retiring. Yet he wrote with vigor and did not lack personal courage, a fact attested by his defense of the character of the alleged atheist David Hume, after the latter’s death.

 AMARTYA SEN is Lamont University Professor at Harvard University. He won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1998 and was Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, from 1998 until 2004. His books include Development as Freedom, Identity and Violence, and The Idea of Justice.

 RYAN PATRICK HANLEY is the author of Adam Smith and the Character of Virtue. An assistant professor of political science at Marquette University, he has been the recipient of fellowships from the Mellon Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

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Suggestions for Further Reading 

Adam Smith once told his students that to be “an ancient” was to “have commentators.” By that standard, few are more ancient than Smith. The scholarship on him is immense; what follows is merely a brief guide to some of the most helpful introductory and most essential scholarly works.

Smith’s quiet life, coupled with his deathbed insistence that all his papers be destroyed, has rendered him a challenging subject for biographers. The authoritative biography is Ian S. Ross, The Life of Adam Smith (Oxford, 1995). A brief and lively account can be found in James Buchan, The Authentic Adam Smith (Norton, 2006). And still valuable is a short essay by Walter Bagehot, “Adam Smith as a Person,” included in The Collected Works of Walter Bagehot.

Smith’s intellectual context has been examined in several excellent studies; among the best introductions are Nicholas Phillipson’s essay “The Scottish Enlightenment,” in The Enlightenment in National Context (Cambridge, 1981); and The Cambridge Companion to the Scottish Enlightenment, edited by Alexander Broadie (Cambridge, 2003). Essential works on the moral and political thought of the Scottish Enlightenment include Istvan Hont and Michael Ignatieff, eds., Wealth and Virtue: The Shaping of Political Economy in the Scottish Enlightenment (Cambridge, 1983); and Christopher Berry, Social Theory of the Scottish Enlightenment (Edinburgh, 1997).

Among the best introductions to Smith’s thought is Jerry Z. Muller,  Adam Smith in His Time and Ours (Princeton, 1995). Comprehensive overviews can also be found in D. D. Raphael, Adam Smith  (Oxford, 1985); and Andrew S. Skinner, A System of Social Science  (Oxford, 1979). Readers can also look forward to two forthcoming works that promise to be of considerable interest: Phillipson’s Adam  Smith: An Intellectual Biography (Penguin), and Eric Schliesser’s study of Smith for the Routledge Philosophers series.

Over the course of the past century, The Theory of Moral Sentiments  has largely lived in the shadow of The Wealth of Nations. Interest in Smith’s moral philosophy yet owes much to the discovery of Das Adam Smith Problem by German scholars in the late nineteenth century. Among early important works in English is Joseph Cropsey’s Polity and Economy (M. Nijhoff, 1957), which established Smith as a central figure in modern political philosophy, a question reconsidered in one of the most important recent works, Charles Griswold’s Adam Smith and the Virtues of Enlightenment (Cambridge, 1999). In addition to Griswold’s, other essential comprehensive studies of Smith’s moral philosophy focusing on his conceptions of sympathy and spectatorship include A. L. Macfie, The Individual in Society (Allen and Unwin, 1967); T. D. Campbell, Adam Smith’s Science of Morals (Allen and Unwin, 1971); and Raphael, The Impartial Spectator  (Oxford, 2007). Smith’s theory of moral judgment is examined in Samuel Fleischacker, A Third Concept of Liberty (Princeton, 1999); his theory of the emergence of norms through sympathy and exchange is examined in James Otteson, Adam Smith’s Marketplace of Life (Cambridge, 2002). The context of Smith’s moral and political thought is considered in Donald Winch, Adam Smith’s Politics (Cambridge, 1978); and Leonidas Montes, Adam Smith in Context (Palgrave Macmillan, 2004).

Treatments of specific aspects of Smith’s moral philosophy also abound. The link between his rhetoric and his ethics is examined in Vivienne Brown, Adam Smith’s Discourse (Routledge, 1994); and Stephen J. McKenna, Adam Smith: The Rhetoric of Propriety  (SUNY Press, 2006); the connection between his natural jurisprudence and his ethics is examined in Knud Haakonssen,  The Science of a Legislator (Cambridge, 1981). Craig Smith examines the place of spontaneous order in Adam Smith’s Political Philosophy (Routledge, 2005). The role of teleology in Smith is examined in James E. Alvey, Adam Smith: Optimist or Pessimist?  (Ashgate, 2003). Smith’s relationship to Rousseau is treated in Ignatieff, The Needs of Strangers (Picador, 1984); Pierre Force,  Self-interest Before Adam Smith (Cambridge, 2003); and Dennis Rasmussen, The Problems and Promise of Commercial Society  (Penn State, 2008). Smith’s debts to the ancients are the focus of Gloria Vivenza, Adam Smith and the Classics (Oxford, 2001). Smith’s theory of virtue is examined in Ryan Patrick Hanley,  Adam Smith and the Character of Virtue (Cambridge, 2009), and his theory of cosmopolitanism is examined in Fonna Forman-Barzilai,  Adam Smith and the Circles of Sympathy (Cambridge, forthcoming).

The literature on Smith’s economic thought is massive, but several studies are of particular interest to readers of The Theory of Moral Sentiments. Important connections between Smith’s ethics and his economic ideas are examined in Fleischacker, On Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations (Princeton, 2004); Jerry Evensky, Adam Smith’s Moral Philosophy (Cambridge, 2005); Emma Rothschild,  Economic Sentiments (Harvard, 2001); Winch, Riches and Poverty  (Cambridge, 1996) and Richard F. Teichgraeber, “Free Trade” and Moral Philosophy (Duke, 1986). Studies of the moral implications of Smith’s economic ideas include Patricia Werhane, Adam Smith and His Legacy for Modern Capitalism (Oxford, 1991) and Spencer J. Pack, Capitalism as a Moral System (Elgar, 1991).

Helpful collections of essays include Skinner and Wilson, eds.,  Essays on Adam Smith (Oxford, 1975); Montes and Schliesser, eds., New Voices on Adam Smith (Routledge, 2006); and Haakonssen, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Adam Smith (Cambridge, 2006). Many key essays have also been republished in John C. Wood, ed., Adam Smith: Critical Assessments, 7 vols. (Routledge, 1983); and Haakonssen, ed., Adam Smith (Ashgate, 1998). The Adam Smith Review of the International Adam Smith Society provides a forum for new scholarship.

RYAN PATRICK HANLEY

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A Note on the Text 

The Theory of Moral Sentiments was first published in 1759. It was subsequently revised with great care and republished in five additional editions in Smith’s lifetime. The version published here is that of the sixth edition, which appeared in 1790, months before Smith’s death.

The standard scholarly edition of Smith’s works is the Glasgow Edition, published in hardcover by Oxford University Press and in paperback by the Liberty Fund. The Glasgow Edition includes Smith’s Wealth of Nations, as well as student transcriptions of his lectures on jurisprudence and rhetoric, his philosophical essays, and his correspondence. Its edition of TMS, prepared by D. D. Raphael and A. L. Macfie, is especially valuable for having established a critical edition of the text and for its inclusion of a comprehensive textual apparatus detailing variations across editions. In an effort to present the most accurate text possible, the construction of the present edition included a thorough comparison of its text to the Glasgow Edition and to the 1790 original. In most instances of disagreement, the present edition incorporates the decisions of the Glasgow editors for the compelling reasons set forth in their notes.

The textual apparatus to the present edition includes a set of biographical notes and a set of textual notes. Historical information can be found in the biographical notes. The textual notes are of four types: definitions of words; citations of authors directly referenced or indirectly appropriated by Smith; references to key prior interventions in selected philosophical debates in which Smith is a participant; and references to parallel passages elsewhere in his corpus. Some notes also indicate the key changes that Smith made to the sixth edition; these do not, however, aspire to replicate the labors of the Glasgow Edition’s editors, and readers interested in tracking these changes are encouraged to consult their thorough documentation of such. In preparing my own notes I have relied chiefly on  sources with which Smith was demonstrably familiar on the evidence supplied by the catalogues of his library compiled by James Bonar and Hiroshi Mizuta, and by references elsewhere in his corpus; hence my recurrence to Johnson’s Dictionary of the English Language  , Hume’s History of England, and the Encyclopédie of Diderot and d’Alembert, among other sources ancient and modern that seem to have been prominent in Smith’s mind during the long period in which he composed and revised his work. In all instances notes are meant to be explicatory rather than interpretative.

All readers of Smith owe a tremendous debt to the excellent annotations of several previous editions. In addition to those of Raphael and Macfie, these include those to be found in the editions of Knud Haakonssen (Cambridge, 2002), of Walther Eckstein (Leipzig, 1926; reissued Felix Meiner, 2004), and of Michaël Biziou, Claude Gautier, and Jean-François Pradeau (Presses Universitaires de France, 1999). Their notes have proven to be the inevitable and indispensible foundation for many of my own, and I wish particularly to record my great appreciation for and reliance on the careful work of Eckstein as well as Raphael and Macfie in documenting Smith’s changes across editions, for Haakonssen’s and the French editors’ references to parallel passages in Smith’s corpus and especially his jurisprudence lectures, and for the French editors’ comprehensive efforts at documenting Smith’s eighteenth-century philosophical context. To spare readers from having to witness the pedantic quarrels of editor with editor, I have not registered my own agreements and disagreements with their annotations in individual notes, but these agreements, as well as those several instances where I have added to or felt compelled to depart from their judgments, will be evident to any who compare my annotations to theirs. I’m also pleased to record here my debts to Igor Borba, Patty Rodda, Ethan Bercot, and Alan Kellner for their invaluable assistance, and to Leon Montes, Eric Schliesser, and Doug Den Uyl for their many helpful comments.

Preparing this edition has taught me a great deal, and only further increased my admiration for and interest in Smith. Readers of this work are always very welcome to contact me if I can be of any assistance in contributing to their own study of his work: ryan.hanley@marquette.edu.

RYAN PATRICK HANLEY

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SECTION I.

OF THE SENSE OF PROPRIETY.
CHAPTER I.

Of Sympathy.

⎷How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortune 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 which 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 sorrow 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 and 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.

⎷Pity and compassion are words appropriated to signify our fellow-feeling with the sorrow of others. Sympathy, though its meaning was, perhaps, originally the same, may now, however, without much impropriety, be made use of to denote our fellow-feeling with any passion whatever.

⎷We blush for the impudence and rudeness of another, though he himself appears to have no sense of the impropriety of his own behaviour; because we cannot help feeling with what confusion we ourselves should be covered, had we behaved in so absurd a manner.

⎷The compassion of the spectator must arise altogether from the consideration of what he himself would feel if he was reduced to the same unhappy situation, and, what perhaps is impossible, was at the same time able to regard it with his present reason and judgment.

⎷The infant, however, feels only the uneasiness of the present instant, which can never be great. With regard to the future, it is perfectly secure, and in its thoughtlessness and want of foresight, possesses an antidote against fear and anxiety, the great tormentors of the human breast, from which reason and philosophy will, in vain, attempt to defend it, when it grows up to a man.

⎷The idea of that dreary and endless melancholy, which the fancy naturally ascribes to their condition, arises altogether from our joining to the change which has been produced upon them, our own consciousness of that change, from our putting ourselves in their situation, and from our lodging, if I may be allowed to say so, our own living souls in their inanimated bodies, and thence conceiving what would be our emotions in this case. It is from this very illusion of the imagination, that the foresight of our own dissolution is so terrible to us, and that the idea of those circumstances, which undoubtedly can give us no pain when we are dead, makes us miserable while we are alive.7 And from thence arises one of the most important principles in human nature, the dread of death, the great poison to the happiness, but the great restraint upon the injustice of mankind, which, while it afflicts and mortifies the individual, guards and protects the society.

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https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLgkOfAZ-8roj0embifccIlUskUiH9C05P

Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments (Full Audiobook)

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