Sophie de Grouchy
Morality grows from our natural ability to feel with others, but it only ripens into justice under equality and fair laws.
Placement
French philosopher and translator of Adam Smith: her “Letters on Sympathy”, published with that translation, trace morality to sympathy and argue that only equality and just laws let it grow into justice.
Key ideas
- Sympathy as the root of morality
- Moral sentiments need just institutions
- Translation and critique of Smith
Influence
Influenced by 1
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
influenced by
Evelyn Forget reads Grouchy’s Letters on Sympathy (1798) as seeing Smith through Rousseau, notably in tying the growth of sympathy to Rousseauian ideas of education. S. de Grouchy, Lettres sur la sympathie (1798); E. L. Forget, “Cultivating Sympathy: Sophie Condorcet’s Letters on Sympathy”, Journal of the History of Economic Thought (2001)
Evidence: AI draft
Jean-Jacques Rousseau › 1712–1778
Criticism
Criticizes 1
Adam Smith influenced by
influenced by
Grouchy translated Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments into French (1798), and her appended Letters on Sympathy accept his thesis that morality rests on sympathy. S. de Grouchy, tr., Théorie des sentiments moraux (1798), with Lettres sur la sympathie; ed. K. Brown, tr. J. E. McClellan III, Letters on Sympathy (2008)
Evidence: AI draft
criticised
Grouchy’s Letters on Sympathy (1798), appended to her translation of Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments, faulted Smith for not tracing sympathy to physical sensibility. S. de Grouchy, Lettres sur la sympathie (1798), Letter I; ed. K. Brown, tr. J. E. McClellan III, Letters on Sympathy (2008)
Evidence: AI draft
Adam Smith › 1723–1790
Works
Eight letters appended to her translation of Smith: sympathy begins in bodily pain and pleasure and needs equality and just laws to grow into justice.
Position
The eight letters, addressed to her brother-in-law the physician Cabanis, agree with Smith that morality rests on sympathy but ask what Smith did not: where sympathy comes from. Grouchy traces it to bodily experience – the infant’s dependence on those who relieve its pain – and to the reflection that extends this feeling to all sentient beings. Moral ideas of justice and the good then arise from sympathy refined by reason. Unlike Smith, she draws political conclusions: sympathy is distorted by inequality, so that the rich cannot feel with the poor, and it must be supported by just laws, education and the reduction of inequality. She rejects the impartial spectator as a sufficient standard.
Life & context
Sophie de Grouchy (1764–1822), from a Norman noble family, married the mathematician and philosopher Condorcet in 1786 and kept one of the most important salons of the Revolution. After Condorcet was outlawed in 1793 she divorced him to protect their property, supported herself by painting and, after his death in prison, edited his works. Her translation of Adam Smith’s “Theory of Moral Sentiments” appeared in 1798 with her own “Letters on Sympathy”.
As of November 2026 · Sources · Improve this page · How Agora is made