Work · Empiricism, Enlightenment & Liberalism
The Theory of Moral Sentiments
Sympathy and the impartial spectator.
Introduction
Adam Smith’s first book grew out of his lectures as professor of moral philosophy at Glasgow and was published in 1759; he revised it until the sixth edition of 1790, which added a new part on virtue. It opens with the observation that however selfish man may be supposed, there are principles in his nature that make him interested in the fortune of others. Smith explains moral judgement by sympathy, the imaginative act of putting oneself in another’s situation, and by an “impartial spectator” whom we learn to imagine judging our own conduct. The phrase “invisible hand”, later famous from The Wealth of Nations, appears here once as well.
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Connections
Builds on
- A Treatise of Human Nature1739 · David Hume
Taken up in
- The Wealth of Nations1776 · Adam Smith
- The Idea of Justice2009 · Amartya Sen
Answered in
- Letters on Sympathy1798 · Sophie de Grouchy
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