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Sophie de Grouchy, widow of the philosopher Condorcet, published her French translation of Adam Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments in 1798, followed by eight letters to “C***”, generally identified as her brother-in-law, the physician Cabanis. She agrees with Smith that morality starts from sympathy but asks where sympathy itself comes from, and traces it to our physical sensitivity to pain and pleasure, first experienced in childhood. From there she builds an account of conscience, moral judgement and justice, and argues that inequality, privilege and unjust laws corrupt natural sympathy. Long read only as a translator’s appendix, the Letters are now studied as an independent work of moral philosophy.

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• 道德情操论1759 · 亚当·斯密