HUME AND SMITH ON SYMPATHY, APPROBATION, AND MORAL JUDGMENT

2013 ◽  
Vol 30 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 208-236 ◽  
Author(s):  
Geoffrey Sayre-McCord
Keyword(s):  
Moral Judgment ◽  
Moral Theory ◽  
David Hume ◽  
Adam Smith ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
Affective Reactions ◽  
Adequate Account ◽  
Moral Thought

AbstractDavid Hume and Adam Smith are usually, and understandably, seen as developing very similar sentimentalist accounts of moral thought and practice. As similar as Hume's and Smith's accounts of moral thought are, they differ in telling ways. This essay is an attempt primarily to get clear on the important differences. They are worth identifying and exploring, in part, because of the great extent to which Hume and Smith share not just an overall approach to moral theory but also a conception of what the key components of an adequate account of moral thought will be. In the process, I hope to bring out the extent to which they both worked to make sense of the fact that we do not merely have affective reactions but also, importantly, make moral judgments.

scholarly journals Impartiality through ‘Moral Optics’: Why Adam Smith revised David Hume's Moral Sentimentalism

2021 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Christel Fricke ◽  
Maria Alejandra Carrasco
Keyword(s):  
Visual Perception ◽  
Moral Judgment ◽  
Moral Theory ◽  
Adam Smith ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
Moral Sentiments ◽  
Moral Sentimentalism ◽  
Critical Response ◽  
Main Challenge ◽  
Moral Theories

We read Adam Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments as a critical response to David Hume's moral theory. While both share a commitment to moral sentimentalism, they propose different ways of meeting its main challenge, that is, explaining how judgments informed by (partial) sentiments can nevertheless have a justified claim to general authority. This difference is particularly manifest in their respective accounts of ‘moral optics’, or the way they rely on the analogy between perceptual and moral judgments. According to Hume, making perceptual and moral judgments requires focusing on frequently co-occurring impressions (perceptions of objects or reactive sentiments) for tracking an existing object with its perceptual properties or an agent's character traits. Smith uses visual perception for the purpose of illustrating one source of the partiality of the sentiments people feel in response to actions. Before making a moral judgment, people have to disregard this partiality and accept that they are all equally important. Smith and Hume's different ways of relying on the same analogy reveals the still-overlooked and yet profound differences between their moral theories.

scholarly journals La influencia de la teoría de las pasiones de Hume en el juicio moral de Adam Smith

2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 268-276
Author(s):  
Maria A. Carrasco
Keyword(s):  
Moral Judgment ◽  
Moral Theory ◽  
David Hume ◽  
Adam Smith ◽  
Moral Luck ◽  
Moral Sentiments ◽  
Different Parts

The analysis of the irregular moral sentiments that Smith describes in TMS II.iii evidences the enormous influence of David Hume’s theory of passions in the moral theory of his successor, as well as the critical differences between these Scottish philosophers’ moral proposals. Moreover, these atypical situations also allow us to grasp the different parts of Smithian moral judgment, and to exclude – despite Smith’s assertion – the influence of moral luck on these judgments.Keywords: Adam Smith, David Hume, moral judgment, passions, moral luck.

The Leviathan’s Conscience: Hobbesian Human Nature and Moral Judgment

2017 ◽  
Vol 70 (4) ◽  
pp. 778-789 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Branstetter
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Moral Judgment ◽  
Human Nature ◽  
Thomas Hobbes ◽  
The State ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
Practical Judgment ◽  
Moral Thought ◽  
Moral Improvement ◽  
Individual Judgment

Hannah Arendt claims that Thomas Hobbes was responsible for constituting modern people as apolitical subjects who can no longer make independent moral judgments. The refusal to think that Hobbes allegedly engendered was a major factor in twentieth-century totalitarianism’s worst crimes. In her view, Hobbes’s Leviathan established the architecture of the totalitarian state and initiated the cultivation of people so incapable of exercising moral judgment that they stood idly by and let such a state commit horrors in their name. I argue that Hobbes rejected the proto-totalitarian form of domination Arendt attributes to him and expressed hope about the human capacities for practical judgment and moral improvement. Instead of creating thoughtless subjects which authorize any crime the state might commit, he suggests that the Leviathan should cultivate the public’s capacity for reason and judgment to make violence unnecessary. Considering Hobbes’s accounts of reason and science in light of his materialism shows that the Leviathan requires the exercise of individual moral thought and judgment to function properly. I suggest that the primary duty of the Hobbesian sovereign might be understood primarily in terms of the cultivation of individual judgment and reason rather than its suppression.

The cultural capital of the moralist and the scientist

2010 ◽  
Vol 33 (4) ◽  
pp. 340-341
Author(s):  
Min Ju Kang ◽  
Michael Glassman
Keyword(s):  
Social Capital ◽  
Cultural Capital ◽  
Moral Judgment ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
Moral Action ◽  
Moral Intuitions ◽  
Moral Thought

AbstractIn this commentary we explore Knobe's ideas of moral judgments leading to moral intuitions in the context of the moral thought and moral action debate. We suggest that Knobe's primary moral judgment and the setting of a continuum with a default point is in essence a form of cultural capital, different from moral action, which is more akin to social capital.

scholarly journals Ethical intuitionism and the linguistic analogy

2018 ◽  
Vol 48 (2) ◽  
pp. 292-311
Author(s):  
Philipp Schwind
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Research ◽  
Moral Theory ◽  
Normative Theory ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
Moral Obligations ◽  
Adequate Account ◽  
Moral Agents ◽  
Ethical Intuitionism ◽  
Central Tenet ◽  
Considered Moral Judgments

AbstractIt is a central tenet of ethical intuitionism as defended by W. D. Ross and others that moral theory should reflect the convictions of mature moral agents. Hence, intuitionism is plausible to the extent that it corresponds to our well-considered moral judgments. After arguing for this claim, I discuss whether intuitionists offer an empirically adequate account of our moral obligations. I do this by applying recent empirical research by John Mikhail that is based on the idea of a universal moral grammar to a number of claims implicit in W. D. Ross’s normative theory. I argue that the results at least partly vindicate intuitionism.

MORAL JUDGMENT OF PRESCHOOL KUWAITI CHILDREN

2002 ◽  
Vol 30 (6) ◽  
pp. 539-545
Author(s):  
Fatima Nazar ◽  
Kamiar Kouzekanani
Keyword(s):  
Preschool Children ◽  
Moral Judgment ◽  
Moral Theory ◽  
Moral Realism ◽  
Two Dimensions ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
Socialization Process ◽  
Kuwaiti Children

This study examined the moral judgment of 108 Kuwaiti preschool children. The children were tested on two dimensions of Piaget's moral theory, namely moral realism and justice. Four stories patterned after Piaget's work were used to assess the children's moral judgment. Two stories dealt with moral realism, and two other stories dealt with the issue of justice. Results suggest that the children in this present study are well advanced in their moral judgments in terms of equality and justice, as contrasted with Piaget's original findings. The results of the present study were interpreted in the light of previous research, as well as with regard to the socialization process of children.

Hume's General Point of View, Smith's Impartial Spectator, and the Moral Value of Interacting with Outsiders

2021 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-37
Author(s):  
John McHugh
Keyword(s):  
Moral Judgment ◽  
Moral Psychology ◽  
David Hume ◽  
Adam Smith ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
General Point ◽  
Moral Value ◽  
Impartial Spectator ◽  
Moral Theories ◽  
Do So

Here is an appealing position: one reason to pursue interaction with people from backgrounds that differ from our own is that doing so can improve our moral judgment. As some scholars have noticed, this position seems pedigreed by support from the famed philosophers of human sociability, David Hume and Adam Smith. But regardless of whether Hume or Smith personally held anything like the appealing position, neither might have had theoretically grounded reason to do so. In fact, both philosophers explain moral judgment in ways that seem to present obstacles to the acceptance of the appealing position. This paper entertains the possibility that either of their moral theories contains resources to overcome these obstacles and implies the appealing position. I argue that Smith's theory does so more straightforwardly than Hume's does. This difference, I also argue, reveals something important about the Hume-Smith philosophical relationship. I close by sketching a way to fit the source of the appealing position in Smith's moral psychology with his focus on the desire for mutual sympathy.

Reid and Moral Emotions

2009 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 177-192 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sabine Roeser
Keyword(s):  
Moral Judgment ◽  
Cognitive Theory ◽  
Moral Emotions ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
Affective States ◽  
Thomas Reid ◽  
Moral Thought ◽  
History Of ◽  
And Control

The name of Thomas Reid rarely appears in discussions of the history of moral thought. This is a pity, since Reid has a lot of interesting ideas that can contribute to the current discussions in meta-ethics. Reid can be understood as an ethical intuitionist. What makes his account especially interesting is the role affective states play in his intuitionist theory. Reid defends a cognitive theory of moral emotions. According to Reid, there are moral feelings that are the result of a moral judgment made by reason. The judgment and the feeling together constitute what Reid calls sentiments. Reid thinks that affective states (feelings and sentiments) play the role of helping reason to guide and control the egoistic feelings and passions. The affective states are particularly important, in Reid's view, because the motivating force of reason is often defeated by the stronger motivating force of the passions. So without affective states, we would often not be able to do what is morally good or right. In this paper, I will argue that the role of the affective states is still too limited in Reid's approach. He takes affective states to have a merely motivational function, namely, to help reason to control the passions and motivate to action where reason is too weak. Reid thinks that in making moral judgments we do not need to have feelings, feelings are at most a result of a judgment. Instead, I will argue that affective states also play an epistemological role.

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