3. THE THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS

Adam Smith ◽  
2016 ◽  
pp. 33-47
Keyword(s):  
Moral Sentiments ◽  
Theory Of Moral Sentiments

Sentimental Conviction: Rousseau’s Apologia and the Impartial Spectator

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam Schoene
Keyword(s):  
The Self ◽  
Careful Study ◽  
Moral Sentiments ◽  
Impartial Spectator ◽  
Direct Discourse ◽  
Rhetorical Device ◽  
The Spectator ◽  
Theory Of Moral Sentiments

Where Adam Smith’s The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759) extends the domain of spectatorship beyond the ocular realm and claims that we must become the impartial spectators of our own character and conduct, Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Rousseau juge de Jean-Jacques, Dialogues (1776) also attempts to probe beyond the visual surface to examine through careful study the constitution of another, who is actually himself. This chapter traces a Smithian sentiment in the radical division of the self dramatized in Rousseau’s fictional autobiographical Dialogues, emphasizing Rousseau’s attempt to liberate his own gaze and render an unbiased judgment upon himself. Although Rousseau does not write in direct discourse with Smith, he applies a strikingly similar rhetorical device to the spectator within the dialogic structure of his apologia. Reading Rousseau alongside Smith resituates the Dialogues not as a work of madness, as it has frequently been interpreted, but rather as an unrelenting struggle for justice.

Pity and Sympathy: Aristotle versus Plato and Smith versus Hume

2018 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-78
Author(s):  
Christos Grigoriou
Keyword(s):  
Moral Sentiments ◽  
The Way ◽  
Theory Of Moral Sentiments

The purpose of this paper is to build a parallelism between Aristotle's debate with Plato on the merits of poetry and the debate of Hume with Smith on the nature of sympathy. My arguments is that the Aristotelian concept of pity, as presented in the Poetics, presupposes a mechanism of sympathy which is akin to the Smithian one, as articulated in his Theory of Moral Sentiments. Accordingly, I reconstruct Aristotle's debate with Plato on poetry as a debate on the operation and value of sympathy, and I trace an intriguing contiguity on the way Plato and Hume understood the mechanism of sympathy.

scholarly journals Was Adam Smith an evolutionary economist?: Smith’s study of botany and Charles Darwin’s theory of morality

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tetsuo Taka
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Nutritional Value ◽  
Adam Smith ◽  
Value Theory ◽  
Experiential Knowledge ◽  
Moral Sentiments ◽  
Darwinian Theory ◽  
Wealth Of Nations ◽  
Theory Of Moral Sentiments

AbstractThis paper aims to extend and provide a new understanding of Adam Smith’s thoughts by focusing on some revisions in the 4th edition of The Theory of Moral Sentiments (Smith 1774), “the nutritional value theory of corn” in the Wealth of Nations, and then comparing Smith’s discourses on the formation of morality with C. Darwin’s. Smith’s understanding of human nature extended and deepened with the study of botany and other sciences at Kirkcaldy after spending 2 years in France as Duke Buccleugh’s tutor. He began to understand human nature not only as a composite of self-love and benevolence, but also of instinctual and experiential knowledge. Thus, Smith’s system transitioned to an evolutionary one, and he became an unconscious forerunner of the Darwinian theory of morality formation.

scholarly journals A Few Remarks on Adam Smith’s Dissertation (1761)

1977 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-67 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jan Noordegraaf
Keyword(s):  
Adam Smith ◽  
French Translation ◽  
Moral Sentiments ◽  
The Third ◽  
History Of Linguistics ◽  
History Of ◽  
Theory Of Moral Sentiments

Summary In 1761 Adam Smith (1723–90) published his Dissertation on the Origin of Languages. Erroneously scholars have thought that this essay appeared as a supplement to the second edition of Smith’s book The Theory of Moral Sentiments of the same year; in fact it was only added to the third edition of that work (1767). Against Coseriu’s opinion that Adam Smith must be considered as a pioneer of the typology of language, one can put forward that Smith’s ideas on the typology of language are very similar to those of the French Abbé Gabriel Girard (1677–1748), whose influence is admitted by Smith himself. On another point, it turns out that before 1809, the year in which J. Manget published a French translation of Smith’s Dissertation, already three other translations into French of the same work had appeared. First-hand inspection of texts appears desirable in the writing of the history of linguistics.

The Progress of Feeling: The Ossian Poems and Adam Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
JoEllen DeLucia
Keyword(s):  
Women Writers ◽  
Social Development ◽  
Historical Change ◽  
Scottish Enlightenment ◽  
Moral Sentiments ◽  
Historical Progress ◽  
The Feminine ◽  
And Gender ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Theory Of Moral Sentiments

This chapter examines the relationship between time, feeling, and gender in two foundational texts of the Scottish Enlightenment, the Ossian poems and Adam Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments. It contends that Macpherson and Smith created a temporal map of emotion that gauged social development from “primitive” to “developed” cultures and offered women writers and Scottish philosophers a new field upon which they could experiment with the relationship between gender and historical progress. Despite their obvious differences, Macpherson and Smith used women’s social status and the feminine values they were thought to impart to their male counterparts as tools for charting, evaluating, and questioning emerging theories of historical change. The ambiguity surrounding feminine sentiments’ placement in these Scottish Enlightenment narratives of historical progress creates the foundation for the following chapters, which trace women writers’ engagement with the theories of feeling and historical progress articulated by these two influential writers.

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