Julie’s Garden and the Impartial Spectator: An Examination of Smithian Themes in Rousseau’s La Nouvelle Héloïse

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tabitha Baker
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Social Model ◽  
Experimental Setting ◽  
Moral Sentiments ◽  
Impartial Spectator ◽  
Moral Behaviour ◽  
Theory Of Moral Sentiments

This chapter explores the similarities between Smith and Rousseau’s moral philosophy through a discussion of the Smithean aspects of Rousseau’s 1761 novel La Nouvelle Héloïse. Focussing the analysis on the motif of the eighteenth-century English landscape garden, this chapter reveals the extent to which Rousseau’s novel reflects Smith’s principles of arriving at moral behaviour and true virtue. The author argues that it is within the space of Julie’s garden that Rousseau and Smith’s theories are reconciled in order to produce a blended social model in which Smith provides responses to Rousseau’s failed utopia. An examination of La Nouvelle Héloïse alongside Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments demonstrates that the symbol of the landscape garden in Rousseau’s novel is an experimental setting in which Rousseau and Smith’s theories are merged, and it is through Rousseau’s fiction that the complicated relationship between the two thinkers’ thought can be most evidently sourced.

scholarly journals SOBRE A FILOSOFIA MORAL DE ADAM SMITH

2010 ◽  
Vol 35 (111) ◽  
pp. 57 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hugo E. A. da Gama Cerqueira
Keyword(s):  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Adam Smith ◽  
Scottish Enlightenment ◽  
Moral Sentiments ◽  
Impartial Spectator ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Theory Of Moral Sentiments

Este artigo discute a Teoria dos sentimentos morais de Adam Smith. O argumento central do texto é apresentado, tomando por base o contexto proporcionado pela filosofia moral do Iluminismo escocês. Os conceitos de simpatia e espectador imparcial são discutidos, apontando-se a maneira original como Smith concebe a relação entre a moralidade e a sociabilidade.Abstract: This article examines Adam Smith’s Theory of moral sentiments. The moral philosophy of the Scottish enlightenment is central to the argumentation developed in this paper which analyses the concepts of “sympathy” and of “impartial spectator” and points to the originality of Smith’s argument regarding the relationship between morality and sociality.

3. Sympathetic spectators

2018 ◽  
pp. 28-45
Author(s):  
Christopher J. Berry
Keyword(s):  
Moral Judgment ◽  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
David Hume ◽  
Adam Smith ◽  
Moral Sense ◽  
Moral Sentiments ◽  
Impartial Spectator ◽  
Francis Hutcheson ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
Theory Of Moral Sentiments

Adam Smith published The Theory of Moral Sentiments in 1759. What the book sets out to do is investigate or analyse how, in practice, judgments and decisions about what is right or wrong are made. ‘Sympathetic spectators’ first discusses empiricism, a particular tradition of moral philosophy that was especially strong in Scotland. It goes on to consider the views of Francis Hutcheson and David Hume on moral sense and sympathy. It then examines Smith’s thoughts on sociality, morality, negotiated discord, self-interest, the impartial spectator and conscience (an internalized standard or benchmark of what is right or wrong), relativism, and moral judgment.

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.

scholarly journals Self-Censorship and Associational Life in the Liberal Academy

Society ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 56 (6) ◽  
pp. 538-549 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emily Chamlee-Wright
Keyword(s):  
Academic Discourse ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
Intellectual Tradition ◽  
Moral Sentiments ◽  
Impartial Spectator ◽  
Dual Nature ◽  
Associational Life ◽  
Speak Up ◽  
Theory Of Moral Sentiments

AbstractSelf-censorship is a well-documented phenomenon within the academy. Building from the works of Tocqueville, Mill, and Smith, this paper identifies sources of self-censorship within the academy, namely the values of intellectual abrasion and civility, that are associated with the liberal intellectual tradition. The resulting phenomenon of self-censorship, I argue, has both positive and negative effects on the quality of public and academic discourse. Given the dual nature of self-censorship, scholars seeking to make the morally upright choice of whether to self-censor or to speak up face both an epistemological and a moral challenge. I argue that in discussions of the “impartial spectator” and the virtue of self-command, Adam Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments anticipates these challenges and lends guidance to the scholar who is sincerely committed to doing what is right when navigating associational life within the academy.

scholarly journals What’s the problem, Mr. Smith? Shedding more light (than Heat) on Adam Smith’s view of man *

2018 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-28
Author(s):  
Emmanoel de Oliveira Boff
Keyword(s):  
Adam Smith ◽  
Economic Thought ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Moral Sentiments ◽  
Impartial Spectator ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
Cast Doubt ◽  
Wealth Of Nations ◽  
Theory Of Moral Sentiments

Abstract Why has the “Adam Smith Problem” recently been discussed in the literature? Although most historians of economic thought regard the problem solved, these discussions cast doubt on this apparent solution. This article suggests that the “Adam Smith Problem” may originate from the concept of the human being developed by Smith in the “Theory of Moral Sentiments”: in this book, human beings can be understood as composed of an empirical and a (quasi) transcendental side, in the form of the impartial spectator. It is argued that it is the tension between these two parts which creates supposed inconsistencies between aspects of the “Theory of Moral Sentiments” and the “Wealth of Nations” like, for example, the role of sympathy and self-interest in each of these books.

Monkish Virtues, Artificial Lives: On Hume's Genealogy of Morals

1996 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 367-388 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hans Lottenbach
Keyword(s):  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Moral Emotions ◽  
Explanatory Theory ◽  
Moral Sentiments ◽  
Naturalistic Approach ◽  
Human Emotions ◽  
Essay On Man ◽  
Genealogy Of Morals ◽  
Theory Of Moral Sentiments

The merchant's toil, the sage's indolence,The monk's humility, the hero's pride,All, all alike, find Reason on their side.(Pope, An Essay on Man, Epistle II, 172-4)Hume's moral philosophy is often interpreted as an example of a naturalistic approach to ethics. J.L. Mackie, for instance, writes that in Hume the questions of moral philosophy are answered ‘in sociological and psychological terms, by constructing and defending a causal hypothesis.’ Similarly, Páll S. Árdal claims that Hume ‘is concerned with an attempt to discover those psychological laws that explain human emotions (including moral emotions) and the behaviour of people in society.’ I argue in this essay that if Hume is read in this way as developing a general explanatory theory of moral sentiments, he faces an inescapable dilemma. Section I presents the dilemma. In sections II and ill, I argue why for Hume — interpreted as a proponent of general psychological laws — there is no way out of this dilemma.

MUSIC, MORALITY AND SYMPATHY IN THE EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY ENGLISH SERMON

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 9-35
Author(s):  
JONATHAN RHODES LEE
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Adam Smith ◽  
Musical Life ◽  
Moral Sentiments ◽  
Religious Writing ◽  
Aesthetic Concepts ◽  
Century Thought ◽  
Scholarly Attention ◽  
Theory Of Moral Sentiments

ABSTRACTWhile the furrows of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century religious writing on music have been deeply ploughed, eighteenth-century English sermons about music have received relatively slight scholarly attention. This article demonstrates that the ideas of sympathy and sensibility characteristic of so much eighteenth-century thought are vital to understanding these sermons. There is an evolution in this literature of the notion of sympathy and its link to musical morality, a development in the attitude towards music among clergy, with this art of sympathetic vibrations receiving ever higher approbation during the century's middle decades. By the time that Adam Smith was articulating his Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759) and Handel's oratorios stood as a fixture of English musical life, religious thinkers had cast off old concerns about music's sensuality. They came to embrace a philosophy that accepted music as moral simply because it made humankind feel, and in turn accepted feeling as the root of all sociable experience. This understanding places the music sermon of the eighteenth century within the context of some of the most discussed philosophical, social, literary, musical and moral-aesthetic concepts of the time.

Sympathy, Beauty, and Sentiment: Adam Smith's Aesthetic Morality

2009 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 133-146 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Fudge
Keyword(s):  
Moral Theory ◽  
Moral Relativism ◽  
Moral Sentiments ◽  
Impartial Spectator ◽  
Theory Of Moral Sentiments ◽  
Aesthetic Judgments

One of the more striking aspects of Adam Smith's moral theory is the degree to which it depends on and appeals to aesthetic norms. By considering what Smith says about judgments of propriety – the foundational type of judgment in his system – and by tying what he says in The Theory of Moral Sentiments to certain of his other writings, I argue that Smith ultimately defends an aesthetic morality. Among the challenges that any aesthetic morality faces is that it seems to entail moral relativism. This problem is magnified by Smith's reliance on the judgments of the impartial spectator, which also seems to make his theory more vulnerable to a Euthyphro-type objection. I suggest that Smith can potentially get around these problems, given his presumption of aesthetic naturalism. While there is certainly some variation in our aesthetic judgments, Smith claims that we naturally find certain actions and sentiments odious, while others we find agreeable. The reason, he argues, is that any society that judged otherwise would not survive.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document