Reading Adam Smith's The Theory of Moral Sentiments 1

Of the Sense of Propriety

My first post on why I am reading TMS is here, and you can read along yourself here. Ethics is a practical matter: how should we behave around others, how should we treat others, in what circumstances can we judge others to have acted badly. I want to clarify my thinking on this.

TMS is in seven sections, which I will take one at a time. The first section is “Of The Sense of Propriety,” and his concern in this section is to develop an idea of what constitutes appropriate “fellow-feeling” or sympathy with others - it is from these relations that an understanding of ethics will evolve.

There are five chapters in this first section, and the first is “Of Sympathy.” Smith is very much a plain language philosopher, but in this chapter title we need to pause to be sure we know what he means. Open a contemporary textbook for Intro to Psych, and there will be a place where a distinction is drawn between “sympathy”, meaning that one feels badly for someone in pain, and pleased for someone who is happy, and “empathy”, where one bodily and emotionally feels another’s pain or joy or hopefulness or fright. Smith does not use the word “empathy,” and simply uses “sympathy” to cover the range of possibilities. He clearly means the modern sense of empathy in this passage:

When we see a stroke aimed, and just ready to fall upon the leg or arm of another person, we naturally shrink and draw back our own leg or our own arm; and when it does fall, we feel it in some measure, and are hurt by it as well as the sufferer.

In terms of ethics, I don’t worry too much about the distinction, and I’m happy to follow Smith and use the word “sympathy” throughout. If I pass by a troubled person when I am out for a walk, what matters is that, first, I notice them, and second, moved by something, act to help them. What parts of my brain are being activated in this sequence - the sympathy/empathy distinction - does not matter very much, either to me or to the person I am helping. This may be from my social science training: we learn from what we see people do, not from why they say they are doing it.

Smith knows that we feel sympathy for fictional characters:

Our joy for the deliverance of those heroes of tragedy or romance who interest us, is as sincere as our grief for their distress, and our fellow-feeling with their misery is not more real than that with their happiness. We enter into their gratitude towards those faithful friends who did not desert them in their difficulties; and we heartily go along with their resentment against those perfidious traitors who injured, abandoned, or deceived them. In every passion of which the mind of man is susceptible, the emotions of the bystander always correspond to what, by bringing the case home to himself, he imagines should be the sentiments of the sufferer.

I’ll make an aside here (an aside not made by Smith) to note that there is a scholarly sub-sub-field that tries to see whether the sympathy we feel when captured by fiction somehow makes us more sympathetic to the people we meet in real life. I wrote about my skepticism towards this idea in a review article in the journal Cultural Trends (if this sort of thing interests you but you can’t get the article through your library, send me an email and I will send it to you). A sample of the sort of research done on this topic is here (yes, the fourth author is that guy).

Smith writes that our sympathies are only in part based on what another is feeling, but is also dependent upon circumstances. We do not feel anger alongside someone who, when we find out what is going on, is unreasonably angry, and we would be more inclined to sympathize with the target of the unwarranted anger. If someone is out of their head, and laughing and singing though in a precarious state, we do not feel happy for them, but worried. And in a passage that surely captured the attention of the teenagers to whom he was giving these lectures, he asks why we feel sympathy with the dead, who, after all, are in no pain:

We sympathize even with the dead, and overlooking what is of real importance in their situation, that awful futurity which awaits them, we are chiefly affected by those circumstances which strike our senses, but can have no influence upon their happiness. It is miserable, we think, to be deprived of the light of the sun; to be shut out from life and conversation; to be laid in the cold grave, a prey to corruption and the reptiles of the earth; to be no more thought of in this world, but to be obliterated, in a little time, from the affections, and almost from the memory, of their dearest friends and relations. Surely, we imagine, we can never feel too much for those who have suffered so dreadful a calamity. The tribute of our fellow-feeling seems doubly due to them now, when they are in danger of being forgot by every body; and, by the vain honours which we pay to their memory, we endeavour, for our own misery, artificially to keep alive our melancholy remembrance of their misfortune. That our sympathy can afford them no consolation seems to be an addition to their calamity; and to think that all we can do is unavailing, and that, what alleviates all other distress, the regret, the love, and the lamentations of their friends, can yield no comfort to them, serves only to exasperate our sense of their misery. The happiness of the dead, however, most assuredly is affected by none of these circumstances; nor is it the thought of these things which can ever disturb the profound security of their repose.

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Chapter 2 is “Of the Pleasure of Mutual Sympathy”.

But whatever may be the cause of sympathy, or however it may be excited, nothing pleases us more than to observe in other men a fellow-feeling with all the emotions of our own breast; nor are we ever so much shocked as by the appearance of the contrary. Those who are fond of deducing all our sentiments from certain refinements of self-love, think themselves at no loss to account, according to their own principles, both for this pleasure and this pain. Man, say they, conscious of his own weakness, and of the need which he has for the assistance of others, rejoices whenever he observes that they adopt his own passions, because he is then assured of that assistance; and grieves whenever he observes the contrary, because he is then assured of their opposition. But both the pleasure and the pain are always felt so instantaneously, and often upon such frivolous occasions, that it seems evident that neither of them can be derived from any such self-interested consideration. A man is mortified when, after having endeavoured to divert the company, he looks round and sees that nobody laughs at his jests but himself. On the contrary, the mirth of the company is highly agreeable to him, and he regards this correspondence of their sentiments with his own as the greatest applause.

I like that he sees this pleasure as one unconnected to material advantage. I really enjoy this passage on the enjoyment of art, which rings true:

When we have read a book or poem so often that we can no longer find any amusement in reading it by ourselves, we can still take pleasure in reading it to a companion. To him it has all the graces of novelty; we enter into the surprise and admiration which it naturally excites in him, but which it is no longer capable of exciting in us; we consider all the ideas which it presents, rather in the light in which they appear to him, than in that in which they appear to ourselves, and we are amused by sympathy with his amusement, which thus enlivens our own. On the contrary, we should be vexed if he did not seem to be entertained with it, and we could no longer take any pleasure in reading it to him.

Think of the hopefulness with which you share a book or song or movie that you loved when you were young to someone now of the age you were then. You might end up very amused. Or very vexed. I’m guessing this is common for parents.

The sympathy of our friends means much to us in joy and in sorrow:

The sympathy which my friends express with my joy, might indeed give me pleasure by enlivening that joy; but that which they express with my grief could give me none, if it served only to enliven that grief. Sympathy, however, enlivens joy and alleviates grief. It enlivens joy by presenting another source of satisfaction; and it alleviates grief by insinuating into the heart almost the only agreeable sensation which it is at that time capable of receiving.

That said, Smith continues, all must be proportionate - it is when, to use a cliche not available to Smith, we are on the same wavelength as our friend that mutual sympathy gives us the most happiness, or relief from sorrow. We feel hurt when we think a friend does not understand the importance of an honor we have received, or of a misfortune, and we feel badly if we find ourselves unable to fully share a friend’s good or bad fortune. Some sort of equilibrium is called for.

If we hear a person loudly lamenting his misfortunes, which, however, upon bringing the case home to ourselves, we feel, can produce no such violent effect upon us, we are shocked at his grief; and, because we cannot enter into it, call it pusillanimity and weakness. It gives us the spleen, on the other hand, to see another too happy, or too much elevated, as we call it, with any little piece of good fortune. We are disobliged even with his joy; and, because we cannot go along with it, call it levity and folly. We are even put out of humour if our companion laughs louder or longer at a joke than we think it deserves; that is, than we feel that we ourselves could laugh at it.

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Chapters 3 and 4 concern “Of the manner in which we judge the Propriety or Impropriety of the affections of other men, by their concord or dissonance with our own.” So now we are moving from our natural sympathies, which, as Smith says, we all possess to some degree, to asking how we would judge what sort of sympathy is appropriate to the circumstance.

I find these chapters fascinating, in that whilst the title concerns how we would judge the actions of others, he steers us towards a guide to our own conduct.

He begins with the reasonable observation that yes, while it is nice if people around us share the very same passions as we do, it is impossible to expect this in all circumstances. I can feel sorry for someone when I hear that his father has recently passed away, but if I don’t know the person well, and never met his father at all, I will experience only a momentary sadness, unlike the bereaved family member. Even the most generous people I have ever met could hardly do otherwise.

Likewise, it is all right to sometimes just not be in the moment. I might be with a group having a boisterous time and I am rather distracted that day, and so even more subdued than usual. But I cannot blame them for their happiness, and it would be unfair of me to criticize them in any way. And, so long as I avoid being a complete wet blanket, they are probably cool with my standing back a bit.

Fair enough: it feels good when a friend is completely in sympathy with us, but there are practical limits:

We may often approve of a jest, and think the laughter of the company quite just and proper, though we ourselves do not laugh, because, perhaps, we are in a grave humour, or happen to have our attention engaged with other objects. We have learned, however, from experience, what sort of pleasantry is upon most occasions capable of making us laugh, and we observe that this is one of that kind. We approve, therefore, of the laughter of the company, and feel that it is natural and suitable to its object; because, though in our present mood we cannot easily enter into it, we are sensible that upon most occasions we should very heartily join in it.

Smith next goes on to discuss emotions towards which we have no personal stake, and those where we do. For the first case, consider opinions about art. We are generally pleased if our friends admire, or dislike, the same things in art as we do. On the other hand, we hold particular admiration for someone who is able to find, and explain, something in a work that we did not see - this helps refine our own taste (David Hume, a good friend of Smith, in his essay “Of the Standard of Taste”, published just two years before Smith’s TMS, says something similar):

It is the acute and delicate discernment of the man of taste, who distinguishes the minute, and scarce perceptible differences of beauty and deformity; it is the comprehensive accuracy of the experienced mathematician, who unravels with ease the most intricate and perplexed proportions; it is the great leader in science and taste, the man who directs and conducts our own sentiments, the extent and superior justness of whose talents astonish us with wonder and surprise, who excites our admiration, and seems to deserve our applause; and upon this foundation is grounded the greater part of the praise which is bestowed upon what are called the intellectual virtues.

But what about matters that do affect us more deeply than our taste in art and music?

Though you despise that picture, or that poem, or even that system of philosophy which I admire, there is little danger of our quarrelling upon that account. Neither of us can reasonably be much interested about them. They ought all of them to be matters of great indifference to us both; so that, though our opinions may be opposite, our affections may still be very nearly the same. But it is quite otherwise with regard to those objects by which either you or I are particularly affected. Though your judgments in matters of speculation, though your sentiments in matters of taste, are quite opposite to mine, I can easily overlook this opposition; and if I have any degree of temper, I may still find some entertainment in your conversation, even upon those very subjects. But if you have either no fellow-feeling for the misfortunes I have met with, or none that bears any proportion to the grief which distracts me; or if you have either no indignation at the injuries I have suffered, or none that bears any proportion to the resentment which transports me, we can no longer converse upon these subjects. We become intolerable to one another. I can neither support your company, nor you mine. You are confounded at my violence and passion, and I am enraged at your cold insensibility and want of feeling.

Here Smith thinks there is a duty on both sides. If I have suffered a loss, I hope for my friend to sympathize, and she has a duty to try her best to understand what I have experienced, even though she cannot possibly fully feel the pain I do. But, knowing that fact, I also have a duty to try to meet half-way, to understand that there are limits to the human capability for sympathy. Further, I know that the more distant people are from me, the most casual of casual acquaintances, the harder it is for them to feel deep sympathy for me beyond a moment or two. And as such I need to temper my own emotions even further when around them.

And here is a key to understanding Smith’s theory. I sympathize with others. But, after considering what it is like to do this, examining when I can feel most sympathetic, and when it is more difficult, and when I can feel no sympathy at all, I realize that others are more or less like me in their ability to sympathize with my own happiness or loss, and I have to recognize that, and to understand that about them, and moderate accordingly.

Mankind, though naturally sympathetic, never conceive, for what has befallen another, that degree of passion which naturally animates the person principally concerned. …

The person principally concerned is sensible of this, and at the same time passionately desires a more complete sympathy. He longs for that relief which nothing can afford him but the entire concord of the affections of the spectators with his own. To see the emotions of their hearts in every respect beat time to his own, in the violent and disagreeable passions, constitutes his sole consolation. But he can only hope to obtain this by lowering his passion to that pitch, in which the spectators are capable of going along with him. He must flatten, if I may be allowed to say so, the sharpness of its natural tone, in order to reduce it to harmony and concord with the emotions of those who are about him. What they feel will, indeed, always be in some respects different from what he feels, and compassion can never be exactly the same with original sorrow; because the secret consciousness that the change of situations, from which the sympathetic sentiment arises, is but imaginary, not only lowers it in degree, but in some measure varies it in kind, and gives it a quite different modification. These two sentiments, however, may, it is evident, have such a correspondence with one another, as is sufficient for the harmony of society. Though they will never be unisons, they may be concords, and this is all that is wanted or required.

In order to produce this concord, as nature teaches the spectators to assume the circumstances of the person principally concerned, so she teaches this last in some measure to assume those of the spectators. As they are continually placing themselves in his situation, and thence conceiving emotions similar to what he feels; so he is as constantly placing himself in theirs, and thence conceiving some degree of that coolness about his own fortune, with which he is sensible that they will view it. As they are constantly considering what they themselves would feel, if they actually were the sufferers, so he is constantly led to imagine in what manner he would be affected if he was only one of the spectators of his own situation. As their sympathy makes them look at it in some measure with his eyes, so his sympathy makes him look at it, in some measure, with theirs, especially when in their presence, and acting under their observation: and, as the reflected passion which he thus conceives is much weaker than the original one, it necessarily abates the violence of what he felt before he came into their presence, before he began to recollect in what manner they would be affected by it, and to view his situation in this candid and impartial light.

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Chapter 5, which concludes this section is “Of the Amiable and Respectable Virtues”.

Smith here looks to the highest virtues in the sympathies we hold for others, and how we restrain ourselves in light of knowing the limits to our sympathies:

How amiable does he appear to be, whose sympathetic heart seems to re-echo all the sentiments of those with whom he converses, who grieves for their calamities, who resents their injuries, and who rejoices at their good fortune? When we bring home to ourselves the situation of his companions, we enter into their gratitude, and feel what consolation they must derive from the tender sympathy of so affectionate a friend. And, for a contrary reason, how disagreeable does he appear to be, whose hard and obdurate heart feels for himself only, but is altogether insensible to the happiness or misery of others! We enter, in this case too, into the pain which his presence must give to every mortal with whom he converses, to those especially with whom we are most apt to sympathize, the unfortunate and the injured.

On the other hand, what noble propriety and grace do we feel in the conduct of those who, in their own case, exert that recollection and self-command which constitute the dignity of every passion, and which bring it down to what others can enter into? We are disgusted with that clamorous grief, which, without any delicacy, calls upon our compassion with sighs and tears, and importunate lamentations. But we reverence that reserved, that silent and majestic sorrow, which discovers itself only in the swelling of the eyes, in the quivering of the lips and cheeks, and in the distant, but affecting, coldness of the whole behaviour. It imposes the like silence upon us. We regard it with respectful attention, and watch with anxious concern over our whole behaviour, lest by any impropriety we should disturb that concerted tranquillity, which it requires so great an effort to support.

The insolence and brutality of anger, in the same manner, when we indulge its fury without check or restraint, is, of all objects, the most detestable. But we admire that noble and generous resentment which governs its pursuit of the greatest injuries, not by the rage which they are apt to excite in the breast of the sufferer, but by the indignation which they naturally call forth in that of the impartial spectator; which allows no word, no gesture, to escape it beyond what this more equitable sentiment would dictate; which never, even in thought, attempts any greater vengeance, nor desires to inflict any greater punishment, than what every indifferent person would rejoice to see executed.

We remember here that TMS is from Smith’s lecture notes, teaching a class of teenagers at the University of Glasgow; this is not an abstract theory of morals - he is trying to give guidance to them.

I also note in this passage that Smith introduces for the first time, and without much fanfare, the impartial spectator, who will continue to play an important role through the book.

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My reading started with a question: should I follow the advice of various people I have read and sympathize with the voter whose life has been on a downward path, who sees nothing but economic hardship in the future, and so votes for Trump. This isn’t about those who actually like his cruelty, or the rich Trump voters who are content with “I’ve got mine”, or the dishonest hacks who populate right-wing media. I’ve got nothing for them. But what ought I to think about people with whose choice I profoundly disagree, and yet are trying to get by on much more meager circumstances than I live with? We’ll see where Adam Smith leads me…