Adam Smith's "The Theory of Moral Sentiments"

A Critical Commentary

John McHugh

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781350088597
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Economics
• Subtopic: Economic Theory
• Index: Economics

Many contemporary readers are just now discovering Adam Smith's The Theory of Moral Sentiments ( TMS ). It is increasingly being recognised as a foundational text in moral philosophy and in Adam Smith's oeuvre more generally. This is the first companion to guide readers through TMS and uncover what Smith thinks, why he thinks it, why he might be wrong to think it! While Adam Smith is best known for a Wealth of Nations there is a history of seriously misinterpreting this text as an unnuanced celebration of unfettered capitalism. The Theory of Moral Sentiments is a kind of corrective to these naïve readings. As such, any serious consideration of Adam Smith's work should also include TMS. John McHugh's guide provides detailed analysis of TMS while never losing sight of the text in the context of Smith's writings and world view more generally. It offers both an introduction to the importance and insight of TMS while also functioning as a great way in to Adam Smith as a philosopher.

1

Introduction

Adam Smith was born in 1723 to a well-off but not wealthy family in Kirkcaldy, a small port town just outside Edinburgh, Scotland. His father died before he was born, but his mother, Margaret (Douglas) Smith, remained in his life until six years before his own death. He eventually attended the University of Glasgow, where he studied under Francis Hutcheson, a central figure in what is now referred to as the “Scottish Enlightenment” and a formative influence on Smith and many other students. After Glasgow, Smith spent six years studying at Balliol College, Oxford. During this period, he began reading the work of David Hume, another formative influence who eventually became one of Smith’s closest friends. Although a common next step for recipients of the fellowship that funded Smith’s Oxford study was ordination in the Anglican church, Smith returned to Scotland a layman.¹ He quickly made a name for himself by giving a series of public lecture courses in Edinburgh on rhetoric and jurisprudence. The success of these lectures led to a position on the faculty of the University of Glasgow, where he remained from 1751 to 1763. While teaching at Glasgow, he developed his moral philosophy lectures into The Theory of Moral Sentiments (hereafter, TMS), which was published in 1759 to immediate acclaim. He left Glasgow to tutor the Duke of Buccleuch, a job which proved to be not only financially but also personally and philosophically lucrative. The Duke grew into another close friend,² and a few years travelling Europe with him gave Smith the opportunity to compare notes and debate with the French économistes; the result was An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (hereafter, WN), which came out ten years after the Buccleuch period, in 1776. From 1778 to the end of his life in 1790, Smith held a position as Commissioner of Customs in Edinburgh.³

By all accounts, Smith was a unique person. Several comments and anecdotes from contemporaries portray him as an aloof, sometimes socially awkward intellectual, who “even in company . . . was apt to be ingrossed in his studies,” often to the point of apparently muttering to himself.⁴ Yet we also know that he was anything but useless in practical capacities. On the contrary, he was a generally competent, diligent person who thrived when he felt productive; thus, he described his time as a faculty member at the University of Glasgow, during which he composed the TMS and excelled in several administrative roles,⁵ “as by far the most useful, and, therefore, as by far the happiest and most honourable period of my life” (Letter 274).⁶ We also know that he fulfilled his duties in the Customs office admirably.⁷ Moreover, he not only cultivated several deep friendships but also, while at Glasgow, became “something of a cult figure, a professor whose portrait bust could be bought by students at local bookshops.”⁸ While it is not impossible to imagine such a combination of traits in one personality, it is certainly difficult, if only because such a combination is rare.

Smith seemed to have thought of his philosophical work as constituting one massive project that Nicholas Philipson has argued is akin to Hume’s “science of man.”⁹ The TMS offers a general theory of human sociability and morality (which, as we shall see, contains both descriptive and normative elements). When this theory gets to the topic of justice, however, Smith’s project branches off into a discussion of law, which he divides into two subjects. The first provides a historical and normative account of “justice” proper, or “the general principles of law and government.” The second provides a historical and normative account of “police, revenue, and arms, and whatever else is the object of the law” (VII.iv.37¹⁰ ).¹¹ The second project became the WN, and while the first project was never completed to Smith’s satisfaction, some recently discovered student notes from his lectures give us some indication of what it would have looked like.¹²

In addition to these interests in the practical side of human life, Smith also had interests in the aesthetic and intellectual sides of human life.¹³ Thus, he envisioned writing “a sort of Philosophical History of all the different branches of Literature, of Philosophy, Poetry and Eloquence” (Letter 248). He did not complete this project either, but we can catch glimpses of it both in more student notes on his lectures¹⁴ and in a series of short essays on language, science, metaphysics, and perception.¹⁵

So despite his larger intellectual ambition, Smith’s public philosophical reputation was and remains built upon the TMS and the WN. The latter went through five editions in Smith’s lifetime. It obviously remains influential to this day. The former went through six editions in Smith’s lifetime, and two of these include substantive revisions. The question of its influence today is not as open as it used to be. It has become so commonplace to hear or read comments about how Smith’s moral theory is ignored by contemporary philosophers that these comments cannot but undercut themselves. Most people interested in such things are at this point well aware that the author of the Wealth of Nations also wrote an interesting and important book called The Theory of Moral Sentiments. Accordingly, there has been much excellent recent scholarship on the TMS, including several books. Most of these books, however, differ fundamentally from the present one. There have been books situating the TMS in the history of Western philosophy,¹⁶ books situating the TMS in still-live but historically rooted debates,¹⁷ books addressing the TMS’ relationship either to another particular aspect of Smith’s thought¹⁸ or to his overall study of human life,¹⁹ and books exploring the relationship between the TMS and the work of another philosopher.²⁰ There has even been a book commenting on the general philosophy of life that Smith articulates mainly in the TMS.²¹ However, to my knowledge there has not been a recent book that simply treats the TMS as classic work of philosophy containing arguments to be explicated, interpreted, and assessed. The present book does just that.²²

More specifically, the present book attempts to develop and reconstruct lines of thought that are not necessarily straightforward, reveal and resolve interpretive puzzles, and evaluate arguments and views when fruitful, all with an eye to being of use to newcomers and of interest to familiars.²³ In doing so, the book necessarily pays some attention to Smith’s intellectual context. Since the TMS frequently demonstrates the influence of and even explicitly refers to other philosophers, there is no way to study it without also studying, at least to some extent, these philosophers. Furthermore, independently of the particular need to explain the TMS’ own references to its context, there is a general one to situate all philosophical investigations in the debates that constitute their background. Thus, in discussing Smith’s moral theory, the book will also discuss the work of other philosophers who are especially important to understanding it, especially Hume. And while the book is focused on the TMS, it will also refer, when helpful or important, to some of Smith’s other writings.

At this point, some readers might legitimately demand a list of the principles I employ in balancing historical and contextual with ahistorical and acontextual interpretation and commentary. Or they might legitimately demand at least a general account of my overall methodology. These readers will be disappointed. I offer no such list or account because the task of providing them is itself a serious philosophical undertaking, one in which I am not presently engaged. Since this is neither a book on hermeneutics in general nor a book on the application of a particular kind of hermeneutics to Smith,²⁴ anything I say further about how I approach the relevant texts will necessarily amount to superficial handwaving. The most I will do in this regard is reiterate, all-too-vaguely, that I approach the texts as a philosopher. I leave it to others to determine what this means. Sometimes it’s best just to think about the thing and leave thinking about what we are doing when we think about the thing for another occasion (especially when the thing in question is already itself to some extent “meta,” as we shall soon see is the case here).

The book’s treatment of the TMS is not structured exactly as the TMS itself is. Instead, the book starts with the last part of the TMS, in which Smith provides an overview of the major “systems of moral philosophy” that preceded his own. There are at least three good reasons for starting here. The first follows directly from the just-made comments about philosophical context. Even though the TMS engages with many other philosophers, Smith opens it abruptly, without providing a contextualizing introduction. Thus, we can benefit from treating TMS VII as a missing preface. This is especially true for readers approaching it without a feel for Smith’s intellectual climate; these readers are at risk of being lost by the book, however clear its prose might be.²⁵ The second and a closely related reason for beginning with TMS VII follows from the fact that it not only provides context but does so in Smith’s own voice. Thus, we can learn from it both something about the TMS’ place in the history of Western moral philosophy and something about how Smith himself understands its place in the history of Western moral philosophy. In seeing what Smith himself thinks about the relationship between his own moral theory and those of his predecessors, we understand more fully what motivates his work and thus understand more fully the work itself.²⁶

The third reason for beginning with TMS VII is that Smith explicitly organizes it in an especially helpful way. Just as the TMS’ abrupt beginning fails to provide contemporary readers with an adequate sense of its context, it also fails to provide contemporary readers with an adequate sense of its content. Contrary to contemporary practice, Smith doesn’t really provide a statement of purpose, let alone a plan of attack. He just dives right in. Thus, we should pay careful attention when he introduces TMS VII by distinguishing between two questions that must be considered by any moral theory. The first question is about “the tone of temper, the tenour of conduct, which constitutes the excellent and praise-worthy character” (VII.i.2). In Smith’s language, this is a question about the “nature of virtue” (VII.iii.intro.1). The second question is about the “power or faculty in the mind” that leads us to prefer “one tenour of conduct to another” that “denominates the one right and the other wrong” (VII.i.2). In Smith’s language, this is a question about the “principle of approbation” (VII.iii.intro.1). We can also refer to it as a question about the psychological foundation of moral judgment. This is a question about how we make moral distinctions. What part of ourselves do we ultimately employ when we conclude that some feelings and conduct are morally good, while other feelings and conduct are morally bad?

Smith’s way of dividing up the jobs of the moral philosopher is not all that different from our own. Contemporary philosophers tend to divide the activity of theorizing about morality into the categories of normative ethics and metaethics.²⁷ Normative ethics considers how we should live; thus, it has practical implications. Metaethics, as its name suggests, deals with morality at a higher level of abstraction. The metaethicist does not ask ethical questions so much as questions about the entire enterprise of asking, answering, and acting upon the answers to ethical questions. The metaethicist wants to understand what we are doing and what is happening when we engage in this enterprise. Since metaethics is not conc erned with how we should live, it is a purely theoretical, non-normative subject with no practical implications. Smith’s distinction between moral theory’s two main questions draws a similar line between the normative/practical and the non-normative/nonpractical. He points out that while our answer to the nature of virtue question “necessarily has some influence upon our notions of right and wrong in many particular cases,” the psychological foundation of moral judgment question “is a mere matter of philosophical curiosity,” devoid of any practical import, at least in “particular cases” (VII.iii.intro.3). Of course, there remain differences of other kinds between the two distinctions, most of which having to do with breadth. Smith appears to frame normative moral questions narrowly in terms of virtue, which is not a move that all present-day practitioners of normative moral theory would make. And the supposedly non-normative curiosity about moral judgment that Smith expresses here might be, in one sense, narrower, while, in another sense, broader than the present-day metaethicist’s—narrower in that present-day metaethicists are interested in more than just moral judgment and broader in that Smith’s interest in moral judgment is potentially more empirically focused than that of the present-day metaethicist.²⁸ We return to these differences later in the book.²⁹ Despite them, the parallel between Smith’s and our most basic ways of dividing up the field of moral philosophy is close enough to be useful for smoothing our initial approach to his work.

Since Smith’s distinction provides us with the organizing framework absent from the outset of the TMS, I use it to structure this book. I begin with the psychological foundation of moral judgment question. Chapter 2 unfolds Smith’s discussion of answers that other philosophers have provided to this question, while Chapter 3 deals with his own. Chapters 5 and 6 follow this same pattern with respect to the nature of virtue question. In dealing with the way Smith builds an account of good moral judgment upon the psychological foundations he identifies in answering the first question, Chapter 4 sits at the intersection of it and the second one. The subject matter of the chapter is non-normative in that it concerns Smith’s explanation of how we arrive at our criteria for good moral judgment; however, the subject matter of the chapter is also normative in that it concerns moral judgment that Smith believes is, well, good. Chapter 7 deals with two questions that emerge for us from consideration of Smith’s two main ones: (a) how should we situate Smith’s work in some of the contemporary metaethical debates in which, as mentioned earlier, he does not directly engage? and (b) why does Smith think we should judge and act based on what he and, according to him, we think o...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title
• Series
• Dedication
• Title
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Abbreviations
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Smith’s Survey of Answers to the Psychological Foundation of Moral Judgment Question
• 3 Smith’s Own Answer to the Psychological Foundation of Moral Judgment Question
• 4 Building upon the Foundation: Smith’s Full-Blown Account of Moral Judgment and Its Impact on Moral Action
• 5 Smith’s Survey of Answers to the Nature of Virtue Question
• 6 Smith’s Own Answer to the Nature of Virtue Question and Full-Blown Account of Virtue
• 7 Smith’s Metaethics and Account of Normativity
• 8 Conclusion
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index
• Copyright