The Theory of Moral Sentiments

It is an innately human trait to sympathize with others and to feel both their sorrow and joy.

Even the most hardened brute feels pity for the poor and miserable. In fact, it’s part of human nature to experience?compassion for the unfortunate. When someone is being tortured, you can’t literally feel that person’s pain. But you can imagine and mirror it?– just as when someone kicks another’s leg, you instinctively touch your own.?In?empathizing with fellow humans,?you don’t just feel?their sorrow and distress?but also?their joy and happiness.

“How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortune of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it except the pleasure of seeing it.”

The term “sympathy”?means an affinity with all sorts of human passions and emotions. You generally feel less sympathetic with the passion itself?than with its causes. The main question is: Why is that person sad, angry, joyful or happy? An old man may be perfectly content due to a loss of his mental faculties, and in that case many observers would feel sorry for him, because he doesn’t know any better. At times, you might feel some emotions in lieu of others, such as when someone makes a fool of himself and you are embarrassed for him, or when a mother hears her infant cry, feels her pain and fears?for her life – while the infant experiences pain but no anxiety about her future. Some people even sympathize with the dead, although the deceased are unable to reciprocate that feeling.

You can only judge other people’s sentiments from within your own emotional framework.

As a general rule, people not only feel sympathy for others?but also expect it from them. After all, when you are suffering, mutual sympathy relieves you from at least some emotional stress. Withholding sympathy will make you look coarse and cold. People need others to share their sorrow much more than they need them?to partake in their joy. It’s easy to forgive the latter?but?hard to forget the former. The same is true for love and hate:?You don’t have to like your friends’ friends,?but you must hate their enemies.

“I judge of your sight by my sight, of your ear by my ear, of your reason by my reason, of your resentment by my resentment, of your love by my love.”

When are strong emotions and passions?justified? That happens only when people’s sentiments correspond with those of the individuals?expressing the emotions in the first place. If someone laughs at the same jokes as you do, you must admit that the joke was funny.?If, however, a person is mad at someone for an offense that you can’t take seriously, you won’t share her resentment. Therefore, people always judge others by their own measuring stick and consider their emotions by that same metric. They disapprove of a person’s wailing and whining for a trifle, because they see the reaction as disproportionate to its cause. The same holds true in the matter of opinions:?You think of others as being right or wrong on any given issue simply by determining whether they agree with you on that issue.

In order to evoke sympathy, you must moderate your passions.

Most people have a limited amount of sympathy to spare – especially for those to whom?they’re not particularly close. So if you want a share of others’ sympathy, you should neither over- nor understate your sentiments. The following sentiments deserve attention:

• “Passions which take their origins?from the body”?–?To openly express raging hunger, gluttony, pain or even sexual desire is generally considered indecent and disagreeable. People can’t truly identify with such physical passions?because they don’t feel them in their own bodies. They can, however, sympathize with the situations of those so afflicted.
• “Passions which take their origins?from…the imagination”?–?These include the feelings of love or ambition. You sympathize more easily with someone who has lost his lover than someone?who has lost his leg, because it’s more straightforward to enter into a sufferer’s imagination than into his body. Conversely, happy and fulfilled love can push a person to ridicule rather than empathy. Once again, this is because you can’t experience love vicariously.
• “The unsocial passions”?–?Anger, hatred and resentment normally arouse limited sympathy, but it depends on their cause. The offended must strike a balance between too much and too little anger, between appearing unreasonably incensed and foolishly mild.
• “The social passions”?–?Expressions of generosity, kindness and humanity always evoke unconditional sympathy, both in the benefactors and the beneficiaries. To visit a harmonious, loving family is far more agreeable than a family that is continuously bickering and fighting.
• “The selfish passions”?–?They include grief and joy, which people sympathize with to a lesser degree than other passions. You readily partake in others’ small joys, because they make you happy, while big joys will make you jealous. The opposite is true of grief:?Small grievances are often ridiculed, while great afflictions are taken more seriously.

Societies are built on common laws of justice and supported by the human need for community.

Will a good deed automatically prompt praise and rewards? No, only when an individual performs this deed for reasons deemed correct and decent. The same is true for resentment and revenge:?When someone has harmed another out of despicable motives, the injured party deserves sympathy. Yet as soon as people approve of the perpetrator’s motives for injuring the other, they refuse to understand the sufferer’s resentment and reject her wish for revenge. Hence, the perceived motives of an action override its immediate effects, determining both the just reward and punishment for that action.

“The rules of justice may be compared to the rules of grammar; the rules of the other virtues, to the rules which critics lay down for the attainment of what is sublime and elegant in composition.”

Justice is an exact virtue, and, in contrast to friendship or charity, can’t be left to your own free will. It’s acceptable to be principally concerned with yourself. But once you indulge in your own happiness at the expense of others – unfortunately, people tend to do that despite their innate sympathy for their fellow humans – you will be condemned.?Common laws of justice are essential to the very existence of society, and their observance is supported by people’s social nature. After all, individuals sorely need their communities to flourish and be happy. Therefore, they will try to connect their own interests?with the welfare and prosperity of the society in which?they live.

The “impartial spectator” helps people change perspectives and pursue altruistic goals out of self-love.

You can only judge yourself through the eyes of others. Just as you empathize with your friends or colleagues by taking their perspectives and?trying to understand where they are coming from, you should try to adopt the mind-set of a fair and impartial spectator when judging your own behaviors and passions.

“We can never survey our own sentiments and motives, we can never form any judgment concerning them, unless we remove ourselves, as it were, from our own natural station, and endeavor to view them as at a certain distance from us.”

If you grew up in an isolated, solitary place, you would naturally think of yourself as the most potent and significant being on Earth. Yet for everyone living within society, the impartial spectator exerts a balancing effect, acting essentially as?the arbiter of morality and decency. This is?also known as conscience. Humans naturally want to be loved and lovable, while they dread being hated and hateful. So what passes for altruism?is, more often than not, self-love. People yearn to believe that they are honorable and noble. This is why it’s in their best interest to put society’s concerns above their own. However, the further removed that interest is from your own perspective, the more indifferent the impartial spectator becomes. If the entire empire of China?were to be devastated by an earthquake today, a European with no connection to that part of the world would first fret about the dreadful misfortune, then speculate on its impact on trade and soon go about business as usual.

“But first of all, this extreme sympathy with the misfortunes which we know nothing about, seems altogether absurd and unreasonable. Take the whole Earth at an average, for one man who suffers pain or misery, you will find 20 in prosperity and joy, or at least in tolerable circumstances.”

To ask of people, as some philosophers have, that they care about all?humanity as much or as little as they care about themselves?is nonsensical and serves no other purpose than adding yet more misery to the world. Nevertheless, the impartial spectator has an important role to play in international relations?and politics. As a general rule, that perspective is heard least among the violence and warfare of contending factions. A great deal of needless agony and bloodshed could be prevented?if the responsible parties managed to change perspectives and listen to their impartial spectator’s counsel.

The invisible hand of distribution provides for everyone?and encourages human progress.

Beauty mainly stems from utility. A machine only appears as a pleasant object when it works perfectly and fits its purpose. People seek utility?because it offers conveniences, and they cultivate?the ground, build?houses, invent?new products and refine?political systems?to achieve those conveniences. A wealthy landlord?always seeks to maximize his harvests, although he can’t consume much?more than a?peasant?can. He is thus forced to distribute the excess among those who prepare the desired conveniences and luxuries for him.

“When Providence divided the Earth among a few lordly masters, it neither forgot nor abandoned those who seemed to have been left out in the partition. These last too enjoy their share of all that it produces.”

This invisible hand in the distribution of goods not only provides for everyone’s needs?but has also brought about the technological advances that allow?civilizations to multiply and prosper. In the end, the invisible hand leaves?humankind better off than if the Earth’s riches had been divided equally among all its inhabitants.

Neither traditional customs nor love of country warrant harming others.

A delicate question rests in customs’ influence?on people’s perceptions of right and wrong. The murder of newborn infants, for example, was once?a normal practice, even among civilized Athenian society. The most revered philosophers, like Aristotle and Plato, condoned it. Yet no uninterrupted custom, no matter its excuse, can justify an inherently atrocious act.?The laws of nations are often equally skewed. National prejudice?and savage patriotism often seem to justify the most unjust means of hurting your neighbors.

“The love of our own country seems not to be derived from the love of mankind. The former sentiment is altogether independent of the latter, and seems sometimes even to dispose us to act inconsistently with it.”

While it is rational to keep a keen eye on a neighboring country’s military buildup, there is no reason whatsoever to envy its internal prosperity, commercial successes, or advancements in the arts and sciences. States should learn from and emulate each other.

Prudence, justice, charity and self-command are the virtues that allow for a happy and fulfilled life.

The question of virtue relates to two different aspects: Which virtues make you happy as an individual, and which ones benefit others? As far as your personal well-being is concerned, it’s virtuous to care for your bodily needs, to seek pleasure and to avoid pain. This includes striving for society’s appreciation, attaining your rightful place in it and maintaining it through prudent behavior. As to your fellow human beings, you can either harm or help them. To harm someone, in the eyes of the impartial spectator, is only allowed out of a feeling of retribution for a received injury. Natural law, from?which all civil and criminal law derives, commands punishment for such injuries. Yet there is always the danger of applying a double standard to crimes.?Violent and unfair acts that are perpetrated by those of rank and privilege, when successful, often pass for heroism; those of petty thieves and mean murderers, as cowardice.

“A wicked and worthless man of parts often goes through the world with much more credit than he deserves. A wicked and worthless fool appears always, of all mortals, the most hateful, as well as the most contemptible.”

Generally speaking, the virtue of prudence keeps you happy. Justice prevents you from making other people unhappy. Charity prompts you to make your fellow human beings even happier. All these virtues are complemented by self-command, which keeps you from excessive boasting, raging and indulging. The impartial spectator, that great inner voice and arbiter, is always there to steer you on that difficult yet ultimately virtuous path.