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What is Sympathy and the Impartial Spectator about?

Abstract The chapter analyzes Smith’s account of sympathy to assess it in terms of the central topic: the question of relational inequality. The egalitarian reading of Smith’s approach to sympathy is contested. While it is true that many of his central moral categories, such as the impartial spectator in The Theory of Moral Sentiments, seem to be designed to prove that humans can treat others with equal dignity and consideration, it is easy to show that Smith writes instructively on inequalities and their emotional underpinnings; the egalitarian reading, it is suggested, tends to downplay these insights. His account can also be taken as presenting some of the shortcomings of sympathy as impartiality. Finally, particularly in the 1790 edition of The Theory of Moral Sentiments, Smith introduces the figure of the “wise and virtuous man” who is clearly distinguished from the “mob of mankind” and thus appears to confute the egalitarian reading of Smith.

Author

Martin Hartmann

Publisher

Oxford University PressNew York

Published

2023

Language

EN

ISBN

9780197500866

Subjects

Philosophy, Sociology, Humanities