ADAM SMITH'S THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS
| Published date | 01 February 1961 |
| Date | 01 February 1961 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9485.1961.tb00146.x |
ADAM
SMITH'S THEORY
OF MORAL
SENTIMENTS
I
ADAM
SMITH'S
Theory
af
Moral Senh'ments
was published two hun-
dred years ago. It brought him fame
in
his own day. But since then
the book has been overshadowed by
its
successor, and is today read
only by specialists, and by a few curious readers
of
the
Wealth
of
Nations.
It certainly deserves such study;
for
in
it
are to
be
found
the fundamental doctrines
of
the
Wealth
of
Nations,
especially
as
to
economic motive and natural liberty; and the famous work cannot be
properly understood without some knowledge
of
the
Theory.
But the
ethical work has: also received the highest praise in its own right
from some modem critics
of
weight;l
so
much
so
that the problem
would seem to be why it has been
so
underestimated. The aim of this
essay
is
to suggest by outlining its argument that this is undeserved;
for the work develops an ethical theory
of
considerable subtlety and
balance. First, however, some brief reasons
for
the undervaluation.
The
book
has been found tiresome, some would say superficial,
by readers
of
this and last century, because it is written in
a
rather
pedantic rhetorical style.
Its
flaws seem obvious. Yet the explana-
tion is
so
simple that
it
is
astonishing it has been ignored,
or
just
not known. The fact
is
that here we have the published
form
of
Adam
Smith's
lectures
OR
ethics
to
his Moral Philosophy classes
in
Glas-
gow University. Now, the typical age in these classes (the first year
of
eighty
to
ninety students, the second
of
about twenty students)
would be somewhere between fourteen and sixteema There is quite
definite contemporary evidence
for
these facts. John Millar took
Smith's lectures: and this professor
of
law, famous in his day, tells
us that Smith's course consisted
of
four parts; first Natural Theology,
second Ethics itself-' and consisted' chiefly of the doctrines which
he afterwards published in the
Moral Sentiments
'3-third
'
Justice
'
(or
jurisprudence) on which he intended
to
write a book, but the
first draft of which we have in his 'Glasgow Lectures,' and fourth
'
Expediency,' the first hints
of
the
later
Wealth
of
Nations.
Dr.
Wod-
lCf.
L.
Bagolini,
La Simpatia Nella Morale e nel Diritto:
also
British
Moralists,
ed. Selby-Bigge, Introduction.
I
have described the connections be-
tween the
Moral Sentiments
and
the
Wealth
of
Nations
in an article
in
Oxford
Economic Papers,
October
1959.
a
Cf.
J.
Rae.
Life
of
Adam Smith,
pp.
50,
57.
3
Rae,
op.
cit.,
p.
54.
12
ADAM
SMITH’S
THEORY
OF
MORAL
SENTIMENTS
13
row also wrote of ‘the lectures which were the first form
of
The
Theory
of
Moral Sentiments.’4
Now
it
is
difficult
to
understate the influence which facts like
these can have on the style of a book (and Smith rarely revised
ex-
tensively: having finished with one subject his mind pushed on to
further problems).
A
little experience of lecturing
to
large young
classes
of
beginners on such subjects
drives
the points home. Cer-
tainly,
if
the book
is
read
with this background constantly in mind,
it
is
quite remarkable how what may have before seemed jejune,
in-
deed at times rather feeble, becomes at once intelligible, and by
reflection almost amusing.
If
ona lectures to a crowd, and only the
skill
and tricks of the experienced lecturer can transmute
a
crowd
of
eighty boys in their middle teens
into
an intelligent body, the first
essential is to hold their continued interest. Various aids are avail-
able. The first, general in the 18th and 19th centuries,
is
rhetoric.
Secondly, various forms of rather facile humour, especially
if
they
deal with the commoner manners
of
the day,
jokes
which the lecturer
finds by experience always pay their way, are invaluable.
If
this is
remembered and we read the
Moral Sentiments
as
so
delivered, it is
astonishing how apt the style becomes
for
its purpose. Room
permits
only a few quotations from the many epigrams which would amuse
and interest these young men. They usually refer
to
customs and
manners in which young men especially are interested.‘ And the style
is
for intonation, not
for
reading. One can easily
see
that these would
be successful
lectures.
But, to the reader, the repetition and
Zongueurs
suitable for a course
of
perhaps
a
hundred hours certainly can
be
tiresome.
This being understood,
it
is, however, the thesis of this article that
the achievement
of
the
Moral Sentiments
should not
be
missed.
For,
behind all
this,
the work did succeed in working out a highly re-
fined
pattern of ethical theory through a rather simple web. The
obvious argument, as is proper for Smith’s immediate purpose,
is
simple. It
is
just the accepted classical ethical background of the
*
!jee
W.
R.
Scott,
Adam
Smith
as Student and
ProfFssoc,
p.
70.
5
‘A
woman
who
paints could derive, one should i?apne, but little vanity
from the compliments that are paid to her complexion. The great secret
of
education
is
to direct vanity to proper objects.’ Then about Zen0 who at ninety-
eight
.‘
went home and hanged himself
’-:
at that great age, one should think
he might have had a little more patience. For Manfeyille ‘there
is
vice even
in the
,us:
of a clean shirt
or
a convenient habitation.
A
numerous and artful
clergy. The fair sex, who have commonly more tenderness than ours, have
seldom
so
mpch generosity.’ And Part
V
‘Of the Influence of Custom and
Fashion
.
. .
,
generally.
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