Sympathy (in Adam Smith's moral philosophy) [ Feelings & Emotions / Character ]
… on how we ourselves would react to it. Should their passions ‘be in perfect concord with the sympathetic emotions of the spectator’ they appear ‘just and proper’, but when the spectator ‘finds that they do not coincide with what he feels, … and therefore judge, our actions. And in our attempt ‘to examine our own conduct as we imagine any other fair and impartial spectator would examine it’, we effectively divide ourselves in two (Smith, TMS , 133-136). On the one hand, we have the individual agent, and on the other, Smith’s ‘impartial spectator’, the individual’s imaginative attempt to gauge the expectations and likely reaction of their peers …
Benevolence | Conduct | Imagination | Morality | Sympathy
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