Sympathy (in Adam Smith's moral philosophy) [ Feelings & Emotions / Character ]
… however, is his first work, The Theory of Moral Sentiments , which paints quite a different picture of human sociability. Instead of relating to each other solely out of self-interest, Smith’s political economy also recruited … became a professor of moral philosophy. Thoroughly engaged in the debates of his day, Smith did not agree that human sociability was characterised solely by the pursuit of self-interest or vanity, as Thomas Hobbes and Bernard Mandeville … This account is given in TMS , where Smith argues that humans are not only naturally sociable creatures, but that this sociability produces an outward sense of morality that involves, but nevertheless goes beyond, individual self-interest. …
Benevolence | Conduct | Imagination | Morality | Sympathy
Encyclopedia