The Theory of Moral Sentiments

Quick Facts

• Author: Adam Smith
• First published: 1759
• Final major revision: sixth edition, 1790
• Tradition: Scottish Enlightenment moral philosophy
• Main problem: how people make moral judgments about others and themselves
• Famous ideas: sympathy, the impartial spectator, propriety, merit and demerit, justice, beneficence, virtue, self-command
• Closely connected work: The Wealth of Nations

In One Minute

The Theory of Moral Sentiments argues that moral judgment grows out of social life. We watch other people, imagine what their situation feels like, and ask whether their feelings and actions make sense. Smith calls this imaginative fellow-feeling sympathy. It is not just pity. It is the way we enter another person's point of view.

The book's central device is the impartial spectator: an imagined fair, informed, calm observer. When we judge well, we do not only ask what we want, what others will praise, or what rule we can quote. We ask how our conduct would look from that less biased point of view. For Smith, morality is neither abstract rule-following nor selfish calculation. It is social sympathy disciplined by imagined impartial judgment.

The Problem

Smith wants to explain how ordinary people judge conduct. We praise courage, blame cruelty, resent injuries, admire generosity, and feel shame about things no one else knows. How is that possible?

The problem has several parts. We cannot directly see another person's motives. We are partial to ourselves. My anger feels more justified to me than it may look to you. My grief, pride, fear, and ambition are louder from the inside than from the outside. A theory based only on self-interest cannot explain remorse or the wish to be worthy of respect. A theory based only on reason misses the emotional shape of approval and blame.

Smith's answer is that moral judgment starts with spectatorship. Human beings learn morality by watching, imagining, comparing, approving, disapproving, and then turning that same process back on themselves.

The Main Argument

Smith begins with a simple observation: human beings care about how others feel. Even when nothing practical is at stake, we try to enter another person's situation. We never feel another person's passion with the same force, but we can often imagine enough of it to approve or disapprove of the response.

That is the first layer of moral judgment. We approve of feelings and actions when we can go along with them from the spectator's position. We disapprove when the response seems too strong, too weak, or aimed at the wrong object. Smith calls the fit between a person's response and the situation propriety.

The actor also knows they are being watched. Because people want sympathy from others, they learn to lower the heat of their passions to a level others can share. This is self-command: the habit of cooling private feeling enough for fair judgment.

Over time, the real spectator becomes an imagined one. We carry society inside ourselves as an impartial spectator: not a flawless angel, but an imagined fair observer who knows the facts and is not bribed by our private interest. This is why Smith says we want more than praise. We want to be praiseworthy. Applause can feel hollow if we know we did not deserve it.

Smith then extends this account to reward and punishment. An action has merit when an impartial spectator can share the gratitude of the person helped. An action has demerit when the spectator can share the resentment of the person harmed. Punishment is justified only when resentment itself can be approved from a fair point of view.

The book also separates beneficence from justice. Beneficence is active kindness: feeding a hungry neighbor, helping a friend find work, forgiving a debt when you can. It is admirable, but it usually cannot be forced. Justice is stricter. It forbids injury to life, property, promises, and basic security. Society may praise generosity, but it must enforce justice.

Rules matter, but they come after repeated judgment. Many cases teach us what fair spectators tend to approve or condemn. The rules then steady us when passion tempts us to make an exception for ourselves. The living source of morality is still the trained ability to see conduct from a less selfish point of view.

Key Ideas With Examples

• Sympathy means fellow-feeling with another person's passion. If a friend panics before a speech, you can feel the pressure; if they attack the audience over one mistake, your sympathy breaks.

• The impartial spectator is the imagined fair observer we use to judge ourselves. Before sending a cruel email, you ask how the case looks to someone who knows the facts but is not trapped inside your anger.

• Propriety is emotional fitness. Deep grief after a death has propriety. Public rage because a meal arrived late does not. Sincerity is not enough; the response must fit the situation.

• Merit/demerit names desert. Returning a lost wallet has merit because gratitude fits the act. Stealing the wallet has demerit because resentment and blame fit the injury.

• Moral judgment is approval or disapproval from the spectator's point of view. If someone gives money only to humiliate the recipient, the useful result does not settle the case. Motive, manner, and effect all matter.

• Self-command is governing passions so others can reasonably go along with us. A person may be furious after an insult, but self-command keeps the response measured enough for fair judgment.

• Virtue is stable excellence of character, not one impressive action. Smith stresses prudence, justice, beneficence, and self-command: habits a fair spectator can admire even when no crowd is watching.

• Resentment is anger at injury. If someone assaults an innocent person, resentment may be proper and punishment may be justified. If you resent honest criticism because it bruises your pride, the impartial spectator will not approve it.

• Beneficence is positive helpfulness. Bringing meals to a sick neighbor or mentoring a struggling student can be beneficent. Smith thinks it is beautiful and worthy of gratitude, but usually not something to force.

• Justice is the minimum virtue society may enforce. It requires that we not injure others in person, property, promises, or basic rights. You can be cold and still just; you cannot steal, assault, or defraud.

Why It Matters

The Theory of Moral Sentiments keeps Smith from being reduced to a cartoon of market self-interest. The same thinker who wrote The Wealth of Nations also argued that people need approval, restraint, sympathy, justice, and a sense of deserved respect. Markets, contracts, and commercial society depend on moral habits that markets alone do not create.

The book is also a major statement of moral sentimentalism: the view that moral life depends deeply on feeling. Smith's version is not "feel whatever you feel." Feelings must be educated by spectatorship, corrected by fairness, and disciplined by self-command. This also explains conscience without making it mysterious: we first care how others judge us, then learn to judge ourselves as if seen by someone fairer than our own self-love.

Smith is not naive about society. He warns that people often admire the rich and powerful more than the wise and virtuous. That corrupts moral judgment because the spectator inside us can be trained by bad public standards. The book therefore explains both how moral order forms and how it can go wrong.

Common Confusions

• Sympathy is not only pity. Smith uses it for fellow-feeling with any passion: grief, joy, anger, fear, pride, shame, and more.

• The impartial spectator is not public opinion. Actual crowds can be biased, cruel, or dazzled by status. The spectator is an attempt to imagine a better point of view.

• Smith is not saying selfishness is morality. Self-interest is real, but moral judgment depends on whether our conduct can be approved by a fair spectator.

• The book does not simply contradict The Wealth of Nations. The later work studies exchange, labor, markets, and institutions. The earlier work explains the habits that make decent conduct possible.

• Justice and beneficence are different. Justice can be enforced because it prevents injury. Beneficence is praiseworthy kindness, but forced kindness is usually not real virtue.

• Smith is not a simple utilitarian. Utility can affect approval, especially when institutions are useful or well-designed. But Smith does not reduce morality to maximizing total pleasure. Motive, propriety, resentment, gratitude, and character all matter.

People And Schools

• Adam Smith wrote the book as his first major published work and revised it throughout his life.
• David Hume is the closest background figure. Smith inherits Hume's focus on sentiment and sympathy, then gives a fuller account of spectatorship and moral learning.
• Francis Hutcheson, Smith's teacher, stands behind the moral-sense tradition. Smith keeps the emphasis on feeling but makes judgment and imagination more central.
• Stoicism shapes Smith's interest in self-command and wider judgment. Smith admires Stoic discipline, but his ethics is warmer and more socially emotional than strict Stoic detachment.
• Jeremy Bentham and Utilitarianism make a useful contrast. Bentham turns ethics toward calculable utility. Smith treats moral judgment as a richer practice involving sympathy, propriety, merit, resentment, and virtue.

Critics And Reactions

Smith's critics often press three worries. First, the impartial spectator does not give a step-by-step decision procedure. It refines judgment, but it does not work like a calculator.

Second, the spectator can inherit social prejudice. If a society admires wealth too much, despises poverty, or treats some groups as less worthy, the inner spectator may repeat those corrupt standards. Smith sees this danger, especially in his discussion of admiration for the rich and powerful, but later readers still ask whether his theory has enough resources to criticize unjust societies.

Third, utilitarian readers may think Smith gives too much weight to motive, propriety, and resentment instead of outcomes. Smith's reply is built into the book: moral life is about judging persons in situations, not only adding up consequences.

Related Pages

• Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
• David Hume
• Francis Hutcheson
• Stoicism
• Jeremy Bentham
• Utilitarianism