Speaker
Description
In The Theory of Moral Sentiments Smith contends that sympathy (the similarity of sentiments) provides the basis for moral judgment. However, Smith specifies a signal obstacle to sympathy, the “peculiar” relations that affect some persons but not others (TMS I.i.4.1). Those without such relations are indifferent (impartial): they easily agree in their sentiments because they lack peculiar relations to some object, circumstance, or person. This presentation focuses on peculiar relations, how they become partial, and how they affect moral perception. First, if a peculiar relation excites some passion in a spectator, then is it the passion that poses the obstacle to sympathy or is it that the spectator overestimates (unduly weighs) the passion because it is his? Smith’s account is not unambiguous, but he seems to suggest that it is because of the first-person perspective that we tend to allocate undue weight to our passions. Second, it will be argued that this first-person perspective is, for Smith, prone to a certain kind of partiality: self-love. Human self-love is not the only kind of partiality (or moral failing) that might exist, but it is for Smith the chief moral problem. Third, self-love affects the first-person perspective so that one’s overall perception of a situation is distinct from that of indifferent spectators. One way in which self-love affects perception is via the misrepresentation of circumstances, objects, or persons. It is obvious that the impartial spectator must overcome the partial one, but it is less plain, perhaps, to recognize how, for Smith, moral perception is clarity of perception.
| Organization | State University of New York, New Paltz |
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