Beyond sympathy: Smith’s rejection of Hume’s moral theory

Adam Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments (TMS) has long been recognized as importantly influenced by, and in part responding to, David Hume’s earlier ethical theory. With regard to Smith’s account of the foundations of morals in particular, recent scholarly attention has focused on Smith’s differences with Hume over the question of sympathy. Whilst this is certainly important, disagreement over sympathy in fact represents only the starting point of Smith’s engagement with – and eventual attempted rejection of – Hume’s core moral theory. We can see this by recognizing the TMS’s account of moral foundations as predicated upon a rejection of Hume’s distinction between the natural and artificial virtues. Smith is in turn revealed as generating a major break with Hume – a break which, if based on a superior theory of moral foundations (as Smith thought it to be) has important consequences for how we treat Smith and Hume in both the history of philosophy and contemporary moral theory.     

Moral Emotions

Emotions can be the subject of moral judgments; they can also constitute the basis for moral judgments. The apparent circularity which arises if we accept both of these claims is the central topic of this paper: how can emotions be both judge and party in the moral court? The answer I offer regards all emotions as potentially relevant to ethics, rather than singling out a privileged set of moral emotions. It relies on taking a moderate position both on the question of the naturalness of emotions and on that of their objectivity as revealers of value: emotions are neither simply natural nor socially constructed, and they apprehend objective values, but those values are multi‐dimensional and relative to human realities. The “axiological” position I defend jettisons the usual foundations for ethical judgments, and grounds these judgments instead on a rationally informed reflective equilibrium of comprehensive emotional attitudes, tempered with a dose of irony.     

On Virtue Ethics

If one goes beyond the Western perspective, one realizes that most philosophy outside the West has been virtue-ethical in character. But it also turns out that there are simply more historical kinds of virtue ethics than most virtue ethicists recognize. Virtue ethics is mainly of interest because of its contemporary relevance and plausibility, and it is argued here that a virtue ethics that emphasizes empathy is very plausible in contemporary terms. Such an approach can say some strong things in favor of democracy, but it can also criticize Western thought for putting too much emphasis on autonomy rights rather than people’s, and especially women’s, welfare.     

“亚当·斯密问题”的逻辑张力

“亚当·斯密问题”是指斯密的《国富论》与《道德情操论》之间存在着对立或不一致的问题,最初由十九世纪中叶的德国历史学派所提出。此后,随着现实与理论的发展,出现了不同的看法。学者们普遍认为,斯密的两大著作之间、经济学与伦理学之间存在着对立或者不存在对立,而是相互一致的。这些看法都具有各自的积极合理的内容,但缺乏辩证的观点,而没有看到“斯密问题”自身的逻辑张力,也就是说,“斯密问题”所指涉的是现实的经济与伦理之间及作为其理论表现的经济学与伦理学之间的关系。“斯密问题”所含的这些关系呈现出了一个动态的、由肯定到否定再到否定之否定的辩证过程。     

Adam Smith: Self-Command,Practical Reason and Deontological Insights

In this paper, I argue that, in his Theory of Moral Sentiments, Adam Smith conflates two different meanings of ‘self-command’, which is particularly puzzling because of the central role of this virtue in his theory. The first is the matrix of rational action, the one described in Part III of the TMS and learned in ‘the great school of self-command’. The second is the particular moral virtue of self-command. Distinguishing between these two meanings allows us, on the one hand, to solve some apparent paradoxes of the text; and, on the other, to identify various features of both the practical reason and deontological ethical traditions that are present in Smith's sentimentalism, enriching his phenomenological account of moral actions.     

Can God or the Market Set People Free?

Both Protestant theologians and “preference” economists believe that freedom is necessary for moral action, but such theologians and economists have seemingly irreconcilable accounts of freedom and, thus also, morality. Instead of learning from each other, they typically ignore each other or claim that one field reigns supreme over the other. This essay digs into the theological and economic traditions of each side to find points of similarity between them. It engages Adam Smith and Ernst Troeltsch to develop a view of “ethical freedom” that pulls together the “libertarian freedom” emphasized by preference economics and the “egalitarian freedom” emphasized in much Protestant theology. The three‐part view of freedom draws the disciplines together and opens possibilities for a more robust theory of moral action.     

The Contribution of Empathy to Ethics

ABSTRACT

Empathy has been taken to play a crucial role in ethics at least since the Scottish Enlightenment. More recently, a revival of moral sentimentalism and empirical research on moral behavior has prompted a renewed interest in empathy and related concepts and on their contribution to moral reasoning and to moral behavior. Furthermore, empathy has recently entered our public discourse as having the power to ameliorate our social and political interactions with others.

The aim of this paper is to investigate the extent to which such a role can be actually granted. Before focusing on a positive assessment, I will delve into a few problems our ordinary concept of empathy and our commonsensical way of conceiving its connection to ethics will need to face. Specifically, I will show how an exaggerated reliance on the ordinary concept of empathy could lead to an underestimation of its biases and potential limitations (§ 2), how a naïve conception of its connection to morality can overlook relevant counterexamples (§ 3) and lead to forms of reductionism (§ 4). Overcoming this possible shortsightedness would pave the way for arguing in favor of an important – though not sufficient and possible neither necessary – role for empathy in ethics (§ 5).     

Herder's Moral Philosophy: Perfectionism,Sentimentalism and Theism

While the last several decades have seen a renaissance of scholarship on J. G. Herder (1744–1804), his moral philosophy has not been carefully examined. The aim of this paper is to fill this gap, and to point the way for further research, by reconstructing his original and systematically articulated views on morality. Three interrelated elements of his position are explored in detail: (1) his perfectionism, or theory of the human good; (2) his sentimentalism, which includes moral epistemology and a theory of moral education; and (3) his theism, which deepens and justifies these other elements.     

代孕需求方生殖自主权实现的道德界限辨析

辅助生殖技术的诞生,颠覆了人类的自然生殖模式,为不孕不育者提供了生殖选择的平等机会。从意志自由的视角看,代孕需求方具有生殖自主权。然而,生殖自主权不仅包含代孕需求方的尊严和意志自由内涵,还应包含对后代的养育责任内涵,体现生殖自主权与养育义务的结合。因此,基于保护后代利益原则,权衡尊重自主与不伤害原则,辨析代孕需求方在生殖动因、婚姻关系、养育能力以及与后代联系的道德界限;提出在医学动因的前提下夫精妻卵妊娠型代孕与其他类型代孕的根本区别是道德界限的内外之别。

     

Human and Animal Subjects of Research: The Moral Significance of Respect versus Welfare

Human beings with diminished decision-making capacities are usually thought to require greater protections from the potential harms of research than fully autonomous persons. Animal subjects of research receive lesser protections than any human beings regardless of decision-making capacity. Paradoxically, however, it is precisely animals’ lack of some characteristic human capacities that is commonly invoked to justify using them for human purposes. In other words, for humans lesser capacities correspond to greater protections but for animals the opposite is true. Without explicit justification, it is not clear why or whether this should be the case. Ethics regulations guiding human subject research include principles such as respect for persons—and related duties—that are required as a matter of justice while regulations guiding animal subject research attend only to highly circumscribed considerations of welfare. Further, the regulations guiding research on animals discount any consideration of animal welfare relative to comparable human welfare. This paper explores two of the most promising justifications for these differences␣between the two sets of regulations. The first potential justification points to lesser moral status for animals on the basis of their lesser capacities. The second potential justification relies on a claim about the permissibility of moral partiality as␣found in common morality. While neither potential justification is sufficient to justify the regulatory difference as it stands, there is possible common ground between supporters of some regulatory difference and those rejecting the current difference.