CHAPTER XIII: THE RELATION OF ADAM SMITH'S THEORY TO OTHER SYSTEMS OF MORALITY
The longest and perhaps the most interesting division of Adam Smith's treatise is that in which he reviews the relation of his own theory to that of other systems of moral philosophy. For like all writers on the same difficult subject, he finds but a very partial attainment of truth in any system outside his own, and claims for the latter a comprehensive survey of all the phenomena, which his predecessors had only grasped singly and in detail. Every system of morality, every theory of the origin of our moral sentiments, has been derived, he thinks, from some one or other of the principles expounded by himself. And "as they are all of them in this respect founded upon natural principles, they are all of them in some measure in the right. But as many of them are derived from a partial and imperfect view of nature, there are many of them too in some respects in the wrong."
I. Thus with regard, first, to the nature of Virtue, all the different theories, whether in ancient or in modern times, may, Adam Smith thinks, be reduced to three, according as they make it to consist in Propriety, Prudence, or Benevolence: or in other words, according as they place it in the proper government and direction of all our affections equally, whether selfish or social; in the judicious pursuit of our own private interest and happiness by the right direction of the selfish affections alone; or in the disinterested pursuit of the happiness of others under the sole direction of the benevolent affections.
Adam Smith's own theory differed from all these, in that it took account of all these three different aspects of virtue together, and gave no exclusive preference to any one of them. With Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics, who made virtue to consist in propriety of conduct, or in the suitableness of the motive of action to the object which excites it, or with such modern systems as those of Lord Shaftesbury or Clarke, who defined virtue as maintaining a proper balance of the affections and passions, or as acting according to the relations or to the truth of things, he so far agreed as to regard such propriety as constituting one element in our approbation of virtue; but he maintained that this propriety, though an essential ingredient in every virtuous action, was not always the only one. Propriety commanded approbation, and impropriety disapprobation, but there were other qualities which commanded a higher degree of esteem or blame, and seemed to call for reward or punishment respectively. Such were beneficent or vicious actions, in which something was recognized besides mere propriety or impropriety, and raised feelings stronger than those of mere approval or dislike, and that was their tendency to produce good or bad results. Moreover, none of the systems which placed virtue in a propriety of affection gave any measure by which that propriety might be ascer- tained, nor could such a measure be found anywhere but in the sympathetic feelings of the impartial and well-informed spectator.
Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics, only regarded, in their account of virtue, that part of it which consists in propriety of conduct. According to Plato, the soul was composed of three different facultiesreason, passion, and appetite; and that higher form of justice which constitutes perfect virtue was nothing more than that state of mind in which every faculty confined itself to its proper sphere, without encroaching upon that of any other, and performed its office with precisely that degree of strength which belonged to it. In other words, this justice, the last and greatest of the cardinal virtues, and that which comprehended all the others, meant that exact and perfect propriety of conduct, the nature of which has been already discussed. Nearly the same account of virtue was given by Aristotle, who defined it as the habit of moderation in accordance with right reason; by which he meant a right affection of mind towards particular objects, as in being neither too much nor too little affected by objects of fear. And the Stoics so far coincided with Plato and Aristotle as to place perfect virtue, or rectitude of conduct, in a proper choice or rejection of different objects and circumstances according as they were by nature rendered more or less the objects of our desire or aversion. In this propriety of the mind towards external things consisted the life according to nature, or in other words, the virtuous conduct of life.
No less incomplete than systems which placed virtue in propriety alone were those systems which placed it in prudence, or in a prudential regard for mere personal welfare. Such were the systems of the Cyrenaics and Epicureans in ancient times, and of writers like Hobbes and Mandeville in modern times. According to Epicurus, the goodness or badness of anything was ultimately referable to its tendency to produce bodily pleasure or pain. Thus power and riches were desirable as good things, from their tendency to procure pleasure, whilst the evil of the contrary conditions lay in their close connexion with pain. Honour and reputation were of value, because the esteem of others was of so much importance to procure us pleasure and to defend us from pain. And in the same way the several virtues were not desirable simply for themselves, but only by reason of their intimate connexion with our greatest well-being, ease of body and tranquillity of mind. Thus temperance was nothing but prudence with regard to pleasure, the sacrifice of a present enjoyment to obtain a greater one or to avoid a greater pain. Courage was nothing but prudence with regard to danger or labour, not good in itself, but only as repellent of some greater evil. And justice too was nothing but prudence with regard to our neighbours, a means calculated to procure their esteem, and to avoid the fear that would flow from their resentment.
Adam Smith's first reply to this theory is, that whatever may be the tendency of the several virtues or vices, the sentiments which they excite in others are the objects of a much more passionate desire or aversion than all their other con- sequences; that to be-amiable and the proper object of esteem is of more value to us than all the ease and security which love or esteem can procure us: and that to be odious, or the proper object of contempt, or indignation is more dreadful than all we can suffer in our body from hatred, contempt, or indignation; and that therefore our desire of the one character and our aversion to the other cannot arise from regard to the effects which either of them is likely to produce on the body.
Secondly, there is one aspect of nature from which the Epicurean system derives its plausibility. "By the wise contrivance of the Author of nature, virtue is upon all ordinary occasions, even with regard to this life, real wisdom, and the surest and readiest means of obtaining both safety and advantage." The success or failure of our undertakings must very much depend on the good or bad opinion entertained of us, and on the general disposition of others to assist or oppose us. Hence the tendency of virtue to promote our interest and of vice to obstruct it, undoubtedly stamps an additional beauty and propriety upon the one, and a fresh deformity and im propriety upon the other. And thus temperance, magnanimity, justice and beneficence, come to be approved of, not only under their proper characters, but under the additional character of the most real prudence and the highest wisdom; whilst the contrary vices come to be disapproved of; not only under their proper characters, but under the additional character of the most short-sighted folly and weakness. So that the conduciveness of virtue to happiness is only secondary, and so to speak accidental to its character; it is not its first recommendation to our pursuit of it.
But if the theories which resolved virtue into propriety or prudence were thus one-sided, the remaining theorythat best represented by Hutchesonwas no less so, which made virtue to consist solely in benevolence, or in a disinterested regard to the good of others or the public generally. So far indeed did Hutcheson carry this theory, that he even rejected as a selfish motive to virtuous action the pleasure of self-approbation, "the comfortable applause of our own consciences," holding that it diminished the merit of any benevolent action. The principle of self-love could never be virtuous in any degree, and it was merely innocent, not good, when it led a man to act from a reasonable regard to his own happiness.
Several reasons seem, indeed, at first sight, to justify the identification of virtue with benevolence. It is the most agreeable of all the affections. It is recommended to us by a double sympathy, and we feel it to be the proper object of gratitude and reward. Even its weakness or its excess is not very disagreeable to us, as is the excess of every other passion. And as it throws a peculiar charm over every action which proceeds from it, so the want of it adds a peculiar deformity to actions indicative of disregard to the happiness of others. Our sense too of the merit of any action is just so far increased or diminished according as we find that benevolence was or was not the motive of the action. If, for instance, an act supposed to proceed from gratitude is found to proceed from the hope of some fresh favour, all its merit is gone; and so if an action attributed to a selfish motive is found to have been due to a benevolent one, our sense of its merit is all the more enhanced. And lastly, in all disputes concerning the rectitude of conduct, the public good, or the tendency of actions to promote the general welfare, has always been the standard of reference, that being accounted morally good which tends to promote happiness, and that bad or wrong which tends to the contrary result.
These reasons led Hutcheson to the conclusion, that an act was meritorious in proportion to the benevolence evidenced by it; hence that the virtue of an action was proportioned to the extent of happiness it tended to promote, so that the least virtuous affection was that which aimed no further than at the happiness of an individual, as a son, a brother, or a friend, whilst the most virtuous was one which embraced as its object the happiness of all intelligent beings. The perfection of virtue consisted therefore in directing all our actions to promote the greatest possible good, and in subjecting all inferior affections to the desire of the general happiness of mankind.
The first defect which Adam Smith finds in this theory of his former teacher is, that it fails to explain sufficiently our approbation of the inferior virtues of prudence, temperance, constancy, and firmness. Just as other theories erred in regarding solely the propriety or impropriety of conduct, and in disregarding its good or bad tendency, so this system erred by disregarding altogether the suitableness of affections to their exciting cause, and attending only their beneficient or hurtful effects.
In the second place, a selfish motive is not always a bad one. Self-love may often be a virtuous motive to action. Every man is by nature first and principally recommended to his own care; and because he is fitter to take care of himself than of any other person, it is right .that he should do so. Regard to our own private happiness and interest may constitute very laudable motives of action. The habits of economy, industry, discretion, attention, and application of thought, though cultivated from self-interested motives, are nevertheless praiseworthy qualities, and deserve the esteem and approbation of everybody. On the other hand, carelessness and want of economy are universally disapproved of, not as proceeding from a want of benevolence, but from a want of a proper attention to the objects of self-interest.
And as to the standard of right and wrong being frequently the tendency of conduct to the welfare or disorder of society, it does not follow that a regard to society should be the sole virtuous motive of action, but only that in any competition it ought to cast the balance against all other motives.
It was, again, a general defect of each of the three theories which defined virtue as propriety, prudence, or benevolence, that they tended to give a bias to the mind to some principles of action beyond the proportion that is due to them. Thus the ancient systems, which placed virtue in propriety, insisted little on the soft and gentle virtues, rather regarding them as weaknesses to be expunged from the breast, while they laid chief stress on the graver virtues of self-command, fortitude, and courage. And the benevolent system, while encouraging the milder virtues in the highest degree, went so far as to deny the name of virtue to the more respectable qualities of the mind, calling them merely "moral abilities," unworthy of the approbation bestowed on real virtue. Nevertheless the general tendency of each of these systems was to encourage the best and most laudable habits of the mind, and it were well for society if mankind regulated their conduct by the precepts of any one of them.
This general good tendency of these three theories leads our author to classify by itself, and to treat in a distinct chapter, a system which, he says, destroys altogether the distinction between virtue and vice, and of which the tendency consequently is wholly pernicious, and that is the system, which he designates as the Licentious System, expounded by Mandeville in the Fable of the Bees.
Adam Smith considers that this system," which once made so much noise in the world could never have imposed upon so great a number of persons, nor have occasioned so general alarm among those who are the friends of better principles, had it not in some respects bordered upon the truth."
Mandevilles famous definition of the moral virtues as "the political offspring which flattery begot upon pride," was based on the assumption that morality was not natural to man, but was the invention of wise men, who, by giving the title of noble to persons capable of self-denial and of preferring the public interest to their own, won mankind generally, through this subtle flattery, to what they chose to denominate virtue. Hence whatever men did from a sense of propriety, or from a regard to what was praiseworthy, they really did from a love of praise, from pride or vanity. This love of praise was one of the strongest of mans selfish affections, and the foundation of the love of honour. In conduct apparently the most disinterested, this selfish motive was present. If a man sacrificed his own interest to that of his fellows, he knew that his conduct would be agreeable to their self-love, and that they would not fail to express their satisfaction by bestowing on himself the most extravagant praises. The pleasure he would derive from this source counterbalanced the interest he abandoned to procure it. Hence all public spirit, or preference of public to private interest was a mere cheat and imposition on mankind.
The fallacy of this system lies, according to Adam Smith, in a sophistical use of the word vanityin its application to a remote affinity that prevails between two really very different things. To desire praise for qualities which are not praise- worthy in any degree, or for qualities praiseworthy in themselves but unpossessed by the individual concerned, is vanity proper; but this frivolous desire for praise at any price is very different from the desire of rendering our- selves the proper objects of honour and esteem, or of acquiring honour and esteem by really deserving them. The affinity between these very different desires, of which Mandeville made so much use, lay in the fact that vanity as well as the love of true glory aims at acquiring esteem and approbation; but the difference consists in this, that the desire of the one is unjust and ridiculous, while that of the other is just and reasonable.
There is also an affinity between the love of virtue and the love of true glory, which gives a certain speciousness to Mandeville's theory. For there is a close connexion between the desire of becoming what is honourable and estimable, which is the love of virtue, and the desire of actual honour and esteem, which is the love of true glory. They both have and herein lies their superficial resemblance to vanitysome reference to the sentiments of others. Even in the love of virtue there is still some reference, if not to what is, yet to what in reason and propriety ought to be, the opinion of others. The man of the greatest magnanimity, who desires virtue for its own sake, and is most indifferent about the actual opinions of mankind, is still delighted with the thoughts of what those opinions ought to be, and with the consciousness that though he may neither be honoured nor applauded, he is yet the proper object of honour and applause.
Another feature of Mandeville's system was to deny the existence of any self-denial or disinterestedness in human virtue of any kind. Thus wherever temperance fell short of the most ascetic abstinence, he treated it as gross luxury; and all our pretensions to self-denial were based, not on the conquest, but on the concealed indulgence, of our passions.
Here the fallacy lay in representing every passion as wholly vicious, which is so in any degree and in any direction. There are some of our passions which have no other names than those which mark the disagreeable and offensive degree, they being more apt to attract notice in this degree than in any other. It is not therefore to demolish the reality of such a virtue as temperance, to show that the same indulgence of pleasure which when unrestrained is regarded as blameable, is also present when the passion is restrained. The virtue in such cases consists, not in an entire insensibility to the objects of passion, but in the restraint of our natural desire of them.
The same fallacy underlies the famous paradox that "private vices are public benefits," and that it is not the good, but the evil qualities of men, which lead to greatness. By using the word luxury, as it was used in the fashionable asceticism of his time, as in every respect evil, it was easy for Mandeville to show that from this evil all trade and wealth and prosperity flowed, and that without it no society could flourish. "If;" Adam Smith replies, "the love of magnificence, a taste for the elegant arts and improvements of human life; for whatever is agreeable in dress, furniture, or equipage; for architecture, statuary, painting, and music, is to be regarded as luxury, sensuality, and ostentation, even in those whose situation allows, without any inconvenieney, the indulgence of those passions, it is certain that luxury, sensuality, and ostentation are public benefits." If everything is to be reprobated as luxury which exceeds what is absolutely necessary for the support of human nature, "there is vice even in the use of a clean shirt, or of a convenient habitation.' Hence the whole point of the paradox rests on a loose ant unscientific use of the word luxury.
II. To turn now to the other great question of ethics, to the nature of moral approbation, and its source in the mind.
As the different theories of the nature of virtue may all be reduced to three, so all the different theories concerning the origin of moral approbation may be reduced to a similar number. Self-love, reason, and sentiment, are the three different sources which have been assigned for the principle of moral approbation. According to some, we approve or disapprove of our own actions and of those of others from self-love only, or from some view of their tendency to our own happiness or disadvantage; according to others, we distinguish what is fit or unfit, both in actions and affections, by reason, or the same faculty by which we distinguish truth from falsehood; and according to yet a third school, the distinction is altogether the effect of immediate sentiment and feeling, arising from the plea sure or disgust with which certain actions or affections inspire us.
According to Adam Smith, there was again some truth in each of these theories, but they each fell short of that completeness of explanation which was the merit of his own peculiar system.
The self-love theory, best expounded by Hobbes and Mandeville, reduced the principle of approbation to a remote perception of the tendency of conduct upon personal well-being; and the merit of virtue or demerit of vice consisted in their respectively serving to support or disturb society, the preservation of which was so necessary to the security of individual existence.
To this our author objects, that this perception of the good effects of virtue enhances indeed our appreciation of it, but that it does not cause it. When the innumerable advantages of a cultivated and social life over a savage and solitary one are described, and the necessity of virtue pointed out for the maintenance of the one, and the tendency of vice to reproduce the other, the reader is charmed with the novelty of the observation; "he sees plainly a new beauty in virtue and a new deformity in vice, which he had never taken notice of before; and is commonly so delighted with the discovery, that he seldom takes time to reflect that this political view, having never occurred to him in his life before, cannot possibly be the ground of that approbation and disapprobation with which he has always been accustomed to consider those different qualities."
In the application of the self-love theory to our praise or blame of actions or conduct in past timeas of the virtue of Cato or of the villany of Catilinethere was only an imaginary, not an actual, reference to self; and in praising or blaming in such cases we thought of what might have happened to us, had we lived in those times, or of what might still happen to us if in our own times we met with such characters. The idea which the authors of this theory "were groping about, but which they were never able to unfold distinctly, was that indirect sympathy which we feel with the gratitude or resentment of those who received the benefit or suffered the damage resulting from such opposite characters."
Is the principle of sympathy then a selfish principle? Is sympathy with the sorrow or indignation of another an emotion founded on self-love, because it arises from bringing the case of another home to oneself; and then conceiving of one's own feelings in the same situation?
The answer to this question is important, and is best giver in Adam Smith's own words, as he himself admits that the whole account of human nature which deduces all sentiments and affections from self-love, seems to have arisen "from some confused misapprehension of the system of sympathy." His answer, which is as follows, will perhaps not be thought completely satisfactory : "Though sympathy is very properly said to arise from an imaginary change of situations with the person principally concerned, yet this imaginary change is not supposed to happen to me in my own person and character, but in that of the person with whom I sympathize. When I condole with you for the loss of your only son, in order to enter into your grief I do not consider what I, a person of such a character and profession, should suffer if I had a son, and if that son was unfortunately to die; but I consider what I should suffer if I was really you; and I not only change circumstances with you, but I change persons and characters. My grief; therefore, is entirely upon your account, and not in the least upon my own. It is not, therefore, in the least selfish. How can that be regarded as a selfish passion, which does not arise even from the imagination of anything that has befallen, or that relates to myself; in my own proper person or character, but is entirely occupied about what relates to you?" Yet if a reference to self be the fundamental fact of sympathy, it would seem that this is equivalent to making a reference to self the foundation of all moral sentiment; as in Hobbes' explanation of pity, that it is grief for the calamity of another, arising from the imagination of the like calamity befalling oneself. And it is remarkable that the same passage of Polybius which has been thought to be an anticipation of the theory of sympathy, should have also been quoted by flume, as showing that Polybius referred all our sentiments of virtue to a selfish origin.
Next to the theory which founded moral approbation in self- love, comes that which founded it in reason. This theory originated in the opposition to the doctrine of Hobbes, who made the laws of the civil magistrate the sole ultimate standards of just and unjust, of right and wrongimplying the consequence, that there was no natural distinction between right and wrong, but that they were the arbitrary creations of law. Cudworth taught, that, antecedent to all law or positive institution, there was a faculty of the mind which distinguished moral qualities in actions and affections, and that this faculty was reason; the same faculty that distinguished truth from falsehood, thus also distinguishing right from wrong. It became therefore the popular doctrine, when the controversy with Hobbes was at its height, that the essence of virtue and vice did not consist in the conformity or nonconformity of actions with the law of a superior, but in their conformity or nonconformity with reason; and reason thus came to be considered as the original source of all moral approbation.
In this theory also Adam Smith recognizes some elements of truth. "That virtue consists in conformity to reason is true in some respects; and this faculty may very justly be considered as, in some sense, the source and principle of moral approbation and disapprobation, and of all solid judgments concerning right and wrong." Induction too is one of the operations of reason, and it is by induction and experience that the general rules of morality are formed. They are established inductively, from the observation in a number of particular cases of what is pleasing or displeasing to our moral faculties. So it is by reason that we discover those general rules of justice by which we ought to regulate our actions; and by the same faculty we form those more indeterminate ideas of what is prudent, decent, generous, or noble, according to which we endeavour to model our conduct. And as it is by these general rules, so formed by an induction of reason, that we most regulate our moral judgments, which would be very variable if they depended merely upon feeling and sentiment, virtue may so far be said to consist in conformity to reason, and so far may reason be considered as the source of moral approbation.
This admission, however, is a very different thing from the supposition that our first perceptions of right and wrong can be derived from reason. These first perceptions, upon which from a number of particular cases the general rules of morality are founded, must be the object of an immediate souse and feeling, not of reason. "It is by finding in a vast variety of instances that one tenor of conduct constantly pleases in a certain manner, and that another as constantly displeases the mind, that we form the general rules of morality. But reason cannot render any particular object either agreeable or disagreeable to the mind for its own sake. Reason may show that this object is the means of obtaining some other which is naturally either pleasing or displeasing, and in this manner may render it either agreeable or disagreeable for the sake of something else; but nothing can be agreeable or disagreeable for its own sake, which is not rendered such by immediate sense and feeling. If virtue, therefore, in every particular instance, necessarily pleases for its own sake, and if vice as certainly displeases the mind, it cannot be reason, but immediate sense and feeling which in this manner reconciles us to the one and alienates us from the other."
There remained therefore the theories which made sentiment or feeling the original source of moral approbation; and the best exposition of this theory was that given by Hutcheson in his doctrine of the Moral Sense.
If the principle of approbation was founded neither on self- love nor on reason, there must be some faculty of a peculiar kind, with which the human mind was endowed to produce the effect in question. Such a faculty was the moral sensea particular power of perception exerted by the mind at the view of certain actions and affections, by which those that affected the mind agreeably were immediately stamped with the characters of right, laudable, and virtuous, while those that affected it otherwise were immediately stamped with the characters of wrong, blameable, and vicious.
This moral sense was somewhat analagous to our external senses; for as external bodies, by affecting our senses in a certain way, seemed to possess the different qualities of sound, taste, smell, or colour, so the various affections of the mind, by touching the moral sense in a certain way, appeared to possess the different qualities of right or wrong, of virtue or of vice. The moral sense too was a reflex internal sense, as distinct from a direct internal sense; that is to say, as the perception of beauty was a reflex sense presupposing the direct sense which perceived objects and colours, so the perception of the beauty or deformity of passions and affections was a reflex sense presupposing the perception by a direct internal sense of the several passions and affections themselves. Other reflex senses of the same kind were, a public sense, by which we sympathize with the happiness or misery of our fellows; a sense of shame and honour; and a sense of ridicule.
One consequence of this analogy between the moral sense and the external senses, and a consequence drawn by Hutcheson himself, was that our moral faculties themselves could not be called virtuous or vicious, morally good or morally evil; for the qualities of any object of sense cannot be applied to the sense itself. An object may have the quality of black or white, but the sense of seeing is not black nor white; and in the same way, though an action or sentiment may appear good or bad, the qualities of goodness or badness cannot attach to the moral faculty which perceives such qualities in nature.
Adam Smith objects to this, that we do recognize some- thing morally good in correct moral sentiments, and that we do consider a man worthy of moral approbation whose praise and blame are always accurately suited to the value or worthlessness of conduct. If we saw a man "shouting with admiration and applause at a barbarous and unmerited execution, which some insolent tyrant had ordered," we should be surely justified in calling such behaviour vicious, and morally evil in the highest degree, though it expressed nothing but a depraved state of the moral faculties. There is no perversion of sentiment or affection we should be more averse to enter into, or reject with greater disapprobation, than one of this kind; and so far from regarding such a state of mind as merely strange, and not at all vicious or evil, we should rather regard it "as the very last and most dreadful stage of moral depravity."
Nor are the difficulties less if we found the principle of moral approbation, not upon any sense analogous to the external senses, but upon some peculiar sentiment, intended for such a purpose; if we say, for instance, that as resentment may be called a sense of injuries, or gratitude a sense of benefits, so approbation and disapprobation, as feelings or emotions which arise in the mind on the view of different actions and characters, may be called a sense of right and wrong, or a moral sense.
For if approbation and disapprobation were, like gratitude or resentment, an emotion of a particular kind, distinct from every other, whatever variations either of them might undergo we should expect them to retain clearly marked and distinguishable general features; just as in all the variations of the emotion of anger, it is easy to distinguish the same general features. With regard to approbation it is otherwise, for there are no common features running through all manifestations of moral approval, or the contrary. "The approbation with which we view a tender, delicate, and humane sentiment, is quite different from that with which we are struck by one that appears great, daring, and magnanimous. Our approbation of both may, upon different occasions, be perfect and entire; but we are softened by the one and we are elevated by the other, and there is no sort of resemblance between the emotions which they excite in us. And, in the same way, our horror for cruelty has no resemblance to our contempt for meanness of spirit.
By his own theory Adam Smith thinks that this difference in the character of approbation is more easily explained. It is because the emotions of the person whom we approve of are different when they are humane and delicate from what they are when they are great and daring, and because our approbation arises from sympathy with these different emotions, that our feeling of approbation with regard to the one sentiment is so different from what it is with regard to the other.
Moreover, not only are the different passions and affections of the human mind approved or disapproved as morally good or evil, but the approbation or disapprobation itself is marked with the same moral attributes. The moral sense theory cannot account for this fact; and the only explanation possible is, that, in this instance at least, the coincidence or opposition of sentiments between the person judging and the person judged constitutes moral approbation or the contrary. When the approbation with which our neighbour regards the conduct of another person coincides with our own, we approve of his approbation as in some measure morally good; and so, on the contrary, when his sentiments differ from our own, we disapprove of them as morally wrong.
If a peculiar sentiment, distinct from every other, were really the source of the principle of approbation, it is strange that such a sentiment "should hitherto have been so little taken notice of as not to have got a name in any language. The word `moral sense' is of very late formation, and cannot yet be considered as making part of the English tongue.... The word `conscience' does not immediately denote any moral faculty by which we approve or disapprove. Conscience supposes, indeed, the existence of some such faculty, and properly signifies our consciousness of having acted agreeably to its directions. When love, hatred, joy, sorrow, gratitude, resentment, with so many other passions which are all supposed to be the subjects of this principle, have made themselves considerable enough to get them titles to know them by, is it not surprising that the sovereign of them all should hitherto have been so little heeded thata few philosophers excepted nobody has yet thought it worth while to bestow a name upon it?"
In opposition then to the theory which derives moral approbation from a peculiar sentiment, Adam Smith reduces it himself to four sources, in some respects different from one another. "First, we sympathize with the motives of the agent; secondly, we enter into the gratitude of those who receive the benefit of his actions; thirdly, we observe that his conduct has been agreeable to the general rules by which those two sympathies generally act; and last of all, when we consider such actions as making a part of a system of behaviour which tends to promote the happiness either of the individual or of the society, they appear to derive a beauty from this utility not unlike that which we ascribe to any well-contrived machine."
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Author: James Anson Farrer
