The Impartial Spectator: Adam Smith's Moral Philosophy PDF
Preview The Impartial Spectator: Adam Smith's Moral Philosophy
THE IMPARTIAL SPECTATOR This page intentionally left blank The Impartial Spectator Adam Smith’s Moral Philosophy D. D. RAPHAEL CLARENDONPRESS•OXFORD 1 GreatClarendonStreet,Oxford OxfordUniversityPressisadepartmentoftheUniversityofOxford. ItfurtherstheUniversity’sobjectiveofexcellenceinresearch,scholarship, andeducationbypublishingworldwidein Oxford NewYork Auckland CapeTown DaresSalaam HongKong Karachi KualaLumpur Madrid Melbourne MexicoCity Nairobi NewDelhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto Withofficesin Argentina Austria Brazil Chile CzechRepublic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore SouthKorea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam OxfordisaregisteredtrademarkofOxfordUniversityPress intheUKandincertainothercountries PublishedintheUnitedStates byOxfordUniversityPressInc.,NewYork D.D.Raphael2007 Themoralrightsoftheauthorhavebeenasserted DatabaserightOxfordUniversityPress(maker) Firstpublished2007 Allrightsreserved.Nopartofthispublicationmaybereproduced, storedinaretrievalsystem,ortransmitted,inanyformorbyanymeans, withoutthepriorpermissioninwritingofOxfordUniversityPress, orasexpresslypermittedbylaw,orundertermsagreedwiththeappropriate reprographicsrightsorganization.Enquiriesconcerningreproduction outsidethescopeoftheaboveshouldbesenttotheRightsDepartment, OxfordUniversityPress,attheaddressabove Youmustnotcirculatethisbookinanyotherbindingorcover andyoumustimposethesameconditiononanyacquirer BritishLibraryCataloguinginPublicationData Dataavailable LibraryofCongressCataloginginPublicationData Raphael,D.D.(DavidDaiches),1916– Theimpartialspectator:AdamSmith’smoralphilosophy/D.D.Raphael. p.cm. Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex. ISBN–13:978–0–19–921333–7(alk.paper) ISBN–10:0–19–921333–X(alk.paper) 1. Smith,Adam,1723–1790. 2. Ethics,Modern—18thcentury. 3. Smith,Adam,1723–1790.Theoryofmoralsentiments. I. Title. B1545.Z7R37 2007 170—dc22 2006036960 TypesetbyLaserwordsPrivateLimited,Chennai,India PrintedinGreatBritain onacid-freepaperby BiddlesLtd.,King’sLynn,Norfolk ISBN978–0–19–921333–7 1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2 Acknowledgement Chapters4–6arearevisedandextendedversionofthemajorpartof theDawesHicksLectureonPhilosophygivenattheBritishAcademy in 1972, and reproduced here by kind permission from Proceedings oftheBritishAcademy,58(1972)(TheBritishAcademy1973). This page intentionally left blank Contents 1. TwoVersions 1 2. SympathyandImagination 12 3. MotiveandConsequences 21 4. SpectatorTheory 27 5. TheImpartialSpectator 32 6. ComparisonsandComment 43 7. MoralRules 53 8. Virtue 65 9. TheCardinalVirtues 73 10. VirtueandBeauty 81 11. EthicsandTheology 94 12. Jurisprudence 105 13. EthicsandEconomics 115 14. Smith’sEnduringContribution 127 Bibliography 136 Index 141 This page intentionally left blank 1 Two Versions Adam Smith is known to the world as the author of The Wealth of Nations, a pioneering classic in the field of economics. That work was first published in 1776, when Smith was almost 53 years old. He wrote the first version of his other book, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, much earlier: it was published in 1759, when he was a youngprofessorof36.Adrasticallyrevisedandexpandedversion,the sixthedition,appearedafewmonthsbeforeSmith’sdeathin1790at theageof67.TheMoralSentiments,unlikeTheWealthofNations,is notoneofthegreatclassicaltextsinitsfield,moralphilosophy,butit hasaprominentplaceamongtextsofthesecondrank.Smithhimself issaidtohavethoughtitsuperiortoTheWealthofNations.Despite somelong-windedsentences,thelanguageishardlyeverobscureand theargumentiseasy to follow.Yetithas often been misunderstood andonthataccountitcallsforaninterpretationbasedonknowledge ofwhatSmithwroteinhisyouthandinhisrelativeoldage. Onesourceofmisunderstandingisthatmanyofthecommentators have been economists who have looked at the Moral Sentiments simply in order to find some relevance for The Wealth of Nations. This gave rise to the so-called Adam Smith problem, a supposed inconsistency between the psychological assumptions of the two books. Another source of error has been a failure to note whether a particular passage was written for the first or for the sixth edition. UntilthepublicationoftheGlasgowEditionofSmith’sworks,most readers of the Moral Sentiments used a copy that reproduces the text of the sixth edition withno indication that the originalversion
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