The Online Library of Liberty

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• Preface
• Key to Abbreviations and References
• Works of Adam Smith
• Introduction
• 1.: Formation of the Theory of Moral Sentiments
• 2.: Evolution
• 3.: Reception
• 4.: The Text
• Editorial Policy
• Part I: Of the Propriety of Action Consisting of Three Sections
• Section I: Of the Sense of Propriety
• Chap. I: Of Sympathy
• A Chap. II: Of the Pleasure of Mutual Sympathy
• Chap. III: Of the Manner In Which We Judge of the Propriety Or Impropriety of the Affections of Other Men, By Their Concord Or Dissonance With Our Own
• Chap. IV: The Same Subject Continued
• Chap. V: Of the Amiable and Respectable Virtues
• Section II: Of the Degrees of the Different Passions Which Are Consistent With Propriety
• Introduction
• Chap. I: Of the Passions Which Take Their Origin From the Body
• Chap. II: Of Those Passions Which Take Their Origin From a Particular Turn Or Habit of the Imagination
• Chap. III: Of the Unsocial Passions
• Chap. IV.: Of the Social Passions
• Chap. V: Of the Selfish Passions
• Section III: Of the Effects of Prosperity and Adversity Upon the Judgment of Mankind With Regard to the Propriety of Action; and Why It Is More Easy to Obtain Their Approbation In the One State Than In the Other
• Chap. I: That Though Our Sympathy With Sorrow Is Generally a More Lively Sensation Than Our Sympathy With Joy, It Commonly Falls Much More Short of the Violence of What Is a Naturally a Felt By the Person Principally Concerned
• Chap. II: Of the Origin of Ambition, and of the Distinction of Ranks
• A Chap. III: Of the Corruption of Our Moral Sentiments, Which Is Occasioned By This Disposition to Admire the Rich and the Great, and to Despise Or Neglect Persons of Poor and Mean Condition
• Part II: Of Merit and Demerit; Or, of the Objects of Reward and Punishment Consisting of Three Sections
• Section I: Of the Sense of Merit and Demerit
• Introduction
• Chap. I 1: That Whatever Appears to Be the Proper Object of Gratitude, Appears to Deserve Reward; and That, In the Same Manner, Whatever Appears to Be the Proper Object of Resentment, Appears to Deserve Punishment
• Chap. II: Of the Proper Objects of Gratitude and Resentment
• Chap. III: That Where There Is No Approbation of the Conduct of the Person Who Confers the Benefit, There Is Little Sympathy With the Gratitude of Him Who Receives It: and That, On the Contrary, Where There Is No Disapprobation of the Motives of the Perso
• Chap. IV: Recapitulation of the Foregoing Chapters
• Chap. V: The Analysis of the Sense of Merit and Demerit
• Section II: Of Justice and Beneficence
• Chap. I: Comparison of Those Two Virtues
• Chap. II: Of the Sense of Justice, of Remorse, and of the Consciousness of Merit
• Chap. III: Of the Utility of This Constitution of Nature
• Section III: Of the Influence of Fortune Upon the Sentiments of Mankind, With Regard to the Merit Or Demerit of Actions
• Introduction
• Chap. I: Of the Causes of This Influence of Fortune
• Chap. II: Of the Extent of This Influence of Fortune
• Chap. III: Of the Final Cause of This Irregularity of Sentiments
• Part III: Of the Foundation of Our Judgments Concerning Our Own Sentiments and Conduct, and of the Sense of Duty a Consisting of One Section a
• B Chap. I B: C of the Principle of Self–approbation and of Self–disapprobation C
• A Chap II: Of the Love of Praise, and of That of Praise–worthiness; and of the Dread of Blame, and of That of Blame–worthiness
• A Chap. III: Of the Influence and Authority of Conscience
• A Chap. IV: Of the Nature of Self–deceit, and of the Origin and Use of General Rules
• A Chap. V A: of the Influence and Authority of the General Rules of Morality, and That They Are Justly Regarded As the Laws of the Deity
• A Chap. Vi A: In What Cases the Sense of Duty Ought to Be the Sole Principle of Our Conduct; and In What Cases It Ought to Concur With Other Motives
• Part IV: Of the Effect of Utility Upon the Sentiment of Approbation a Consisting of One Section a
• B Chap. I B: of the Beauty Which the Appearance of Utility Bestows Upon All the Productions of Art, and of the Extensive Influence of This Species of Beauty
• A Chap. Ii A: of the Beauty Which the Appearance of Utility Bestows Upon the Characters and Actions of Men; and How Far the Perception of This Beauty May Be Regarded As One of the Original Principles of Approbation
• Part V: Of the Influence of Custom and Fashion Upon the Sentiments of Moral Approbation and Disapprobation a Consisting of One Section a
• B Chap. 1 B: of the Influence of Custom and Fashion Upon Our Notions of Beauty and Deformity
• A Chap. Ii A: of the Influence of Custom and Fashion Upon Moral Sentiments
• A Part VI: Of the Character of Virtue Consisting of Three Sections
• Introduction
• A a Section I: Of the Character of the Individual, So Far As It Affects His Own Happiness; Or of Prudence a
• Section II: Of the Character of the Individual, So Far As It Can Affect the Happiness of Other People
• Introduction
• Chap. I.: Of the Order In Which Individuals Are Recommended By Nature to Our Care and Attention
• Chap. II: Of the Order In Which Societies Are By Nature Recommended to Our Beneficence
• Chap. III: Of Universal Benevolence
• Section III: Of Self–command
• Conclusion of the Sixth Part
• Part VII: Of Systems of Moral Philosophy Consisting of Four Sections
• Section I: A of the Questions Which Ought to Be Examined In a Theory of Moral Sentiments a
• Section II: A of the Different Accounts Which Have Been Given of the Nature of Virtue a
• Introduction
• Chap. I: Of Those Systems Which Make Virtue Consist In Propriety
• Chap. II: Of Those Systems Which Make Virtue Consist In Prudence
• Chap. III: Of Those Systems Which Make Virtue Consist In Benevolence
• Chap. IV: Of Licentious Systems
• Section III: Of the Different Systems Which Have Been Formed Concerning the Principle of Approbation
• Introduction
• Chap. I: Of Those Systems Which Deduce the Principle of Approbation From Self–love
• Chap. II: Of Those Systems Which Make Reason the Principle of Approbation
• Chap. III: Of Those Systems Which Make Sentiment the Principle of Approbation
• Section IV: Of the Manner In Which Different Authors Have Treated of the Practical Rules of Morality
• Appendix I: Minor Variants
• Appendix II: The Passage On Atonement, and a Manuscript Fragment On Justice
• Addendum to Introduction, Pp. 32–3

chap. iii

Of the utility of this constitution of Nature

1It is thus that man, who can subsist only in society, was fitted by nature to that situation for which he was made. All the members of human society stand in need of each others assistance, and are likewise exposed to mutual injuries. Where the necessary assistance is reciprocally afforded from love, from gratitude, from friendship, and esteem, the society flourishes and is happy. All the different members of it are bound together by the agreeable bands of love and affection, and are, as it were, drawn to one common centre of mutual good offices.

2But though the necessary assistance should not be afforded from such generous and disinterested motives, though among the different members of the society there should be no mutual love and affection, the society, though less happy and agreeable, will not necessarily be dissolved. Society may subsist among different men, as among different merchants, from a sense of its utility, without any mutual love or affection; and though no man in it should owe any obligation, or be bound in gratitude to any other, it may still be upheld by a mercenary exchange of good offices according to an agreed valuation.

3Society, however, cannot subsist among those who are at all times ready to hurt and injure one another. The moment that injury begins, the moment that mutual resentment and animosity take place, all the bands of it are broke asunder, and the different members of which it consisted are, as it were, dissipated and scattered abroad by the violence and opposition of their discordant affections. If there is any society among robbers and murderers, they must at least, according to the trite observation, abstain from robbing and murdering one another. Beneficence, therefore, is less essential to the existence of society than justice. Society may subsist, though not in the most comfortable state, without beneficence; but the prevalence of injustice must utterly destroy it.

4Though Nature, therefore, exhorts mankind to acts of beneficence, by the pleasing consciousness of deserved reward, she has not thought it necessary to guard and enforce the practice of it by the terrors of merited punishment in case it should be neglected. It is the ornament which embellishes, not the foundation which supports the building, and which it was, therefore, sufficient to recommend, but by no means necessary to impose. Justice, on the contrary, is the main pillar that upholds the whole edifice. If it is removed, the great, the immense fabric of human society, that fabric which to raise and support seems in this world, if I may say so, to have been the peculiar and darling care of Nature, must in a moment crumble into atoms. In order to enforce the observation of justice, therefore, Nature has implanted in the human breast that consciousness of illdesert, those terrors of merited punishment which attend upon its violation, as the great safe–guards of the association of mankind, to protect the weak, to curb the violent, and to chastise the guilty. Men, though naturally sympathetic, feel so little for another, with whom they have no particular connexion, in comparison of what they feel for themselves; the misery of one, who is merely their fellow–creature, is of so little importance to them in comparison even of a small conveniency of their own; they have it so much in their power to hurt him, and may have so many temptations to do so, that if this principle did not stand up within them in his defence, and overawe them into a respect for his innocence, they would, like wild beasts, be at all times ready to fly upon him; and a man would enter an assembly of men as he enters a den of lions.

5In every part of the universe we observe means adjusted with the nicest artifice to the ends which they are intended to produce; and in the mechanism of a plant, or animal body, admire how every thing is contrived for advancing the two great purposes of nature, the support of the individual, and the propagation of the species. But in these, and in all such objects, we still distinguish the efficient from the final cause of their several motions and organizations. The digestion of the food, the circulation of the blood, and the secretion of the several juices which are drawn from it, are operations all of them necessary for the great purposes of animal life. Yet we never endeavour to account for them from those purposes as from their efficient causes, nor imagine that the blood circulates, or that the food digests of its own accord, and with a view or intention to the purposes of circulation or digestion. The wheels of the watch are all admirably adjusted to the end for which it was made, the pointing of the hour. All their various motions conspire in the nicest manner to produce this effect. If they were endowed with a desire and intention to produce it, they could not do it better. Yet we never ascribe any such desire or intention to them, but to the watch–maker, and we know that they are put into motion by a spring, which intends the effect it produces as little as they do. But though, in accounting for the operations of bodies, we never fail to distinguish in this manner the efficient from the final cause, in accounting for those of the mind we are very apt to confound these two different things with one another. When by natural principles we are led to advance those ends, which a refined and enlightened reason would recommend to us, we are very apt to impute to that reason, as to their efficient cause, the sentiments and actions by which we advance those ends, and to imagine that to be the wisdom of man, which in reality is the wisdom of God. Upon a superficial view, this cause seems sufficient to produce the effects which are ascribed to it; and the system of human nature seems to be more simple and agreeable when all its different operations are in this manner deduced from a single principle.

6As society cannot subsist unless the laws of justice are tolerably observed, as no social intercourse can take place among men who do not generally abstain from injuring one another; the consideration of this necessity, it has been thought, was the ground upon which we approved of the enforcement of the laws of justice by the punishment of those who violated them.1 Man, it has been said, has a natural love for society, and desires that the union of mankind should be preserved for its own sake, and though he himself was to derive no benefit from it. The orderly and flourishing state of society is agreeable to him, and he takes delight in contemplating it. Its disorder and confusion, on the contrary, is the object of his aversion, and he is chagrined at whatever tends to produce it. He is sensible too that his own interest is connected with the prosperity of society, and that the happiness, perhaps the preservation of his existence, depends upon its preservation. Upon every account, therefore, he has an abhorrence at whatever can tend to destroy society, and is willing to make use of every means, which can hinder so hated and so dreadful an event. Injustice necessarily tends to destroy it. Every appearance of injustice, therefore, alarms him, and he runs, if I may say so, to stop the progress of what, if allowed to go on, would quickly put an end to every thing that is dear to him. If he cannot restrain it by gentle and fair means, he must ^abeat^a it down by force and violence, and at any rate must put a stop to its further progress. Hence it is, they say, that he often approves of the enforcement of the laws of justice even by the capital punishment of those who violate them. The disturber of the public peace is hereby removed out of the world, and others are terrified by his fate from imitating his example.

7Such is the account commonly given of our approbation of the punishment of injustice. And so far this account is undoubtedly true, that we frequently have occasion to confirm our natural sense of the propriety and fitness of punishment, by reflecting how necessary it is for preserving the order of society. When the guilty is about to suffer that just retaliation, which the natural indignation of mankind tells them is due to his crimes; when the insolence of his injustice is broken and humbled by the terror of his approaching punishment; when he ceases to be an object of fear, with the generous and humane he begins to be an object of pity. The thought of what he is about to suffer extinguishes their resentment for the sufferings of others to which he has given occasion. They are disposed to pardon and forgive him, and to save him from that punishment, which in all their cool hours they had considered as the retribution due to such crimes. Here, therefore, they have occasion to call to their assistance the consideration of the general interest of society. They counterbalance the impulse of this weak and partial humanity by the dictates of a humanity that is more generous and comprehensive. They reflect that mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent, and oppose to the emotions of compassion which they feel for a particular person, a more enlarged compassion which they feel for mankind.

8Sometimes too we have occasion to defend the propriety of observing the general rules of justice by the consideration of their necessity to the support of society. We frequently hear the young and the licentious ridiculing the most sacred rules of morality, and professing, sometimes from the corruption, but more frequently from the vanity of their hearts, the most abominable maxims of conduct. Our indignation rouses, and we are eager to refute and expose such detestable principles. But though it is their intrinsic hatefulness and detestableness, which originally inflames us against them, we are unwilling to assign this as the sole reason why we condemn them, or to pretend that it is merely because we ourselves hate and detest them. The reason, we think, would not appear to be conclusive. Yet why should it not; if we hate and detest them because they are the natural and proper objects of hatred and detestation? But when we are asked why we should not act in such or such a manner, the very question seems to suppose that, to those who ask it, this manner of acting does not appear to be for its own sake the natural and proper object of those sentiments. We must show them, therefore, that it ought to be so for the sake of something else. Upon this account we generally cast about for other arguments, and the consideration which first occurs to us, is the disorder and confusion of society which would result from the universal prevalence of such practices. We seldom fail, therefore, to insist upon this topic.

9But though it commonly requires no great discernment to see the destructive tendency of all licentious practices to the welfare of society, it is seldom this consideration which first animates us against them. All men, even the most stupid and unthinking, abhor fraud, perfidy, and injustice, and delight to see them punished. But few men have reflected upon the necessity of justice to the existence of society, how obvious soever that necessity may appear to be.

10That it is not a regard to the preservation of society, which originally interests us in the punishment of crimes committed against individuals, may be demonstrated by many obvious considerations. The concern which we take in the fortune and happiness of individuals does not, in common cases, arise from that which we take in the fortune and happiness of society. We are no more concerned for the destruction or loss of a single man, because this man is a member or part of society, and because we should be concerned for the destruction of society, than we are concerned for the loss of a single guinea, because this guinea is a part of a thousand guineas, and because we should be concerned for the loss of the whole sum. In neither case does our regard for the individuals arise from our regard for the multitude: but in both cases our regard for the multitude is compounded and made up of the particular regards which we feel for the different individuals of which it is composed. As when a small sum is unjustly taken from us, we do not so much prosecute the injury from a regard to the preservation of our whole fortune, as from a regard to that particular sum which we have lost; so when a single man is injured, or destroyed, we demand the punishment of the wrong that has been done to him, not so much from a concern for the general interest of society, as from a concern for that very individual who has been injured. It is to be observed, however, that this concern does not necessarily include in it any degree of those exquisite sentiments which are commonly called love, esteem, and affection, and by which we distinguish our particular friends and acquaintance. The concern which is requisite for this, is no more than the general fellow–feeling which we have with every man merely because he is our fellow–creature. We enter into the resentment even of an odious person, when he is injured by those to whom he has given no provocation. Our disapprobation of his ordinary character and conduct does not in this case altogether prevent our fellow–feeling with his natural indignation; though with those who are not either extremely candid, or who have not been accustomed to correct and regulate their natural sentiments by general rules, it is very apt to damp it.

11Upon some occasions, indeed, we both punish and approve of punishment, merely from a view to the general interest of society, which, we imagine, cannot otherwise be secured. Of this kind are all the punishments inflicted for breaches of what is called either civil police, or military discipline. Such crimes do not immediately or directly hurt any particular person; but their remote consequences, it is supposed, do produce, or might produce, either a considerable inconveniency, or a great disorder in the society. A centinel, for example, who falls asleep upon his watch, suffers death by the laws of war, because such carelessness might endanger the whole army. This severity may, upon many occasions, appear necessary, and, for that reason, just and proper. When the preservation of an individual is inconsistent with the safety of a multitude, nothing can be more just than that the many should be preferred to the one. Yet this punishment, how necessary soever, always appears to be excessively severe. The natural atrocity of the crime seems to be so little, and the punishment so great, that it is with great difficulty that our heart can reconcile itself to it. Though such carelessness appears very blamable, yet the thought of this crime does not naturally excite any such resentment, as would prompt us to take such dreadful revenge. A man of humanity must recollect himself, must make an effort, and exert his whole firmness and resolution, before he can bring himself either to inflict it, or to go along with it when it is inflicted by others. It is not, however, in this manner, that he looks upon the just punishment of an ungrateful murderer or parricide. His heart, in this case, applauds with ardour, and even with transport, the just retaliation which seems due to such detestable crimes, and which, if, by any accident, they should happen to escape, he would be highly enraged and disappointed. The very different sentiments with which the spectator views those different punishments, is a proof that his approbation of the one is far from being founded upon the same principles with that of the other. He looks upon the centinel as an unfortunate victim, who, indeed, must, and ought to be, devoted to the safety of numbers, but whom still, in his heart, he would be glad to save; and he is only sorry, that the interest of the many should oppose it. But if the murderer should escape from punishment, it would excite his highest indignation, and he would call upon God to avenge, in another world, that crime which the injustice of mankind had neglected to chastise upon earth.

12For it well deserves to be taken notice of, that we are so far from imagining that injustice ought to be punished in this life, merely on account of the order of society, which cannot otherwise be maintained, that Nature teaches us to hope, and ^breligion, we suppose, authorises^b us to expect, that it will be punished, even in a life to come. Our sense of its ill desert pursues it, if I may say so, even beyond the grave, though the example of its punishment there cannot serve to deter the rest of mankind, who see it not, who know it not, from being guilty of the like practices here. The justice of God, however, we think, still requires, that he should hereafter avenge the injuries of the widow and the fatherless, who are here so often insulted with impunity. ^cIn every religion, and in every superstition that the world has ever beheld, accordingly, there has been a Tartarus as well as an Elysium; a place provided for the punishment of the wicked, as well as one for the reward of the just.^c

SECTION III

Of the Influence of Fortune upon the Sentiments of Mankind, with regard to the Merit or Demerit of Actions

[1] Like Eckstein (i.290), we think that Smith has Hume in mind here. Hume’s Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals (1751), III, argues forcibly that ‘public utility is the sole origin of justice’; cf. Enquiry, appendix iii. (In the earlier Treatise of Human Nature, III.ii.2, the account of justice is essentially the same, but Hume does not give all the emphasis to utility.) Although Hume is largely concerned with the civil law of property, he speaks of ‘justice’ and ‘equity’ generally and in one place (Enquiry, III.i; ed. Selby–Bigge, § 148) includes a reference to the equity of punishment as depending on utility. At the beginning of § 7 below Smith writes of § 6 as the account of punishment ‘commonly given’, and in LJ(A) ii.90 he says that utilitarian theories of punishment have been held by ‘Grotius and other writers’. Nevertheless he must surely have had Hume’s Enquiry at the forefront of his thoughts when he prepared the present chapter for publication in 1759. The sentences that follow in § 6 seem to refer particularly to Hume’s view that utility pleases through sympathy.

[^a–a]1 2 bear 3–7 bear is probably a printer’s error.

[^b–b] religion authorises 1 2 See Appendix II.

[^c–c]This sentence was added in ed. 6, replacing a concluding paragraph that had appeared in eds. 1–5. We give below the text of the paragraph as printed in ed. 1, with the variants of later editions. See also Appendix II.

That the Deity loves virtue and hates vice, as a voluptuous man loves riches and hates poverty, not for their own sakes, but for the effects which they tend to produce; that he loves the one, only because it promotes the happiness of society, which his benevolence prompts him to desire; and that he hates the other, only because it occasions the misery of mankind, which the same divine quality renders the object of his aversion; is not the doctrine of nature, but of an artificial, though ingenious, refinement of philosophy. All our natural sentiments [of untaught nature but of an artificial refinement of reason and philosophy. Our untaught, natural sentiments, all 3–5] prompt us to believe, that as perfect virtue is supposed necessarily to appear to the Deity, as it does to us, for its own sake, and without any further view, the natural and proper object of love and reward, so must vice, of hatred and punishment. That the gods neither resent nor hurt, was the general maxim of all the different sects of the ancient philosophy: and if, by resenting, be understood, that violent and disorderly perturbation, which often distracts and confounds the human breast; or if, by hurting, be understood, the doing mischief wantonly, and without regard to propriety or justice, such weakness is undoubtedly unworthy of the divine perfection. But if it be meant, that vice does not appear to the Deity to be, for its own sake, the object of abhorrence and aversion, and what, for its own sake, it is fit and right should be punished, the truth of this maxim can, by no means, be so easily admitted. [maxim seems repugnant to some very natural feelings. 3–5] If we consult our natural sentiments, we are apt [are even apt 3–5] to fear, lest [lest, 2–5] before the holiness of God, vice should appear to be more worthy of punishment than the weakness and imperfection of human virtue can ever seem to be of reward. Man, when about to appear before a being of infinite perfection, can feel but little confidence in his own merit, or in the imperfect propriety of his own conduct. In the presence of his fellow–creatures, he may often [may even 2–5] justly elevate himself, and may often have reason to think highly of his own character and conduct, compared to the still greater imperfection of theirs. But the case is quite different when about to appear before his infinite Creator. To such a being, he can scarce imagine, that his littleness and weakness should ever seem to be [being, he fears, that his littleness and weakness can scarce ever appear 3–5] the proper object, either of esteem or of reward. But he can easily conceive, how the numberless violations of duty, of which he has been guilty, should render him the proper object of aversion and punishment; neither can he see any [and he thinks he can see no 3–5] reason why the divine indignation should not be let loose without any restraint, upon so vile an insect, as he is sensible [he imagines 3–5] that he himself must appear to be. If he would still hope for happiness, he is conscious [he suspects 3–5] that he cannot demand it from the justice, but that he must entreat it from the mercy of God. Repentance, sorrow, humiliation, contrition at the thought of his past conduct, are, [seem, 3–5] upon this account, the sentiments which become him, and seem to [and to 3–5] be the only means which he has left for appeasing that wrath which, he knows, he has justly provoked. He even distrusts the efficacy of all these, and naturally fears, lest the wisdom of God should not, like the weakness of man, be prevailed upon to spare the crime, by the most importunate lamentations of the criminal. Some other intercession, some other sacrifice, some other atonement, he imagines, [imagines 2–5] must be made for him, beyond what he himself is capable of making, before the purity of the divine justice can be reconciled to his manifold offences. The doctrines of revelation coincide, in every respect, with those original anticipations of nature; and, as they teach us how little we can depend upon the imperfection of our own virtue, so they show us, at the same time, that the most powerful intercession has been made, and that the most dreadful atonement has been paid for our manifold transgressions and iniquities.