The Theory of Moral Sentiments (77 page)

84
Together the “Cambridge Platonists,” collectively united by a suspicion of the materialist metaphysics of Descartes, Spinoza, and Hobbes, and a commitment to reconciling Platonic reason with Christian revelation. For their teachings on divine love, see, e.g., More,
An Essay on Disinterested Love
(Glasgow, 1756); and John Smith,
Select Discourses
5.2-4.

85
On the double sympathy that recommends benevolence and its amiable weaknesses, see esp. 1.2.4 (p. 48).

86
Hutcheson’s discussions of benevolence include
Inquiry into Beauty and Virtue
2.2-3, on which several of Smith’s discrete observations that follow depend.

87
Here and below Smith regards Hutcheson as a hard-line moral rigorist. As Smith notes, Hutcheson in various places suggests that self-interested motives can lessen moral merit; see, e.g.,
Inquiry into Beauty and Virtue
2.2.3;
Short Introduction
2.3.6; and
System
2.2.1. But elsewhere, Hutcheson’s views are somewhat more moderate; see, e.g.,
Inquiry into Beauty and Virtue
2.3.5 (which presents the view of self-love as “indifferent” to which Smith refers) and
Essay with Illustrations
2.4, as well as his discussions of the “sense of honor” (
Short Introduction
1.1.13 and 1.2.8; and
System
1.2.6 and 1.5).

88
On public good as a universal standard, see, e.g.,
Inquiry into Beauty and Virtue
2.3.3, in which Hutcheson references the “late debates about passive obedience, and the right of resistance” instigated by Berkeley’s
Passive Obedience
(1712); see also Hume’s intervention in “Of Passive Obedience.”

89
For Hutcheson’s equations of virtue with degrees of benevolence, see
Inquiry into Beauty and Virtue
2.3.8;
Short Introduction
1.1.11, 1.3.1;
System
1.4.10.

90
The similarity between this locution and Smith’s use of the phrase “one of the multitude” on three occasions in
TMS
(2.2.2 and note above) suggests the influence of Hutcheson.

91
Smith’s references are to
Inquiry into Beauty and Virtue
2.2.4 and
Essay with Illustrations
2.5. But Hutcheson’s own claim seems rather to be that self-approbation presumes a natural regard for the happiness of others; see, e.g.,
Essay with Illustrations
1.1.3, 1.4.5, 2.1.

92
Hutcheson is not entirely silent on these (see, e.g.,
Short Introduction
1.3.3, 1.6.3, 1.7.2, 3.8.2-3), but Smith is right to suggest that Hutcheson’s focus is on their utility or effects.

93
Smith here repeats his claim concerning Hume’s four sources of virtue from 4.2 above. For Hume’s “definition of virtue,” see esp.
Enquiry Concerning Morals
8n and 9.12; for the specific claim that moderation renders affections useful, see
Enquiry Concerning Morals
6.2.

94
On the Epicurean view of the utility of virtue, see, e.g., Cicero,
De finibus
1.42-54.

95
Earlier editions also mentioned La Rochefoucauld as another example of a “licentious system,” but Smith withdrew his references after an objection from a descendent of La Rochefoucauld.

96
Smith’s treatment here is anticipated in his 1756 letter to the
Edinburgh Review
, which described “the principles and ideas of the profligate Mandeville” as agents of “corruption and licentiousness” that were in turn “softened, improved, and embellished” by Rousseau.

97
For representative statements of Mandeville’s views on the naturalness of self-preference, see “An Enquiry into the Origin of Moral Virtue,” in Kaye’s edition of the
Fable
, vol. 1, p. 41; and
Enquiry into the Origin of Honour
(London, 1732), 39. On vanity and the love of praise as motives of human action, see “Enquiry,” 54-55;
Fable
, Remarks C, M, and R; and
Enquiry into the Origin of Honor
, 5-7.

98
A paraphrase of Mandeville’s claim at “Enquiry,” p. 51.

99
In emphasizing here against Mandeville “the honourable and noble,” Smith likely has in mind not only the classical conceptions of
to kalon
and the
honestum
as described by Aristotle and Cicero (see note to 3.3 above), but also eighteenth-century attempts to recover these categories against champions of psychological egoism; see, e.g., Shaftesbury,
Characteristicks
Miscellany 3, Chapter 2, note; Berkeley,
Alciphron
3; Hutcheson,
Short Introduction
1.1.10 and his inaugural oration at the University of Glasgow, “On the Natural Sociability of Mankind”; cf. Mandeville “A Search into the Nature of Society,” in
Fable
, vol. 1, pp. 323-326.

100
Smith’s differentiation here of three distinct orientations to praise—“vanity” (the indiscriminate love of praise), “the love of true glory” (the desire to deserve and to claim praises), and “the love of virtue” (the desire of becoming what is honorable and noble, whether recognized and praised or not) is a crucial element of his argument in the sixth edition; see, e.g., Smith’s restatement of these three levels in his discussion of praiseworthiness in 3.2 (p. 136).

101
For Mandeville’s rigorist views on luxury, see the opening of Remark L of the
Fable
; on lust, see
Fable
, Remark N.

102
For representative statements of Mandeville’s rigorist association of virtue with self-denial, see, e.g.,
Fable
, Remark O; and “Search into the Nature of Society,” p. 331; for his claim that “the generous Notions concerning the natural Goodness of Man are hurtful as they tend to mis-lead, and are merely Chimerical,” see, e.g., “Search into the Nature of Society,” pp. 343, 365, 369; and
Fable
, Remarks V, X, and Y.

103
See Descartes,
Principia philosophiae
3. Smith elaborates on the theory of vortices in
Astronomy
4.61-66.

PART VII, CHAPTER III

1
Smith’s account of the sources of approbation speaks to a key controversy in contemporary British moral philosophy; both Hutcheson (see
Essay with Illustrations
2. Preface) and Hume (see
Treatise
3.1.1 and
Enquiry Concerning Morals
1.3-10, App. 1) take the grounds of approbation as their point of departure. Yet while this remains the primary question for Hume, Smith calls it, in the paragraph above, “the next question of importance in Moral Philosophy.” Hutcheson and Hume had an interchange over whether the primary purpose of moral philosophy was the practical teaching of virtue or the speculative inquiry into the origin of moral principles. In a letter to Hutcheson (17 September 1739), Hume suggests that Hutcheson identified with the former aim where Hume sides with the latter—positions borne out in their published works (compare, e.g., Hutcheson,
Short Introduction
Preface; and Hume,
Enquiry Concerning Understanding
1). Smith’s identification of the question “wherein does virtue consist” as his primary question raises the question of whether he sides with Hutcheson’s rather than Hume’s understanding of the purpose of moral philosophy. Smith treats Hutcheson and Hume below at 7.3.3 as representatives of the sentiment view; the self-love view (Hobbes, et.al.) is treated at 7.3.1 and the reason view (esp. Cudworth) at 7.3.2.

2
To call Pufendorf a “follower” of Hobbes is misleading; more accurate is Smith’s claim at
Jurisprudence
B 3 that Pufendorf wrote partly to “confute Hobbes”; see also notes below.

3
For Hobbes’s conception of the absence of natural sociability and the instrumental value of civil society, see, e.g.,
De cive
1.2; in a related vein, see Mandeville, “Search into the Nature of Society,” pp. 344, 346. Other natural law theorists were considerably more optimistic about the possibility of natural sociability coexisting with self-love; see, e.g., Grotius,
Rights of War and Peace
Preliminary Discourse 6-8; Pufendorf,
Law of Nature and Nations
2.3.14-16, 7.1.2-3; and esp. Hutcheson,
System
1.2.11, 3.4 and “Natural Sociability of Mankind.” Pufendorf particularly emphasizes how man’s natural weakness renders him dependent upon the assistance of others and renders ness renders him dependent upon the assistance of others and renders civil society necessary (see, e.g.,
Duty of Man and Citizen
1.3.3, 2.1.4, 2.1.9-10, 2.5;
Law of Nature and Nations
7.1.7).

4
See 4.1 (p. 209).

5
In accord with the first line of the previous paragraph Smith here seems to delineate a second strain, distinct from Hobbes and his followers, of thinkers who account for approbation from self-love. His reference in the middle of the present paragraph to the discussion of beauty as utility in 4 may suggest that among the thinkers who celebrate the advantages of civilized over savage life that he has in mind is Hume (see esp.
Treatise
3.2.1-2); see also Kames,
Essays on Morality and Religion
1.2.1 and 1.2.8.

6
For the debate on the question of whether self-interest shapes our approbation of the characters of “distant ages,” see, e.g., Hutcheson,
Inquiry into Beauty and Virtue
2.1.2-4 and
Essay with Illustrations
2. Preface; and Hume,
Enquiry Concerning Morals
5.7-15.

7
On the state of nature as a state of war, see
De cive
1.12, 5.2;
Leviathan
13.8; and responses in Pufendorf,
Law of Nature and Nations
2.2.6- 9; Locke,
Essay Concerning Civil Government
19; and Rousseau,
Discourse on Inequality
1.

8
On the preeminence of self-preservation in our moral psychology, see, e.g., Hobbes,
De cive
1.14; Pufendorf,
Duty of Man and Citizen
1.3.2. On the necessity of obedience, see, e.g.,
De cive
5.7, 11, 6.13;
Leviathan
17. For Hobbes’s positivist conception that justice is the product of law, see, e.g.,
De cive
1.10, 15.17 and
Leviathan
6.6, 13.12, 15.3; see also Locke,
Essay Concerning Human Understanding
2.28.5, 2.28.10-11; and Hume,
Treatise
3.2.8.4.

9
Smith describes Hobbes’s aims similarly at
Jurisprudence
B 2, which explicitly mentions his argument that the origin of the Civil Wars lay in the conflict of ecclesiastical and civil powers. In both instances Smith likely has in mind the analysis of the dangers posed by “two kingdoms in one and the same nation” and the claim that the “virtue of a subject is comprehended solely in obedience to the laws of the commonwealth” as developed in Part 1 of Hobbes’s
Behemoth
. On the unification of these two kingdoms, see
De cive
18.13;
Leviathan
43.22.

10
Cudworth dedicated the first book of his
Treatise Concerning Eternal and Immutable Morality
to critique of ancient (esp. Epicurean) and modern (esp. Hobbesian) systems of positivism; see 1.1.3-4. For his critique of the materialist metaphysics underlying Hobbesian positivism, see 2.3-4, 4.3.15, 4.6.4-5.

11
For Cudworth’s arguments that value exists antecedent to law and resides particularly in the nature of the internal operations of the mind, see, e.g.,
Immutable Morality
, 1.2.3-4, 4.6.12.

12
See esp. Hutcheson,
Essay with Illustrations
2.1.

13
Smith principally has Hutcheson in mind here, as the remainder of this chapter makes clear. Other authors well known to Smith also influential in the debates over moral sense include Shaftesbury,
Inquiry Concerning Virtue
1.3.1-3; Hume,
Treatise
3.1.2; and Kames,
Essays on Morality and Religion
1.2.2.

14
Smith has Hume particularly in mind here, as the last paragraph of this chapter makes clear. For Hume’s comparison of moral sense systems with those founded on sympathy, see esp.
Treatise
3.3.6.3.

15
For Hutcheson’s conception of approbation as not founded on self-love, see, e.g.,
Inquiry into Beauty and Virtue
2.1.4-5; for his conception of approbation as not founded on reason, see, e.g.,
Essay with Illustrations
2.1.

16
For Hutcheson’s comparisons of the external and internal senses, see, e.g.,
Inquiry into Beauty and Virtue
1.10-11; and
Short Introduction
1.1.3-4.

17
In referring here to the “Treatise of the Passions,” Smith may have in mind Hutcheson’s brief discussion of reflection in the Preface to the
Essay with Illustrations
(esp. in the 1742 edition, which names Locke explicitly). Hutcheson’s distinction between the direct and the reflex senses is more fully drawn in his
Synopsis of Metaphysics
2.1.3 and
Short Introduction
1.1.3-4. Locke’s distinction between sensation and reflection is drawn in his
Essay Concerning Human Understanding
2.1.4 and 2.6.1-2.