The Theory of Moral Sentiments
Adam Smith, Ryan Patrick Hanley (Editor), Amartya Sen (Introduction), Ryan Patrick HanleyBooks.org participates in affiliate programs including Bookshop.org and the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. We may earn a commission from qualifying purchases made through links on this page, at no additional cost to you.
Overview
About the Author:Born in Kirkcaldy, Scotland, in 1723, Adam Smith delivered a series of public lectures in Edinburgh beginning in 1748. The success of these lectures led ultimately to Smith's election to the Chair of Moral Philosophy at the University of Glasgow in 1752, where he distinguished himself as a teacher. Every morning of the term, Smith lectured his high-school-age audience in natural theology, ethics, and jurisprudence. The Theory of Moral Sentiments is a re-working of the ethics segment of his yearly cycle of lectures.
Synopsis
Invoked today as the father of economic liberalism, Adam Smith derives political order, social conformity, economic progress, and moral behavior from the network of sympathetic relationships binding individuals to one another. Drawing on the work of Frances Hutcheson and David Hume, Smith makes an original contribution to the empiricist tradition within ethics by elaborating notions of imaginative sympathy and the impartial spectator. In addition to the merit of its arguments, The Theory of Moral Sentiments is a fascinating window on eighteenth-century Scottish thought and society, and it invites the reader to reflect upon his or her own feelings and conduct towards others.