11.08.2011

TMS: Of Sympathy

Adam Smith in Part 1, Section 1, Ch 1, Of Sympathy (Theory of Moral Sentiments 1790) argues that sympathy (interest in the fortune of others or fellow-feeling) is a part of human nature unavoidably experienced by all people whether they want to or not. He develops this argument through several examples that induce sympathy of some kind: seeing someone about to get hit, a mob watching a hanging, seeing itching sores of beggars, looking upon sore eyes, hearing the cries of an infant, loss of reason in another, and death of another. His purpose is to develop a conception of the process by which the experience of sympathy takes place--one person imagines being in the place of another and projects his feelings onto the situation--in order to further develop this idea in the next chapter: "Of the Pleasure of mutual Sympathy".

No comments: