Accoding to The Theory of Moral Sentiments , in the eyes of Adam Smith , what kind of man commands our highest admiration ?

Question

Accoding to The Theory of Moral Sentiments , in the eyes of Adam Smith , what kind of man commands our highest admiration ?

Answer 1

Hi Ed. S.,

I provide these general tips to help answer this question and possibly to draft out an outline for an essay on that particular topic.

Adam Smith, a Scottish philosopher and economist, due to his living across a market, daily watches through the window people exchanging things. That explains his interest in human behavior in almost all his Works.

Smith also shapes his view of morality on the basis of human behavior rather than on the basis of religion. Influenced by David Hume, Smith specifically views sympathy as central to judging an action as right or wrong. That means your actions are right or wrong depending on whether you and people around you approve or disapprove of them. A specific example of that is when you incidentally find someone's wallet full of money and other important items. Only when you sympathize with that person that you can take that wallet back to them. You can only do that when you imagine an "Impartial Spectator" watching your actions and interviewing you. The concept of "Impartial Spectator" is central in Smith's view of morality, which means a fictitious character that is present with you during special circumstances in which it is crucial to decide what to do.

Adam Smith view of morality also shapes his political theory as well as his economics. That explains his emphasis on free-will, utility, self-worth, prosperity, which are values dominant in the eighteenth-century Enlightenment and afterwards.