Response to Henry

I tried to post this as a comment on Henry's post, but it was too long for a blog comment, so I am posting it here!

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Hey Henry!

I want to challenge your interpretation of several of the things Smith is saying.

1,2,3: I'm not sure Smith would conclude that the act of sympathy is impersonal simply because we take into account the circumstances of the passions gripping a fellow stranger. The act of sympathy itself, it seems, is powerfully personal -- we are literally trying, to the best of our abilities, to emulate the circumstances of another person. We seek to understand the situation which excited the passion so that we may understand whether or not the passion is justified -- it's not selfish or inhumane to think it unworthy of our time to sympathize with someone crying over spilled milk, but, we think it much more dignified to grieve over the loss of a father.

4,5,9: I don't think Smith believes the "best of humankind are those who are able to totally control and comport themselves in situations of duress" at all. Smith states that "if you have either no fellow-feeling for the misfortunes I have met with, or none that bears any proportion to the grief which distracts me; or if you have either no indignation at the injuries I have suffered, or none that bears any proportion to the resentment which transports me, we can no longer converse upon these subjects. We become intolerable to one another. You are confounded at my violence and passion, and I am enraged at your cold insensibility and want of feeling " (I.IV.5). Sympathy is a two-way street and, when passion is justified, it is inhuman to withhold proper passion.

6: The best of human kind are those who "indulge [their] benevolent affections" -- that is, those who are best at extending their hand of sympathy. He is describing the exact opposite of "cool rationality" which would deny alms to a (justifiably displaced) beggar. Moving into his praise of friendship, Smith argues that the restrain of selfish passions can take the following form: "Men of the most ordinary good-breeding dissemble the pain which any little incident may give them; and those who are more thoroughly formed to society, turn, of their own accord, all such incidents into raillery, as they know their companions will do for them. The habit which a man, who lives in the world, has acquired of considering how every thing that concerns himself will appear to others, makes those frivolous calamities turn up in the same ridiculous light to him, in which he knows they will certainly be considered by them. "(I.III.34) Basically, the best people are those who can turn their own pain into humor for and sympathize with others.

7: Smith is not highlighting that even the lowliest of humans are capable of self-control, rather, he is exalting the virtue of magnanimity! That is, Smith is arguing that generosity and sympathy are marks of true humanity which lives above mere wild beasts. The sentence before the quote you cite is: "The amiable virtue of humanity requires, surely, a sensibility, much beyond what is possessed by the rude vulgar of mankind" (I.I.45). He is arguing that humanity requires a much higher degree of self-command to achieve excellence and Virtue -- a much loftier and noble goal.

8: I don't think Smith is saying that we can only experience an idea of what others are feeling in a "down-the-middle, average sort of way." Smith cites countless examples of how powerfully sympathy can affect us. Certainly, Smith believes that certain passions and circumstances excite us more than others -- but it is this proportionality that matters. Some things excite us with sympathy, others don't. While certainly the sympathized and the sympathizer meet somewhere in the middle between the extremes of passion, this doesn't mean the experience is average. Smith cites the endless array of tragedies which continue to grip our hearts and move us to action. Further, we can only easily imagine the immense grief we experience for a loved one who has died. Passion is not related in a mediocre fashion.

10: I'm not sure what your definition of rational is here. Certainly Smith explained the powerful motivational forces guiding us towards status and fame, but his cautionary warnings would serve as a contradiction to "rationality."

According to Smith, to "those who have been accustomed to the possession, or even to the hope of public admiration, all other pleasures sicken and decay" (I.III.23) Of all the "discarded statesmen who for their own ease have studied to get the better of ambition, and to despise those honours which they could no longer arrive at ... the greater part have spent their time in the most listless and insipid insolence, chagrined at the thoughts of their own insignificancy, incapable of being interested in the occupations of private life, without enjoyment, except when they talked of their former greatness, and without satisfaction, except when they were employed in some vain project to recover it" (I.III.23). Smith warns, "never enter the place whence so few have been able to return; never come within the circle of ambition; nor ever bring yourself into comparison with those masters of the earth who have already engrossed the attention of half mankind before you" (I.III.23). And that "great object which divides the wives of aldermen, is the end of half the labours of human life; and is the cause of all the tumult and bustle, all the rapine and injustice, which avarice and ambition have introduced into this world" (I.III.23).

To me, Smith is not championing the "rational" self which desires the sympathy of the world the applause and attention. When smith said to repress the selfish passions, I think, he means for us to suppress our never ending vanity and desire for the world to pay attention to us and our status. The terrifying picture he paints above demonstrates why the pursuit of status is both self destructive and outwardly destructive -- responsible for the death of private life and the injustice of our world.