The Inception of Rationality

(1)   “Our senses… never did, and never can, carry us beyond our own person, and it is by the imagination only that we can form any conception of what are his sensations.” (I.I.2)

(2)   “Sympathy, therefore, does not arise so much from the view of the passion, as from that of the situation which excites it.” (I.I.10)

(3)   “Every faculty in one man is the measure by which he judges the like faculty in another.” (I.I.29)

(4)   “We reverence that reserved, that silent and majestic sorrow… in the distant, but affecting, coldness of the whole behavior.” (I.I.42)

(5)   “We admire that noble and generous resentment which governs its pursuit of the greatest injuries, not by the rage which they are apt to excite in the breast of the sufferer, but by the indignation which they naturally call forth in that of the impartial spectator.” (I.I.43)

(6)   “To restrain our selfish, and to indulge our benevolent affections, constitutes the perfection of human nature.” (I.I.44)

(7)   “The amiable virtue of humanity requires, surely, a sensibility, much beyond what is possessed by the rude vulgar of mankind. The great and exalted virtue of magnanimity undoubtedly demands much more than that degree of self-command, which the weakest of mortals is capable of exerting. (I.I.45)

(8)   “The propriety of every passion is excited by objects peculiarly related to ourselves, the pitch which the spectator can go along with, must lie, it is evident, in a certain mediocrity.” (I.II.1)

(9)   The man, who under the severest of tortures allows no weakness to escape him, vents no groan, gives way to no passion which we do not enter into, commands our highest admiration.” (I.II.14)

(10)“When we consider the condition of the great… it seems to be almost the abstract idea of a perfect and happy state.” (I.III.17)

Hopefully, these quotes (and my title), give you a good idea of where I am going with this. Each of these quotes, and the whole passage, I believe, leads to the classic economic idea of rationality. While they do lay out morals along the way, none of the morals are incongruous with the idea of rationality. I picked the quotes above because I think they best lend themselves to this idea.

1, 2, 3: When viewing a situation with more than one individual, how can those individuals be said to act? Smith would say, in their best imagination of the others in the situation. Each has a concept (based on themselves) of what it would be reasonable (or rational) for the other to do in the situation. Aggregated across the situation (even if it only includes two parties), we end up with a concept of what it is rational to do in the situation, based on the overlap of the different opinions. Specifically, in quote 2, we are said to appeal to the situation, which makes it even less personal.

4, 5, 9: In each of these quotes, the best of humankind are those who are able to totally control and comport themselves in situations of duress. The rest of us admire those few, and strive to be like them. We admire them because we would not be able to feel their pain (literally), and we appreciate them undertaking the effort to experience the situation as we do. In an everyday situation, we can act like them, in a composed manner. Thus the idea of cool rationality is born.

6: In light of the two passages directly preceding this one, I interpreted this to mean not acting benevolently by giving alms to the poor, but rather by comporting oneself in a restrained, cool manner. That is to say, acting in a way that is in line with how a spectator would see the situation, i.e. rationally.

7: We (even the lowest among us) are sensible and in command of our selves.

8: The passion of others is related to us in a mediocre fashion. That is to say, we can experience an idea of what others are feeling, but only in a down-the-middle, average sort of way.

10: The entirety of section 3, chapter 2, and in particular this quote, seemed to me to be an explanation of why it is rational for all human beings to desire wealth and status.