I’m really
interested in the real world implications of Smith’s claims about sympathy. In
particular, I’m convinced that his beliefs strongly necessitate the
participation of more diverse politicians in public office. I will focus on
women, because that’s what I know best, but this extends to people of color,
those who are low-income, transgender people, etc.
In Part 1 sec. 1 ch. 5, Smith breaks
down the experience of sympathy into two ways of expressing ‘sentiments’.
Firstly, one can sympathize without holding any particular relation to another
or their sentiments. For example, two people may find particular joy in a
certain poem. In order to do this, it is not necessary to put oneself in the
other’s shoes. Furthermore, one can preserve “harmony and correspondence” (20)
with another despite disagreements; there is nothing innately controversial
about disagreements in these cases. Secondly, one can sympathize with another
over an experience that greatly affected one party. In this case, one must
imagine the other’s situation; there must be some “correspondence of sentiments
between the spectator and the person principally concerned” (21). If one does
not sympathize with the other, there cannot be a reconciliation of these
differences.
Furthermore, the emotions of this
second kind of sympathetic exchange will not be shared equally between the
participant and the spectator. In fact, Smith asserts that although mankind is
“naturally sympathetic,” one can “never conceive…what has befallen another,
that degree of passion which naturally animates the person principally
concerned” (21).
While women make up 50% of the
population, they constitute approximately 20% of all the leadership positions
in the House and Senate.[1]
This lack of representation greatly impacts the lives of women in the U.S. It
is predominantly men who present legislation and vote on legislation. It is
concerning that men hold so much influence over legislation that greatly
affects women (title IX, reproductive rights). How can one accurately protect
the entire populace’s interests when one sex’s opinions (or simple ignorance)
are favored and codified into law? Putting oneself in another’s shoes is
possible—and greatly effective in terms of the sympathy that it invokes.
However, men cannot entirely experience the suffering that has accompanied the historical
and present day subjugation of an entire sex.
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