Love as a foundation for sympathy: The role of imagination and recognition in Adam Smith’s The Theory of Moral Sentiments
Love as a foundation for sympathy: The role of imagination and recognition in Adam Smith’s The Theory of Moral Sentiments
Şule Özler*
Associate Professor, UCLA Economics Department,
Research Psychoanalyst, the New Center for Psychoanalysis, Los Angeles
I thank Marguerite Happe and Joseph Natterson for helpful comments.
Introduction
In several studies, it has been argued that Smith was hostile to some forms of love because they are closed to spectating (Den Uyl and Griswold, 1966; Griswold, 1999; Hanley, 2017; Nussbaum, 1990; Brubaker, 2003). Specifically, in Smith’s view, a spectator cannot enter into the physical lust of lovers because they close themselves to the sympathetic understanding of the spectator; in romantic love, because they can’t be the spectators of each other; loving friendship which is nonfamilial is closed off to the spectator; the actors identify themselves with God in zealous religious love and they lose perspective on their selves (Griswold, 1999). Based on these views, it has been argued that Adam Smith did not ground his moral theory in love but in sympathy. (Hanley, 2017)
However, without love, sympathy would not be possible. Smith was aware of the significance and value of love both for the individual and for society. Our contribution is to show that Smith’s sympathy is rooted in love (“Eros”: affective connectedness). The link from love to sympathy is thorough recognition of another’s subjectivity and imagination. Recognition is not possible without love, and recognition is required for the ability to imagine ourselves in another’s situation. To be able to put ourselves in another’s situation, through imagination, we must recognize the other’s subjectivity. In other words, recognition requires love, and we can put ourselves in another’s situation via imagination only when we recognize another’s subjectivity. Without recognition, sympathy would not be possible. Thus, sympathy is rooted in love.
What we mean with love is Eros. A common tendency is to reduce Eros to sexual desire; however, Eros is a deep human urge to form connections (Bodnar, 2006; Fairbairn, 1941; Jung, 1954; Loewald, 1972; Marcuse, 1955). Eros covers an entire spectrum of love from sexual love to love for our human fellows. It is foundational for all commitments to enhance and sustain life, to share who we are with others, and to build community. Eros is symbolically associated with qualities such as passion, connection, and community.
Love of humankind is present throughout The Theory of Moral Sentiments (TMS from here on). Some examples of Smith’s emphasis on love are the following. He states that a happy and flourishing society is one where the “necessary assistance is reciprocally afforded from love” (TMS, p. 100), “men have natural love for society” (TMS, p. 103), and the tranquility of mind which is necessary for our happiness is “best promoted by…passion of love” (TMS, p. 59). He also writes that “the chief part of human happiness arises from the consciousness of being beloved” (TMS, p. 50) and that “we have by nature the strongest desire” (TMS, p. 185) for love.
On recognition, Hegel (1807) states that love is the first stage of recognition. Psychoanalytically- oriented recognition theories, such as philosopher Honneth (1992) and psychoanalyst Benjamin (1988) formulate recognition as viewing another’s subjectivity as external to oneself and independent of oneself in a dyadic relationship (Benjamin, 1988, Honneth, 1992). The infant-mother intersubjective dyad becomes particularly important because the first form of recognition that humans experience is displayed in emotionally fulfilling interactions with loving and caring caregivers. According to psychoanalyst Winnicott (1969), recognition is not inborn, but it is a capacity that develops. He points out the importance of mother’s love for the development of the capacity for recognition (1960). Recognition is not specific to infancy but continues through one’s life span. Focusing on the infant-mother relationship brings forward the essential nature of love for the development of the capacity for recognition. Whether we are adults or infants, it would be impossible to recognize others with whom we have no affective connection.
Furthermore, the ability to put one’s self in another’s situation requires recognition. As stated by Honneth (2008, p. 45): “The act of placing oneself in the perspective of a second person requires an antecedent form of recognition…it always and necessarily contains an element of openness, devotedness, or love” (see also: Adorno, 1984; Cavell, 2002; Hobson,1993; and Tomasello, 1999).
Smith did not use the concept of recognition which was coined by Hegel. However, recognition is implicit in the sympathetic process. Sympathy is based on imaginatively putting one’s self into another’s situation. To imagine another, we must recognize him. Imagination provides a mental representation of another. With imagination, the reality of another becomes an object of awareness. The act of putting oneself into another’s situation means that we have recognized them. In addition, as Darwall (1999) states that sympathy involves “recognition of the other’s authority” (p. 158). Honneth (2019) states that recognizing another is giving them the normative authority to judge the “moral appropriateness of our own conduct” (p. 59).
Consistent with our view on the role of love, Fleischacker (2019) writes that in Smithian sympathy, we care for others as unique human beings. As Griswold (1999) states, the impartial spectator’s stance is one of caring for the other, which is an affective bond. The fact that there would be an affective bond between the spectator and the agent does not take away from the impartial spectator’s impartiality, as long as the spectator’s affective bond is appropriate so that his judgments are not partial. The spectator must be close enough physically to be well-informed, but affectively distant enough not to be partial (Forman-Barzilai, 2010). Smith emphasizes sympathy, not love, because he takes human desire to be connected as given. Smith often takes aspects of humans as naturally given in building his moral theory.
Not only is sympathy rooted in affective bonds, but it also serves to form bonds which develop, sustain and promote morality. Sympathy is an emotional glue which holds social relationships together. However, morality without the Eros that bonds humanity would be meaningless. It is only because we live in a world in which we are connected to each other with affective bonds that, morality is necessary to live in a civilized society.
It has also been argued that Smith moved away from love towards sympathy because an important utility of sympathy is to restrain our excessive self-love (see Hanley, 2017). However, sympathy which is not based on love can’t restrain excessive self-love when one takes into consideration that excessive self-love is a manifestation of narcissism. In narcissism, there is an inherent inability to feel into or appreciate anything other than one’s immediate needs. An agent who has excessive self-love can’t engage in a sympathetic process, because a narcissist does not have the capacity imagine another's perspective. Accordingly, an agent with excessive self-love does not have the capacity to adjust his sentiments even when faced with the disapproval of the spectator. The modern psychoanalytic paradigm views that often the treatment of narcissism requires good objects, which includes another who has the capacity to love (Fairbairn, 1958). Thus, a spectator who does not have the human capacity for an affective connection to others cannot restrain self-love of an agent. In other words, the sympathetic process would fail to operate if it were not based on affective bonds in the first place.
This paper is organized as follows. Section Two contains a description of how we define love based on the views of philosophers and psychoanalysts. In Section Three, we address Smith’s views on love. Section Four is an elaboration on the concept of recognition and the development of the capacity for recognition. Statements about the connections between love and recognition are in section Five. In Section Six, we describe the relationship between recognition and putting oneself in another’s situation. Section Seven is on sympathy and spectatorship. Section Eight presents psychoanalytic views on the development of the capacity for imagination. In Section Nine, we describe Smith’s account of imagination. Section Ten addresses connections between imagination, recognition and sympathy. Our concluding remarks are in Section Eleven.
Love
Challenging the Freudian concept of Eros as drive for sexual love, Marcuse (1955) of the Frankfurt School offered a definition of Eros that includes the vitality and generativity of pleasure and human connectedness, emphasizing the relational properties of Eros. In his writing, he views Eros as the “great unifying force that preserves all life” (Marcuse, p. 27). As such, in his view, the biological drive is transformed into a cultural drive. Sexuality is only one of the forms of Eros. Eros as a life force is always present in the ordinary relationships of living. He highlights the role of Eros in connecting people to one another and to the generative potential of human interaction. In the view of the Frankfurt School, Eros is energy. It is a neurological nonverbal communication which coheres the attachment of a child to the parents. Eros is the glue, the binding force, of all relationships. This glue is always used to create attachments in every other social relationship between individuals, groups and even institutions (Bodnar, 2006).
In the psychoanalytic literature, Fairbairn (1941) introduces the notion that libido is not primarily pleasure-seeking but is object-seeking (seeks out others); unlike what was advanced by Freud (1920). Similarly, Loewald (1972) emphasizes a motivation towards human connectedness. According to Jung, Eros is the “principle of relationship”; it is the capacity to form relationships based on desire and love. It is a force that brings us together (Collected Works 16:444). Even though Freud views love as a derivative of sexual instinct, in his last work he states:
Civilization is a process in the service of Eros, whose purpose is to combine single human individuals, and after that families, then races, peoples and nations, into greater unity, the unity of mankind (1930, p. 122).
The ability to love and to be loved emerges through an intersubjective relationship between the infant or the child with his primary caregiver (mother). The first love, Eros (or the lack of it) is found in what we experience with our primary caregivers. Love is central to the psychoanalyst Winnicott’s theory of a mother’s love: When manifested as “good enough”, mothering is essential for the infant’s maturation process. The “good enough” mother adapts to the infant’s needs. This adaptation gradually decreases depending on how well the infant tolerates the frustration of the decreasing adaptation: “Success in infant-care depends on the fact of devotion, not on cleverness or intellectual enlightenment” (1971, p. 10). Winnicott states:
At the beginning love can only be expressed effectually in terms of infant- and child-care, which means for us the provision of a facilitating or good enough environment, and which means for the infant a chance to evolve in a personal way according to the steady gradation of the maturational process (1965, p. 97).
The importance of love is also evident when Winnicott talks about “holding”:
Holding includes especially the physical holding of the infant, which is a form of loving. It is perhaps the only way in which a mother can show the infant her love. There are those who can hold an infant and those who cannot (1965, p. 49).
The primary caregiver’s love is essential for the path of a normal development process, which determines our inner capacities as adults, including the development of a loving self. Natterson (2018) defines the loving self as a self that loves itself, loves other(s), and is loved by other(s). According to Natterson, this can only be developed through a “loving experience with parents [which] occurs at the earliest time in most people’s lives” (Natterson, p. 17).
Smith on Love
Eros covers an entire spectrum of love from sexual love to love for our human fellows, as we see in in Smith’s writings on love. Smith’s hostility to the forms of love mentioned in the introduction does not take away from the centrality of love in his work. Smith was focused on “ordinary moral life” founded upon on our concerns for ourselves, for those who are in our circles, and for others (Griswold, 1999, p. 141). Smith’s focus was not on disciplining what we might call the private domain of sexual or romantic love, religious faith or even friendships.
Critic of Love
Smith’s critic of love first appears in the section on bodily passions. Writing about “the passion by which Nature unites the two sexes,” he states that “though naturally most furious of all the passions, all strong expressions of it are upon every occasion indecent” (TMS, p. 34).
He then writes about passions that take their origin from imagination, such as romantic love, and states that even these are “little sympathized” with (TMS, p. 38). In writing about the “strong attachment which naturally grows up between two persons of different sexes,” he states that “we cannot enter into the eagerness of his emotions” (TMS, p. 38). This is because the imagination of others cannot take that turn. Even though such love is natural, it “is always laughed at”; its strong expressions “appear ridiculous to a third person” (TMS, p. 38). Thus, the essence of Smith’s critic is that we cannot enter into this type of love.
However, Smith states that even though we don’t sympathize with such attachment and that we are not interested in it as a passion, we “readily enter into those high hopes of happiness…as well as that exquisite distress which is feared from its disappointment” (TMS, p. 39). Smith writes that even though such an attachment might be “ridiculous”, it is not “odious”, and that “its intentions are seldom mischievous” (TMS, p. 40).
About friendship, Smith states that we feel “those exquisite sentiments which are commonly called love, esteem, and affection” for our friends (TMS, p. 105). Even though Smith calls our love for our friends an “exquisite” sentiment, like love between the two sexes, it is closed to spectatorship: “A philosopher is company to a philosopher, only, the member of a club, to his own little knot of companions” (TMS, p. 41).
The Value and Significance of Love
Smith puts great emphasis on love in the TMS, and views it as the primary source of our happiness: “Love is an agreeable…passion” (TMS, p. 46). “The agreeable passions of love and joy can satisfy and support the heart without any auxiliary pleasure,” he writes (TMS, p. 19). “Tranquility of mind which is so necessary to happiness [is] best promoted by…passion of love” (TMS, p. 46). He states that love is agreeable and graceful. According to Smith, even when love is excessive, it is not regarded with aversion.
The desire of being loved and beloved is a crucial part of human nature: “There is a satisfaction in the consciousness of being beloved, which, to a person of delicacy and sensibility, is of more importance to happiness, than all the advantage which he can expect to derive from it” (TMS, p. 48). He also writes that “the chief part of human happiness arises from the consciousness of being beloved” (TMS, p. 48), “if to be beloved by our brethren be the great object of our ambition, the surest way of obtaining it is, by our conduct to show that we really love them” (TMS, p. 265). Furthermore, “humanity does not desire to be great, but to be beloved” (TMS, p. 194). Finally, “we have by nature the strongest desire” for the love of mankind (TMS, p. 185).
Smith finds love agreeable to the person who feels it. Love “soothes and composes the breast” (TMS, p. 48). In the context of writing on family, Smith states that we experience pleasure when we look at a family with “mutual regard and esteem”:
Their mutual regard renders them happy in one another, and sympathy, with this mutual regard, makes them agreeable to every other person (TMS, p. 48).
In Smith’s view, “we have the greatest propensity to sympathize” in all those passions that accompany love:
There is in love a strong mixture of humanity, generosity, kindness, friendship, esteem; passions with which, of all others, for reasons which shall be explained immediately, we have the greatest propensity to sympathize, even notwithstanding we are sensible that they are, in some measure, excessive (TMS, p. 41).
Smith makes a strong statement about our desire for union in a society, even when we don’t benefit from it:
Man…has a natural love for society, and desires that the union of mankind should be preserved for its own sake, and though he himself was to derive no benefit from it (TMS, p. 103).
Not only that are we bound with others, but also our happiness is bound up with their happiness. Even a selfish man is interested “in the fortune of others” and “their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it except the pleasure of seeing it” (TMS, p. 11). Nature has given us a strong inner desire to care for the happiness of others. An interest in others can also be viewed as concern for others, which is consistent with our view of affective bonds among people.
Furthermore, we are so connected to others that we must not be satisfied just with our well- wishes, but we must act upon those good intentions. “Man was made for action,” and he exerts his faculties for “the external circumstances both of himself and others, as may seem most favourable to the happiness of all” (TMS, p. 124). In order to achieve this end of happiness for all, man must use “the whole vigour of his soul, and strain every nerve” (TMS, p. 125). We have a strong desire to make “the condition of our fellow-citizens as safe, respectable, and happy as we can” (TMS, p. 272). Although our goodwill can rarely go beyond our own society, “our good-will is circumscribed by no boundary but may embrace the immensity of the universe” (TMS, p. 276).
On Christian love, Smith states “to love ourselves only as we love our neighbour, or what comes to the same thing, as our neighbour is capable of loving us” (TMS, p. 30).
In addition, we all need each other’s assistance and in societies where the
necessary assistance is reciprocally afforded from love, from gratitude, from friendship, and esteem, the society flourishes and is happy. All the different members of it are bound together by the agreeable bands of love and affection, and are, as it were, drawn to one common centre of mutual good offices (TMS, p. 100).
In societies where men are not bound together from “mutual love and affection” they are less happy, and they are bound together “from a sense of utility” (TMS, p. 100).
IV. Recognition
Before describing how recognition of another’s subjectivity is implicit in the TMS, we will give the philosophical and psychoanalytic approaches to recognition in order to anchor our discussion of recognition in the TMS.
Conceptualization of recognition
Psychoanalytically oriented recognition theorists formulate recognition as viewing another’s subjectivity as external to oneself and independent of oneself in a dyadic relationship. (Benjamin, 1988, Honneth, 1992). According to Honneth, the interactive achievement of love in the mother-infant relationship is the first step of the “struggle for recognition” (using Honneth’s terminology derived from Hegel). Most theorists of this persuasion also emphasize the importance of “affective dimension” for all later forms of recognition (see for example, Honneth, 1992).
Even though both Honneth and Benjamin write about how an infant develops the capacity to both recognize his mother and love her, primarily derived from Winnicott’s views, they don’t emphasize the important role the mother plays in making this possible, as Winnicott himself has done. As we described above, Winnicott’s view is that without the facilitating role the mother plays, and without her love for the infant, the infant would not be able to develop a capacity for recognition, and he may not even survive.1 Thus, the foundation of recognition is the mother’s or primary caregiver’s love for the infant. It is only through this caregiver’s love that the infant develops the capacity to recognize and the mother and love her.
According to the intersubjective view, we need to recognize another as a separate individual who is like us, yet distinct. Natterson (2015) adds:
Recognition of the other as a sentient, needy creature is inseparable from the need to perceive that the other sees one similarly—seeing oneself in the other, and vice-versa: separateness while experiencing sameness” (pp. 346-47).
In the intersubjective view, “the individual grows in and through the relationships to other subjects” (Benjamin 1988, p. 20).2 According to psychoanalyst Benjamin (1990), recognition starts with another’s confirming response. This reveals to us that we had an impact, displays an intention, and thus we have created meaning. Benjamin writes:
Recognition between persons is essentially mutual. By our very enjoyment of the other's confirming response, we recognized her in return. (1990, p. 47)
Mutual recognition and the constitution of subjectivities are described as follows:
Intersubjective theory postulates that the other must be recognized as another subject in order for the self to fully experience his or her subjectivity in the other's presence. This means, first, that we have a need for recognition [for the realization of our subjectivity] and that we have a capacity to recognize others in return-mutual recognition (Benjamin, 1990, p. 35).
The assumption here is that we can and need to recognize that other subjects are different but alike, “as another who is capable of sharing similar mental experience” (Benjamin, 1988, p. 20). There is a pleasure in mutual recognition. Benjamin (1988) describes recognition as reflexive, which includes another’s confirming response as well as the way “we find ourselves in that response” (p. 21). Thus, “we recognize ourselves in the other” (p. 21).
According to Benjamin (1988), there is a fundamental paradox in recognition. As Benjamin states her view, which in part, derives from Hegel (1807), one’s wish for independence conflicts with one’s wish for absolute dependence. Benjamin (1988) states:
Recognition is the response from the other which makes meaningful the feelings, intentions, and the actions of the self. It allows the self realize its agency and authorship in a tangible way. But such recognition can only come from an other whom we, in turn, recognize as a person in his or her own right. (p. 12).
As the individual tries to establish himself as an independent individual, he must recognize another like himself so that he can be recognized by him. This means that he depends on the other for this recognition. The success of bonds with an affective component depends on our capacity to strike a balance between dependence and independence.
The Development of the Capacity for Recognition
Our capacity for recognition emerges out of emotionally fulfilling interactions with loving and caring caregivers. The infant-mother intersubjective dyad becomes particularly important because the capacity for recognition is realized throughout one’s lifespan, based on our experiences as infants. Recognition is the foundation of all intersubjective interpersonal relations, including the one between the spectator and the agent.
According to Winnicott, the capacity to recognize and love the mother is not inborn, but it can be facilitated in a “good enough”3 mother/environment. Winnicott addressed the development of recognition by focusing on the intersubjective field of mother infant dyad (1969)4. His approach, which elucidates the recognition process in infancy, easily fits in the paradigm of recognition theorists. Gaining an understanding of Winnicott’s view is invaluable in understanding the process of recognition throughout our lifespan. The origin of successful affectionate bonds to other people is the successful relationship between the mother and the infant, which by necessity stems from mutual recognition. Honneth (1995) writes:
all love relationships are driven by the unconscious recollection of the original experience of merging that characterizes the first months of life for ‘mother’ and child. (p. 105)
Winnicott’s main concern was to elucidate how the infant becomes able to know the external reality of another, to recognize the other as an entity in its own right, and to benefit from others for further psychic development. At the beginning of an infant’s life, there is a symbiotic togetherness between the mother and the infant. The mother completely adapts to the infant’s needs. The infant does not consider the mother as an entity in her own right that is outside of him, and the infant is not aware of his dependence on his mother. As the mother begins moving out of this stage and becoming more involved with other aspects of her life, the infant becomes aware of his dependence on his mother and experiences frustration with her absences. In his fantasies, the infant starts destroying (denying the existence of) the (internal) mother, who was the omnipotent creation of the infant: “In the mental act of negating or obliterating the object [mother], which may be expressed in the real effort to attack the other, we find out whether the real other survives” (Benjamin, 1990, p. 41). If the mother survives these attacks without retaliating, then the infant knows that the mother exists externally, “outside the area of omnipotent control” of the infant (Winnicott, 1969 pp. 712-13). She necessarily becomes “real in the sense of being part of shared reality” (Winnicott, 1969 p. 713). Winnicott describes the infant’s experience of the mother as “recognition of it [the mother] as an entity in its own right” (Emphasis my own, Winnicott, 1969, p. 13). When this recognition is achieved, the infant becomes able to benefit from (“use”) the mother. In addition, with the survival of the mother, the infant can integrate his aggression and can now love his mother: “This destruction becomes the unconscious backcloth for love of a real object [mother]” (Winnicott, 1969, p. 716). 5
As described by Natterson (2003), if there were no concomitant changes in the mother during this process, “the project of recognition would fail”. (p. 511). “Good enough” mothers experience this process of the infant’s “differentiated and sophisticated subjective life” with appreciation, which is to say the infant’s growing individuation (Natterson, p. 511). As the infant struggles against the mother’s external, independent existence, the mother struggles against her infant’s individuation: “She changes, and recognizes the child and herself, herself in the child, the child in herself. Love and self grow in both child and mother” (Natterson, p. 511). As in Benjamin’s description, there is a struggle between dependence and independence.
The origin of successful affectionate bonds to other people is the successful relationship between the mother and the infant. All bonds based on love stem from the unconscious recollection of the original experience of merging with the mother.
V. Love and Recognition
Since our thesis is that recognition requires love (an affective connection) and sympathy is based on recognition, we here provide the link between love and recognition. As we stated earlier, for recognition to emerge, the mother’s love is essential. This is true of all interpersonal relations based on a stance of caring or coming from an affective bond. In addition, if recognition is realized, attachment or love between the parties will grow.
Love is relational and intersubjective. It characterizes the unity of human community. Love received and given is interconnected. Natterson writes:
It is a relationship of mutual recognition in which each person values the uniqueness of the other, while also finding oneself in the other and appreciating the profound interdependence that connect the two (2018, p. 6).
Gaylin (1988) writes that the need to be loved and love are more powerful motivators in humans than sexual desire (p. 56). He says, “[love] is a fixed part of our species needs” (p. 57). Love and self can’t be separated, they strengthen each other. Lear writes that “the individual I is, in his essence, a response to love; it is from the internalization of love that an I is constituted” (1990, p. 219). Self is increasingly actualized as love grows. Human subjectivity and human being are “seamless and collectively interdependent and interpenetrating” (Natterson, 2018, p. 6).
Hegel (1807) viewed love as a relationship of mutual recognition, in which individuality is confirmed. The fundamental process through which individual evolution unfolds is the struggle for recognition. This highlights the coexistence of love with the struggle for recognition: “the struggle for recognition constitutes the fundamental process through which individual and socio-cultural evolution unfolds” (Natterson, 2015, p. 346).
Honneth (1995) cites Hegel’s idea of love as “being oneself in another” (p. 96), and describes Hegel’s view on love as follows:
Love represents the first stage of reciprocal recognition, because in it subjects mutually
confirm each other with regard to the concrete nature of their needs and thereby recognize each other as needy creatures. In the reciprocal experience of loving, both subjects know themselves to be united in their neediness, in their dependence on each other (p. 95)
Honneth (1995) adds that recognition must have the character of affective approval because emotions and needs can only gain “confirmation” through being reciprocated or satisfied. (p. 95)
VI. Recognition and Placing Ourselves in Another’s Situation
The act of placing oneself in another’s situation and taking his perspective requires recognition. As we have already described, recognition in turn is necessarily based on love.
In the views of the developmental psychology and socialization research, the emergence of symbolic thought requires taking over another’s perspective. As reviewed by Honneth (1992), Hobson (1993) and Tomasello(1999) point out that for children who are not affected by autism, emotional identification with others is necessary to be able to take over another’s perspective.6 This in turn leads to the development of the capacity for symbolic thought. A child can comprehend a second person’s attitude by way of antecedent identification with this person. Autism, in contrast, prevents to the receptiveness of a child to the emotional presence of an attachment figure. Honneth (2008), citing Dornes, states that because autistic children are
emotionally unreceptive they remain entrapped within their own perspective of the world and don’t become familiar with any other perspective…An autistic infant thus isn’t “mentally blind” due to a cognitive deficit, but rather because he or she is in the first instance emotionally blind” (p. 44).
As pointed out by Honneth (2008), Adorno (1951) also had the view that it is through an early imitation of a loved figure of attachment that the human mind arises. A person becomes a person only if he imitates others. This imitation is the “archetype of love.” Placing oneself in the perspective of a second person is based on an antecedent form of recognition. This necessarily contains an element of involuntary openness, devotedness, or love.
Before a child can take another’s perspective, he must first identify with attachment figures. It is this love and devotion that allows children to place themselves in the perspective of another; thus, it is the affective basis of our cognition that is important. A small child must first identify with his attachment figures and must have emotionally recognized them to be able to take on their perspective. According to Cavell (2002), a subject must first be involved in the emotional world of another before he can have knowledge of that other’s mental states. The inability to do this ultimately signifies an inability to maintain social relationships. Thus, the fabric of social interaction comes out of recognitional stances. This contains an element of empathetic engagement of an antecedent form of identification. A child could not take over the perspectives of their figures of attachment without the antecedent act of recognition.
VII. Sympathy and Spectatorship
Sympathy
Because recognition occurs during the sympathetic process, we provide a review of the sympathetic process. Sympathy is a concordance of sentiments between the spectator and the agent. It is not a passion itself (Otteson, 2002). As stated by Montes (2003), sympathy is both a capacity in human nature and a disposition. It refers to the origin of moral judgment as well as the process of achieving it.
Imagination is at the root of sympathetic processes. It is through imagination that we put ourselves in another’s situation and capture the sentiments of the other. Through imagination, we get inside the experience of others, joining to their world. The gap between the individuals is bridged, though not fully; we remain separate selves. Sympathy can only be the result of imagination since our knowledge is limited by our experiences.7 According to Smith, sympathy arises not “so much from the view of the passions, as from that of the situation which excites it” (TMS, p. 15).
The spectator compares his sentiments to those he imagines the agent has. The spectator feels not unlike the agent, however. Even when the spectator is informed of the situation, the spectator’s feelings falls short of the agents and varies in kind. If there is a correspondence of sentiments, there is sympathy. 8-9 The degree to which we sympathize depends on our knowledge of the situation.10 The spectator’s assessment has a cognitive and emotional dimension. Smith links sympathy to approval. However, there are some cases, according to Smith, in which we approve without sympathy. 11-12
As Fleischacker (2019) states, we can recognize that we have different perspectives, only if we can enter into the perspective of others. Furthermore, to have a perspective at all, we must be able to sympathetically enter into the other’s perspective.
Sympathy takes place in a dynamic context. In the larger context of human culture, we are all spectators and actors working together to form a consensual morality. Sympathy is not “automatic, passive and mindless” (Radner, 1980) because both the actor and the spectator work hard to reach a concordance of sentiments through the sympathetic process. In the chapter titled “Of the Pleasure of Mutual Sympathy”, Smith asserts that human beings derive pleasure from sympathy. He states that both the spectator and the agent yearn for mutual sympathy. In their mutual desire, both the spectator and the agent work hard to reach a concordance of sentiments.
Sympathy is a social practice in which ordinary people encounter one another and moral life is a social practice. Essentially, human beings are social (Fricke, 2013). People are constrained by their selfishness but are nevertheless capable of coordinating with others and producing morality together without the artificial machinations of political coercion, philosophy, religion or formal education (Forman-Barzilai, 2010, p. 62). Sympathy has a socializing feature as well as a character-constituting feature.13 Sympathy socializes both the agent and the spectator since the first would like to be the object of sympathy and the second would like to sympathize. Moral exchanges therefore create sociality.
Spectatorship
Since recognition takes place between the agent and the spectator, we review Smith’s views on spectatorship.14 Griswold (1999) states: “Smith never requires the impartial spectator to stop caring about sentiments and thus about local and particular attachments. Much hinges on adopting the right level of spectatorship” (p. 141). Similarly, Fleischacker (2019) states:
Smithian empathy may not be quite the same thing as caring for others, it is a condition for respectful, sensitive, and nuanced modes of caring…we care as one unique human being to another: we respect our differences from others as well as our commonalities (p. 47).
These views are consistent with ours since our view is that the root of sympathy is love (care and human connectedness).
Forman-Barzilai (2010) states that physical proximity of the agent and the spectator will enable the spectator to better understand and evaluate the agent’s responses. The spectator must be close enough to be well-informed. As such, distance diminishes this capacity. Forman-Barzilai (2010) also writes about affective connection between the spectator and the agent:
Affection for Smith was the emotional product of “association” and “connexion” with others over time, which commonly evolve through physical proximity and shared experiences with them (p. 153).
In Smith’s view, we are more likely to feel affection towards those with whom we are most familiar. If the spectator is too attached to the agent, he will not be fair but be partial to the agent. On the other hand, if he is too detached, it is likely that the spectator will show partiality to himself. Thus, the spectator must navigate between these two situations and be “quasi-detached,” to use Griswold’s terminology (1999, p. 135).
Smith was concerned with affective bias. This does not imply that there isn’t any emotional connection with others, but it refers to the ability to judge without any bias, which can be the result of one’s own emotions. Smith uses “indifferent spectator” (TMS, p. 47) and Griswold (1999) defines indifference as “disinterestedness" (p. 136). For impartiality, the spectator must be detached in some measure. This detachment is because spectatorship entails not only understanding, but also deliberation. Partiality may result from not being well-informed or from being too attached to the situation.
Impartiality does not imply unemotionality. For example, Smith writes about our passions being proper “when the heart of every impartial spectator entirely sympathizes with them” (Emphasis my own). Impartial spectators have sentiments and feelings. The only emotions that the impartial spectator does not have are the ones which can interfere with his judgment, such as excessive self-love or envy. We can only evaluate others by engaging with them appropriately. Smith does not equate impartiality to impersonality. Viewing emotions impartially does not mean that we use some other criterion instead of emotions. Furthermore, Griswold states:
The impartial spectator exemplifies sympathetic understanding at its best, a stance of caring for the other, of caring to understand the truth of the matter and the reasons for which the people in question have acted as they have. This sympathetic care is at the core of morality and sociability; it holds us mutually responsible to each other, drawing us together in the exercise of responsiveness and perceptive judgment. It is the core of a reasonable and moral community (p. 144).
Emotions are necessary for morality, and they guide judgments and embody judgments. Emotions enable us to see what is relevant and what is worth caring about, and they also motivate us.
XIII. The Development of the Capacity for Imagination
In this section, we outline the development of the capacity for imagination. This outline also clarifies that recognition is required for the development of the capacity for imagination. In psychoanalysis, imagination is often synonymously used with mental representation, unconscious fantasies, primary process and free association. The mental act of imagination attempts to replace something which can’t be perceived by sensory means at the time, but it is thought to exist by a word, image, construct or a concept (Rosen, 1960, p. 230):
To imagine is to recognize the difference between subjective and objective worlds and to appreciate that mind, mental activities and thoughts define a world different at least in part from sensory perception…In short, he [the child] not only looks to others for their affective reactions as he did in the first two years, but he now attributes beliefs and feelings to the others of his inner world. He imbues them with mental states that guide their actions toward him, and ultimately his actions toward them (Mayes and Cohen 1992, p. 36).
This capacity requires recognizing another. Through imagination, an inner world of subjectivity is created against which one judges the external world. Furthermore, it involves a freedom to perceive and remold others based on one’s wishes. Not only does reality impacts our imagination, but also, imagination shapes how we experience reality. Imagination is not opposed to reality. It serves many purposes, including adaptation to reality (Beres, 1960). Thought is an advanced expression of imagination. Without imagination, reality can only be sensed and experienced. In contrast, reality becomes an object of awareness with imagination. Through imagination, we participate in reality, change reality, and to an extent, control it.
Freud (1925) states:
The contrast between what is subjective and what is objective does not exist from the start. It only arises from the faculty which thought possesses for reviving a thing that has once been perceived, by reproducing it as an image, without its being necessary for the external object to be present. Thus, the first and immediate aim of the process of testing reality is not to discover an object in real perception corresponding to what is imagined, but to re-discover such an object, to convince oneself that it is still there (original emphasis).
The development of the capacity to imagine another requires internalizing a sense of the other Internalizing another means that we must have recognized his subjectivity. An important contribution of psychoanalytic theory has been the conceptualization of the related processes of individuation, internalization and self-other differentiation, which are all rooted in the earliest mother and infant interactions (Loewald, 1977; Ritvo and Solnit, 1958). This differentiation is necessary for recognition. Some elements of early mother-infant dyad are essential for the development of the capacity for imagination, such as connections between the affective experience of the infant and the creation of a representational world (Loewald, 1977). To the infant, initially, the mother exists as a source of meeting its needs, not as an individual person. Links between the mother’s absence and the infant’s frustration and the mother’s nurturance to alleviate the infant’s discomforts are established, and hence the mother’s behavior and the affective outcome for the infant is established. These links contribute to the emergence of a representational world, and as these experiences are repeated, representational world takes shape (Loewald, 1977, Mahler, 1968). The infant starts to internalize a sense of the other. The development of the capacity to imagine another requires internalizing a sense of the other because rudimentary fantasies about the other (specific or general) are created from these early experiential representations (Mayes and Cohen, 1992). Internalizing another means that we must have recognized his subjectivity.
The child’s capacity for prolonged imaginary play is manifested around the same time as his achievement of an understanding of how the words and actions of others reflect and are motivated by their beliefs, feelings and wishes. This allows a child to infuse the people in the imaginary play with desires and complex feelings towards them, creating the child’s inner world “by which he defines himself and through which he continues to view and define his external world” (Mayes and Cohen, 1992, p. 27).
There is a need for imaginary capacity because the child wants those whom he does not have at that moment. In the first three years of a child’s life, several neurological, perceptual and cognitive functions mature which physically enable him to have increasing separation from his parents. These functions minimally entail the infant with the capacity to have a mental image of the other, remember previous experiences with that person, and modulate his own states of anxiety in the absence of the other. To have a mental image of the other, the child must have recognized the other. By evoking a mental image of the other, the child develops the ability to know that the other is absent and he can then look for that person. This promotes the child’s increasing independence, and it moves the child towards separation:
Imagination requires that the child grasp the difference between the physical and the mental world and understand that thinking about something or someone is an action of mind which is different from being physically with that person…To imagine is to recognize a difference between the subjective and objective worlds and appreciate that mind, mental activities, or thoughts define a world different at least in part from sensory perception (Mayes and Cohen, 1992, p. 34).
By imagining another, the child creates a world where others behave toward him in specific ways because of certain feelings and beliefs which he imagines them to have. In the act of imagination, the child distinguishes an inner world of subjectivity which is understood to be different from the objective world. With imagination, a child understands that mental states guide actions. The development of understanding mental states and thus of imagination allows for sharing experiences with another, communicating about feelings toward the other, and for understanding and experiencing feelings reciprocally.
Imagination integrates the neurocognitive functions which are necessary for developing an understanding of the subjective world with the process of self-other differentiation, which is crucial for recognition. This process typically occurs in the second year of life. As his capacity for imagination develops, the child becomes capable of differentiating himself from others and separation from others, creating an inner world filled with others. The ability to represent the external object as a non-self and to function in relation to a real external world means the capacity to represent the self, as well (Beres, 1960). This aspect of imagination is crucial for recognition. Even though part of imagination is based on previous experience, the imaginative process revises and extends that experience: “The imaginative process is given full shape and depth with the ability to understand the nature of the subjective world and the nature of other’s and one’s own mental states” (Mayes and Cohen, 1992, p. 44).
Imagination involves a reciprocal process between two people. It serves as a communication and an instrument of “emergence of shared product, a mutually shared communication, such as a realization, an insight a memory” (Lothane, 2007). Furthermore, the capacity for imagination plays an essential role in the desire to understand others. Our capacity for empathy is rooted in early childhood development. This process is referred to as mentalization (Fonagy and Target 1996, 1997). Mentalization is the capacity to reflect on one’s and others’ states of mind. It might also be considered as a capacity to imaginatively engage with the mental state of another.
Imagination is necessary to recognize the subjectivity of another. In Benjamin’s conceptualization of “mutual recognition,” this paradigm is what seems to be suggested. In mutual recognition, “the subject gradually becomes able to recognize the other person’s subjectivity” (1990, p. 33). The gradual nature of the process suggests an ongoing dialogue with the self and the other (and internal others) in a way that one becomes able to continually test, through reflective engagement, one’s perceptions of the other. Through verbal and nonverbal communications, the process occurs internally and externally.
Once a relatively mature capacity for imagination and recognition develops, the interactive process using imagination and mutual recognition can take place. As one can recognize and then imagine another, it creates the possibility of the other reciprocating in that interaction. That dialectic interaction allows both participants in that interaction to recognize one another. Thus, they can assess their imagination of the other against the perceived other’s experience in a way that continues to expand and clarify each other’s imaginal perception. This continues until they feel mutually satisfied with their understanding of the other. We will further elucidate the application of this relationship in the section on recognition, imagination and sympathy.
IX. Smith’s Account of Imagination
Smith has only few paragraphs on imagination, which means that his understanding of imagination must be extrapolated from those few paragraphs. He has two accounts of imagining being in the other’s situation. The first account is of the spectator’s imagination, what the spectator himself would feel if he is in the agent’s situation. The second way of imagining being in the other’s situation is based on the spectator imagining what he would feel like if he were taking on the characteristics of the agent.
Imagination is foundational for sympathy, which is necessary for morality and sociability. The spectator understands the situation and sentiments of the actor through imagination. Through imagination, the actor can see himself from the spectator’s perspective. Through imagination we feel into other’s experiences. According to Griswold (2006), imagination is a narrative aiming to “flow into and fill up” another’s situation. Through that process, we build a coherent story. Smith gives two accounts of imagining being in another’s situation. The first account is the spectator’s imagination of what the spectator himself would feel if he is in the agent’s situation. In the second paragraph of the TMS, Smith writes:
As we have no immediate experience of what other men feel, we can form no idea of the manner in which they are affected, but by conceiving what we ourselves should feel in the like situation…our senses will never inform us of what he suffers. They 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…It is the impressions of our own senses only, not those of his, which our imaginations copy. By the imagination we place ourselves in his situation, we conceive ourselves enduring all the same torments, we enter as it were into his body, and become in some measure the same person with him, and thence form some idea of his sensations, and even feel something which, though weaker in degree, is not altogether unlike them (TMS, p. 11).
The second way of imagining being in the other’s situation is based on the spectator imagining what he would feel like if he were taking on the characteristics of the agent:
But though sympathy is very properly said to arise from an imaginary change of situations with the person principally concerned, yet this imaginary change is not supposed to happen to me in my own person and character, but in that of the person with whom I sympathize. When I condole with you for the loss of your only son, in order to enter into your grief I do not consider what I, a person of such a character and profession, should suffer, if I had a son, and if that son was unfortunately to die: but I consider what I should suffer if I was really you, and I not only change circumstances with you, but I change persons and characters. My grief, therefore, is entirely upon your account, and not in the least upon my own (TMS, p. 374).
These two accounts are not contradictory. It would not be possible to imagine being in another’s situation assuming the character of the other without the capacity to put ourselves in his situation as we are (Ozler and Gabrinetti, 2018).
For sympathy to take place, there must be sufficient awareness of the self-and-other distinction. On being separate, Smith states that “our senses will never inform us” of what another feels (TMS, p. 11). What an actor feels will never be the same as what the spectator feels, because the change of situations is imaginary. Our sentiments will vary in kind and will be of a lower degree.
Through imagination, we form some idea of the other’s passions. Our experience of what another’s experiences is always less lively. On this point, Smith states the following:
Mankind, though naturally sympathetic, never conceive, for what has befallen another, that degree of passion which naturally animates the person principally concerned (TMS, p. 26).
In the imaginary change of situations, we don’t simply identify with another. Imagination does not result in dissolution of our separateness.
X. Recognition, Imagination, and Sympathy
Smith did not use the concept of recognition. However, recognition is integral in the act of changing situations with the other and is fundamental in sympathy. We must recognize the other to be able to imaginatively change situations with him. The internalization of another can only occur when the other’s subjectivity is recognized, and it is an essential precursor for imagination. If one does not have another in mind, there is nothing to imagine. As stated above, “to imagine is to recognize a difference between the subjective and objective worlds” (Mayes and Cohen 1992, p. 34). This recognition is a necessary component of recognizing the other.
We know that through the act of imagination, the child distinguishes an inner world of subjectivity that is different from the external world. Similarly, the agent and the spectator understand that their subjectivities are different, and this requires them to recognize the other. As we stated above, the ability to represent the external object as a non-self and to function in relation to a real external world means that there is the capacity to represent the self as well. (Beres, 1960).
Our separation from others creates the possibility for others to recognize our subjectivities. The moment a subject is recognized that recognition compels him to recognize the other as a subject. It is through mutual recognition that we are able to recognize the other subject as different but alike. As Natterson states, recognition of another is “separateness while experiencing sameness” (2015, p. 347). Through imagination, we not only experience our separateness and difference, but also sameness.
As described above, the capacity for imagination starts developing in the mother-infant dyad. Imagination allows for the creation of a mental representation of another. With imagination the reality of another becomes an object of awareness; this is similar in the sympathetic process. When we imaginatively put ourselves in the other’s situation, he becomes an object of our awareness. This necessitates that both the spectator and the agent recognize each other. Imagination allows us to construct an inner world of subjectivity against which we judge others. The spectator can make a judgment about the agent only if he recognizes the agent. Due to the capacity for imagination, relationships with others are influenced by our previous experiences, wishes and beliefs. In the sympathetic process, the spectator’s experiences and beliefs shapes his moral judgments. As a child develops an understanding of how the words and actions of others are reflect and are motivated by their feelings, the spectator views the agent’s actions being motivated by the agent’s feelings.
Through imagination, we recognize a difference between the inner subjective state and another’s subjectivity. We develop a capacity to represent the self through the capacity to represent the external object as a non-self. As quoted above, “The imaginative process is given full shape and depth with the ability to understand the nature of the subjective world and the nature of other’s and one’s own mental states” (Mayes and Cohen, 1992, p. 44). When we recognize another, we can hold him within ourselves by having mental representations. This furthers and deepens recognition.
As Smith states it, it is through “imagination only that we can form any conception of what are his [agent’s] sensations” (TMS, p. 11). We “form some idea of his sensations, and even feel something which, though weaker in degree, is not altogether unlike them” (TMS, p. 12). In order to be able to imagine being in another’s situation we must recognize his subjectivity. In the sympathetic process, the spectator must recognize the agent’s subjectivity to be able to put himself in the actor’s situation imaginatively. The agent can adjust his passions to a level which the spectator can enter into only if he recognizes the spectator’s subjectivity. In this context, imagining being in the other’s situation means having recognized them.
Understanding mental states, and hence imagination, allows for sharing experiences and communicating feelings and understanding and experiencing feelings reciprocally. As it is viewed in the psychoanalytic literature, imagining and understanding another’s experience leads to the “caring-for” aspect of empathy. Imagination is crucial for “empathic powers of receptivity to the other” (Kearny, 1993, p. 224).
In empathy, for which sympathy is a precursor, there is a particular and unavoidable connectedness between the perceiver and the one who is perceived (Ozler and Gabrinetti 2018). Imagination reveals the interpenetration and interdependence of interacting subjective worlds and empathy unites the perceiver and the perceived. By taking the position of another, our imagination moves us from ourselves into the other. Empathy is a sophisticated capacity that comes out of imagination. The concrete reality that we experience, and the reflections of our psychological background, are mediated by imagination. Self-reflection and empathic recognition of another’s perspective requires imaginative capacity. Recreative imagination is the capacity to establish a cohesive narrative which includes maintaining a flexible and organized self-understanding and holding in mind another’s perspective. Ralph Waldo Emerson (1876) calls imagination “a very high form of seeing”. It can also be said that empathic imagination is a very deep form of intersubjective seeing and feeling. According to Okri (1977): “[O]ur perception of the Other gives the measure of our humanity, our courage and our imagination” (p. 74) and how we perceive and other in the act of recognition.
Sympathy requires the recognition of the other as an independent subject. While recognition is about difference of subjectivities, yet being alike, sympathy bridges the gap between two different subjectivities. In referring to empathy, Kohut (1975) states that empathy includes the recognition of the self and the other. Sympathy is possible only if there is enough awareness of the self and other distinction. As in empathy, sympathy begins in the recognition of otherness.
Another aspect of recognition has been pointed out by Darwall (1999) and Honneth (2019). Darwall states that sympathy “invariably involves or commits itself to the recognition of another’s authority and to the mutual answerability of addresser and addressee” (pp 158-159). The agent’s adjustment of his passions is a recognition of the spectator’s moral authority. Honneth states:
To recognize somebody…means to grant another subject a particular normative status: the authority to inform us, through approval and disapproval, about the moral appropriateness of our conduct (2019, p. 59).
As elaborated on by Honneth (2019), in the process of this intersubjective recognition we view other individuals as beings with whom we would like to join through our passions and experiences. In this scenario, the emotional form of recognition we have of others is direct. Honneth introduces a second stage of recognition where we recognize an idealized community where “recognition depends on a generalized other” (p. 66).
These important interactions are based on recognition of the other, the ability to imagine the other and the participation in sympathetic interactions with the other. These are necessarily dependent on the other. Our independence is necessary for our interaction with the other, and our development is dependent on the other. The sympathetic interactions of the spectator and agent promote the development of morality and allows each to experience their own need (Eros) for the other which when acted upon in the sympathetic process creates further mutual growth and understanding. It is through these ongoing interactions based on the recognition of self and others the transmission of cultural morality can flourish.
XI. Concluding Remarks
Smith’s sympathy is founded on love. Without love, sympathy would not be possible. Smith was aware of the value and importance of love for the individual and society.
To be able to put one’s self in another’s situation imaginatively, recognition of their subjectivity is necessary, and recognition is based on love. Imagination provides a mental representation of another. Reality of another becomes an object of awareness with imagination. In the TMS, recognition operates at two levels. First to imaginatively put ourselves in another’s situation we must recognize his subjectivity. Second, as Darwall (1999) Honneth (2019) states recognizing another is giving them a normative authority to judge our conduct.
Sympathy serves to form affective bonds, and it is rooted in affective bonds. Morality without love would not be possible. It is because we live in a world where we are connected with affective bonds to others that morality is necessary to live in a civilized society.
Furthermore, sympathy that is not rooted in love can’t restrain our excessive self-love because excessive self-love is a manifestation of narcissism. An agent with excessive self-love, can’t engage in the sympathetic process because a narcissist does not have the capacity to take another’s perspective. Narcissism can only be addressed with the help of loving objects. Thus, love is necessary for the sympathetic process to operate.
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“Human beings are…endowed with a strong instinct for survival. The human infant needs love to wish to survive and needs to be persuaded by its caretakers' love that life is worthwhile, and we remain in need of both loving others and being loved throughout our life cycle.” (Bergman 2009 p.407)↩
This view is similar to Smith’s in that the self of an individual is realized in relation to others. In addition, individuals become moral through their relationships to others.↩
According to Winnicott (1971): “The good-enough enough ‘mother’…is one who makes active adaptation to the infant’s needs, an active adaptation that gradually lessens, according to the infant’s growing ability to account for failure of adaptation and to tolerate the results of frustration” (pp. 13-14).↩
Winnicott views the mother infant relationship as a dyad, describing it with his famous expression as “There is no such thing as a baby.” (original emphasis, 1952, p. 99).↩
Furthermore, in the destruction of the object there is no “anger”. On the contrary, there is an experience of “joy at the object’s [mother’s] survival” (p. 715).↩
Primary identification is the primitive and original form of emotional attachment to someone or something prior to any relations with objects or other person (Freud 1923)↩
Peart and Levy (1999) point out that when we exchange positions, we preserve our own consciousness.↩
Fricke (2013) argues that Smith makes a distinction between “sympathetic emotion” and “sympathy.”↩
Schliesser (2014) makes four claims. First, the sympathetic process depends causal relationship. Second, there is counterfactual reasoning in the sympathetic process. Third, agents belong to a causal order of nature. And finally, “Smithian judgments of propriety are intrinsically judgments about the proportionality of causal relations” (p. 308).↩
Freud (1930) also writes about putting ourselves in the other’s situation: “We shall always consider other people’s distress objectively- that is to place ourselves, with our own wants and sensibilities, in their conditions, and then to examine what occasions we should find in them for experiencing happiness or unhappiness” (p. 89).↩
“A little attention, however, will convince us that even in these cases our approbation is ultimately founded upon sympathy…” (TMS, p. 21). Smith gives the example that we may approve the laughter of our company even though we do not laugh because we are in a “grave humour” (TMS, p. 21). From experience, however, we know that we would laugh in the same situation were we not in a grave humor. We thus approve of the laughter.↩
There are alternative accounts of this link in the literature. Griswold (1999) states that equating approval with sympathy would destroy the possibility of ethical evaluation. It is also argued that the approval that the imaginative identification constitutes is only partial, which allows disapproval (Sugden, 2002). According to Darwall (1998) it is not possible to have sympathy without approval.↩
“…Sympathy in Adam Smith’s sense is a socializing agent” (Raphael, 1985, p. 31).↩
Griswold (1999) argues that Smith’s theory is a spectator theory, which we agree with since it is the spectator who enters into the other’s situation and makes moral judgments. Darwall (1999) on the other hand, argues that Smith’s theory is not a spectator theory.↩