Adam Smith's comparative system of moral sentiments

For Adam Smith, society’s collective view of an action or an attitude depends upon the context in which it is displayed. A nobleman’s high opinion of himself might be interpreted in a variety of ways. If that Lord’s opinion matches our collective opinion, then he is “high-minded,” “magnanimous.” But if our opinion of the man is lower than the Lord’s, he is “proud;” if he acts to raise society’s opinion artificially, through lies or flattery, he is vain. In society, comparison underlies the process of evaluation, whether it is a social behavior or a social product such as goods or art. Juxtaposed to eighteenth-century Britain, for Smith, is the figure of a deserted island. He speculates, “Were it possible that a human creature could grow up to manhood in some solitary place, without any communication with his own species, he could no more think of his own character, of the propriety or demerit of his own sentiments and conduct, of the beauty or deformity of his own mind, than of the beauty or deformity of his own face,” (162). Standards and rules for evaluating anything that has a social existence need to be produced comparatively.

From his awareness of an action’s social implications and its subsequent social appraisal, Smith sheds absolutist criteria for evaluating behavior. Considering the wide array of contextual possibilities, Platonic ideals and Kantian imperatives appear short-sighted and naïve. On aesthetics, Smith argues,

When a critic examines the work of any of the great masters in poetry or painting, he may sometimes examine it by an idea of perfection, in his own mind, which neither that nor any other human work will ever come up to; and as long as he compares it with this standard, he can see nothing in it but faults and imperfections. But when he comes to consider the rank which it ought to hold among other works of the same kind, he necessarily compares it with a very different standard, the common degree of excellence which is usually attained in this particular art; and when he judges of it by this new measure, it may often appear to deserve the highest applause, upon account of its approaching much nearer to perfection than the greater part of those works which can be brought into competition with it. (30)

His support of comparative aesthetics implies a utility that absolutist standards lack. Judging works comparatively enables a critic to move past deviation from an ideal to the piece’s relative strengths and weaknesses.

Yet for Smith’s method of evaluation to work, he must construct numerous comparisons that triangulate an action’s value. A subject witnesses an action, and without necessarily knowing it, he takes several steps to judge that action. He compares the action with his opinion of it. Smith returns to the example of the pride and vanity: “If we compare [the proud man and the vain man] with their own pretensions, they may appear the just objects of contempt. But when we compare them with what the greater part of their rivals and competitors really are, they may appear quite otherwise, and very much above the common level,” (378). The second move of the subject, then, is to evaluate the action against other actions, similar in kind, in that social context. From this comparison, the subject can recalibrate his initial opinion of the action. However, he must also question the way in which he perceives the action. So he returns to the social context again to distill contrasting other opinions of the action. In this process of pulling together opinions from society, the subject formulates the figure of the “impartial observer.” There may be a temptation to think of the impartial observer as a reinvention of the common idea of one’s conscience. But the impartial observer is distinct in that it is entirely culled from one’s experiences with other people, and it is formed through the habitual practice of this culling, in other words, through practice.

The “impartial observer,” thus, is the keystone of Smith’s comparative system. He explains,

Whatever judgment we can form concerning [actions], accordingly, must always bear some secret reference, either to what are, or to what, upon a certain condition, would be, or to what, we imagine, ought to be the judgment of others. We endeavour to examine our own conduct as we imagine any other fair and impartial spectator would examine it. If, upon placing ourselves in his situation, we thoroughly enter into all the passions and motives which influenced it, we approve of it, by sympathy with the approbation of this supposed equitable judge. (161)

The “impartial observer” concretizes the society (or for Smith, just the other people) around the individual into a coherent, singular opinion. Smith conceives of the observer as a type of “looking glass,” through which we view the actions of others and our own behaviors. The person born in isolation becomes socialized through his development of the “impartial observer,” and “he is immediately provided with the mirror which he wanted before. It is placed in the countenance and behaviour of those he lives with, which always mark when they enter into, and when they disapprove of his sentiments,” (162). Smith’s own comparatively descriptions of abstract qualities such as vanity, pride, and magnanimity reveal that the mirror of the impartial observer is as requisite for depicting social behavior as it is for perceiving it. The observer provides the standard by which to distinguish pride and vanity from magnanimity and present those qualities in the medium of writing. As Hooke’s microscope mediated factual physical vision, Smith’s observer mediated factual social vision.

Unfortunately, if we apply pressure to the “impartial observer,” Smith’s system more closely resembles the absolutist systems, which he replaces. While it simplifies the process of comparing one’s views and actions to those of other people, the impartial observer becomes an absolute ideal in its abstraction of society. Smith capitalizes on its built-in murkiness and obscurity by creating a figure that adapts to any culture or fashion – it is the agent of that ubiquitous but ephemeral thing we call ‘public opinion.’ The impartial observer, at once, condenses the disparate views of a group of people and deracinates moral authority from any real source.

Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments; to which is added, A dissertation on the origin of languages. Ed. by Dugald Stewart. London: George Bell and Sons, York Street, Covent Garden (1875). Electronic: Google Books.