Seeing ourselves as others see us: The place of reason in Adam Smith's theory of moral sentiments

摘要

In making a feeling or sentiment such as sympathy foundational to his ethical analysisAdam Smith appears to set himself on a collision course with those ethical theories inwhich reason plays a central role. I shall claim, contrary to appearances, that reason hasan important part to play in Smith’s final account of ethics; that what Smith rejects whenhe appears to reject reason, is a kind of austere ultrarationalism (a la Cudworth, Plato orthe Stoics) that would make reason the original independent source of our ethicaljudgements; and that, in the end, Smith does not reject reason but rather develops acomplex theory of morality which permits reason to play a significant role in man’s morallife.