The Theory of Moral Sentiments (79 page)

gratitude: and duty; and fortune; and intent of actions; and justice; objects of; and propriety; and resentment; and reward; and sympathy

Gray, Thomas

Greece: and factions; Greek language; Greek tragedies; and social customs; and suicide

grief: and approval/disapproval; and propriety of passions; and self-government; and selfish passions; and sociability; and social customs; and sympathy; and unsocial passions

Grotius, Hugo

Gustavus Adolphus

happiness: and the afterlife; and choice; and Epicureanism; and individual character; and prudence; and the public good; and Stoicism; and universal benevolence; and utility; and virtue

Hercules

Hippolytus

Hobbes, Thomas

Homer

Horace

human nature: and authority of conscience; and benevolence; and bodily passions; and inconsistency; and rules of morality; and self-interest; and social order; and Stoicism

Hume, David

Hutcheson, Francis

imagination

intent of actions

James I

James II

Joanna of Castile

Jocasta

Jones, Peter

judgment: and approbation; and authority of conscience; customs and fashion; and factions; and praiseworthiness; and respectable virtues; and rules of morality; and self-approbation; and self-deceit; and sense of duty; and social status; and Stoicism

justice.
See also
law: and the afterlife; and approbation of punishment; and authority of conscience; and beneficence; and casuistry; and character of virtue; and concern for others; and corruption of moral sentiments; and duty; and happiness of others; and individual character; and intent of actions; and irregularity of sentiments; and jurisprudence; and morality; and Platonic system of virtue; and praiseworthiness; and prudence; and resentment; and rules of morality; and self-command; and self-deceit; and self-interest; and social order; and unsocial passions; and utility

Kames, Henry Home, Lord

Lafitau, Joseph-François

La Fontaine, Jean de

La Motte, Antoine Houdar de

La Placette, Jean de

Lares

La Rochefoucauld, François, Duc de

Lauzun, Antonin-Nompar de Caumont, Duc de

law.
See also
justice: and beneficence; divine law; law of Scotland; laws of the Deity; and moral distinctions; natural law; positive law; and property; and rules of justice; and self-command; and social order; and war

licentiousness

Locke, John

Louis II de Bourbon, Prince of Condé

Louis XIII

Louis XIV

love: and ambition; and approbation; and gratitude; and mutual sympathy; and passions of the imagination; and social custom; and social passions; and social status

Lucullus

lying

Lysander

Machiavelli, Niccolò

magnanimity: and amiable virtues; and Aristotelian system of virtue; Mandeville on; Plato on; and pride; and respectable virtues; and rules of morality; and self-command; and social custom; and social status; and Stoicism; and sympathy; and unsocial passions

Malebranche, Nicolas

Mandeville, Bernard

Marcellus

Marcus Antoninus

Marivaux, Pierre Carlet de

Marlborough, John Churchill, first Duke of

Massillon, Jean-Baptiste

mercy

Milton, John

Minorca, battle of

misfortune.
See also
fortune: and approval/ disapproval; and authority of conscience; and self-command; and social status; and Stoicism; and sympathy

moral relativism

More, Henry

More, Sir Thomas

Native Americans

natural jurisprudence

natural law

natural philosophy

negligence

Nero

Newton, Isaac

noun adjectives

numbers

Oedipus

Olympia

The Orphan of China
(Voltaire)

Othello
(Shakespeare)

Ovid

paganism

pain: and bodily passions; and denial; and Epicureanism; and praiseworthiness; and sympathy; and unsocial passions; and virtue

Parmenides

Parmenion

Pascal, Blaise

passions: and approval/disapproval; and Aristotelian system of virtue; and gratitude; Mandeville on; and modern philosophical systems; and Platonic system of virtue; and propriety; and rules of morality; and self-command; and self-deceit; and social custom; and Stoicism

Paulus Aemilius

Perrault, Charles

Perrault, Claude

Persaeus

Peter the Great

Petrarca, Francesco (Petrarch)

Pharsalus, battle of

Philip of Castile (Philip I)

Philip of Macedon (Philip II)

Philoctetes

Philopoemen

Phocion

Plato: and Aristotelian system of virtue; and character analysis; and character of virtue; and courage; and the Eclectics; and Epicureanism; and justice; and moral relativism; and public spirit; and social customs; system of virtue

pleasure.
See also
Epicurus/Epicureanism: and denial; and Epicureanism; Mandeville on; and mutual sympathy; and Platonic system of virtue; and self-command; and temperance

Pliny the Younger

Plutarch

Pompey

Pope, Alexander

positive law.
See also
justice

positivism

poverty: and authority of conscience; and corruption of moral sentiments; and social status; and Stoicism; and virtue

praiseworthiness; and credulity; and Epicureanism; Mandeville on; and moral relativism; and vanity

propriety: and approval/disapproval; and authority of conscience; and customs and fashion; and gratitude; and justice; and merit; and modern philosophical systems; and passions; and rules of morality; and self-command; and self-deceit; and social status; and Stoicism; and sympathy; and utility; and virtue

prosperity: and authority of conscience; and envy; and Epicureanism; and resentment; and rules of morality; and self-admiration; and selfish passions; and social status; and Stoicism

prudence: and character of virtue; and individual character; and praiseworthiness; and rules of morality; and self-command; Smith’s use of term; and Stoicism; and utility of action

Pufendorf, Samuel

punishment: and animals; approbation of; and authority of conscience; and blame-worthiness; capital punishment; and irregularity of sentiments; and justice; and negligence; and Platonic system of virtue; and praiseworthiness; and prudence; and resentment; and rules of morality; and self-command; morality; and self-command; and social order; and social status; and Stoicism; and treason

Pyrrhus

Pythagoras

Quinault, Phillipe

Quintilian

Racine, Jean

Raleigh, Sir Walter

ranks (social status): and ambition; and compassion; and custom; and family structure; and fashion; and gratitude; and individual character; and language; and self-command; and vanity

reason: and approbation; and character of virtue; loss of; and morality; and Platonic system of virtue

Reformation

Regulus

religion: and blame-worthiness; and divine justice; and duty; and happiness of others; and rules of morality; and self-admiration

resentment: and approval/disapproval; and fortune; and justice; objects of; and propriety of passions; and punishment; and rules of morality; and sociability; and social status; and sympathy; and unsocial passions

Retz, Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de

Riccoboni, Marie-Jeanne

Richardson, Samuel

Richelieu, Armand du Plessis, Cardinal de

Roman Catholic Church

Roman culture: and the arts; and friendships; and patriotism; and public spirit; and rules of morality; and self-command; and social customs; and social status; and suicide; and utility

Rousseau, Jean-Jacques

Russell, William, Lord

Sallust

Santeuil, Jean

savages

Scipio Aemilianus

Scipio Africanus

Scipio Nascia

Scottish Enlightenment

self-command.
See also
temperance: and authority of conscience; and propriety; and resentment of suffering; and social custom; and Stoicism; and utility of action; and virtue

self-interest: and authority of conscience; and beneficence; and duty; and human nature; and Hutcheson; and justice; and perception of virtue; and prudence; and the public good; selfish passions; self-love; and Stoicism; and survival instinct; and vanity

Seneca

Shaftesbury, Anthony Ashley Cooper, first Earl of

Shaftesbury, Anthony Ashley Cooper, third Earl of

Sidney, Algernon

Sidney, Sir Philip

Simson, Robert

Smith, John

sociability

social order: and ambition; and beneficence; and corruption of moral sentiments; and fashion; and natural jurisprudence; and punishment; and selfish passions; and virtue; and wealth

social status.
See
ranks (social status)

Socrates

Solon

Sophocles

St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre

statesmanship

Stewart, Matthew

Stoicism; and divine order; and ends of life; and Epicureanism; and fortune; and happiness; and human nature; and licentiousness; maxims of; and misfortune; and moral worth; and natural desire; paradoxes of; and propriety; and self-command; and self-interest, command; and self-interest; and suicide

suffering

suicide: and Aristomenes; and Cato; Hume on; and praiseworthiness; and Stoicism

Sully, Maximilien de Béthune, Duc de

Sulpitius

Swift, Jonathan

sympathy: and approbation; and authority of conscience; and beneficence; described; and family structure; and gratitude; limits of; and love; and moral sense; mutual sense of; and physical passions; and propriety of passions; and resentment; and self-command; and selfish passions; and self-love; Smith’s use of; and social customs; and social passions; and social status; and sorrow and joy; and universal benevolence; and unsocial passions; and utility

Tacitus

Tamerlane

taste

temperance.
See also
self-command: and amiable passions; Aristotle on; and Epicureanism; Mandeville on; and Platonic virtue; and pleasure; and prudence; and social rank; and Stoicism; and utility

Themistocles

Theramenes

Tibullus

Tigranes II

Timolean

torture

Turenne, Henri de La Tour d’Auvergne, Vicomte de

unsocial passions

utility

vanity: and esteem; and fashion; Mandeville on; and praiseworthiness; and self-command; and self-interest; and social status

vengeance: and atonement; divine; and justice; and pity; and punishment; and resentment; and self-command

Vertue, George

Vespasian

vices

virtue: amiable virtues; and approbation; Aristotelian system of; and benevolence; cardinal virtues; and corruption of moral sentiments; and customs; and duty; and friendships; imperfect virtues; and individual character; and kinship ties; and licentiousness; Mandeville on; and modern philosophical systems; Platonic system of; and praiseworthiness; and propriety; and prudence; and reason; and relativism; and rules of morality; and self-command; and self-interest; and social order; and social status; Socratic system of; and Stoicism; and systems of moral sentiments; and unsocial passions; and utility

Voltaire

war: civil wars; Grotius on; and justice; laws of; and public spirit; and self-command; and state of nature

wealth

William III, of England

Wollaston, William

Zeno of Citium

a

I am most grateful to Kirsty Walker for helping me with the textual research for this introduction.

b

It has been objected to me that as I found the sentiment of approbation, which is always agreeable, upon sympathy, it is inconsistent with my system to admit any disagreeable sympathy. I answer, that in the sentiment of approbation there are two things to be taken notice of; first, the sympathetic passion of the spectator; and, secondly, the emotion which arises from his observing the perfect coincidence between this sympathetic passion in himself, and the original passion in the person principally concerned. This last emotion, in which the sentiment of approbation properly consists, is always agreeable and delightful. The other may either be agreeable or disagreeable, according to the nature of the original passion, whose features it must always, in some measure, retain.
²

c

To ascribe in this manner our natural sense of the ill desert of human actions to a sympathy with the resentment of the sufferer, may seem, to the greater part of people, to be a degradation of that sentiment. Resentment is commonly regarded as so odious a passion, that they will be apt to think it impossible that so laudable a principle, as the sense of the ill desert of vice, should in any respect be founded upon it. They will be more willing, perhaps, to admit that our sense of the merit of good actions is founded upon a sympathy with the gratitude of the persons who receive the benefit of them; because gratitude, as well as all the other benevolent passions, is regarded as an amiable principle, which can take nothing from the worth of whatever is founded upon it. Gratitude and resentment, however, are in every respect, it is evident, counterparts to one another; and if our sense of merit arises from a sympathy with the one, our sense of demerit can scarce miss to proceed from a fellow-feeling with the other.

Let it be considered too that resentment, though, in the degrees in which we too often see it, the most odious, perhaps, of all the passions, is not disapproved of when properly humbled and entirely brought down to the level of the sympathetic indignation of the spectator. When we, who are the bystanders, feel that our own animosity entirely corresponds with that of the sufferer, when the resentment of this last does not in any respect go beyond our own, when no word, no gesture, escapes him that denotes an emotion more violent than what we can keep time to, and when he never aims at inflicting any punishment beyond what we should rejoice to see inflicted, or what we ourselves would upon this account even desire to be the instruments of inflicting, it is impossible that we should not entirely approve of his sentiments. Our own emotion in this case must, in our eyes, undoubtedly justify his. And as experience teaches us how much the greater part of mankind are incapable of this moderation, and how great an effort must be made in order to bring down the rude and undisciplined impulse of resentment to this suitable temper, we cannot avoid conceiving a considerable degree of esteem and admiration for one who appears capable of exerting so much self-command over one of the most ungovernable passions of his nature. When indeed the animosity of the sufferer exceeds, as it almost always does, what we can go along with, as we cannot enter into it, we necessarily disapprove of it. We even disapprove of it more than we should of an equal excess of almost any other passion derived from the imagination. And this too violent resentment, instead of carrying us along with it, becomes itself the object of our resentment and indignation. We enter into the opposite resentment of the person who is the object of this unjust emotion, and who is in danger of suffering from it. Revenge, therefore, the excess of resentment, appears to be the most detestable of all the passions, and is the object of the horror and indignation of every body. And as in the way in which this passion commonly discovers itself among mankind, it is excessive a hundred times for once that it is moderate, we are very apt to consider it as altogether odious and detestable, because in its most ordinary appearances it is so. Nature, however, even in the present depraved state of mankind, does not seem to have dealt so unkindly with us, as to have endowed us with any principle which is wholly and in every respect evil, or which, in no degree and in no direction, can be the proper object of praise and approbation. Upon some occasions we are sensible that this passion, which is generally too strong, may likewise be too weak. We sometimes complain that a particular person shows too little spirit, and has too little sense of the injuries that have been done to him; and we are as ready to despise him for the defect, as to hate him for the excess of this passion.