For sentimentalists like Hume, the most basic objects of our approval are actions or character traits that cause pleasure. But Adam Smith instead takes as the fundamental object of approval the propriety of sentiments: a sentiment’s being ‘suited’ and ‘proportionate’ to its cause. Yet he is not particularly clear about what it is for a sentiment to match an object in this way. Moreover, extant interpretations are unsatisfying, because they generally fail to make sense of Smith’s claim that, in o…
Read moreFor sentimentalists like Hume, the most basic objects of our approval are actions or character traits that cause pleasure. But Adam Smith instead takes as the fundamental object of approval the propriety of sentiments: a sentiment’s being ‘suited’ and ‘proportionate’ to its cause. Yet he is not particularly clear about what it is for a sentiment to match an object in this way. Moreover, extant interpretations are unsatisfying, because they generally fail to make sense of Smith’s claim that, in order to judge whether someone else’s sentiments are proper, one must use one’s own sentiments as a “rule or canon.” This article provides a novel account of Smithian propriety, based on the idea that Smith sees sentiments as representations of value. Sentimental propriety, on this account, is a kind of representational correctness; one judges the sentiments of someone else to be proper just insofar as ones share their sentimental perspective on the relevant object.
