Abstract

Alice MacLachlan

Injustice, Entitlement and Smithean Resentment

Adam Smith describes the passion of resentment as an admittedly “irregular” natural response to harm and injury, and one with which most spectators are least able to sympathize.  Nevertheless, resentment — or an idealized version of it — plays a crucial role in determining the proper objects of merit and demerit.  In this paper I contrast ‘Smithean’ resentment with an earlier account, found in the writings of Joseph Butler; while Smith’s account is more compelling than Butler’s, I ask whether ultimately, he wavers between a descriptive and normative account of resentment, an equivocation that would undermine the role Smith sets for resentment in his moral theory.