Abstract

Andrew Terjesen

Imagination or Correspondence in Smith’s ‘Sympathy’

Interpreters of TMS have fallen into roughly two camps when discussing the fundamental notion of sympathy at work in Smith’s moral theory.  The Imaginative View emphasizes projection into the state of another; while the Correspondence View focuses on the matching of sentiments.  This paper argues that the Correspondence View is the more important notion of “sympathy” in TMS.  However, the Correspondence View is usually paired with a marketplace model of social norms in Smith’s theory – which does not seem faithful to the spirit of TMS.  A modified version of the Correspondence View is presented that avoids that interpretation.