Abstract

Spiros Tegos

The Problem of Authority in Adam Smith

In the context of the modifications that Smith added to the ultimate edition of the TMS, his assessment of sympathy towards the rich and the great stands out.  Yet, it seems ambiguous: Smith hails the extension of sympathetic bonds to the rich and the great as an achievement of commercial civilization in VI.ii.i 20, while in I.iii.3 he condemns the same phenomenon as corrupting the sympathetic moral community, due to the excessive obsequiousness towards the rich and the great that it triggers. This ambiguity of Smith’s assessment of the respect paid to the rich and powerful passes usually unnoticed and I will argue that it entails some important theoretical consequences for the understanding of sympathy.