David Bourget (Western Ontario)
David Chalmers (ANU, NYU)
Rafael De Clercq
Ezio Di Nucci
Jack Alan Reynolds
Learn more about PhilPapers
Economics and Philosophy 18 (1):63-87 (2002)
When modern economists use the notions of <span class='Hi'>sympathy</span> or <span class='Hi'>empathy</span>, they often claim that their ideas have their roots in Adam Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759/1976), while sometimes complaining that Smith fails to distinguish clearly enough between the two concepts. Recently, Philippe Fontaine (1997) has described various forms of <span class='Hi'>sympathy</span> and <span class='Hi'>empathy</span>, and has explored their respective roles in Smith's work. My objective in this paper is to argue that Smith's analysis of how people's sentiments impinge on one another involves a concept of fellow-feeling that is distinct from both <span class='Hi'>sympathy</span> and <span class='Hi'>empathy</span>. Unlike <span class='Hi'>sympathy</span> and <span class='Hi'>empathy</span>, fellow-feeling does not fit into the ontological framework of rational choice theory – which may explain why it tends to be overlooked by modern readers of Smith.
|Keywords||No keywords specified (fix it)|
|Categories||categorize this paper)|
Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server
Configure custom proxy (use this if your affiliation does not provide a proxy)
|Through your library|
References found in this work BETA
No references found.
Citations of this work BETA
Robert Sugden (2003). The Logic of Team Reasoning. Philosophical Explorations 6 (3):165 – 181.
Luigino Bruni & Robert Sugden (2008). Fraternity: Why the Market Need Not Be a Morally Free Zone. Economics and Philosophy 24 (1):35-64.
Elias L. Khalil (2015). The Fellow-Feeling Paradox: Hume, Smith and the Moral Order. Philosophy 90 (4):653-678.
Similar books and articles
Fonna Forman-Barzilai (2005). Sympathy in Space(S): Adam Smith on Proximity. Political Theory 33 (2):189 - 217.
Eric Gregory (2011). Sympathy and Domination : Adam Smith, Happiness, and the Virtues of Augustinianism. In Paul Oslington (ed.), Adam Smith as Theologian. Routledge
Peter Nilsson (2003). Empathy and Emotions: On the Notion of Empathy as Emotional Sharing. Dissertation, Umeå University
Patrick R. Frierson (2006). Adam Smith and the Possibility of Sympathy with Nature. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 87 (4):442–480.
Heidi L. Maibom (2009). Feeling for Others: Empathy, Sympathy, and Morality. Inquiry 52 (5):483-499.
Bence Nanay (2010). Adam Smith’s Concept of Sympathy and its Contemporary Interpretations. Adam Smith Review.
Edith Wyschogrod (1981). Empathy and Sympathy as Tactile Encounter. Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 6 (1):25-44.
Cor van der Weele (2011). Empathy's Purity, Sympathy's Complexities; De Waal, Darwin and Adam Smith. Biology and Philosophy 26 (4):583-593.
Added to index2009-01-28
Total downloads141 ( #25,476 of 1,792,081 )
Recent downloads (6 months)17 ( #47,136 of 1,792,081 )
How can I increase my downloads?