The Theory of Moral Sentiments - Adam Smith [1]
RYAN PATRICK HANLEY is the author of Adam Smith and the Character of Virtue. An assistant professor of political science at Marquette University, he has been the recipient of fellowships from the Mellon Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities.
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First published in Great Britain by A. Millar, London and A. Kincaid & J. Bell, Edinburgh 1759
This edition with an introduction by Amartya Sen and notes by Ryan Patrick Hanley
published in Penguin Books 2009
Introduction copyright © Amartya Sen, 2009 Notes copyright © Ryan Patrick Hanley, 2009
All rights reserved
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING IN PUBLICATION DATA
Smith, Adam, 1723-1790.
The theory of moral sentiments / Adam Smith ; introduction by Amartya Sen ;
edited with notes by Ryan Patrick Hanley.
p. cm.—(Penguin classics)
“The version published here is that of the sixth edition, which appeared in 1790”—P.
Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.
eISBN : 978-1-101-46001-6
1. Ethics—Early works to 1800. I. Hanley, Ryan Patrick, 1974—II. Title.
BJ1005.S6 2006
170—dc22 2009033354
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Introduction
The Theory of Moral Sentiments, Adam Smith’s first book, was published in early 1759. Smith, then a young professor at the University of Glasgow, had some understandable anxiety about the public reception of the book, which was based on his quite radical lectures. On April 12, 1759, Smith heard from his friend David Hume in London about how the book was doing. If Smith was, Hume told him, prepared for “the worst,” then he must now be given “the melancholy News” that unfortunately “the Public seem disposed to applaud [your book] extremely.” “It was looked for by the foolish People with some Impatience; and the Mob of Literati are beginning already to be very loud in its Praises.” This light-hearted intimation of the early success of Smith’s first book would be followed by serious critical acclaim, bringing immediate success to one of the truly outstanding books in the intellectual history of the world.
This introduction is concerned specifically with the continued relevance of that remarkable monograph, which was published a quarter of a millennium ago. Even though Smith’s investigations and analyses have had a profound impact on the world, especially the economic world, there is still much to learn from them. As it happens, after its immediate success, Moral Sentiments went into something of an eclipse from the beginning of the nineteenth century, and Smith was increasingly seen almost exclusively as the author of his second book that transformed