The Theory of Moral Sentiments - Adam Smith [275]
11 For Cudworth’s arguments that value exists antecedent to law and resides particularly in the nature of the internal operations of the mind, see, e.g., Immutable Morality, 1.2.3-4, 4.6.12.
12 See esp. Hutcheson, Essay with Illustrations 2.1.
13 Smith principally has Hutcheson in mind here, as the remainder of this chapter makes clear. Other authors well known to Smith also influential in the debates over moral sense include Shaftesbury, Inquiry Concerning Virtue 1.3.1-3; Hume, Treatise 3.1.2; and Kames, Essays on Morality and Religion 1.2.2.
14 Smith has Hume particularly in mind here, as the last paragraph of this chapter makes clear. For Hume’s comparison of moral sense systems with those founded on sympathy, see esp. Treatise 3.3.6.3.
15 For Hutcheson’s conception of approbation as not founded on self-love, see, e.g., Inquiry into Beauty and Virtue 2.1.4-5; for his conception of approbation as not founded on reason, see, e.g., Essay with Illustrations 2.1.
16 For Hutcheson’s comparisons of the external and internal senses, see, e.g., Inquiry into Beauty and Virtue 1.10-11; and Short Introduction 1.1.3-4.
17 In referring here to the “Treatise of the Passions,” Smith may have in mind Hutcheson’s brief discussion of reflection in the Preface to the Essay with Illustrations (esp. in the 1742 edition, which names Locke explicitly). Hutcheson’s distinction between the direct and the reflex senses is more fully drawn in his Synopsis of Metaphysics 2.1.3 and Short Introduction 1.1.3-4. Locke’s distinction between sensation and reflection is drawn in his Essay Concerning Human Understanding 2.1.4 and 2.6.1-2.
18 For Hutcheson’s conception of the moral sense as harmonious with the analogy of nature, see System 1.4.4; for an overview of the various senses, see Essay with Illustrations 1.1.
19 Smith’s reference is to Essay with Illustrations 2.1, under the marginal heading “Objections from our judging even of our Affections and Senses themselves.”
20 Johnson’s definitions reiterate the wide scope emphasized by Smith; thus approbation is “the liking of any thing,” and conscience, “the knowledge or faculty by which we judge of the goodness or wickedness of ourselves.”
21 For Smith’s account of Hume, see 4.1-2 above; on sympathy in this context, see Treatise 3.3.1-2; and Kames, Essays on Morality and Religion 1.1.
PART VII, SECTION IV
1 For their catalogues of the ethical virtues, see Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 3.6-5.11; Cicero, De officiis 1.18-151.
2 Casuistry is a form of moral reasoning that seeks to articulate comprehensive standards of judgment universally applicable to all discrete cases; see also Smith’s critique at Wealth of Nations 5.1.f.
3 highwayman: “a robber that plunders on the public roads” (Johnson).
4 See note below.
5 On the debate over the promise owed to the highwayman, see esp. Pufendorf, Law of Nature and Nations 3.6.10-13, which cites in support of its position Cicero, De officiis 3.107-109 (itself part of the discussion of Regulus, cited above); and Hutcheson, Short Introduction 2.9.8-9.
6 Among the “eminent modern casuists” that Smith likely has in mind are two cited by Pufendorf: Grotius, Rights of War and Peace 2.11.7; and Hobbes, De cive 2.16 and Leviathan 14.19-20. Smith’s footnote suggests he may also have in mind Augustine, Letters 125; and La Placette, Traité de la conscience (trans. 1705 as The Christian Casuist: Or, a Treatise on Conscience), 1.18.
7 punctilio: “a small nicety of behaviour; a nice point of exactness” (Johnson).
8 parole: “word given as an assurance” (Johnson).
9 rencounter: “loose or casual engagement” or “sudden combat without premeditation” (Johnson).
10 This and the following four paragraphs were additions to the sixth edition of 1790.
11 The first five sentences of this paragraph and the whole of the next three paragraphs were additions to the sixth edition of 1790.
12 piacular: “such as requires expiation” or “criminal; atrociously bad” (Johnson).
13 Smith’s division