Just Sentiments: Justice and Sympathy in David Hume and Adam Smith

This thesis concerns the role of sympathy in the accounts of the approbation of justice offered by David Hume and Adam Smith. I argue for four main claims. Firstly, that Hume’s view of justice undergoes substantive revision in between his two major works in moral philosophy (Book III of the Treatise and the Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals). Second, I hold that a number of these revisions serve both to displace the importance of sympathy in Hume’s system and to make him more liable to criticisms of the view offered subsequently by Smith. Thirdly, that Smith provides a viable alternative account, which reinstates the centrality of sympathy. And fourthly, that it provides a fruitful perspective on the disagreement between Hume and Smith to consider the opposition between their two views as one over Hume’s affirmation and Smith’s rejection of the artificiality of our just sentiments.