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Adam Smith
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Smith defines the proper objects of gratitude and resentment as those which an impartial spectator can fully sympathize with. A man deserves reward when his conduct makes him the natural target of gratitude every reasonable heart would applaud and delight to see rewarded; he deserves punishment when he provokes resentment every hearer shares and rejoices to see punished.
When prosperity flows from another person's kindness, sympathy with the beneficiary's joy enlarges into warm approval of the benefactor, whose returns of gratitude we enter into as entirely suitable. The reverse movement governs injury. Sympathy with distress fuels abhorrence of its cause and eagerness to assist justified defense or measured vengeance; even the murder victim, whom we imagine resenting from the grave, stirs duty to retaliate, as ghosts demanding vengeance illustrate nature's stamp upon the heart.
Smith treats this sympathetic readiness as antecedent to reflections on utility, endorsing retaliation for the gravest wrongs as sacred and necessary. Before philosophy argues for punishment's social use, spectators already beat time to gratitude toward benefactors and resentment toward wrongdoers; that universal fellow-feeling marks the action's desert.
Distinguish between personal grievances and genuine moral violations by recognizing when multiple observers share the same emotional response. Smith grounds the point in a concrete scene from moral spectatorship.
This week, pause before you call an emotion excessive and ask what situation you have not yet pictured.
But what happens when we don't approve of someone's motives, even if they help others? Smith will explore how our judgment of the giver affects our sympathy with the receiver, revealing the complex dance between intention and gratitude..
What this chapter proves — the pattern beneath the scene
In this chapter, the lesson is Separating Justice from Beneficence.
The card below names the pattern this chapter proves — carry it with you into the original text.
Separating Justice from Beneficence
A man deserves reward when every reasonable heart would delight to see him rewarded. He deserves punishment when every hearer shares the resentment and rejoices to see it answered. Smith says this fellow-feeling is older than arguments about utility.
Key Insight
The impartial spectator is the test of desert. If only the injured party can enter the passion, it is not yet justice.
Chapter 15
Of the proper objects of gratitude and resentment. To be the proper and approved object either of gratitude or resentment, can mean nothing but to be the object of that gratitude, and of that resentment, which naturally seems proper, and is approved of. But these, as well as all the other passions of human nature, seem proper and are approved of, when the heart of every impartial spectator entirely sympathizes with them, when every indifferent by-stander entirely enters into, and goes along with them. He, therefore, appears to deserve reward, who, to some person or persons, is the natural object…
Public-domain chapter text, formatted for reading.
Think of a recent situation where you felt someone was treated unfairly (at work, in your family, or in your community). Write down who else witnessed this situation and what their reactions were. Then identify who felt the same way you did and who seemed indifferent or disagreed. Finally, consider what this pattern tells you about building support for fairness in that environment.
Write about a time when you witnessed an injustice but stayed silent. What would you do differently now, knowing that others likely shared your feelings?
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Other theme-by-theme analyses from this book.
Divide yourself into two persons in chapter 26, and let the one who did not act pass sentence.
Stand at the rack in chapter 1, then at the slack rope, and watch imagination do what the senses refuse.
Hear that every man is first recommended to his own care, then watch the miser and the cheat use the same sentence.
Stay with the stone we curse, the office the friend failed to get, and the court that must not become an inquisition of wishes.
Watch the poor man go unheeded in a crowd, then the toil whose only end is a neighbor's admiration.
Deep diving the literary elements.
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