The Art of Emotional Harmony — The Theory of Moral Sentiments

Smith distinguishes two arenas of judgment. For impersonal objects such as beauty, mathematics, poetry, or another person's conduct viewed at a distance, agreement is easy and yields taste or good judgment; uncommon acuteness that leads our own view earns admiration. Utility may later add value, but we first approve judgment because it matches our sense of truth, not because it is useful. Disagreement over a picture rarely ends friendship because neither party is deeply invested.

Matters that touch us directly are harder. My companion cannot see my misfortune from the same station I do, so perfect correspondence is rare and conflict becomes intolerable: cold indifference beside violent grief or resentment offends both sides. The spectator must therefore enter every circumstance of the case, yet even then sympathy usually falls short of the sufferer's violence because self-preservation interrupts the imagined switch of places. The person principally concerned passionately wants fuller concord than observers naturally give.

Social harmony depends on the sufferer lowering passion to what others can follow, while spectators in turn teach composure by the level of intimacy expected. Company calms us because we see ourselves through others' eyes; strangers require the greatest restraint. Conversation is thus a remedy for disturbed minds and a preservative of temper, which brooding solitaries often lack despite finer feeling.