University of Virginia Library

Chapter 4. The Feeling of Merit and Demerit

The sense of the propriety or impropriety of a moral action or sentiment is, according to Adam Smith, only one side of the fact of moral approbation, a sense of their merit or demerit constituting the other side. An action or sentiment isproper or improper in relation to its cause, or the motive which excites it, whilst it ismeritorious or the contrary in relation to its effect, or in accordance with its beneficial or hurtful tendency.

It is important to notice this distinction, for it is a protest, as Adam Smith himself declares, against the theories of Dr. Hutcheson and Hume, who, he complains, had considered too much the tendency of affections, their good or bad results, whilst neglecting the relation in which they stood to their causes. This was to overlook the facts of common life, since a person's conduct and sentiments are generally regarded under both these aspects, a man receiving blame for excess of love, or grief, or resentment, not only by reason of the ruinous effects they tend to produce, but also on account of the little occasion that was given for them. It is the want of proportion between a passion and its cause, as well as the sense of its disastrous effects, which make up the whole character of moral disapprobation. Whilst praise or blame are attached to the first aspect of an action or sentiment, a stronger feeling of sympathy or antipathy attaches itself to either in connexion with their effects, a feeling that they deserve reward or punishment, a feeling in other words of their merit or demerit.

As gratitude is the feeling which most directly prompts us to reward another man, and resentment that which most directly prompts us to punish him, an action will call for reward or punishment according as it is the object of either of these feelings. The measure, therefore, of the merit or demerit of any action will be the feeling of gratitude or resentment it excites.

But here again the principle of sympathy must come into play, to decide on the rightfulness of the gratitude or resentment. An action can only seem meritorious or the contrary, as deserving of reward or punishment, if it is the proper and right object of gratitude or resentment; and only that gratitude or resentment can be proper which commands the sympathy of the impartial spectator. That man's action deserves reward as meritorious who to somebody is the object of a gratitude which every human heart is disposed to beat time to, whilst his action seems to deserve punishment as bad who to somebody is the object of a resentment which every reasonable man can sympathize with and adopt. According as everybody who hears of any action would wish to see it rewarded or punished may it fairly be accounted meritorious or the reverse.

In regarding, then, the beneficial or hurtful tendency of actions, our sense of their merit or demerit, due to sympathy with the gratitude or the resentment they respectively excites appears to arise in the following way.

Sympathizing as we do with the joy of others in prosperity, we also join them in the satisfaction with which they regard the cause of their good fortune. If the cause has been a man, this is more especially the case. We regard him in the same engaging light in which we imagine he must appear to the object of his bounty, whilst our sympathy with the joy of the latter inspires us also with a reflection of the same gratitude he feels.

In the same manner we sympathize not only with the distress or sorrow of another, but with the aversion he feels towards the cause of it. When we see one man oppressed or injured by another, our sympathy with the sufferer only animates our fellow-feeling with his resentment against his oppressor. So we even enter into the imaginary resentment of the slain, and by an illusive sympathy with that resentment which we know he would feel, were he alive, exact vengeance from the criminal who murdered him.

But although our sympathy with the beneficial results of an act may thus lead us to join in the gratitude it occasions, and so to regard it as meritorious or deserving of reward, this is only, as has been said, one side or aspect of complete moral approbation. To constitute the latter, a sense of the propriety of an action must be joined to a sense of its merit.; and an action is only then really good when we can sympathize with the motives of the agent as well as with the gratitude his conduct produces. Wherever we cannot enter into the affections of the agent, wherever we cannot recognize any propriety in the motives which influenced him, we fail to sympathize with the gratitude of the person he has befriended. Where, for instance, the greatest benefits have been conferred from the most trivial motives, as where a man gives an estate to another simply because his name or his surname happen to be the same as his own, little gratitude seems due; and con- sequently the action, though beneficial in its tendency, since it fails to command our complete sympathy, fails to command our complete approbation.

So on the other hand, however hurtful in their tendency a man's actions or intentions may be, if we sympathize with his motives, that is, if we look upon him as in the right, we can feel no sympathy with the resentment of the person injuriously affected by him. If he suffers no more than our own sympathetic indignation would have prompted us to inflict upon him, we have no fellow-feeling with his suffering, and consequently no sense of the demerit of the action he regards with resentment. It would be impossible, for instance, to sympathize with the resentment expressed by a murderer against his judge. So that to constitute the sentiment of complete moral disapprobation, there must be impropriety of motive on the part of the agent as well as a hurtful result to some one else; or, in other words, for an action to be pronounced by our sympathetic imagination completely bad, it must be both improper in its motive and injurious in its result. It is not enough for it to be simply injurious.

It results therefore from this analysis, that a complete sense of the merit of an action, or the feeling of perfect moral approbation, is really "a compounded sentiment," made up of two distinct sympathetic emotions, namely, of a direct sympathy with the sentiments of the agent, and an indirect sympathy with the gratitude of those who receive the benefit of his actions. Take our sense of the good desert of a particular character in historyScipio, Timoleon, or Aristides. In imagination we become those very persons, and, by a direct sympathy with them, enter into their designs, and feel the same generous sentiments that they felt. But we also by an indirect sympathy feel the benefit of their great actions, and enter into the gratitude of those who experienced them. The sympathetic emotions of gratitude and love, which we thus feel when we bring home to our own breast the situation of those originally concerned, account for our whole sense of the merit of such actions, and for our desire of their meeting with a fitting recompence.

In the same way a complete sense of the demerit of an action is a compounded sentiment made up of two distinct emotions; of a direct antipathy to the sentiments of the agent, and an indirect sympathy with the resentment of the sufferer. We feel a direct antipathy to the detestable sentiments which actuated a Borgia or a Nero, while we sympathize indirectly with the resentment of those they afflicted. Our sense of the atrocity of their conduct, and our delight in hearing of its punishmentin short, our whole feeling of ill desert, and of the justice of inflicting evil on the person who is guilty of it, and of making him grieve in his turnarises from the sympathetic indignation which boils up in our breast whenever we thoroughly bring home to ourselves the case of the sufferer.

Nor is it any degradation of our sense of the demerit of actions to ascribe it to our sympathy with the resentment of another. Resentment is in every respect the counterpart of gratitude, and if our sense of merit arises from our sympathy with the one, our sense of demerit may well arise from our sympathy with the other. Resentment, too, as a principle of human nature, is only evil when it appears in excess as revenge; and as it is excessive a hundred times for once that it is moderate, we are apt to consider it altogether detestable, because in its ordinary manifestation it is so. But it is not disapproved of when properly humbled, and entirely brought down to the level of the sympathetic indignation of the spectator. When we as bystanders entertain an animosity corresponding to that of the sufferer, when his resentment in no respect exceeds our own, when no word nor gesture escapes him that denotes an emotion more violent than we can share, and when he never aims at inflicting a punishment severer than that we should rejoice to see inflicted or would inflict ourselves, it is impossible that we should not entirely approve of his sentiments.

It appears then in Adam Smith's theory, that the element of morality in actions only really arises from reference to their tendency. The sentiment or affection of the heart from which all action results may in relation to its cause or motive be regarded as unsuitable or disproportionate, according as it exceeds or falls short of that mean point with which the general observer can sympathize. It may be thus approved or disapproved as proper or improper, but it is not applauded or condemned as moral or immoral. An anger which is out of proportion to the cause of its provocation, a state of joy or sorrow out of keeping with their origin, a generosity or benevolence that seem excessive, are blamed not as immoral, but as out of harmony with the feelings of a spectator. So with reference to the bodily passions, it is the office of temperance to confine them within those limits "which grace, which propriety, which delicacy, and modesty require," (not within those which morality require). It is only when regard is paid to the effects which flow from different actions, that a stronger feeling appears, a feeling not merely of propriety or im- propriety, but of their merit or demerit, or in other words, of their moral worth or the contrary.

It is only actionsof a beneficent tendency, which proceed from proper motives, that are thus meritorious, for such actions alone seem to deserve a reward, from the gratitude they command from a spectator through sympathy. And it is only actions of a hurtful tendency, which proceed from improper motives, that seem really wicked, for they alone seem to deserve a punishment, from the resentment they inspire a spectator with by sympathy.

Adam Smith illustrates his theory that the wrongfulness or demerit of actions depends on our sense of their deserving to be punished by the two virtues of beneficence and justice. The mere want of beneficence, the neglect to do the good expected of one, may give rise to feelings of dislike and dis- approbation, but as it does no real positive evil, it provokes no feeling of sympathetic resentment. Take a case of the blackest ingratitude, where a man fails to recompense his benefactor, when the latter stands in great need of his assistance. Every impartial spectator rejects all fellow-feeling with the selfishness of his motives, and he is the proper object of the highest disapprobation. Still since he does no positive hurt, but only neglects to do the good he might, he is the object of hatred, not of resentment, two passions which differ in this respect, that whilst the former is called forth byimpropriety of sentiment and behaviour, the latter is only provoked by actions which tend to do real and positive hurt to some particular persons. Ingratitude therefore cannot be punished. It is improper, and meets with the disapprobation of the spectator, but it is not wrong or immoral, in. the sense in which it would be, if it went a step further, and raised a feeling of resentment by actual hurtfulness of tendency against somebody.

Theproper degree of beneficence, moreover, as that which ordinary experience leads us to expect, and also makes the measure of our praise or blame, is in itself neither praiseworthy nor blameable. As it is only the defect of ordinary beneficence which incurs our blame, so it is only the excess of it which deserves our praise. A father, or son, or brother, who behaves to the correspondent relation neither better nor worse than the average of mankind do, seems to deserve neither praise nor blame. His conduct, though it may attain that point at which we recognize its propriety and so command our approbation, commands nothing more. It is only when we are surprised by unexpected, though proper kindness, or by unexpected and improper unkindness, that it attains the point of being praiseworthy or the reverse.

Beneficence, when it thus attains a high degree, when it becomes productive of the greatest good, at once becomes the object of the liveliest gratitude, appears to be deserving of the highest reward, and consequently appears as meritorious and praiseworthy.

The virtue of justice differs from that of beneficence in that the violation of it, by doing real and positive hurt to some particular persons, from motives that are disapproved of, is the natural object of resentment, and calls in consequence for punishment. Resentment was given to us "by nature for defence, and for defence only. It is the safeguard of justice and the security of innocence. It prompts us to beat off the mischief which is attempted to be done to us, and to retaliate that which is already done, that the offender may be made to repent of his injustice, and that others, through fear of the like punishment, may be terrified from being guilty of the like offence." As mankind generally approve of the violence employed to avenge the hurt which is, done by injustice, so they much more approve of that which is employed to pre- vent and beat off the injury, and to restrain the offender from hurting his neighbour. Even the person guilty of intending injustice feels that force may be used against him, both by the person he is about to injure, or by others, either to obstruct the execution of his crime, or to punish him when he has executed it.

This fact accounts for the great distinction between justice and all the other social virtues, that we feel a higher obligation to act according to justice than according to friendship, charity, or generosity; and that, while the practice of the latter virtues seems to be left in some measure to our own choice, we feel ourselves to be "in a peculiar manner tied, bound, and obliged to the observation of justice." For we feel that force may, with the utmost propriety, and with the approbation of mankind, be made use of to compel us to observe the rules of the one, but not to follow the precepts of the others.

It is this feeling, then, of the legitimate use of force and punishment which makes us view with so much stronger a sense of disapprobation actions which are unjustthat is, injurious to othersthan actions which are merely breaches of that propriety which we like to see observed in the various relationships that connect men together. A father who fails in the ordinary degree of parental affection to a son, or a son who is wanting in filial respect for his father, or a man who shuts up his heart against compassion, incur, indeed, blame; but not that superior degree of blame which relates to actions of a positively hurtful tendency.

But though this superior form of disapprobation attaches itself to acts of injustice, just as a superior form of approbation attaches itself to act ns of great beneficence, there is no more merit in the observance of justice than there is demerit in the neglect of beneficence. "There is, no doubt, a propriety in the practice of justice, and it merits upon that account all the approbation which is due to propriety. But as it does no real positive good, it is entitled to very little gratitude. Mere justice is, upon most occasions, but a negative virtue, and only hinders us from hurting our neighbour. The man who barely abstains from violating either the person or the estate or the reputation of his neighbours, has surely very little positive merit. . . . We may often fulfil all the rules of justice by sitting still and doing nothing." As before explained, the sense of the merit of an action is different from the sense of its propriety, and unless an action has both these characteristics, it does not really satisfy the conditions ofmorality.

In proportion, therefore, to the resentment naturally felt by a sufferer from injustice is the sympathetic indignation of the spectator, and the sense of guilt in the agent. But the resentment itself, being proportioned to the evil done by an act, the demerit of an act may be measured by the evil it causes. Death being the greatest evil one man can do to another, and consequently incurring the highest indignation from those connected with the slain man, takes rank as the worst of all crimes. Injuries to a man's property and possessions being less hurtful to him than an injury to his life or person, theft and robbery rank next to murder in atrocity. And as it is a smaller evil to be disappointed of what we have only in expectation than to be deprived of what we have in possession, breach of contract is a less heinous crime than one which attacks a man's actual property.