Moral Sentimentalism

Question 1

Moral sentimentalism is a theory that suggests that morality and immorality are known by the emotional reactions to experiences. This means that our desires and emotions have a very important role to play in the anatomy of morality. It is through this theory that moral truths and standards are defined (Michael, 95).

Moral Sentimentalism and moral rationalism have a slight difference on how we classify actions whether they are right or wrong. Moral Sentimentalism argues that a knowledge of morality starts from our senses.  According to this theory, emotions act as the basis for moral judgment in the sense that judging that something is wrong is similar to having a negative sentiment concerning it.  According to a research done, the brain gets lightened up when people are making moral judgments and hence different emotions affect the way we make judgment (Michael, 160).

On the other hand, moral rationalism suggests that we get to know what is right and wrong from a rational thought. This theory is discrete such that an act is either true of false regardless of the situation. That which is true remains to be true in all dimensions of life just like mathematics. In the judgment using this theory, there is nothing like aesthetic judgments since feelings and personal opinions are not considered (Michael, 160).

Question 2

Smith defines approval or disapproval with respect to empathy (Michael, 34). He argues that we approve actions as long as they show empathy to the victims or recipients of the actions (Michael, 28). However, there is a slight distinction between empathy and approval. Empathy refers to the act of understanding and sharing feelings, experiences and emotions with another person. On the other hand approval or disapproval refers to passing judgment of agreement or disagreement to an action after a satisfying state is reached.

Empathy and approval are independent aspects of moral judgment unlike how smith’s puts it. This is because empathy is a sense of understanding which comes from the mind while approval is not dependent on feelings. Empathy is not approval because one may be empathetic towards his or her abuser because maybe he or she has been a victim as well and so you may decide not to report him or her to the authorities. On the same knot, some victims are not courageous enough to speak up what they feel. Some are over empathetic and so they fear that they might harm their offenders. In conclusion, empathy can be a misleading standard of approval or disapproval.

Question 3

Adam smith’s version of moral sentimentalism is so amazing such that it has gone beyond the ordinary moral judgments by introducing the aspect of empathy. Despite having grounded his thoughts deeply into this best way of moral judgment, there are few obvious flaws that have arisen in the process.

First, empathy is not a perfect measure of moral standard since it is dependent on the human nature. Most people show empathy to those people who are closely related to them such as family members, friends and neighbors. This makes it biased and so making judgment through empathy may create unfairness. Those who are totally strange may suffer from such judgments.

The other weakness is seen when smith makes an assumption that every person is able to step outside of him or herself in order to make every assessment of every deed that contributed to the situation. He also assumes that the spectators of the incidence would give an accurate and unbiased report of the matter. To some extent, this is not always the case and so his account may not be perfect.

Smith also makes an assumption that all people were given the same natural sentiments by God. This is not the case because all people cannot have the same moral judgment. Different people have got different experiences, ages and other aspects that are not uniform in all human beings.

The idea of impartial spectator as brought out by smith is ambiguous. It does not provide a clear nature or state of the impartial spectator whether he is ideal or not. This eliminates the fact that some spectators or observers are selfish while others have the weakness of individuality. This diminishes the accuracy of the information that may be relied upon for making judgment (Michael, 28).

According to smith’s view, men are driven by self command. He assumes that people are able to control their actions by self discipline. This is only applicable to people who have got free will to watch their steps otherwise it may remain meaningless to say so.

The revised model of Smith’s work has eliminated some of these flaws. He added the notion of impartial spectator when he realized that someone could be judged unfairly due to lack of complete information about the matter. He further corrected it by introducing a mental construct which would cater for the impartial spectators. On the weakness of empathy, he corrected by arguing that people should imagine how a more impartial person than he or herself would react on his behalf (Michael, 100).

Reference

Slote, Michael. Moral Sentimentalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010. Internet resource.