ABSTRACT
Research within and across the social sciences has been characterized recently by a renewed interest in sentimentalism, driven in part by calls for impassioned moral and political deliberation (e.g., Hall 2002; Kingston and Ferry 2008). From neuroscientists (Damasio 2000) to economists (Bowles 2011; Zak 2008) to political theorists (Krause 2008), sentimentalism’s supporters have sought to show how affect engages individuals and connects them to one another through mediating faculties like sympathy. Yet rationalism and a focus on deriving deliberative standards from reasoned consensus still dominates contemporary debate about deliberation. While the title of his book might suggest a stronger preference for the former, Michael Frazer in fact defends a more moderate position, which he deems ‘reflective sentimentalism’, in which passionate and informed moral judgment results from the ‘reflective self-correction of our moral sentiments’ (p. 73). His book focuses on the positive project of sentimentalist thinkers like Hume and Smith, who proposed egalitarian systems of moral development in which authoritative norms are endogenously generated through reflective sympathy with oneself and others, complementing and expanding our natural passions. By highlighting its liberal egalitarian features, Frazer hopes to encourage contemporary normative theory, empirical social science and modern political practice to look to reflective sentimentalism as a valuable resource for research in moral and political psychology. The book proceeds by detailing the development of sentimentalist moral
psychology alongside the shifts of authority of conscience away from hierarchical sources and toward individually generated and approved ones. After briefly discussing the contributions of pre-Humean thinkers on questions of moral authority and human nature, Frazer spends a significant amount of time expounding Hume’s sentimentalism and theory of justice, the latter of which he goes on to critique on individualist grounds. This critique makes way for Frazer’s fourth chapter on Smith, whom he lauds for building on the autonomous aspects of Hume’s sentimentalism while moving away from Hume’s ‘public-interest-based’ (p. 90) approach to justice. For Frazer, only something resembling Smith’s ‘liberal
sentimentalism’ can be justified by the enlightened self-reflection the book advocates. The final two theoretical chapters first digress to explain Kant’s reaction to sentimentalism and then culminate by noting Herder’s important theoretical contributions to reflective sentimentalism on diversity. Frazer closes the book by discussing how reflective sentimentalism might inform empirical research in the social sciences and our approach to civic education. Before moving to the description of Hume’s sentimentalism that serves as a
focal point for the book, Frazer explains how three heralds – Butler, Shaftesbury and Hutcheson – shift the focus of eighteenth-century moral philosophy toward a benevolence grounded in human psychology and the problem of the authority of conscience, despite remaining committed to the latter’s divine origins themselves. Frazer begins the book beautifully by ensuring his readers avoid the common misconception that sentimentalism advocates any expression of any passion whatsoever; a feat he achieves by showing the Stoic roots of sentimentalist thought, especially evident in their joint understanding of happiness as the ‘harmony of the mind’ (p. 19). Rather these pre-Humeans were innovative because they combined a Hobbesian approach to grounding morality in psychological principles with a distinctly non-Hobbesian psychology. As Frazer explains, Hutcheson and others proposed a moral theory based on a moral sense and the disinterested benevolence it naturally approved, which inevitably allowed for greater individual autonomy and greater distance from religion in moral matters. They also brought the problem of the authority of conscience to the forefront, though most believed conscience’s authority to be divine in origin themselves.While Hume and contemporary secular philosophers find early sentimentalism’s religious foundations unsatisfying, Frazer rightly suggests a possible practical advantage to be derived from it: for reflective sentimentalism to ‘provide a widely shared basis for our moral and political commitments in religiously and philosophically pluralistic societies, then it must be presented in a way attractive to those who insist that their convictions have an ultimately religious or metaphysical foundation’ (p. 30). The two chapters of the Enlightenment of Sympathy devoted to Hume are
perhaps the most detailed and critical, as there Frazer provides Hume’s solution to the moral authority problem posed by the early sentimentalists but also takes issue with Hume’s proto-utilitarianism. According to Frazer, Hume’s key contributions to the sentimentalist project lie in the positive nature of his theory and its insistence on the legitimate moral authority of sentiments produced through ‘harmonious reflective equilibrium’ (p. 40). In one of the most creative and compelling sections of the book, Frazer argues that standards Hume provides for aesthetic judgment can be applied to moral judgment to render it more authoritative, avoiding skeptical relativism which might emerge from the seemingly subjective nature of sentiment. By doing so, he shows yet another point in Hume’s philosophy in which ‘skeptical conclusions are undermined by common sense and the practices of everyday life’ (p. 47). But Frazer insists that Hume fails to consider common life experiences when he
presents his theory of justice, as Hume bases the moral approval of justice on sympathy with the long-term public interest – a very uncommon affective
experience. Furthermore, Frazer suggests that the absence of a ‘liberal concern for fairness to individuals’ (p. 88) must ultimately lead contemporary sentimentalists concerned with a Rawlsian respect for persons to reject Hume’s notion of justice in favor of more individualistic accounts, such as the sentimentalist positions proffered by Smith and Herder that Frazer describes. We might wonder, however, whether Hume’s account of justice might not reserve more space for revising repressive laws than Frazer allows, given his claim elsewhere that a constitution which cannot provide remedies against maladministration ‘affords us an opportunity of erecting a better in its place’ (Hume 1985: 18). Frazer’s treatment of Smith’s ‘liberal sentimentalism’ in the fourth chapter
illustrates how a revised understanding of sympathy allows Smith to incorporate individual respect and fairness into a Humean free-standing sentimentalist ethics. Unlike Hume, sympathy for Smith is decidedly cognitive and sympathizing with others is ‘difficult imaginative work’ (p. 97); individuals engaged in sympathetic interaction with others make moral judgments based on standards of propriety and thus may disapprove of actions they find blameworthy upon reflection.As a result of the refinement of sympathy, Smith is able to move away from a Humean theory of justice grounded in public utility toward a justice based on sympathetic resentment with individuals who suffer harm. This distinctly individualistic modification to sentimentalist accounts of justice is incredibly valuable according to Frazer, because spectators will consider individual circumstances rather than utility when judging acts as just or unjust. Nonetheless, as Frazer acknowledges, individuals sometimes do consider necessity (p. 109-11) when making decisions about justice (e.g., when deciding to put a criminal to death). Along with Smith’s insistence on the laws of justice being ‘sacred’ and ‘inviolable’ and the great reliance of many people on general rules for moral decision making, this deviation might sometimes obscure individual need in Smith’s sentimentalism as well. Following a digression on Kant’s rejection of sentimentalist principles that
includes a developmental account of Kant’s position on sympathy, Frazer ends his theoretical chapters with Herder’s pluralist sentimentalism and embrace of cultural diversity. Herder encourages individuals to empathetically engage with history in order to develop humanity and tolerance, which Frazer argues makes him a link between his sentimentalist predecessors and contemporary liberals; he allows the ‘sentimentalist account of moral and political reflection familiar from Hume and Smith to function successfully in a world characterized by a remarkable diversity of cultures and worldviews’ (p. 167). The book closes in a fitting way, given Frazer’s claim that ‘reliance on empirical
psychology is one of the distinctive features of reflective sentimentalism’ (p. 80), by briefly reviewing recent empirical work on the sentiments and suggesting some avenues for future research. Most notable is Frazer’s entreaty to social psychologists to continue to study conscious, reflective behaviors alongside automatic processing. While he does not state it as such, focusing on automaticity restricts researchers to providing proof for a Humean instinctive sympathy while foreclosing on the potential of empirically grounding the more desirable Smithean reflective type. Given the book’s interdisciplinary approach, myriad insights on
individual political philosophers and skilled weaving of disparate sentimentalist accounts into a cohesive narrative, The Enlightenment of Sympathy is an important resource for those interested in the study of moral psychology and its role in political life.
