How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortune of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it except the pleasure of seeing it.--Adam Smith The Theory of Moral Sentiments.
The quoted passage is the first sentence of Smith's (1759) The Theory of Moral Sentiments (TMS). Nearly all informed readers recognize that this is a response to the Hobbes-Mandeville thesis (the 'selfish hypothesis'). David Levy and Sandra Peart have taught me that Smith (who they argue reflected seriously on Stoic logic) takes his modal terms very seriously. Some other time, I'll say more about modality in Smith; here I just note that Smith is making a rather strong claim about the intrinsic properties of human nature ("principles" are causal-explanatory grounds in eighteenth century philosophy); our nature is, in part, disinterested enough in wanting others to be happy. Smith treats this as evident (it is worth comparing Smith's use of evidentness and modality, with the preamble of the U.S. Declaration of Independence.) Smith allows that seeing other people's happiness is pleasurable, and that may be thought to concede too much to the selfish hypothesis. But, while since Griswold 1999 it's very clear that aesthetic considerations are very important in Smith's theory (see Valihora or Chandler), it's clear that when it comes to our wish to see others be happy these are not doing to the motivating work. (What does so motivate? Part of the answer is, as Leon Montes has shown, the desire to sympathize. Another part is a desire to respect ourselves)
But to the best of my knowledge, nobody has paused at Smith's use of 'fortune.' There are a lot ways 'fortune' can be used in the eighteenth century, but here I want to call attention to the ways in which it is treated as something distinct from providence associated with the Stoic-Deistic position and necessity (associated with Spinozism). That is, in the philosophical sense, fortune coincides with what the 'vulgar' call chance. The system of chance is associated with Epicureanism. It is surprising to see it casually introduced in the first sentence of a text that to many readers, reads as a neo-Stoic-providential work (because Smith often frequently also talks of “Nature’s intentions;” “the Author of nature’s plan;” the “wisdom and goodness of God,” etc.). A few paraphraps later, Smith notes that "the general idea of good or bad fortune, therefore, creates some concern for the person who has met with it, but the general idea of provocation excites no sympathy with the anger of the man who has received it." This is a striking claim because here we have a rather abstract idea generating some concern for another person. The significance of this is not limited to the fact that Smith is clearly entailing that (abstract) ideas matter, and, thereby, suggesting that what we teach can influence our readers's and students's concern for others. (He does not suggest that this concern is especially strong or that this is the only way to generate some such concern.)
Smith sometimes uses 'fortune' to mean 'wealth.' So, for example, a famous sentence in Wealth of Nations reads, "An augmentation of fortune is the means by which the greater part of men propose and wish to better their condition." but here I ignore those occasions. He also often uses 'fortune' and 'misfortune' in the sense of 'flourishing' and 'misery.' But sometimes he is explicit that he is using it as a way to convey something chancy: "The man who, by some sudden revolution of fortune, is lifted up all at once into a condition of life, greatly above what he had formerly lived in, may be assured that the congratulations of his best friends are not all of them perfectly sincere." Our interest in the fortunes of others may not always be a cause of pleasure, after all. (Our sympathy with other people's (sudden) joy is weak according to Smith.)
Given that Smith introduces so many providential sounding passages, readers can be forgiven for assuming that he is some kind of Stoizing Deist. Bit such readers have a tendency to skip lines such as these: “Fortune, which governs the world” (TMS). The passage occurs in Smith's treatment of moral bad luck (the piacular--see here for more or Hankins's piece), but generalizes far beyond it. This use of 'fortune' is not an isolated occurrence. One of the most important passages in TMS (and it fits the general argument of Wealth of Nations) condemns Mercantilistic, colonial empires and slavery:
For present purposes, the significance of this passage is not Smith's moral and political condemnation of slavery and imperialism (nor his somewhat surprising appeal to Rousseau's noble-savage-like imagery). Rather, Smith resists in seeing in this world-historical event the working of either providence or historical necessity. There is no unintended consequence here that justifies the suffering of the "vanquished;" there is no hint of a remedy that will fit in some kind theodicy of necessary capitalist development. Bad (and good) things happen to innocent people for no cosmic reason at all. It does not follow that Smith was in all things a modern or revived Epicurean (as Reid kind of suggests). But we may understood Smith' criticisms of Hobbes and Mandeville (and even Hume) as in-house debate.
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