First, we are clearly moved to concern ourselves with others’ troubles so we can relieve them. This desire acts in us without any thought as to whether it is possible to contribute to this relief and before we have had time to see whether it will ever be possible to do so. It is this desire which, when we see a man struggling in the water and about to be swallowed up by it, causes spectators on the shore to reach out with their arms to him with urgency, a sublime movement of nature, which shows in an instant all the power of humanity over our hearts and also all the consequences a legislator could derive from that sentiment, more often weakened than strengthened by our institutions.--Sophie de Grouchy (1798) Letters on Sympathy, Letter 2. Translated by Sandrine Bergès.'
There is a strain of argument in Grouchy, indebted to Mandeville and Rousseau, where she emphasizes the pleasure we feel when we benefit others(e.g, in Letter 6, she writes, "individual ideas of justice are linked to the feeling of pleasure or pain when we benefit or harm others”) And there is also a consequentialist streak in here account of sympathy (e.g, in Letter 4, she writes “we feel sympathy for physical pains and pleasures in proportion to our understanding of their strengths and consequences.") But in the quoted passage, the point is to claim that sometimes we are naturally moved to unthinking compassion. The 'moved' here is also literal ("reach out with their arms.") Such unmediated and immediate compassion is evidence of our natural humanity,
Grouchy's point is not just moral psychological, but also political: we can organize the institutions of society to strengthen our natural compassion or undermine it. Quite clearly Grouchy thinks that institutions and their incentives should be so designed that they cultivate our natural compassion, and that they draw upon them to generate good consequences. The point is not just left abstract; her reformist account of the legal system (recall here, here, here) draws on this would-be-mechanism.
Now, the original reader of Grouchy's Letters, would have encountered this passage after reading, perhaps, her translation of The Theory of Moral Sentiments (to which the Letters were added as an appendix). That book starts by calling attention to the very same mechanism:
When we see a stroke aimed and just ready to fall upon the leg or arm of another person, we naturally shrink and draw back our own leg or our own arm; and when it does fall, we feel it in some measure, and are hurt by it as well as the sufferer. The mob, when they are gazing at a dancer on the slack rope, naturally writhe and twist and balance their own bodies, as they see him do, and as they feel that they themselves must do if in his situation.
But what is notable is that in discussing this passage, Smith does not make the claim that this is evidence of our natural compassion or common humanity; nor does he use it to claim that the legislator should design institutions in light of our natural (unmediated) compassion or use these institutions to the strengthen them. This is not to deny that these are Smithian themes, but one has to work at deriving them from Smith.
However, Grouchy's thought experiment evokes a passage in another famous moral psychologist, Mencius:
The reason why I say that humans all have hearts that are not unfeeling coward others is this. Suppose someone suddenly saw a child about to fall into a well: everyone in such a situation would have a feeling of alarm and compassion-not because one sought to get in good with the child's parents, not because one wanted fame among their neighbors and friends, and not because one would dislike the sound of the child's cries. "From this we can see that if one is without the heart of compassion, one is not a human." Mencius, 2A6, Translated by Bryan W. Van Norden
For Mencius it is constitutive of humanity that we feel immediate and unmediated compassion to others in direct need. For him such compassion is constitutive of our humanity. Were such compassion absent, we can point to social causes, that is, bad governance that have corrupted our (naturally good xing shan 性善) human nature. (Regular readers know, recall, I admire Mencius' philosophy because it prevents status quo bias and victim blaming.)
Clearly Grouchy's thought experiment is not identical to Mencius'; she uses a drowning adult and not a child. And she adds the physical reaching out which is absent in Mencius. Even so, we may say that the underlying points are sympathetically attuned to each other.
I have no evidence that Grouchy read Mencius. But the passage was familiar in a translation and discussion of the Jesuit Jean-Baptiste Du Halde, who mentions it in his (1735) Description géographique, historique, chronologique, politique, et physique de l'empire de la Chine et de la Tartarie chinoise, enrichie de cartes générales et particuli`eres de ces pays, de la carte générale & des cartes particulieres du Thibet & de la Corée. The book was very popular in Europe during the Eighteenth century, Du Halde had not visite China himself, but he created a standard summary of a century and a half of Jesuit discovery in China (recall this post for some of the significance of this).
There is lurking here a crucial connection to Adam Smith. As my friend, Ryan Hanley, first taught me the status of China was of crucial importance to Smith's political economy. And, in fact, Smith sometimes alludes to knowledge of Du Halde in the Wealth of Nations (see here; and here).
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