HES: RE: QUERY--Sympathy and benevolence in ToMS

[Eric Schliesser]

A useful correction to Raphael's account can be found in Leonidas Montes' (2004) Adam Smith in Context. So, while all recent commentators agree that "sympathy," which is both used to refer to a psychological mechanism as well as to refer to an outcome of a mechanism, should be distinguished from benevolence, which is a virtue (although to be distinguished from benificience); there is also a debate over how to interpret the relationship between sympathy and moral behavior. Montes argues that sympathy can also motivate moral behavior, while Raphael (mistakenly) tries to tie it exclusively to judgment.

Eric Schliesser