What Adam Smith Can Teach Us About Civil Discourse (April 2019)

April 2019

with Tawni Ferrarini

Session 1: Introduction

Session 2:  - Smith’s System of Mutual Sympathy

• Chapter 1: Of Sympathy
• Chapter 2: Of the pleasure of mutual Sympathy 
• Chapter 3: Of the manner in which we judge of the propriety or impropriety of the affections of other men, by their concord or dissonance with our own
• Chapter 4: The same subject continued 
• Chapter 5: Of the amiable and respectable virtues
  
  
  

Session 3: The importance of judgement

• Introduction      
• Chapter 1: That whatever appears to be the proper object of gratitude, appears to deserve reward; and that, in the same manner, whatever appears to be the proper object of resentment, appears to deserve punishment 

• Chapter 1: Comparison of these two virtues 
• Chapter 2: Of the sense of Justice, of Remorse, and of the consciousness of Merit 
• Chapter 3: Of the utility of this constitution of nature   
  
  
  

Session 4:  When we fail to sympathize

• Chapter 2: Of the origin of Ambition, and of the distinction of ranks 
• Chapter 3: Of the corruption of our moral sentiments, which is occasioned by this disposition to admire the rich and the great, and the despise or neglect persons of poor and mean condition