How Impartial is Smith's Impartial Spectator? - Umer

By
 By now, we are familiar with the idea of an impartial spectator. However, the way by which Smith invokes the impartial spectator seems to be a little confusing, mainly because the impartial spectator doesn't seem that impartial. On page 104, Smith says "But these, as well as all the other passions of human nature, seem proper and are approved of, when the heart of every impartial spectator entirely sympathizes with them, when every indifferent by–stander entirely enters into, and goes along with them." Here, it seems that by allowing the impartial spectator to engage in sympathy, Smith has nullified their impartiality. Sympathy, or "fellow-feeling" (Smith 52) seems to imply an interest in the well being or happiness of the object of sympathy. Further, sympathy is often constrained by societal norms. What evokes sympathy in one cultural context may not translate across to another. For example, in the US there is a large push for sex workers rights, largely derived from (I would argue) sympathy for the sex workers. However, you will not find the same sentiment in countries in the Middle East, for example, where sex work is seen as taboo due to the influence of Islam on the law, and therefore sex workers fall outside the bounds of sympathy. 

If sympathy is not able to be applied in a universal/general way, is it a suitable lens for the impartial spectator to apply? If the impartial spectator internalizes the values of the society they are spectating (the values that define the bounds of sympathy as I previously laid out), then will they have much critical insight into how to improve the society at all? After all, the if the hypothetical society's norms and values are taken as granted, then there is hardly any room to criticise the biases and prejudices of those norms and values themselves. 

I'm curious as to whether sympathy can be reconciled with an impartial spectator. Perhaps my reading is too cynical. 

Comments

  1. Shaira BusnawiApril 6, 2023 at 10:10 AM

    Hi Umer, this is a great point that I was also thinking about. Smith acknowledges the limitations of sympathy, by stating that sympathy is a natural emotion that we all possess to some degree, but he also notes that our ability to sympathize with others may be limited by our own experiences and perspectives, which strengthens your point that sympathy is not universal. He acknowledges that some individuals may have a harder time feeling sympathy than others. Another example that I thought of when reading his chapter on sympathy was sexism towards women. For example, when it comes to sexism towards women, someone who has grown up in a household where sexist attitudes are the norm may struggle to feel the same level of sympathy towards women as someone who was not raised in that kind of environment. As Dara wrote in her blog post, sympathy is subjective and that the amount of sympathy you are able to feel for another is based on your personal experiences.

    As such, I think your question on if sympathy, if it's not universal, can be a suitable lens for the impartial spectator to apply. I think Smith would argue that in situations where judgements and opinions of others’ sympathy opposes each other, an impartial spectator is introduced. This spectator “endeavour, as much as he can, to put himself in the situation of the other, and to bring home to himself every little circumstance of distress which can possibly occur to the sufferer. He must adopt the whole case of his companion with all its minutest incidents; and strive to render as perfect as possible, that imaginary change of situation upon which his sympathy is founded” (21). This shows that despite the limitations of sympathy, the impartial spectator serves as a sort of idealized standard that we use to evaluate our behavior, and it encourages us to imagine how others would feel in a given situation. I don’t think that the spectator necessarily internalizes the values of one society, but instead considers “what they themselves would feel, if they actually were the sufferers, so he is constantly led to imagine in what manner he would be affected” (22). Even if we can’t fully sympathize with everyone in the same manner, the impartial spectator forces us to take into account the perspectives of all parties involved, and to strive towards a more objective understanding of the situation. In this way, sympathy can serve as a valuable lens for the impartial spectator to apply, because it allows us to consider the experiences and emotions of others. However, I totally see your argument and would love to further discuss this in tutorial.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why Cowen and Anderson are both wrong-George

By
In their dialogue, both Cowen and Anderson fail to address important elements of each other's arguments. Cowen's failure is primarily empirical. He dismisses the significance of labor market monopsony out of hand (109). Although economists disagree about the relevance of employer labor market power, Cowen does not sufficiently address the credible evidence of its role in suppressing compensation. This evidence has only grown in the years since Private Government  was published. One consideration as to the relevance of monopsony is the pay-productivity gap. Although libertarian economists chafe immensely at any implication that workers do not benefit from higher productivity, and the popular understanding of the pay-productivity gap is indeed exaggerated, even the most pro-market economists are forced to admit to a degree of "delinkage" between the growth of labor productivity and the compensation of nonsupervisory employees. Interestingly, there is less evidence of de...
Read more

Responding to Jemma and Aara: Another consideration that Rawls does not discuss--- Luis

By
  Hey Jemma and Aara,   Thank you for the thought-provoking blogs! I definitely felt that Okin made her argument less favorable by structuring her last part of Chapter 6 with a sense of constructing a ladder of what social standing has a greater impact on "one's thinking of justice." I agree with you and Aara in that Okin's critique of the unequal gender-based structure is strong and needed to achieve Rawls's basic structure of a well-ordered society. I also believe that stating that gender is the most prevalent identity that will form an individual's concept of "justice" undermines intersectionality. I wanted to add another layer that is not accounted for by Rawls, which Okin hints on.  After reading both blogs, I initially thought about our seminar where Kat and I argued for what Aara was discussing, a knowledge of the global racial empire, or in other terms, the history of racism and colonialism in the original position. I was sold on that argumen...
Read more

Evaluating Harris Whiteness as Property--- Luis Mendoza

By
      In "Whiteness as Property," Cheryl I. Harris builds her work on the image of her grandmother and her ability to use "passing" in her labor and daily life (1710). The main advantage of passing, as stated by Harris, is that it "[increases] the [possibilities] of controlling critical aspects of one's life rather than being the object of other's domination" (1713). At this moment, I want to focus on her functions of whiteness which comes after her discussion that whiteness is property through its theoretical descriptions. More specifically, I will digest one attribute of whiteness as property: "the rights to transfer or alienability" (1731).              One of Harris's points is that because theories surrounding property state that it must have the aspect of alienability, it makes whiteness as property more difficult to process. The issue is that "whiteness," as Harris states, "is incapable of being trans...
Read more