The Theory of Moral Sentiments · Chapter
III: Of the Utility of This Constitution of Nature explained
Smith examines how nature has fitted humans for society, arguing that while beneficence is the ornament of society, justice is its essential foundation.
What happens
Smith examines how nature has fitted humans for society, arguing that while beneficence is the ornament of society, justice is its essential foundation. He explores the psychological mechanisms behind our moral judgments, showing that our concern for punishing injustice arises primarily from sympathy with the injured individual rather than from a regard for societal order. He contrasts punishments for crimes like murder, which naturally excite our indignation, with those for offenses against military discipline, which require a deliberate effort to endorse. Smith concludes that nature has implanted a sense of ill-desert and terror of punishment to enforce justice, the main pillar upholding human society.
Themes in this chapter
Justice as the Pillar of Society vs. Beneficence as Ornament
Smith explicitly distinguishes justice as essential to society's existence, calling it 'the main pillar that upholds the whole edifice,' while beneficence is merely 'the ornament which embellishes.'
Sympathy as the Foundation of Moral Judgment
Smith argues that our concern for punishing crimes arises from fellow-feeling with the injured individual, not from a regard for society, and that we even sympathize with the resentment of an odious person when unjustly injured.
Key passages
“Society may subsist among different men, as among different merchants, from a sense of its utility, without any mutual love or affection; and though no man in it should owe any obligation, or be bound in gratitude to any other, it may still be upheld by a mercenary exchange of good offices according to an agreed valuation.”
A society can function purely on the basis of mutual self-interest and utility, like a marketplace where people exchange services without needing personal affection or gratitude.
Smith illustrates that love and affection are not necessary for society to exist, only justice is.
“Justice, on the contrary, is the main pillar that upholds the whole edifice. If it is removed, the great, the immense fabric of human society, that fabric which to raise and support seems in this world, if I may say so, to have been the peculiar and darling care of Nature, must in a moment crumble into atoms.”
Justice is the essential foundation of society; without it, the entire structure of human civilization would instantly collapse.
Smith emphasizes the absolute necessity of justice for social order.
“The concern which we take in the fortune and happiness of individuals does not, in common cases, arise from that which we take in the fortune and happiness of society. We are no more concerned for the destruction or loss of a single man, because this man is a member or part of society, and because we should be concerned for the destruction of society, than we are concerned for the loss of a single guinea, because this guinea is a part of a thousand guineas, and because we should be concerned for the loss of the whole sum.”
Our concern for an individual's welfare does not stem from our concern for society as a whole, just as our distress over losing a single coin does not come from our worry about losing the entire sum of money.
Smith argues that our moral sentiments toward individuals are primary, not derived from a general regard for society.