Theory of Moral Sentiments

Adam Smith's 1759 moral philosophy treatise arguing that human moral judgment is grounded in sympathy — the imaginative capacity to put oneself in another's position — and in the device of the 'impartial spectator': judging one's own conduct as a neutral third party would.

Grounds morality not in reason or divine command but in the social emotion of sympathy — we approve actions that an impartial spectator would approve — making Smith's moral philosophy an empirical account of how humans actually make moral judgments, which proves more robust than Kantian rationalism.