Sohie de Grouchy’s most notable contribution to philosophy was, arguably, The Letters on Sympathy (French: Les Lettres sur la Sympathie). Published in 1798, Grouchy’s book was a collection of eight letters that accompanied Grouchy’s French translation of Adam Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments, published in 1759. In these eight letters, Grouchy both responds to and critiques Smith’s theories on moral sentiments and sympathy. Although it is unlikely and unclear if Smith and Grouchy ever met, and despite the fact that Smith died well before the publication of Grouchy’s work, all, if not almost all, of Grouchy’s surviving philosophy revolves around Smith’s ideas, which were established in his 1759 book. As such, it is logical to conclude that, in order to truly understand Grouchy’s arguments and ideas, one must also understand Adam Smith’s arguments and ideas – specifically, the ones that influenced Grouchy’s. This can be done through an analysis of the comparisons and differences between Adam Smith’s ideas and Sophie de Grouchy’s ideas.
Fortunately, such an analysis is made possible because of the clear outline of ideas in Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments (TMS) and Grouchy’s Letters on Sympathy (LOS). Morality, Smith claims in TMS, is inherently derived from innate desires and sympathy; in other words, human morality originates wholly from the combination of natural desires and sympathies. However, according to Smith, moral laws can only be established through reason. In order for morality to be a functional human capacity, it requires the development of structured laws through critical reasoning that properly dictate morals, allowing humans to act on their natural inclinations towards morality. In a sense, Adam Smith is essentially saying: why would morality be useful as a basic human capacity if there doesn’t exist a set of principles that governs the way morality functions? Therefore, the development of a complete morality requires the presence of reason in addition to the presence of sentiment. In this regard, Sophie de Grouchy wholeheartedly agrees with Adam Smith. Grouchy shares Smith’s fundamental belief that moral sentiments and decisions are derived from our basic capacities for sympathy, but that in order to make this capacity in any way useful, we must develop and improve our reasoning and logical abilities.
Furthermore, Grouchy agrees with Smith’s notion of sympathy as a complex and complicated emotion. In their view, one of the sources of human sympathy is its unique relationship to pain – sympathy, in part, arises from our individual experiences of pain. These individual experiences leave lasting impressions in our minds through memories, allowing us to recollect these painful experiences later. This is where sympathy originates: from the ability of humans to store and then recollect individual experiences of pain when someone else is experiencing pain, thus turning it into a collective experience. In other words, we feel sympathy for others in pain because we remember what it feels like to be in pain. Thus, sympathy is an incredibly nuanced emotion that has a variety of components. These two philosophers agree that sympathy involves a variety of decisions about who the individual experiencing the pain is, the type of pain they are experiencing, and whether or not the individual deserves that pain. Such are many of the similarities between Adam Smith’s and Sophie de Grouchy’s views on moral sentiments and sympathy.
One significant difference between Grouchy’s and Smith’s arguments is their accounts of the origins of the human disposition for sympathy. According to Smith, the inclination to sympathize stems from early experiences of being judged by peers in childhood. Smith’s conceptualization treats socialization as an exchange among equals – in childhood, children view each other as equals. Therefore, judgement and ostracization from (perceived) relative equals produces an inherent imbalance and inequality in the worldview of a young child. Additionally, these situations can produce negative emotions in an individual child, leading to self-consciousness and hierarchal dependence. In this regard, these negative emotions are equated with pain. As such, this unique type of socialized pain predisposes our natural inclinations to sympathize: humans experience sympathy because we are exposed to a unique type of pain resulting from socialization in our formative years. As such, Smith believes sympathy originates from social interactions in childhood.
In contrast to these views, Grouchy argues that the inclination to sympathize stems from the very first relationship an infant experiences. Here, Grouchy traces an earlier original cause than Smith. Infants, she claims, learn to rely on others to meet their needs, such that they learn to bond and communicate with other people to make it easier for their needs to get met. In other words, infants cry and scream until they are given food. This suggests that the very first lesson humans learn is that others will help us while we are in pain or suffering. As a result, Grouchy concludes that sympathy stems from our very first intimate association with a nurse as babies. In this account, Grouchy emphasizes relational dependency in the development of sympathy. Whereas Smith posited the origins of sympathy as a result of perceived inequalities, stemming from judgements, in social exchanges with supposed equals, Grouchy traces the origins of sympathy to resulting from dependency on others, learned in early infancy. As such, Grouchy believes sympathy stems from the first relationship an infant experiences and the subsequent learned dependence on others that emerges from that relationship.
Works Cited
Grouchy, Sophie. (1798). Les Lettres sur la Sympathie.
Smith, Adam. (1759). Theory of Moral Sentiments.
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introduction
biography
philosophical position and argument
comparison with Adam Smith
closing argument
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