Three Conceptions of Sympathy in Adam Smith

Sympathy and imagination are commonly recognized as the touchstones of Adam Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments. The present work aims at distinguishing among the several conceptions of sympathy that can be retrieved in Smith’s remarks and at determining whether imagination is necessary to all of them, that is whether the connection between sympathy and imagination is a necessary one. This will be done by initially exploring the various contexts of use for sympathy to be found in Smith, and then by clustering them into three different conceptual categories: empathy, social sympathy, and moral sympathy.