Adam Smith's Sympathy On The Ethical Thought,

Adam Smith was not only a master of economy but also a prominent moralist in history. For his outstanding effort in economics, the focus which researchers put on him was mainly about the economic achievement he had made, while his ethical thoughts of sympathy theory was not paid enough attention, deeply and systematically researched. It is not until recent years that people found his ethical thoughts of sympathy theory while they seeking for the answer to moral crisis generated by the market economic. So studying the structure framework and detailed contents, impersonality analyzing the value and meaning of his ethical thoughts of sympathy theory, would be favorable to holding the system of this theory and providing edification for our country's moral construction.This thesis is mainly consist of three parts. The first part expatiate the forming of Adam Smith's ethical thoughts of sympathy theory. It was come into being in the 18th century in Britain, based on the historical condition and profound theoretical fundamental together with the development of methodology of the social background then. Smith's ethical thoughts of sympathy theory was formed on the base of humanity. He thought that humanity is the unity of sympathy and self-interest, sympathy can't be left of self-interest and should be based on self-interest. What's more, edified by the thoughts of asociationism, Adam Smith consciously applied the "association" method which generated in philosophy psychology to analyze the process of sympathy and its generating mechanism and explain people's moral activity.The second part of this thesis expatiate the theory structure of Adam Smith ethical thoughts of sympathy theory. Took the "sympathy" as kernel and main sequence, Smith constructed the integrated moral system. He thought that sympathy is a natural generated feeling when we put ourselves on the position of the person concerned , using our imagination. Sympathy is not only the standard we adopted to evaluate the moral of other people and ourselves, but also the feeling basis which formed the social rank and individual virtue.The third part of this thesis expatiate the value and limitation of Adam Smith's theory. His ethical thoughts of sympathy theory have important academic value as well as far-reaching social value. It criticized the rationalism ethnics, developed theemotionalism ethnics, and accelerated the research on moral mentality. It provided not only the theoretical instruction for the Capitalism social's moral construction then, but also important reference value to nowadays moral construction. However, some fatal limitation existed in Adam Smith's ethical thoughts of sympathy theory.