The Sympathy of Sophie de Grouchy, translator and critic of Adam Smith

Abstract

Sophie de Grouchy is known to the public for her highly appreciated French translation of the Theory of Moral Sentiments (TMS) by Adam Smith (1794) and for her publication of the Letters on Sympathy (1798). This article aims to reconstruct Sophie de Grouchy’s criticism of TMS and to show that it is based on a misinterpretation of Smith’s concept of sympathy. In her interpretation, Sophie de Grouchy seems to decontextualise the category of sympathy from the whole of the Scottish thinker’s vision on this topic, adopting an interpretative canon that is strongly influenced by Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s thought.

Keywords:

• Sophie de Grouchy
• Adam Smith
• sympathy
• Rousseau
• Enlightenment

JEL CLASSIFICATION::

• B12
• B310

Acknowledgement

I would like to thank Vitantonio Gioia, Manuela Mosca, and two anonymous referees for their useful comments and suggestions on an earlier draft. The usual disclaimer applies.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 The expression “disappearing ink” is used by O’Neill (1998), who returned to the topic later (2005). The need to rediscover the fundamental contribution made by women in the centuries when new ideas were established is well reflected in the essay collection edited by Broad and Detlefsen (2018). As regards the role of women in the history of economic thought, see at least Becchio (2020); Dimand and Madden 2019; Bettio and Verashchagina (2008); Dimand, Dimand, and Forget (2000). With special reference to de Grouchy’s role in the writing of Condorcet’s Esquisse, overlooked in the literature, see Bergès (2018).

2 Although the couple worked together on the development and circulation of the ideas that changed France and also Europe in the century of the Enlightenment, it needs to be said that—at the time when she met the older Condorcet—young Sophie de Grouchy was already endowed with considerable culture and a keen critical spirit. Since her adolescence, Sophie de Grouchy studied classical culture, reading Tasso, Fénelon (Boissel 1988, 35), Shakespeare, Ovid, Seneca and Marcus Aurelius (Hurtado Simó 2013, 16). Moreover, when she was very young, she demonstrated artistic and intellectual aptitude which were to enable her to survive during Robespierre’s terror, albeit in a state of economic hardship.

3 See at least Forget (2001), Bernier and Dawson (2010), Bréban and Dellemotte (2016), Bergès (2015, 2018), Schliesser (2018). Bergès and Schliesser are the editors of the latest English version of Letters on Sympathy (2019), from which the quotes in this paper are taken.

In Italy, Lettres sur la sympathie was translated by Maria Alberta Sarti in 1995. Sarti states that she wants to overcome the “subaltern role” attributed to Sophie de Grouchy in comparison to her more famous husband” (Sarti 1995, 9), only to then entitle her introductory essay La morale nuova di Sophie de Condorcet (Sarti 1995, 9–44). The name on the cover, too, is Sophie de Condorcet, not Sophie de Grouchy.

See also the Italian works by Albertone (1980), Farinetti (2003) and Criscenti (2015, 2019).

4 On the alleged reasons why Sophie de Grouchy chose the epistolary format to make her contribution to the debate on sympathy, see Bergès and Schliesser (2019, 24–25).

5 On learning several foreign languages from childhood, see also Michael (1991).

6 Antoine Roucher was probably the real translator of the extract from Smith’s Wealth of Nations, published in two consecutive issues of the Bibliotèque de l’Homme Public, today still attributed to Condorcet (Pisanelli 2022, 52). He was familiar with the language of Adam Smith.

7 The most significant stage in de Grouchy’s education was the one spent in Neuville-en-Bresse between 1784 and 1786, from which she came back an atheist. Her mother was concerned that her “complete irreligion” (d’Arvor 1897, 14) had annulled the love for her fellows that she had been taught at home. In actual fact, Sophie de Grouchy still considered this kind of sentiment important, but—influenced by her reading of Rousseau’s works—tended to attribute it more to the concept of pity, inherent to human nature (Frazer 2010, 42), than to a religious sentiment. This attitude tended to become even stronger after her marriage to Condorcet (Boissel 1988, 92).

8 Michelet provided a non-exhaustive list of foreign guests at the Condorcet salon: “the American Thomas Paine, the Englishman Williams, the Scot Mackintosh, the Genevan Dumont, the German Anacharsis Clootz” (Michelet 1855, 86). Michelet is one of the few that does not make the mistake of including Adam Smith in the list, while many others claim that the Scottish philosopher supposedly visited the Condorcet salon in the same period: such statements are clearly unfounded, as I have shown elsewhere (Pisanelli 2015, 2018, 21–44).

9 With reference to de Grouchy’s arrival at the Hotel des Monnais, Eric Schliesser confirms that “Grouchy’s English was excellent” (Schliesser 2018, 6).

10 In the letter to Mme de Boufflers, Smith writes: “I was greatly mortified to see the manner in which my book, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, has been translated into the language of a nation in which I certainly aspire to be esteemed to no greater degree than I merit”. In French, in the original text: “C’était une grande mortification pour moi de voir la manière dont mon livre (Théorie des Sentiments Moraux) avait été traduit dans la langue d’une nation où je n’ambitionne sûrement pas d’être estimé plus que je ne le mérite” (Smith 1772 [1977], 161, letter n. 130).

11 For a comparison between the two versions and a list of the changes made by de Grouchy to Smith’s original text, see the fine article by Bréban and Dellemotte (2016).

12 Compared to Hutcheson and Hume, “the viewpoint of a spectator’s sentiments is examined by Smith so as to reveal the central importance both of “sense of duty” as the authoritative voice of conscience and in general of the capacity of morality to act as a constraint or an inner control mechanism for human beings’ conduct” (Lecaldano 2009, 23).

13 It is well known that Thomas Hobbes denied the existence of a natural love of man for his fellows. In De Cive (1642), he describes men as being permanently at war among themselves for the possession of scarce goods, using the Latin expression homo homini lupus. Rousseau reproaches Hobbes for attributing the characteristics of already civilized man to l’homme de nature.

14 When Rousseau says that the predominant element of the individual in society is vanity, he is not very far from Mandeville, despite always criticising him harshly. Though it is true that, in The Fable of the Bees, Mandeville states that “whatever is done from a sense of propriety, from a regard to what is commendable and praise-worthy, as being done from a love of praise and commendation, or as he calls it from vanity” (Smith [1759] 1976, 582), “Rousseau” ends up seeming “a softened and embellished Mandeville” (Sagar 2018, 41; cf. also Pagden 2015, 76). Smith’s critiques of Mandeville are harsher than those directed at Rousseau (Hulliung 2019, 43–45), although their theories converge on various points, differing from his own theory (Griswold 2018, 97–100). For a broader view of how Smith’s critique of Mandeville can be translated into e critique of Rousseau, see McHugh 2019.

15 Rousseau writes: “everything being reduced to appearances […], always asking others what we are and never daring to question ourselves on this subject […] we have only a deceitful and frivolous exterior, honour without virtue, reason without wisdom, and pleasure without happiness” (Rousseau [1755] 1992, 66–67). Therefore, “as soon as men had begun to appreciate one another, and the idea of consideration was formed in their minds, each one claimed a right to it, and it was no longer possible to be disrespectful toward anyone with impunity. […] any voluntary wrong became an outrage, because along with the harm that resulted from the injury, the offended man saw in it contempt for his person which was often more unbearable than the harm itself. Thus, everyone punishing the contempt shown him another in a manner proportionate to the importance he accorded himself, vengeances became terrible, and men bloodthirsty and cruel” (Rousseau [1755] 1992, 47–48). Here, though not specified by the author, the term “esteem” is to be understood as a synonym of amour propre. On another occasion, Rousseau writes: “Self-esteem is the greatest motive force of proud souls. Amour-propre, fertile in illusions, disguises itself and passes itself off as this esteem” (Rousseau [1992] 2000, 73).

16 With the category of impartial spectator, “great judge and arbiter of … conduct” (Smith [1759] 1976, 130), Smith completes the picture of Hutcheson and Hume (Lecaldano 2009, 23). On the fact that society is the inescapable framework for judgment and self-assessment in the Smithian individual, see also Zanini (1993), Schliesser (2018, 203), and Fricke (2019, especially 65 ff).

17 Remember that on one occasion, in order to explain that controlling negative feelings towards other members of society is an indispensable prerequisite for the very existence of society itself, Smith resorts to a paradoxical example: “If there is any society among robbers and murderers, they must at least, according to the trite observation, abstain from robbing and murdering one another” (Smith [1759] 1976, 86).

18 On the importance of deserving praise, see Smith ([1759] 1976, 82–85, 113 ff). Cf. also Hanley (2008, 143) and Sagar (2018, 38–43).

19 Smith admits not only the possibility that every individual prefers himself to the whole of humanity, but also the fact that this leads him to know himself and to satisfy his own needs better than anyone else (Smith [1759] 1976, 83). With this, Smith does not, “like Mandeville or Hobbes, […] consider individuals to be exclusively determined by their natural selfishness and by their desire to pursue only their own private good” (Gioia 2020, 5).

20 As well as in TMS, Smith deals in other works with the link between “virtue-commercial society”: specifically, see the lesson on “Police” in his Lectures on Jurisprudence (1766), later repeated in Book III of Wealth of Nations about the natural progress of opulence (Winch 1978, especially 76).

21 As Christel Fricke correctly states, material wealth can improve the material and moral conditions of human beings. According to Smith, the kind of society which produces more wealth than any other is commercial society (Fricke 2019, 55–56). On this aspect, see, in particular Book I of Wealth of Nations.

22 Smith obviously does not underestimate the social root of inequalities: remember his famous example of the philosopher and the porter, who have similar traits from birth to the age of about six, when “habit, custom and education” start to delineate different destinies. As well as in Wealth of Nations (Smith [1776] 1979, 28–29), Smith also uses this example in Lectures on Jurisprudence (Smith [1762–1763] 1978, 348).

23 This important aspect of Rousseau’s thought is examined by Mario Einaudi (1979, 117).

24 In 1973, Paul de Man pointed out that Rousseau’s state of nature could not be considered an “empirical reality” (de Man 1973, 476). Dieckmann (1965, lxxiii–xciv), Gouhier (1970, 23), Einaudi (1979, 118), Casini (1980, 455) and Gioia (2018, 90) all agree. After all, Rousseau himself announced it in his preface to Discours: the state of nature is “a state which no longer exists, which perhaps never existed, which probably never will exist, and about which it is nevertheless necessary to have precise notions in order to judge our present state correctly” (Rousseau [1755] 1992, 13; emphasis added).

25 Not only Smith, but also other enlightenment thinkers like Condorcet, Diderot, Voltaire, Hume, etc. are keen supporters of the human capacity for progress.

26 On this aspect in Rousseau, see Fricke (2019, 59), and Griswold (2019, 188).

27 To this definition, though not using the same term, Rousseau adds the typical features that two centuries later Keynes would call “relative needs” (Keynes [1930] 1963, 365), the negative effects of which lead to the generation and accentuation of social inequalities: “if one sees a handful of powerful and rich men at the height of grandeur and fortune, while the crowd grovels in obscurity and misery, it is because the former prize the things they enjoy only insofar as the others are deprived of them; and because, without changing their status, they would cease to be happy the people ceased to be miserable” (Rousseau [1755] 1992, 64).

28 “From another point of view, having formerly been free and independent, behold man, due to a multitude of new needs, subjected so to speak to all of nature and especially to his fellows, whose slave he becomes in a sense even in becoming their master; rich, he needs their services; poor, he needs their help” (Rousseau [1755] 1992, 51–52). Cf. also Einaudi (1979, 128) and Outram (2019, 68). The social mechanisms triggered by the increase in needs have been examined by other eighteenth century authors, including James Steuart. His reflections, contained in Principles, were taken up in the following century by Karl Marx. On this, see Pisanelli (2019, 2020).

29 Starobinski points this out in one of his fine works on the figure of Rousseau (1988, 282).

30 For a more detailed discussion of the benefits that according to Rousseau derive for members of a society constituted by a social contract, see at least Neuhouser 2008, especially 166–168.

31 It is a matter of creating a social model in which “each one, uniting with all, nevertheless obeys only himself and remains as free as before” (Rousseau [1762a] 1994, 138).

32 This reflects the vision of Esprit des Lois by Montesquieu (Montesquieu [1748] 2005, 1, 156).

33 Sophie de Grouchy had probably written her Letters several years before publication, both because she mentions them in her correspondence with Etienne Dumont (1792) and because Condorcet refers to them before his death (1794) (Bergès and Schliesser 2019, 23). The Lettres are addressed to Pierre Jean-Georges Cabanis, a physician with whom she would form a deep, lasting friendship and with whom she shared her interest in physiology (Brown 2008, 6–7).

34 My idea that Sophie de Grouchy followed the Rousseauian theme of the corruption of man and the institutions in the society throughout her Lettres is also shared by Tegos (2014, 48).

35 Sophie de Grouchy conceives of her Lettres as an extension of Smith’s discussion of the concept of sympathy (Hayes 2005, 204). Let me point out again that her first mistake lies in considering that her own concept of sympathy corresponds to that of Smith.

36 By Locke in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690), and by Condillac in Traité des sensation (1754).

37 As shown by Hurtado Simó (2013, 24–25).

38 Sophie de Grouchy uses the term “moral” as opposed to “physical”. In some cases, “moral” is to be understood as “mental”. In others, it can mean “social” (see Glossary in Bergès and Schliesser 2019). In this particular case, since Sophie de Grouchy is referring to the sensation of the individual, the meaning to be preferred is “mental”.

39 Here, Sophie de Grouchy was referring to the concept of reflection, to which she would later return.

40 On this point, Sophie de Grouchy was under a twofold influence. In daily life, she was brought up by her mother to put her compassion for the less fortunate into effect by taking food gifts to local families belonging to the disadvantaged classes. Notice how she gives thanks for being allowed to exercise the innate sensibility that she talks about, in her first letter (de Grouchy [1798] 2019, 64–65; on this see Hayes 2005, 205). On the level of philosophical reflection, Sophie de Grouchy’s recommendations again reflect those of Rousseau: “teach your pupil to love all men, even those who despise men. Do things in such a way that he puts himself in no class but finds his bearings in all. Speak before him of humankind with tenderness, even with pity, but never with contempt. Man, do not dishonour man!” (Rousseau [1762b] 2010, 378). This, however, is the Rousseau of Emile, who on this point differs from the position he takes in Discours. It is well known that in Discours, Rousseau presents the process of civilization in a negative light as the destroyer of the proper balance between pity and self-love. In Emile, Rousseau tries to reintroduce pity through education, as a process of consciousness-raising for individuals who have already developed their rational capacities. The result is a form of pity more suited to a society with a very high level of corruption, from which individuals must protect themselves (Farinetti 2003, 44n15). On Rousseau’s programme of education, aimed at reducing the illiberal vices prevalent in commercial society, see Schleeter (2019, 139).

41 Remember that de Grouchy regards sympathy as part of compassion and uses the two words interchangeably.

42 On the importance Sophie de Grouchy attaches to the feeling of sympathy as a means of counteracting the spread of the vices of modern society among the younger generation, see Brown (2008, 14–15) and Hanley (2015, 182, 188).

43 In his words: “one is not obliged to make man a Philosopher before making him a man; his duties toward others are not dictated to him solely by the belated lessons of wisdom” (Rousseau [1755] 1992, 15).

44 De Grouchy herself ends up embracing Rousseau’s pessimism, when he describes the characteristics of the civilised man. Cf. Frazer (2010, 48) and Farinetti (2003, 53).

45 On this, see Sarti (1995, 201n10).

46 “Were the law clear, it would warn all equally; were it just, it would admit of no exception; were it exact, it would leave no opening for corruption and bad faith” (de Grouchy [1798] 2019, 135). Cf. also 136 ff., 143.

47 Here we find a similarity to what Gloria Vivenza called benevolence “operating in the social and … political field, which is that of the powerful, because the practical benefit can only be granted by those in a position to do so”. Smith’s benevolence, on the other hand, is “available to all because it does not require special means and capacities: anyone can have the will to love all humanity” (Vivenza 1996, 41; cf. also 43).

48 Pack (1991, 77–78), too, stressed the importance of this passage in TMS.

49 As is well known, Smith firmly believed in the education provided by the state to every individual, whatever their social class.

50 For Smith, well before the emergence of commercial society, the admiration for “everything … adapted to promote their ease, to prevent their wants, to gratify their wishes, and to amuse and entertain their most frivolous desires” (Smith [1759] 1976, 182) is one element that awakens and “keeps in continual motion the industry of mankind” (Smith [1759] 1976, 183). The simplest man, wanting to possess the same instruments that give pleasure to the nobles, has worked hard “to cultivate the ground, to build houses, to found cities and commonwealths, and to invent and improve all the sciences and arts, which ennoble and embellish human life; which have entirely changed the whole face of the globe” (Smith [1759] 1976, 183). Sophie de Grouchy criticises Smith, because according to her in his vision “the idea of greatness” is “joined in the thoughts of many to the idea of happiness” (de Grouchy [1798] 2019, 90). In actual fact, Smith does not say happiness comes from merely having more opportunities to consume (Pack 1991, 92). Besides, as Smith stresses in a metaphor that he also used in Weatlh of Nations and in Lectures on Jurisprudence, the capacity of the rich man’s stomach is no greater than that of the stomach of the meanest peasant (Smith [1759] 1976, 184; see also Smith [1776] 1979, 180 and Smith [1762–1763] 1978, 194). According to Smith, “humanity does not desire to be great, but to be beloved. It is not in being rich that truth and justice would rejoice, but in being trusted and believed” (Smith [1759] 1976, 166).

51 On this aspect, see Schleeter (2019, 128–129) and Vivenza (1996, 49–50).

52 Georg Simmel clarified this aspect, pointing out that “the delivery man, the money-lender, the worker, upon whom we are dependent, do not operate as personalities because they enter into a relationship only by virtue of a single activity such as the delivery of goods, the lending of money, and because their other qualities, which alone would give them a personality, are missing” (Simmel [1977] 2004, 296). On this, see also Gioia (2016, 32).

53 Karin Brown’s analysis of Smith’s alleged “failure to adequately acknowledge the role and significance of reason” (Brown 2008, 28) seems to me quite surprising. I think it stems from a misjudgement of how the Smithian impartial spectator works. Recently, also Adam Shoene has credited Sophie de Grouchy with introducing “a view of sympathy moderated by reason” (Schoene 2019, 174), without, furthermore, backing up this claim with a thorough analysis like Brown’s.

54 Cf. Zanini (2014, 125).

55 On this aspect, see Brown and McClellan (2008, 14).

56 On this, Smith writes: “I say, that wherever the conduct of the agent appears to have been entirely directed by motives and affections which we thoroughly enter into and approve of, we can have no sort of sympathy with the resentment of the sufferer, how great so ever the mischief which may have been done to him. […] Our sympathy with the person whose motives we go along with, and whom therefore we look upon as in the right, cannot but harden us against all fellow-feeling with the other, whom we necessarily regard as in the wrong” (Smith [1759] 1976, 72; emphasis added).

57 De Grouchy even admits the possibility of a very strong sympathy for persons “with very different tastes and characters”. This would happen when we fall in love with a person who, though very different from us, possesses some “very rare merit” (de Grouchy [1798] 2019, 87).

58 For these assessments of Sophie de Grouchy’s attitude, see Albertone (1980, 193) and Farinetti (2003, 54); Hayes (2005, 207).