Livia: Smith on Solitude vs. Society

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Within section II chapter II of The Theory of Moral Sentiments, Smith explains how a man who has violated the sacred laws of justice reacts to his past actions. After a man’s “passion is gratified…he can enter into none of the motives which influenced it” (Smith 81). Therefore, man is subject to reflection contingent upon the sentiments of his peers. He must sympathize with them, and he, himself, becomes the object of his own hatred. Such a circumstance wills upon man to retreat from society into solitude. But ultimately, Smith argues, man recognizes that “solitude is still more dreadful than society” and returns to presence of mankind and the sentiments of shame and fear that go along with it (Smith 81).

I am curious why Smith suggests that solitude is more dreadful than society. Smith remarks that in solitude, man’s own thoughts present him with nothing but what is “black, unfortunate, and disastrous, the melancholy forebodings of incomprehensible misery and ruin” (Smith 81). It is this circumstance which compels man to return to society. How can this be so? If one examines the quote, Smith mentions the word “forebodings”, or the fearful anticipation that something bad will happen. In solitude, man is worried about impending doom. How can this impending zoom be realized within solitude? Man is completely alone, no external forces from society can harm him. It appears to me that the only way in which man can experience the full extent of misery and ruin that he fears is by returning to society, where fellow men will judge and punish his actions. Thus, by returning to society, he is fulfilling the prophecy he imagined within solitude. Why does Smith envision this as a better alternative?

I can think of several reasons why this might be so. First, man might return to society because the punishment from society and the shame and fear he might feel is still lesser than the loneliness and depravity that solitude creates (I think this is Smith’s line of reasoning). Second, man might return to society because the pain which he might experience within society, is superior to the pain and punishment man might inflict upon himself? (i.e., the form of suicide). Finally, man might return to society so that he can subject himself to the punishments that he feels he deserves. Man recognizes that his mistakenly acted and recognizes that he needs to repent for his actions. Perhaps repenting for his sins enables him to move forward as it does within Catholicism?

Ultimately, however, I am still dubious that a return to society provides a better alternative. Would loneliness not be a better alternative to punishment? Does inflicting pain upon oneself not seem more manageable than others doing so? Can man truly repent for his sins?

Comments

  1. Paul HurleyFebruary 15, 2023 at 4:55 PM

    Interesting place to focus, and I like the set of alternatives that you canvas. Smith did spend a lot of time in the early chapters making the case that we are inherently social beings, beings who require mutual sympathy to survive and thrive. Solitude would then, it seems, be a kind of exile from the conditions for functioning as the kind of beings we are. Think of solitary confinement as a form of torture. But sympathy also cannot be found in returning to society because one's actions have violated the most fundamental conditions for sympathetic interaction with others.

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  2. Ella SmithFebruary 15, 2023 at 11:47 PM

    On page 84, Smith says that in solitude, a guilty man's "own thoughts can present him with nothing but what is black, unfortunate, and disastrous." In such, I think he is not necessarily commenting on the pain of loneliness in itself, nor self-harm, nor feelings of self-pity. Rather, the remorse he feels from his wrongdoings would ruminate if he is with nothing but his own thoughts. We are all thinking all of the time, but in society, many of those thoughts are in relation to our interactions with those around us. In solitude, the feelings of our own condition may be all we have to think about, and thus the pain of remorse would be amplified in solitude. This is what is called 'rumination' in modern psychology, describing a repeated thought that is usually based in fear, anxiety, or self-pity.

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