‘Piacular, though not guilty’

In his Theory of Moral Sentiments, Smith describes an agent who is ‘piacular, though not guilty’. ‘Piacular’ is an odd word that captures an odd collection of feelings. Most discussions of the Smithian piacular centre on the problem of moral luck. These interpretations see Smith as trying to explain how the impartial spectator could possibly approve of feelings of guilt and shame in an agent who is the unintentional and non-negligent cause of harm to another, given Smith’s equitable maxim. They see the piacular sentiments as indexed primarily to the past harm-precipitating event, for example, Bernard Williams’s lorry driver’s failure to maintain the brakes. While this frame is in many ways illuminating, because it is highly retrospective, it tends to minimise the prospective character of piacularity. Piacular sentiments can also be indexed to the present moment of address upon realising that one has been the involuntary cause of harm to another and the anticipated future moment of accountability for how one has handled the present. While the retrospective species of piacularity wins approval from the impartial spectator on consequentialist grounds – it makes us care about our impact on the suffering of others – , the prospective species of piacularity runs much closer to Susan Wolf’s ‘nameless virtue’ – it wins approval because of what it expresses about the character of the person who feels it. This paper elucidates the latter species of piacularity

Accountability · Feeling · Harm · Moral character · Shame · Emotions and Moral Behavior · Philosophical Ethics and Theory · Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment

• Associative Responsibility and the Possibility of Blameworthiness Without Culpability

  Keith Hankins•Social Theory and Practice•2025

  Add to list

• The Moral Value of Social Shame in Adam Smith's The Theory of Moral Sentiments

  Open Access•Şule Özler•Journal of Scottish Philosophy•2024

  Add to list

• Adam Smith

  Eric Schliesser•Adam Smith•2017

  Add to list