Mirror Neuron Research and Adam Smith’s Concept of Sympathy: Three Points of Correspondence L. Lynne Kiesling* Department of Economics Northwestern University 2001 Sheridan Road Evanston, Illinois 60208 847.491.8250
[email protected] January 2012 Forthcoming, The Review of Austrian Economics Abstract: In The Theory of Moral Sentiments, Adam Smith asserts that humans have an innate interest in the fortunes of other people and desire for sympathy with others. In Smith’s theory, sympathy is an imperfectly reflected combination of emotion and judgment when one observes someone (the agent) in a particular situation, and imagines being that person in that situation. That imagination produces a degree of interconnectedness among individuals. Recent neuroscience research on mirror neurons provides evidence consistent with Smith’s assertion, suggesting that humans have an innate capability to understand the mental states of others at a neural level. A mirror neuron fires both when an agent acts and when an agent observes that action being performed by another; the name derives from the “mirroring” of the action in the brain of the observer. This neural network and the capabilities arising from it have three points of correspondence with important aspects of the Smithian sympathetic process: an agent’s situation as a stimulus or connection between two similar but separate agents, an external perspective on the actions of others, and an innate imaginative capacity that enables an observer to imagine herself as the agent, in the agent’s situation. Both this sympathetic process and the mirror neuron system predispose individuals toward coordination of the expression of their emotions and of their actions. In Smith’s model this decentralized coordination leads to the emergence of social order, bolstered and reinforced by the emergence and evolution of informal and formal institutions grounded in the sympathetic process. Social order grounded in this sympathetic process relies on a sense of interconnectedness and on shared meanings of actions, and the mirror neuron system predisposes humans toward such interconnection. Keywords: Adam Smith; sympathy; neuroscience; coordination; cooperation JEL Classification Codes: B100 (History of Economic Thought: General), B310 (History of Economic Thought: Individuals), D030 (Behavioral Economics: Underlying Principles), D870 (Neuroeconomics) * I am grateful to Bruce Caldwell, Fonna Forman-Barzilai, Steven Horwitz, John Kaag, Craig Smith, Yannay Spitzer, and discussion participants at the 2010 annual meetings of the International Society for New Institutional Economics (where a preliminary version of this work was presented) for conversations that helped me crystallize my thoughts. I am also grateful to the editor and two referees for their useful and insightful guidance and suggestions. All errors
Electronic copy available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1687343
1.
Introduction
In The Theory of Moral Sentiments, Adam Smith asserts that humans have an innate interest in the fortunes of other people and desire for sympathy with others. Humans are complex individuals in Smith’s moral theory – rightly motivated by self-interest, but also by the innate sociability and desire for sympathy from and with others that he observed empirically. Sympathy, which Smith defined broadly as fellow-feeling with the situations (not just the emotions) of others, forms the foundation of our moral judgment.
In 1759 Smith’s assertion was just that – an assertion, based on his empirical observation of society and his inferences regarding human nature and how individuals form their moral judgments of themselves and others. The state of science made it impossible for him to cite neurological evidence supporting this claim. Recent neuroscience research on mirror neurons has now provided evidence consistent with Smith’s assertion, suggesting that humans have an innate capability to understand the mental states of others at a neural level, although that understanding is incomplete. A mirror neuron fires both when an agent acts and when an agent observes that action being performed by another; the name derives from the “mirroring” of the action in the brain of the observer (Rizzolatti et. al. 2001). For example, if John watches Amy pick up a cup and drink, some of the same neurons fire for both John and Amy, although John only watches Amy drink and does not pick up a cup and drink himself.
We read the world and understand each other, subtly and seemingly unconsciously (Iacoboni 2008 p. 4). This observation, from one of the leading neuroscientists studying mirror neurons, resonates with Smith’s opening of Moral Sentiments: How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortune of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it except the pleasure of seeing it. Of this kind is pity or compassion, the emotion which we feel for the misery of others, when we either see it, or are made to conceive it in a very lively manner. That we often derive sorrow from the sorrow of others, is a matter of fact too obvious to require any instances to prove it; for this sentiment, like all the other original passions of human nature, is by no means confined to the virtuous and humane, though they perhaps may feel it with the most exquisite sensibility. The
1 Electronic copy available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1687343
greatest ruffian, the most hardened violator of the laws of society, is not altogether without it. (1759 p. 9)1 The work of Iacoboni and others suggests that there is a neural framework for the emotional connection, understanding of actions, and imagination of the emotions and situations of others that are reflected in the opening paragraph to Moral Sentiments, as well as much of Smith’s ensuing argument for sympathy’s role in developing moral judgment.
Explaining more than just the emotional connection (or empathy) between people, the results of mirror neuron research are consistent with Smith’s characterization of sympathy as the moral foundation of civil society. Sympathy bridges passion and reason, and thus is a basis for judgment, not simply a feeling of shared emotion. In Smith’s theory, sympathy is an imperfectly reflected combination of emotion and judgment when one observes someone (the agent) in a particular situation, and imagines being that person in that situation. That imagination produces a degree of interconnectedness among individuals. Sympathy can be triggered by observing an agent in a specific situation, but the trigger is imagining the motive of the agent in the situation, not simply the physical context. The human capacity for imagination is crucial for this social process.
However, that ability to experience the situation and the emotions of the agent is limited and imperfect, all the way down to the neural level. The cognitive, physical, and historical/cultural distances between agents cannot be bridged fully. The reflected emotion-judgment that Smith described is also weaker than the original that the observer would experience or that the agent is experiencing, but is of the same quality – pain induces pain, pleasure induces pleasure. Physical distance and the inability to replicate exactly the experience of the agent makes the agent’s sympathy necessarily incomplete, although Smith argues that we relate the agent’s situation to our own experience in an attempt to close that distance. Mirror neuron research provides evidence indicating that the mirror system is a neural framework for such imaginative capacity. It will always be incomplete, though, because of the physical and cognitive distance between an observer and the internal emotions and thought processes of the agent.
1
Throughout this analysis, references to The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759[1981]) will follow the convention of citing the page number, and will suppress the published edition’s date (1981) for convenience only. Note that the full text is also available at the Library of Economics and Liberty, at http://www.econlib.org/library/Smith/smMSCover.html; although the citation format varies in the online version, the interested reader can search the online text by keyword.
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This neural network and the capabilities arising from it have three points of correspondence with important aspects of the Smithian sympathetic process: an agent’s situation as a stimulus or connection between two similar but separate agents, an external perspective on the actions of others, and an innate imaginative capacity that enables an observer to imagine herself as the agent, in the agent’s situation. Both this sympathetic process and the mirror neuron system predispose individuals toward coordination of the expression of their emotions and of their actions. In Smith’s model this decentralized coordination leads to the emergence of social order, bolstered and reinforced by the emergence and evolution of informal and formal institutions grounded in the sympathetic process. Social order grounded in this sympathetic process relies on a sense of interconnectedness and on shared meanings of actions, and the mirror neuron system predisposes humans toward such interconnection.2
This paper analyzes those three correspondences. I start by surveying the mirror neuron research in Section 2. This survey emphasizes the results regarding separate responses to a common stimulus, cognitive distance, and how imaginative capacity enables agents to narrow that gap and develop a sense of interconnectedness. In Section 3 I analyze the Smithian sympathetic process as having three core elements: innate emotional capacity combined with reason and experience to evaluate and form judgment between similar but separate individuals, an external perspective, and imagination. The analysis highlights the correspondence with the mirror neuron research in these three dimensions.
2.
Recent mirror neuron research
A mirror neuron fires both when an animal takes an action and observes someone else taking an action. Recent neuroscience research has revealed the existence of mirror neuron systems in the brains of monkeys and humans. The mirror neuron system is active both when we engage in a motor action (such as grasping an object) and when we observe someone else engaging in a motor action. If an observer watches an agent pick up a cup and drink from it, some of the 2
Note that I am not proposing a reductionist “mirror neuron theory of sympathy”, but instead take the neuroscience evidence as supporting the mirror neuron system as one factor that predisposes humans toward decentralized coordination, reciprocity, and cooperation with others to create social order.
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same neurons fire for the observer as for the agent. If an observer hears sound associated with picking up a cup, some of the same neurons also fire. Even observing an agent picking up a cup in two different contexts (i.e., from a table with fresh linen and a whole muffin or a table with crumpled linen and a half-eaten muffin) can induce mirror neuron firing in the observer.
The pioneering research on monkeys at the single neuron level identified mirror neurons firing when another monkey or a human performed an action (Rizzolatti et. al. 1996, Gallese et. al. 1996, Umiltà et. al. 2001), and even upon hearing, but not seeing, an action (Kohler et. al. 2002, Keysers et. al. 2003). Other research provides evidence that mirror neuron systems also fire upon observing facial expressions (Ferrari et. al. 2003, Carr et. al. 2003). Corroborating evidence on the presence of mirror systems in humans has resulted from studies using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) (e.g., Decety et. al. 1997, Iacoboni et. al. 1999), transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) (e.g., Fadiga et. al. 1995), or positron emission tomography (PET) (e.g, Rizzolatti et. al. 1996, Rizzolatti et. al. 2006). A recent study using neural data from implanted electrodes in epilepsy patients provides single-neuron level corroboration of mirror system presence and activity in humans, concluding that “these findings suggest the existence of multiple systems in the human brain endowed with neural mirroring mechanisms for flexible integration and differentiation of the perceptual and motor aspects of actions performed by self and others” (Mukamel et. al. 2010, p. 755).
The mirror system is a highly distributed, complex neural network, located in several regions of the brain and differentially active depending on the nature of the action undertaken or observed.3 Although networked across different areas of the brain, mirror neurons are concentrated in the premotor cortex, an area in the brain’s frontal lobe that uses sensory information to plan, choose, and implement motor action. Most of this system’s activity is not conscious, and occurs without our having a sense of developing the abilities to perform actions effortlessly. As part of the larger sensory-motor system, mirror neurons communicate information gathered either visually or aurally (Rizzolatti & Craighero 2004, p. 172).
3
For a thorough survey of the neuroscience literature on the mirror system, see Rizzolatti and Craighero (2004) and Rizzolatti et. al. (2001). For a general overview as well as a critical analysis of mirror neuron research and hypotheses addressing action understanding specifically, see Hickok (2009), who explores alternate hypotheses for mirroring. One alternate hypothesis, for example, is that these patterns arise from learned associations at the neural level, rather than from a distinct, distributed mirror neuron network.
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Neuroscience research thus suggests that mirror neurons provide the foundation for understanding the motor actions of others, and are therefore important factors in social interaction and social cognition.4
The premotor cortex also has large concentrations of canonical neurons that complement mirror neurons by firing upon observation of objects used in actions; canonical neurons fire upon seeing a bicycle, for example, even if the observer is seated indoors and only imagining riding a bicycle.5 To illustrate the complementarity of mirror neurons and canonical neurons, consider the general example of the simple motor task of grasping a cup. Mirror neurons fire when an individual grasps a cup or observes someone else grasping a cup, while canonical neurons fire when an individual grasps a cup or simply observes a cup. For this reason, canonical neurons are more associated with the ability to interpret context and potential, and recent research suggests that they work with mirror neurons to create understanding, although the mirror neurons appear to be responsible for the ability to infer the intentions of others (Iacoboni et. al. 2005; see also Frith & Frith 1999, p. 1694; Iacoboni 2009, p. 14; Rizzolatti & Craighero 2004, p. 170). This combined system of mirror neurons and canonical neurons forms the extended mirror system.
The extended mirror system appears to enable several social functions, such as the connection of perception to motor action at a neural level, action understanding, imitation, empathy, mindreading using simulation and imagination, inference and expectations formation, and language 4
Mirror neurons can be further categorized as strictly congruent and broadly congruent based on differences in their activities: “For instance, although the term “mirror” implies a strong similarity between the executed and the observed actions, only one third of mirror neurons—the so-called strictly congruent mirror neurons—fire for the same executed and observed action. The remaining two-thirds of mirror neurons—the so-called broadly congruent mirror neurons—fire for executed and observed actions that are not the same but either achieve the same goal or are logically related …, thus forming some sort of sequence of acts, as for instance observed placing food on the table and executed grasping food and bringing it to the mouth.” (Iacoboni 2009, p. 660) In other words, strictly congruent mirror neurons fire upon execution and observation of the same action, while broadly congruent mirror neurons fire upon execution and observation of actions with the same goal, even if the actual actions are not precisely the same. See also Rizzolatti et. al. (2001), p. 662. 5 Hurley’s description of the difference is illuminating: “Canonical neurons ... fire when an animal perceives an object that affords a certain type of action and when the animal performs the afforded action. Mirror neurons fire when an animal perceives another agent performing a type of action, and also when the animal performs that type of action itself; they don’t distinguish own action from others’ similar actions … Some fire, for example, when a monkey sees the experimenter bring food to her own mouth with her hand or when the monkey brings food to his own mouth with his hand (even in the dark, so the monkey cannot see his hand). Specificity of tuning varies.” (2008, p. 6)
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(Rizzolatti et. al. 2001, pp. 668-669). Some scholars argue that mirror neuron-enabled imitation is crucial for abstract social cognition such as mind-reading, language, cultural evolution, and cooperation (Hurley 2008, p. 7). The capabilities upon which I focus in this analysis are a sense of interconnectedness and a sense of shared meaning of actions.
Mirror system research has emphasized the role that such neurological capacities can play in the formation of empathy – a shared understanding of feelings and emotions (Decety et. al. 1997, Decety & Jackson 2006, Iacoboni et. al. 1999, Iacoboni 2009). The ability to form empathy is a core element in establishing a sense of interpersonal connectedness. Decety and Jackson define empathy as having three components: “An affective response to another person, which often, but not always, entails sharing that person’s emotional state; … a cognitive capacity to take the perspective of the other person; and … emotion regulation.” (2006, p. 54) Moreoever, they argue that our neural networks enable these three components; their research includes, but is not restricted to, the mirror system.
Decety and Jackson (and others) argue that emotional resonance at an unconscious level, based on observation, is an important component of empathy. One path for such resonance is motor mimicry, in which the unconscious imitation of an agent’s facial expression can produce that resonant emotion in the observer. They cite several studies indicating the mirror neuron system as the neural foundation of this resonance (2006, p. 55).
The second element of empathy, adopting the agent’s perspective, relies on individuals having an imaginative capacity; “[s]uch a capacity requires that one mentally simulate the other’s perspective using one’s own neural machinery.” (2006, p. 55) Decety and Jackson present results suggesting such imaginative activity at a neural level; in discussing one study on responses to images of pain they also note that the intensity of the neural response was higher when subjects were asked to imagine themselves in a painful situation than when they imagined someone else in the same situation (2006, p. 56). This result suggests that an observer can achieve emotional resonance with an agent, but that it will be imperfect and incomplete due to the unavoidable cognitive distance between the self and other. Our imaginative capacity exists, but does not allow us to replicate the experiences and reactions of others verbatim in our own minds.
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A final defining aspect of empathy is agency, or the ability to have emotional resonance through imagination while recognizing the distinction between self and other. Emotion regulation and modulation, and self-reflection, rely on neural mechanisms and are associated with an ability to experience empathy (2006, p. 57).6
The ability to form empathy also requires shared representations of actions as an input, and the mirror neuron research suggests that the mirror system is a neural foundation of the capacity to form shared representations across agents and their necessarily external perspectives. One hypothesized function of the mirror system in humans that contributes to such shared representations and shared meaning is action understanding, or the ability to understand or interpret the motor actions of others. This mechanism turns visual information into knowledge (Rizzolatti & Craighero 2004 p. 172). According to this hypothesis, the capability for action understanding is what creates shared meaning across individuals, and is a neurological foundation for abstraction and for the formation of concepts that generalize beyond a specific, personal situation (Iacoboni et. al. 2005, Rizzolatti & Craighero 2004, Rizzolatti & Singaglia 2010, Gallese 2003, Hurley 2008). These studies suggest that motor cells are associated with perceiving the goals of actions (not just with performing actions), and therefore with action understanding.7
Imaginative capacity is another important function for interconnectedness and shared meaning to which the mirror neuron system appears to contribute. As mentioned in the discussion of empathy above, the ability of an observer to imagine being “in the shoes of” an agent is an important element in a sense of interconnectedness. Imaginative capacity contributes to that ability – the capacity for imagination makes it easier for an observer to put herself in the situation of an agent and understand the meaning of an action from the agent’s perspective, while still maintaining her own, separate perspective.
6
On the existence of a neural control function to regulate unnecessary imitation in the context of a mirror neuron study, see Mukamel et. al. 2010, p. 755. 7 Hickok (2009) argues that the mirror neuron theory of action understanding does not have sufficient empirical support to rule out other hypotheses; he also contends that the concept of action understanding being tested is not sufficiently strictly defined in every study. In a related critique, Hickok and Hauser (2010) suggest that the role of the mirror neuron system may be in action selection rather than action understanding.
7
In writing about the neurological underpinnings of imagination, Kaag (2009b) argues that the mirror system plays a significant role in our capacity for “adaptive thinking and imaginative coordination” (p. 193): The research on the mirror neuron system is significant in our investigation of the imagination in the sense that it begins to point to a physiological process that allows organisms to be in touch with their local situations, make generalizations from partial observations, and to adapt to their particular circumstances in the continuous flow of inquiry, learning, and adaptation. (2009b, pp. 194-195)8 Imagination is essential for creating interconnectedness and shared meaning – imagination makes it possible to take on the perspective of another (albeit incompletely). The research connecting the mirror system to theory of mind and imagination suggests that the functions of the mirror system in humans discussed above contribute to our imaginative capacity.
Because the extended mirror system builds an inherent external focus into individual perception, we can recognize, understand, interpret, and form expectations and inferences about the actions of others in addition to ourselves. The external capability combines with our internal focus on our own behavior to enable the interpersonal coordination of behavior and expectations (Gallese 2008, p. 320). This ability to recognize and understand others’ actions contributes to the predictability of behavior in social contexts. Thus the research suggests that the extended mirror system provides neural mechanisms for social relationships and coordination with other people, and that the flexibility and adaptive capabilities provides enable social cooperation (Hurley 2008, p. 7; Newman-Norlund et. al. 2007).
Within the extended mirror system, canonical neurons also contribute to an individual’s imaginative capacity.9 As discussed previously, canonical neurons fire in ways that show processing and understanding of potential actions and intentions, not just actions, based on seeing objects in different contexts. Intention understanding employs a capacity for imagining the potential actions one could take with an object. Thus mirror neurons and canonical neurons combine to contribute to shared meaning and ability for an observer to imagine taking the agent’s action, or being in the agent’s situation.
8
Kaag (2009a) makes related arguments, with more of an emphasis on the role of the mirror neuron system specifically in sociality. 9 In their analysis of empathy, Decety and Jackson discuss the importance of “… the capacity for the imaginative transposing of oneself into the feeling and thinking of another.” (2006, p. 54)
8
The research reviewed here suggests that the mirror neuron system, and its extended network including canonical neurons, enables separate, individual agents to understand and react to a common stimulus, and to develop some shared understanding of its meaning. The mirror system does so incompletely, though, because of external perspective and cognitive distance across agents. Imaginative capacity plays a crucial role in narrowing that gap, thereby creating shared understanding and a sense of interconnectedness.
3.
The Smithian sympathetic process, and correspondences with the mirror system
This brief overview of the mirror neuron research highlights three important points of correspondence between the mirror neuron literature and the role of sympathy in Smith’s moral theory: •
Situation as a shared stimulus for similar, but separate, individual agents;
•
The existence of distance – cognitive, cultural, spatial – between and among agents; and
•
The role of imagination in enabling sympathy among separate agents.
Smith’s articulation of the definition and role of sympathy is complicated and occasionally confusing (Haakonsen 1991, p. 51). That said, Smith uniquely places sympathy in the central role in all moral sentiments. One way to analyze Smith’s model of sympathy is as a process of coordination between the self and others; Smithian sympathy is mutually coordinated sentiment (Klein & Clark 2011; Otteson 2002). The Smithian sympathetic process has three essential characteristics: sympathy with an agent’s situation as a synthesis of empathy with judgment based on reason, an external perspective on one’s own behavior and the behavior of others that arises from the unavoidable cognitive distance between individuals, and an innate capacity for imagination that enables individuals to place themselves in the situations of others. This sympathetic process leads to coordination of expressions and actions across individuals, resulting in harmony and social order. This process shares features with the capabilities associated with the mirror neuron system – a foundation for shared meaning of a common stimulus (e.g., situation), an external perspective on the emotions and actions of others, and a central role for imagination to enable interconnectedness.
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3.1.
Sympathy, situation, and separation
Sympathy is the ability to imagine the situation in which another person (the agent) stands, and to evaluate the agent’s actions and feelings in that situation. Smith defines sympathy broadly, as “… our fellow-feeling with any passion whatever”, including joy, happiness, gratitude, grief, sorrow, and misery (1759 p. 10). This broad and evaluative concept of sympathy differs from Hume’s concept of sympathy as concern for others; in large part this difference is due to the centrality for Smith of sympathy in all the moral sentiments, as well as Smith’s combination of judgment with emotional connection ([1751]1983 p. 49; see also Broadie 2006 p. 166). Smith also distinguishes carefully between sympathy and benevolence.10 Retaining this broad focus that goes beyond an emotional connection between individuals, Griswold expresses Smithian sympathy as “… that which holds us together.” (1999 p. 19) Sympathy is a social practice, a process of coordination, that combines judgment and reason with innate emotional connection.
Smith begins The Theory of Moral Sentiments with a discussion of sympathy, and sympathy starts with an emotional connection between two individuals, as seen in the opening passages of the work (quoted in the introduction above). Although not restricted to an emotional connection, sympathy is grounded in innate emotional resonance with others. Smith analyzes this emotional resonance in the general context of two agents, an actor and an observer, facing a common stimulus – the situation of the actor.
Smith’s argument is consistent with and supported by extensive neuroscience research on the likely role of the mirror system in empathy. Decety and Jackson offer a general definition of empathy as “… the capacity to understand and respond to the unique affective experiences of another person” (2006 p. 54); their definition also encompasses the cognitive (and imaginative) capacity to take another person’s perspective and a capacity for emotion regulation.11 Mirror
10
This definition, while broad, is consistent with usage at the time, and with one of the many nuanced meanings of the word, according to the Oxford English Dictionary: “The quality or state of being affected by the condition of another with a feeling similar or corresponding to that of the other; the fact or capacity of entering into or sharing the feelings of another or others; fellow-feeling. Also, a feeling or frame of mind evoked by and responsive to some external influence.” See also the discussion in Griswold (1999), pp. 55-56. For a thorough analysis of Smith’s definition of sympathy, see Montes (2004), p. 47. 11 Rockwell’s description of empathy and the role of simulation in mind-reading and in empathy resonates with Smith’s description (1759 p. 9): “My experience of seeing Jones in pain causes my mirror neurons to
10
neuron research suggests that we experience the same feelings ourselves as we observe in agents taking action (Carr et. al. 2003, Iacoboni 2008, Iacoboni 2009, Decety & Jackson 2006). Indeed, Gallese argues that “[t]he empathic link is not confined to our capacity to understand when someone is angry, happy or sad. Empathy, if conceived, as I am doing, in a broader sense, also enables us to understand what is happening when someone else is experiencing sensations such as pain, touch or tickling.” (2003 p. 519)
Important differences exist, though, between Smithian sympathy and empathy as a direct emotional connection. Sympathy goes beyond an emotional connection to encompass imagining being in the agent’s situation, and imagining the agent’s motivation to express the passions and take the actions that he or she chooses. Smith argues that true sympathy is not possible until the spectator understands the agent’s situation: “Sympathy, therefore, does not arise so much from the view of the passion, as from that of the situation which excites it.” (1759 p. 12) More than just the sharing of feelings, sympathy arises when an observer enters into the situation of agent, not into the emotions of the agent. In Smith’s example of an angry man whose anger is not compelling to the observer, the situation, not the emotion, is what prompts sympathy from the observer (1759 p. 11). Smith leaves open the opportunity for the observer to sympathize with the angry man, once acquainted with his provocation, which further reinforces his focus on situation and not solely on emotion. Thus an essential component of the Smithian sympathetic process is the importance of situation to both agents, and a shared understanding of situation and meaning across agents, even though they are separate yet still similar individuals.
Sympathy thus involves evaluation and judgment by the observer of the situation and the other agent’s passions and actions in the situation. Actor and observer are similar – cognitively, psychologically, perhaps even culturally – but remain separate and distinct individuals, with separate perceptions and histories informing their separate judgments of the actor’s actions. While they may strive to achieve mutual sympathy, their perceptions of the shared stimulus and appropriate reactions to it are separate, and are not replications of a single, common response. Sympathy bridges the gap among one’s internally-experienced sentiments, one’s externallyexpressed passions, and one’s judgment of those passions and associated actions, grounded in fire, which makes me feel pain, which in turn prompts me to judge that Jones must be in pain.” (2008 p. 61)
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reason. In Smith’s framework sympathy is a mechanism for judgment, not an expression of emotional connection. Sympathy with situation also affords an observer a degree of objectivity, which is essential in forming a detached evaluation of the agent’s passions and actions in the situation, and it requires a degree of understanding and consideration beyond simple intuition.
The research suggesting that the mirror system enables action understanding supports Smith’s concept of sympathy with an agent’s situation. Smithian sympathy bridges emotion and reason, and Smith’s focus on sympathy with situation and not with emotion indicates the importance of an observer understanding an agent’s intention and context. Shared understanding of meaning between observer and agent requires an ability to infer intention. Gallese and Goldman discuss how mirror neuron activity “seems to be nature's way of getting the observer into the same ‘mental shoes’ ... “ as the agent (1998 p. 497); the research cited in the previous section reiterates this interpretation.
Thus Smith’s treatment of empathy and sympathy and the evidence presented on the role of the mirror system in empathy and sympathy have corresponding emphases on how separate individuals react to a common stimulus. Both highlight the ability of separate individuals to develop a shared, but not perfectly replicated, understanding of the meaning of one person’s situation.
3.2.
Sympathy and distance
A second, related correspondence between Smithian sympathy and the apparent role of mirror neurons is the effect of distance. Distance can be cognitive, social, or physical, and in all of those senses, the separation between agents means that the sympathetic process involves watching, observing, evaluating, and forming a judgment as an external observer or spectator.12
Smith’s spectator is an allegorical device to represent our observation and awareness of an agent’s conduct and, ultimately, our own conduct. When observing and evaluating an agent’s conduct, the spectator is necessarily external to the agent, a cognitive distance that may be bridged but never eliminated. This perspective involves a process of imagination based on 12
The correspondence between them is the importance of distance, so this analysis does not delve into the specifics of the spectator metaphor that Smith employed.
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shared meaning (discussed further below) to facilitate sympathetic coordination between observer and agent: In all such cases, that there may be some correspondence of sentiments between the spectator and the person principally concerned, the spectator must, first of all, endeavour, as much as he can, to put himself in the situation of the other, and to bring home to himself every little circumstance of distress which can possibly occur to the sufferer. He must adopt the whole case of his companion with all its minutest incidents; and strive to render as perfect as possible, that imaginary change of situation upon which his sympathy is founded. (1759 p. 21) However, the observer’s external perspective will almost certainly not bring the observer into complete unison with the agent. For example, considering a harm done to an agent, “After all this, however, the emotions of the spectator will still be very apt to fall short of the violence of what is felt by the sufferer … Though they will never be unisons, they may be concords, and this is all that is wanted or required.” (1759 pp. 21-22) Two individuals’ actual experiences cannot be identical; the emotional (and cognitive) gap between self and other cannot be bridged fully. An agent is incapable of experiencing fully and accurately the passions of others, but can analogize based on how he imagines he would feel, and should react, if he were that person in the same situation. We can bridge, but never close, the gap between self and other. For that reason, Smith emphasizes achieving harmony and social order through coordination and concord, not through unison and uniformity.13
This inescapable separation involves Smith’s complex concept of distance. Forman-Barzilai defines three “spaces” in which the Smithian sympathetic process occurs: physical, affective, and historical/cultural (2010 p. 20). Distance means different things in these different spaces. Sympathy varies according to spatial distance, only part of which is physical; distance is also "affective and cultural/historical", and therefore relevant for human interconnectedness beyond the merely physical. (Forman-Barzilai 2010 p. 5).14 We are inescapably separate from others in all three of these senses, although to the extent we can find shared meaning we can narrow those distances. For Smith the sympathetic process is both a means of narrowing those distances, and a consequence of doing so.
13
For an analysis of the use of concord, harmony, and other musical coordination metaphors in The Theory of Moral Sentiments, see Klein & Clark (2011). 14 This concept of social distance originates in the Stoic concept of concentric social circles: nuclear family (w/in family, children then elders), extended family, friends, neighbors, tribe/community, country fellow-citizens, then humanity as humanity a far way out. Smith discusses this concept of social distance at VI.ii.2, “Of the order in which Societies are by nature recommended to our Beneficence” (1759, p. 227).
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Both Smith and mirror neuron researchers find that observation produces weaker responses than performing an action or experiencing a situation oneself. Mirror neuron research supports the cognitive, cultural, and spatial distance concepts that Smith employed. Iacoboni et. al. (1999) found stronger neural activity during imitation than during observation of an action, although the mirror system was active while observing the actions of others.15 Other research discussed in the previous section finds that observers have mirror neuron activity, but that a smaller share of neurons fire in the observer than in the agent. A similar result obtained when the observer was responding only to audio cues from an agent (Kohler et. al. 2002). Mirror neurons also are most active for "fundamental intention" (Iacoboni et. al. 2005), an indication of a form of cognitive distance, if not spatial. In both Smithian sympathy and mirror neuron research, the use of the “mirror” idea is thus somewhat misleading and inaccurate. Neither case involves an actual reflection or replication of the passions or neural activity of the agent. Again there are similarities that enable interconnectedness, but differences and distance that prevent uniformity. One human capacity that enables bridging that gap is imagination.
3.3.
Imaginative capacity and sympathy
Imagination is essential in Smith’s sympathetic process, and is one of the cognitive capabilities that emerges from the mirror neuron system. Due to an individual agent’s inability to observe and to know fully another person’s true internal passions, sympathy is necessarily based on imagination. Smith relies extensively on the role of imagination in the sympathetic process, and on what he contends is the inherent human capability to simulate (albeit imperfectly) being the agent in the agent’s situation. Without this imaginative capacity, the sympathetic process and sympathy’s role in moral judgment are not possible (Otteson 2002, p. 23; Paganelli 2010, p. 11).16
15
Recall the necessary incompleteness of the observer taking the agent’s perspective in Decety and Jackson’s (2006) analysis of empathy. See also Rizzolatti et. al. (2001), p. 664; Rizzolatti & Sinigaglia (2010); Iacoboni et. al. (2005). 16 Smith’s emphasis on imagination is built on Hume ([1751]1983); see also Broadie 2006. Both Smith and Hume emphasize the crucial role of imaginative capacity in the development and application of sympathy, although Smith connects it explicitly to moral judgment while Hume does not.
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Smith invokes imagination frequently in Moral Sentiments, and its appearance early in his argument indicates its importance: … [I]t is by the imagination only that we can form any conception of what are his sensations … By the imagination we place ourselves in his situation, we conceive ourselves enduring all the same torments, we enter as it were into his body, and become in some measure the same person with him, and thence form some idea of his sensations, and even feel something which, though weaker in degree, is not altogether unlike them. (1759 p. 9) Sympathetic imagination enables an observer to change places hypothetically with an agent and to understand the agent’s situation and emotions. Imagination gives the observer a capacity to simulate the situation, and to bring the agent’s case home to herself. This act of simulation, of putting oneself in the agent’s case, is essential to forming the judgment inherent in sympathy; sympathy as coordinated sentiment is possible because of the inherent imaginative capacity of humans.
Note, however, that the above passage indicates the persistence of the imperfection and distance inherent in sympathy discussed previously. Throughout the exercise of our imaginative capacity, the imperfection of sympathy persists. Imagination narrows, but cannot eradicate, our external perspective and inescapable separateness from each other. Imagination makes possible the narrative by which we can place ourselves in the shoes of another. Imaginative capacity thus is the human characteristic that enables a shared understanding of action, context, and meaning between an observer and an agent. This imaginative process relies on a sense of shared meaning of actions, which corresponds to the apparent role of the mirror neuron system in human imaginative capacity.
Moreover, imagination enables the observer to imagine what he would do and feel if he were the agent, in the agent’s situation. This distinction addresses the challenge for the observer of imagining how the agent feels, not just self-centered projection of how the observer would feel and act in the agent’s situation Smith contends that because imagination works in this way, the resulting spectatorial perspective and sympathetic process is not grounded in selfishness.17
17
Broadie observes: “This last point, that we ‘become in some measure the same person with the agent,’ is a crucial part of the case that can be made in defence of Smith against Thomas Reid’s criticism that Smith’s is essentially a ‘selfish’ system, ‘selfish’ given the baseline in the formation of a moral judgment about a person’s attitude or behaviour is how I would feel if I were in that person’s shoes.” (2006 p. 163) See also Forman-Barzilai 2010 p. 66; Griswold 1999 p. 90.
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Smith makes an important and subtle distinction between an observer imagining himself in the agent’s situation and a spectator imagining himself, as the agent, in the agent’s situation: “…yet this imaginary change is not supposed to happen to me in my own person and character, but in that of the person with whom I sympathize…” (1759, p. 317). This distinction relies on two related cognitive phenomena associated with the mirror neuron system: the necessarily external perspective and distance of the agent, and the crucial role of human imaginative capacity in the sympathetic process.
The mirror neuron research results described above indicate that humans do possess imaginative capacities, and the role of the mirror neuron system in enabling imaginative capacity corresponds to Smith’s use of imagination in his concept of sympathy. In the interdisciplinary mirror neuron scholarship in philosophy, psychology, and neuroscience, all are grappling with the same problem apparent in Smith’s account of sympathy – individuals do not have direct access to the (unobservable) mental states of others. Imaginative capacity plays a key role in bridging between individuals.
4.
Conclusion
Smithian sympathy and the mirror neuron system have three significant points of correspondence. Both involve cases in which separate individuals have some commonality and some difference in reaction to a shared situation. Both are subject to inescapable distance between individuals, and both highlight the role of imagination and imaginative capacity in narrowing that gap to create a sense of interconnectedness. The mirror system bridges our internal physical and emotional experiences and the external world, and that bridging between internal and external is necessary for individuals to develop and experience the Smithian sympathetic process, and to achieve the ensuing coordinated sentiment.
The extended mirror system is also likely to play a crucial role in our ability to understand and evaluate situations that we observe. To the extent that it contributes to our individual capabilities to imitate, learn, recognize, understand, and infer in observation and interaction with others, the mirror system is consistent with the component of Smithian sympathy that evaluates and judges the passions and actions of others. This function of sympathy synthesizes the passions and 16
reason and relies on our evaluative abilities that correspond to capabilities grounded in the mirror system – an individual cannot form sympathy without the ability to recognize, understand, and infer the actions and reactions of others.
One of the most striking connections between the extended mirror system and Smithian sympathy is the crucial role of imaginative capacity in the sympathetic process. The contribution of the mirror system to our inference and understanding of intent and capacity for imagination provides a neurological correspondence to the imaginative capacity that is essential for enabling an individual to bridge from her personal experiences, sentiments, and passions to any sort of “fellow-feeling” with the observed passions and actions of others.
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