The times in which Adam Smith lived and published his extraordinary works, The Theory of Moral Sentiments (TMS) and The Wealth of Nations (WN), were very divided on philosophical, political and economic motivations. Interestingly, the sixth and final edition of the TMS was published in 1790, coinciding with the start of the French Revolution and the emergence and uprising of radical egalitarian ideas across Europe. I was therefore curious to understand what Adam Smith, the moral philosopher, thought about equality. In this essay, I would like to discuss Smith's views on equality and egalitarianism from a moral and socio-economic perspective based on his first book, The Theory of Moral Sentiments. I would also loosely define “egalitarianism” as the doctrine that all people are equal and deserve equal rights and opportunities. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay In TMS, sympathy is a central aspect of social interactions and moral judgments, and it is implied that all humans have a propensity toward sympathy (Dwyer ). Sympathy is the "feeling" that helps us relate to passions, people and situations. But this sympathy is the result of the impartial spectator's understanding of emotions and actions. The "impartial spectator" appears to function as an evaluator or regulator (Darwall) of his own moral judgments. When we sympathize, we imaginatively place ourselves in the situation of others and judge our actions by evaluating whether an impartial third person, observing us from the outside, would take the same actions that we do in those situations. It is in the very first pages of TMS that Smith's morally egalitarian views begin to emerge. Smith recognizes that, due to the innate selfishness of human beings, it is difficult to look beyond one's own interests and focus on the interests of others. He says that: '... Before we can make an adequate comparison between... opposing interests, we must change our position. We must look at them, neither from our place nor from his... but from the place and with the eyes of a third person, who has no particular connection with either, and who judges between us impartially.' The fact that people put themselves in the shoes of others in order to empathize and identify with them implicitly means that we view individuals with whom we sympathize as having the same value, or simply as individuals worthy of our perspectives. Smith even goes on to say that those individuals who do not treat others around them as equals or do not view themselves more highly than those around them are instigating us. He states: "What makes us angry above all against the man who hurts or insults us is the little consideration he seems to have of us, the unreasonable preference he gives to himself over us, and that absurd self-love , by which he seems to imagine that other people might be sacrificed at any time…' (TMS II.iii.1.6) It now seems quite obvious that according to Smith, we all take on the same value and when we are treated differently, we disagree with the value that we think we share with others makes us resentful. I think this implies that the underlying assumption of moral equality and the prerequisite for seeing all human beings as equal is at the forefront of sympathy and, therefore, in all social interactions. As a result, it seems safe to say that Smith definitely believed in and supported moral equality In the same book, however, Adam Smith's views on socioeconomic equality are quite ambiguous and puzzling for a number of reasons. First, Smith, in in.