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Sympathy as a foundation of multicultural society. A dialogue with Adam Smith Hiroyuki Ishimatsu   -  Edizioni Di Storia E Letteratura, 1905  -  Ricerca Filosofica

If legal norms and the ascription of rights are to achieve their purposes, they must receive public support. What, then, can provide the foundation for a sense of belonging, and make a reality of legal equality in a multicultural society? How can a sense of belonging to the society as a whole be achieved among all of its members? Ishimatsu's answer is sympathy understood as 'fellow-feeling'. The absence of this social sentiment as thoroughly formulated by Adam Smith in the eighteenth century is a cause of problems in contemporary multicultural society. Sympathy, which takes the form of a moderate sentiment towards others, is needed to cement a multicultural society and make possible the full realisation of its legal and official goals.