 Adam Smith presents a different theory about the nature and mechanisms of sympathy and consequently moral and evaluative approval. For Smith, the key mechanism of sympathy is imaginatively projecting oneself in another’s position, or what would now be called simulation (Gordon 1995), rather than mere emotional contagion, association, or inference. In Smith’s official definition, sympathy consists in concord between what one takes the other to actually feel and what one feels oneself as a result of putting oneself in the other’s shoes. Approbation is the pleasant feeling that results from perceiving this rough coincidence (TMS 56 note a), perhaps because it simultaneously confirms our common humanity and the distinctness of our perspectives (Fleischacker 2019, 28–31). Although this account of ‘sense of propriety’ is sometimes described as Smith’s theory of moral judgment, he regards it as a perfectly general account of evaluation, encompassing belief, sense of humour, or business decisions. When it comes to judgments of moral merit or demerit, or the qualities of deserving praise or blame, what counts is our sympathy with the gratitude and resentment of those affected by the action, on the one hand, and with the agent’s motives, on the other. Like Hume, Smith recognizes that moral approval requires departing from one’s personal point of view: