The balance of self-interest and sympathy characterizes Adam Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments. Reducing the attractiveness of self-love attitude, controlling asocial passions, and developing social passions allow anybody to seize the deep challenges of a virtuous life. The real spectator’s capacity to sympathize with the agent’s emotion largely depends on her/his ability to both achieve the imaginary substitution of personalities and situations and get the impartial spectator’s judgment. There are three basic limitations in Adam Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments. Firstly, the concrete possibilities for an imaginary substitution of personalities and situations are very limited since the real spectator does not have an in-depth knowledge of the agent’s emotional and social life. Secondly, revenge is a natural inclination that may endanger the real spectator’s capacity to sympathize with the agent’s emotion. Thirdly, Smith’s notion of the “invisible hand” is contextually driven. Smith has not developed any theory of the “invisible hand”. The antecedents of a crisis of beliefs (the lack of due diligence and the responsibility of external stakeholders) should be carefully analyzed since they have nurtured the probability of the crisis. The unfolding of a crisis of beliefs have unveiled two unethical attitudes: the lack of carefulness and diligence for efficiently solving the crisis; political authorities’ reluctance to put too much pressure on main corporate actors. The optimal solution to a crisis of beliefs lies in the capacity to develop ethical leadership in business and political institutions. Ethical leadership would contribute to impair the attractiveness of an absolutized belief in profit maximization.