The Impartial Spectator

Smith asks where conscience comes from and answers: we build it out of the eyes of others. To weigh our own act, we imagine how a fair and well-informed bystander would judge it – and slowly this impartial spectator takes up residence inside us. Morality, for Smith, is neither handed down ready-made nor a bare calculation of advantage; it grows from our wish to be worthy of that ideal judge's approval. It is one of the first mature accounts of the social origin of conscience.