The Inner Judge and Moral Mirror — The Theory of Moral Sentiments

Much of human happiness and misery flows from how we view our past conduct, and that view always refers to what we imagine ought to be others' sentiments. We examine ourselves as an impartial spectator would. A man raised in solitude could no more judge his character than his face without a mirror; society supplies that mirror in others' countenances. We first judge others, then learn they judge us. We divide the self into agent and judge, as judge and panel cannot coincide. Virtue is amiable and meritorious because it excites love and reward in others, not in itself. Man is accountable first to fellow-creatures, then to God. Providence veils eternal sanctions lest human business cease, yet appoints man vicegerent judge on earth.

When the world's verdict conflicts with natural principles, we appeal to the tribunal within the breast. Yet that tribunal's authority still derives from society. Unable to please everyone, we imagine a candid spectator with no private tie to us. The weak live by the inferior court of fashion; the man of reflection courts the man within. This arbiter alone corrects the optical illusion by which our little finger, in passive feeling, outweighs the destruction of China, though no one would actually sacrifice millions to save it. The most vulgar education already teaches some impartiality between ourselves and others, and ordinary commerce adjusts our active principles to a degree of propriety. Reason, principle, and conscience, not the feeble spark of benevolence, enforce the propriety of justice and self-sacrifice. It is the inhabitant of the breast who calls out that we are but one of the multitude, in no respect better than any other in it, and that when we prefer ourselves so blindly we become proper objects of resentment.

Melancholy moralists who would damp all joy with unseen misery, and Stoics such as Epictetus who bid us view our griefs as we view a neighbour's, both miss the mark; yet habit teaches us to view our fortunes as others view them. Self-judgment is weakest when most needed. Passion discolors prospective scrutiny. Malebranche said passions justify themselves while they last; afterward we extenuate rather than condemn, sometimes rekindling old resentments to avoid seeing our injustice. This self-deceit, source of half of life's disorders, would force reformation if we saw ourselves as others would with full knowledge. He is a bold surgeon, Smith says, who does not hesitate to cut off his own limb. Nature's remedy is general rules formed from observing what shocks or delights mankind in particular cases. We do not first approve actions by rule; rules crystallize repeated experience of immediate detestation, as at the first sight of perfidious murder. Once fixed, rules check fury and self-love, as the man of violent resentment trembles before a sacred maxim even while he violates it.