Indeed, a good way to read TMS is to see Smith as demonstrating, to an impartial spectator in a moment of reflection, that the impartial spectator we use in the course of action operates in a reasonable and noble way that, in particular, it is not just a tool of our self-interest.
Surely not impartial benevolence towards everyone, for then we might as well dispense with the social contract and rely on an impartial spectator point of view.
One who acts virtuously out of concern for the praise and blame of her neighbors is not as virtuous as one who is concerned to be praise-worthy in the eyes of an impartial spectator, but one who acts virtuously out of concern for legal sanctions is worse than either of the other two.
With the country just the right side of anarchy, the army has so far chosen the role of an impartial spectator.
Moral norms thus express the feelings of an impartial spectator.
Smith therefore sought to take the posture of an "impartial spectator".
Another reading of Smith, which attributes a sentimentalist FA theory to him, has his standard of propriety determined by an essentially normative notion of an impartial spectator.
On his view, we aim to have, and act on, just those feelings that an impartial spectator would have in our situations; the feelings we attribute to such a spectator are then the ones fitted to that situation.
Of course, that eventually means that we correct the modes of approval of people around us for bias and misinformation; we seek the judgment of an impartial spectator within rather than partial spectators without.
Smith thinks that to sympathize with another's feelings is to approve of those feelings (17), and to sympathize as we think an impartial spectator would is to bestow moral approval on those feelings.
Imagine you were an impartial spectator charged with clearing up the Brexit mess.
