Adam Smith said to judge yourself, imagine a stranger watching

Before he wrote about markets, Adam Smith argued morality works by imagining an 'impartial spectator', a fair, informed observer watching your conduct from the outside. You judge your own actions, and rein in your own bias, by asking whether this imagined witness would approve. Conscience, for Smith, is really just this spectator internalized.

— Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments — 1759
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