Last week (see links below), I surveyed a new paper in Econ Journal Watch by Daniel Klein, Nicholas Swanson, and Jeffrey Young on Adam Smith’s impartial spectator. Today, I want to conclude this series of blog posts with a question for my three Smithian colleagues. To paraphrase the ancient Greek gadfly Socrates in Plato’s Euthyphro, are our actions pious or morally good when our impartial spectator approves of them, or does our impartial spectator approve of our actions when they are pious or morally good? For further reference, below are my previous musings (in thematic order) on this matter:

1. Introduction (who is the impartial spectator?)
2. Klein, Swanson, and Young’s theory (a theistic interpretation of the impartial spectator)
3. Evidence in support of Klein et al.’s theory (three key passages in TMS)
4. A “smoking-gun” passage? (TMS, VI.i.11)
5. Additional questions for Klein, Swanson, and Young (replies to their nine theses)
6. A second-order question about the impartial spectator (why wasn’t Adam Smith more clear in TMS?)