prior probability

As I have mentioned in my last few posts, my colleagues Daniel Klein, Nicholas Swanson, and Jeffrey Young have published a new paper in Econ Journal Watch about one of the most original and fascinating ideas in the work of Adam Smith: the impartial spectator. According to Klein et al., the impartial spectator is a deity. To this end, they identify a trio of passages in Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments (TMS) in support of their claim that the impartial spectator is a godlike being. For reference, these three specific passages from TMS are quoted in full below:

Passage #1 (294.49):

None of those systems [of virtue ethics] either give, or even pretend to give, any precise or distinct measure by which this fitness or propriety of affection can be ascertained or judged of. That precise and distinct measure can be found nowhere but in the sympathetic feelings of the impartial and well-informed spectator. (TMS, VII.ii.1.49, quoted in Klein et al. 2025, p. 304; emphasis and boldface added by Klein et al.)

Passage #2 (225.19):

Nature, which formed men for that mutual kindness, so necessary for their happiness, renders every man the peculiar object of kindness, to the persons to whom he himself has been kind. Though their gratitude should not always correspond to his beneficence, yet the sense of his merit, the sympathetic gratitude of the impartial spectator, will always correspond to it. (TMS, VI.ii.1.19, quoted in Klein et al. 2025, pp. 304-305; emphasis and boldface added by Klein et al.)

Passage #3 (215.11):

In the steadiness of his industry and frugality, in his steadily sacrificing the ease and enjoyment of the present moment for the probable expectation of the still greater ease and enjoyment of a more distant but more lasting period of time, the prudent man is always both supported and rewarded by the entire approbation of the impartial spectator, and of the representative of the impartial spectator, the man within the breast. The impartial spectator does not feel himself worn out by the present labour of those whose conduct he surveys; nor does he feel himself solicited by the importunate calls of their present appetites. To him their present, and what is likely to be their future situation, are very nearly the same: he sees them nearly at the same distance, and is affected by them very nearly in the same manner. He knows, however, that to the person principally concerned, they are very far from being the same, and that they naturally affect them in a very different manner. He cannot therefore but approve, and even applaud, that proper exertion of self-command, which enables them to act as if their present and future situation affected them nearly in the same manner in which they affect him. (TMS, VI.i.11, quoted in Klein et al. 2025, p. 305; emphasis in the original; boldface added by Klein et al.)

So, is Klein, Swanson, and Young’s interpretation correct, or are they off the mark? Is Adam Smith’s “impartial spectator” some sort of god or deity? The first two passages quoted above seem to imply that the impartial spectator is infallible, so he must be a god of some sort, but at the same time, it is worth noting that there is no explicit reference whatsoever to a deity in either of those excerpts. By a process of elimination, we are thus left with Passage #3, and if you read Klein, Swanson, and Young’s new paper for yourself, you will see that they put all of their argumentative eggs in this one basket, so to speak. Stay tuned, for I will scrutinize the third and last passage in greater detail in my next post.

Thus far this week (see here and here), I have posed a first-order question about Adam Smith’s “impartial spectator”: who, or what, is this imaginary moral judge? (See, for example, the short video posted below.) I, however, will now have nothing more to say about this first-order question, except to note that scholars still disagree about this question: some say the impartial spectator is simply our internal conscience, i.e. a psychological process; others insist that it is an external entity, i.e. a deity.

In this post, by contrast, I will consider in greater detail a second-order question about Smith’s impartial spectator: why didn’t Smith just tell us one way or another who (or what) the impartial spectator is? Is the problem with Smith’s writing style or with the substance of his ideas? That is, is Smith’s impartial spectator an incoherent or empty concept, or was Smith being purposely evasive when he wrote and then revised his first magnum opus, The Theory of Moral Sentiments (TMS)?

As it happens, my colleagues Daniel Klein, Nicholas Swanson, and Jeffrey Young have published a new paper in which they all but concede that Adam Smith’s paints a confusing and conflicting picture of the impartial spectator in TMS. (See Klein et al. 2025, pp. 321-322.) More to the point, they identify a wide variety of competing motives that Smith may have had for being intentionally evasive or esoteric on this score: pedagogical, strategic, and even theological. Let’s now take a closer look at each one of these possible Smithian motives below:

1. Pedagogical motive. First off, building on the work of Arthur Melzer (2014), Klein, Swanson, and Young claim that Smith’s description of the impartial spectator is deliberately unclear and confusing for — wait for it — pedagogical reasons: “Rather than simply spoon-feed [their audience], yesteryear’s philosophers saw greater value in prompting their audience to read between the lines.” (Klein et al. 2025, p. 321.) Really? Alas, this explanation begs the question, why? Specifically, why would such a meticulous and careful writer and thinker like Adam Smith see “greater value” (let alone any value) in obfuscation or obscurity? According to Klein et al., Smith was “somewhat” opaque about the impartial spectator because “[p]hilosophical opaqueness is arguably more convincing than philosophical spoon-feeding.” Paging George Orwell.

2. Strategic motive. Next, Klein, Swanson, and Young claim that Smith was deliberately unclear about the divine or godlike nature of his impartial spectator because the Scottish philosopher wanted his moral theory to appeal not just to theists (e.g., religious believers like his mother, one would presume) but also to non-theists as well (e.g., non-believers or agnostics like his friend and mentor David Hume). In support of this conjecture, Klein et al. even have the temerity to compare the great Adam Smith to a crafty politician: “Like a politician, Smith used ambiguity, equivocation, dispersal, and inconsistency to keep from alienating certain quarters.” (Ibid., p. 322, quoting Klein & Merrill 2021, p. 714). Alas, I call bullshit, for as the economic historian Arthur H. Cole (1958) has noted, Smith was willing to criticize some of the most powerful people and institutions of his day.

In his second magnum opus The Wealth of Nations, for example, Smith called out “the usual idleness” of apprentices (WN, I.x.a.8) and the “sneaking arts” of underling tradesmen (WN, IV.iii.b.8). He also castigated “weak and wondering travelers” and “stupid and lying missionaries” and rebuked “the absurd prescriptions” of doctors (WN, II.iii.31) as well as “[l]uxury in the fair sex” (WN, I.viii.37). Ironically (given the quote in the previous paragraph comparing Smith to a politician), Smith reserved his greatest invective for politicians, “that insidious and crafty animal” (WN, IV.ii.39), and for merchants and manufacturers, whose “avidity” (WN, IV.viii.4), “clamour and sophistry” (WN, I.x.b.25), and “mean rapacity” (WN, IV.iii.c.9) impede the progress of commerce. Smith didn’t alter his writing style in The Wealth of Nations in order to appeal to greedy merchants, crafty politicians, lazy apprentices, etc. So, why would he alter his writing style in The Theory of Moral Sentiments, especially the sixth and last edition of TMS when Smith was in bad health and knew his days on Earth were coming to a close, to avoid offending theists or non-theists or whomever?

3. Theological motive. Lastly, this time building on the work of Jerry Z. Muller (1993), Klein, Swanson, and Young present a theological or religious reason for Smith’s ambiguity about the impartial spectator: “Smith may have felt that if he had provided a clear enunciation of ‘impartial spectator’ as a universal and super-knowledgeable beholder [i.e. God], that might have bred a militancy and arrogance in those who felt confident in their own access and communication with The Beholder [God].” (Klein et al. 2025, p. 322.) Again, seriously? Simply put, there are two problems with this conjecture. One is that (contra Muller 1993) we have no direct evidence of Smith’s religious views, so we have no way of confirming whether Smith really was opposed to the “austere morality” of strict Scottish Presbyterians. (Klein et al. 2025, p. 322.)

But that said, even if Muller’s musings on Smith’s religious and theological views were supported by direct evidence, it strains credulity to believe that Smith deliberately presented a confusing and unclear picture of the impartial spectator in order to avoid writing anything that would aid the “self-righteous, obnoxious, or overly austere” cause of Muller’s bogeymen (ibid.), those strict Scottish Presbyterians. Was Smith really afraid that his ideal observer theory would be so misused by such zealots that he (Smith) decided to be purposely unclear to throw them off? C’mon man.

In short, the arguments presented by Klein et al. for Smith being intentionally evasive or esoteric about his moral spectator are flimsy at best. But if Smith wasn’t being deliberately unclear, does this mean that his impartial spectator theory is itself incoherent or empty? (To be continued …)

Works Cited (below the fold)

I began my previous post by asking, Who (or what?) is the “impartial spectator” in Adam Smith’s first magnum opus, The Theory of Moral Sentiments? (This is just one of the many open “Adam Smith problems” my colleague and friend Salim Rashid and I address in our ongoing survey of unresolved or contested Smith problems.) As it happens, Daniel Klein, Nicholas Swanson, and Jeffrey Young (2025) have just published a new paper in Econ Journal Watch making a strong case for why Smith’s ideal observer is none other than God or some other make-believe godlike entity they call Joy. Either way, according to Klein et al., this imaginary being is “a universal beholder” who boasts “superhuman knowledge and universal benevolence” (Klein, Swanson, & Young 2025, p. 297).

Alas, even if we were to assume for the sake of argument that this theistic interpretation of Smith’s ideal observer is true, three tough questions immediately spring to mind. First off, why do Klein, Swanson, and Young further complicate Smith’s imaginary being by taking away some of his godlike powers and then changing his name and gender and calling him “Joy” instead of just plain, old “God”? (See ibid., pp. 297-298.) Secondly, if Smith’s impartial spectator really is a deity or godlike figure, why are there — by Klein et al.’s own count no less — at least eight separate passages in Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments in which the impartial spectator specifically does not refer to a deity? (See, for example, ibid., at p. 307.) And what, in turn, is the source of this anomaly?

For their part, Klein, Swanson, and Young concede that Smith’s writings about the impartial spectator are unclear at best: “If [the] ‘impartial spectator’ rises to God/Joy, why didn’t Smith provide a direct, concise statement saying that?” (Ibid., p. 298.) There are two possibilities: (a) either Smith was being purposely evasive on this point, or (b) it is Smith’s convoluted theory of morality that itself is confusing. (Or in the alternative, some combination of a and b might be true.) But which of these two possibilities is most likely the correct one? To their credit, Klein et al. identify several reasons why Smith was being purposely evasive or “esoteric” in a Leo Straussian sense. (See ibid., pp. 321-322.) Stay tuned, I will entertain their intriguing thesis (i.e. that Smith was being unclear on purpose) in my next post as well as explain why their Straussian conjecture is most likely wrong.

My colleagues Daniel Klein, Nicholas Swanson, and Jeffrey Young provide their interpretation of Adam Smith’s imaginary being in their essay “The Impartial Spectator Rises” in the most recent issue of Econ Journal Watch (see here or below). As it happens, scholars are still divided about how to interpret the ideal observer/impartial spectator in Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments (see, e.g., pp. 60-64 of my forthcoming survey of Adam Smith problems with Salim Rashid), so Klein, Swanson, and Young’s new paper is a must-read for me. Suffice it to say I will scrutinize their paper and report back soon; in the meantime, file under: yet another “Adam Smith problem“.

All I will say (for now) is that the incumbent FBI director, Kash Patel, better be careful, as his political enemies may want retribution when they resume control of the White House in the future. In the meantime, here is the two-count indictment, and here is Professor Jonathan Turley’s expert analysis of the charges against Comey. File under: “political payback” or “no one is above the law”?

I hate to have to defend such an unlikable CEO as Mark Zuckerberg, but what’s also funny about this anti-Meta meme are its logical and legal fallacies. Can you spot them?

In addition to my usual fare of scholarly papers and erudite essays, below are some of the books that I am reading (or in the case of item #4, re-reading) this fall:

1. Neil Gaiman, Norse Mythology (W. W. Norton, 2017)
2. Amartya Sen, Home in the World: A Memoir (Allen Lane, 2021)
3. Leo Strauss & Joseph Cropsey (editors), History of Political Philosophy, 3rd ed. (Chicago, 1987)
4. William Strunk & E. B. White, The Elements of Style, 4th ed. (Pearson, 2000)

Delete your academia.edu accounts, if you have not done so already. Here’s why. See also the screenshot of their super-scammy updated user agreement below:

1. Julie Bort, OpenAI’s research on AI models deliberately lying is wild, Tech Crunch (18 September 2025).
2. Nils Köbis, et al., Delegation to artificial intelligence can increase dishonest behaviour, Nature (17 September 2025).
3. u/MinuteDistribution31, Why ChatGPT isn’t a good tool for education?, Reddit (21 September 2025).

Bonus link: ChatGPT is eating the world