Virtue and the Impartial Spectator

by Juan

November 17, 2024 3 minutes • 562 words

Table of contents

The Higher Mind as the Impartial Spectator

Sarkar

The sense of crime, therefore, has a parallelism with the concept of virtue and vice. The idea of virtue and vice is different in different countries.

The morality system of Superphysics is ultuimately based on dharma which is the design by the Creator for Its Creation.

Going against dharma is like going against the manufacturer’s design. For example, loading a table designed for 100 kilos with a weight of 101 kilos is adharmic as it will lead to the physical destruction of the table.

We define:

virtue as feelings that keep within the dharma
- An example is the act of donating to victims of natural disasters as it aims to sustain society
vice as feelings that go out of the dharma
- An example is a criminal act which harm society

Adam Smith classifies virtues into 2:

Ego-based virtues

Examples are:

desire for utility (cleanliness, production of trinkets and baubles)
ambition
courage
magnanimity
etc

Sympathy-based virtues

These are subdivided into:

‘Amiable’ virtues which are common:

gratitude
sense of justice
etc

‘Respectable’ virtues which are not so common:

self-command
generosity

The Higher Mind as the Impartial Spectator

The impartial spectator represents the moral sense in all humans. It regulates and balances the ego-based and sympathy-based virtues to produce happiness for all, even plants and animals.

Adam-Smith

These must be left to the decision of the man within the breast, the supposed impartial spectator, the great judge and arbiter of our conduct.. It is strange that this sentiment, which Providence undoubtedly intended to be the governing principle of human nature, should have been so unnoticed that it has not gotten a name in any language. The word ‘moral sense’ is very recently formed. It cannot yet be considered as part of the English tongue. The word ‘conscience’ does not immediately denote any moral faculty by which we approve or disapprove. Conscience supposes the existence of some such faculty.

Theory of Moral Sentiments

This spectator is the higher mind which is different from the lower mind.

The higher mind has more of the Positive Force
The lower mind has more of the Negative Force

We can say that human dharma or the invisible hand of Jupiter of the higher mind properly regulates physical and animal nature of the lower mind.

Examples of moral systems that are founded on the ego-based virtues are:

utilitarianism
liberalism
libertarianism

The corruption of morality usual starts from these. As proof, the corruption of Adam Smith’s invisible hand into Samuelson’s invisible hand was done by Paul Samuelson, a liberal.

Samuelson’s textbook Economics enshrined ego and destroyed even the most basic kind of sympathy, such as the sympathy for poor children:

Samuelson

John D. Rockefeller’s dog may receive the milk that a poor child needs to avoid rickets. Why? Because supply and demand are working badly? No. Because they are doing what they are designed to do, putting goods in the hands of those who can pay the most.

Economics

As you can see:

generosity is in the bottom rung of sympathy-based virtues, together with self-command
utility is on the top of ego-based virtues

This means that we observe more instances of people wanting useful things, than people wanting to give away useful things, because ego is currently dominant in our species.

However, the lack of slavery nowadays, which was the norm in ancient times, shows that the ego-level is generally declining.