disclaimer: I haven’t finished reading TOMS
We suppose ourselves the spectators of our own behaviour, and endeavour to imagine what effect it would, in this light, produce upon us. This is the only looking glass by which we can, in some measure, with the eyes of other people, scrutinize the propriety of our own conduct.~TOMS
That “morality blinds us” is not the definition of morality that Smith uses might seem like an argument about semantics but its not.
What is moral in Smith’s view, as I understand from the partial skim of his Theory of Moral Sentiments, is best judged or understood in relation to the concept of Smith’s “impartial and well informed spectator”.
We each have our subjective expression of what that spectator might judge like because we can only project such a concept within the frame of our own biases.
However, the introduction of such a spectator, even the concept, can actually have a significant affect on the transparency of the sincerity and intention of an individual or individuals engaged in inquiry (which is not really inquiry if they are not sincere).
It might be difficult to a leaning perspectives (ie left right, conservative liberal, etc.) to take a stance that is ‘the aggregated view of the individuals of the society within some optimally appropriate frames’ but if we can consider such an aggregate this might give a better (co-)orientation point even though it is still something that must be conceptualized subjectively by each participant and will therefore be at least somewhat different in comparison.
I refer to this concept as ‘propriety’:
pro·pri·e·ty
/p(r)əˈprīədē/
noun
the state or quality of conforming to conventionally accepted standards of behavior or morals.
2. the details or rules of behavior conventionally considered to be correct.
3. the condition of being right, appropriate, or fitting.
Propriety is the great guardian of morality.
To say “morality blinds us” speaks to people that are not weighing their beliefs in relation to a conceptual impartial and well informed spectator and in that sense Adam Smith might agree that is a state of “moral blindness” but only because the persons with this ailment cannot understand that morality, properly viewed, is an extension of reason.
And the reason leads us to understand that it is only the aggregate of every individuals experience that can ever approach “truth”.
