 The figure of an impartial spectator also plays a key role in Smith’s account of self-directed moral judgment or conscience. Because we want others to sympathize with us (and thus approve of us), we strive to bring our passions to a level that an imagined informed and impartial spectator could sympathize with (Kopajtic 2020). Antti Kauppinen (2010: 236–239; 2014a) argues that this can be seen in contemporary psychological terms as a form of emotion regulation by means of refocusing attention and reappraising the meaning of the action.