 We have supposed, in each of these cases, that the recipient really does have the feeling in question, whether of gratitude or resentment. However, in Smith’s account the spectator’s belief about what the recipient actually feels about the agent is not important for the spectator’s judgment concerning the merit and demerit of the agent. The recipient may, for whatever reason, resent an act that was kindly intentioned and in all other ways admirable, and the spectator, knowing the situation better than the recipient does, puts himself imaginatively in the shoes of the recipient while taking with him into this spectatorial role information about the agent’s behaviour that the recipient lacks. The spectator judges that were he himself in the recipient’s situation he would be grateful for the agent’s act; and on that basis, and independently of the recipient’s actual reaction, he approves of the agent’s act and judges it meritorious. Here the spectator considers himself as a better (because better informed) spectator of the agent’s act than the recipient is.