self-love, how are they accounted for?
We can no more be bribed to approve an action, than to assent to a proposition.
How are our natural affection to parents and offspring; our compassion to the distressed; our gratitude, our benevolence; or whatever, in one word, hath the appearance of social in our frame, or of affection to public good: how are they reduced to self-love, but by supposing us, when the objects, which excite these affections are represented to us, immediately to make some very cunning reflexions upon self-interest rea or private good, which<123> there is neither time for, nor are we conscious of? And can we think that to be true philosophy, or a just account of human nature, which is forced to have recourse to the supposition of many refined subtle reasonings on every occasion, in every honest farmer or peasant? That one consideration is sufficient to refute it, and to shew it to be false and unnatural. But what puts the reality of public affections in our nature, the immediate object of which is the good of others, and of a moral sense by which we are necessarily determined to approve such affections, beyond all doubt, is, that whatever motives there may be from the side of pleasure or interest, by which we may be bribed to do an action; yet we cannot possibly be bribed to approve it contrary to our inward sense: or whatever motives of fear there may be to terrify us from doing an action, yet we cannot be terrified into the approbation of the omission, if it be not really approveable. If a moral sense be owned, the reality of public affections in our nature will be acknowledged; for it is only about actions proceeding from public affections, that there is any dispute as to our determination to approve or disapprove: but if we have no moral sense, agreeably to which we must approve, and contrary to which we cannot approve or disapprove; whence comes it about, that though we may be allured, or frighted into doing an action, yet we can neither be allured nor frighted into approving or disapproving an action, no more than we can be bribed or terrified into assenting to aproposition which we perceive to be false; or into refusing our assent to a proposition which we perceive to be true. If that be the case, then approbation or disapprobation dependsa as absolutely upon the<124> appearances of actions to our minds, as assent and dissent do upon the appearances of propositions to our minds. But that it is so, every one will feel by asking himself, whether an estate can bribe him to approve any degree of villany, though it may perswade him to perpetrate it; or whether he can possibly think treachery, ingratitude, dissimulation or any such actions laudable and approveable in themselves, whatever evils may be averted by them in certain circumstances? Consequences cannot alter the moral differences of actions no more than they can alter the nature of truth and falshood. As a proposition must be true or false in itself, independently of the loss or gain the profession of the belief of it may bring; so actions must be the same in themselves with respect to their moral natures and qualities, with whatever circumstances relative to interest, the doing or not doing may be accompanied. But as truths could not be understood or assented to, had we not a faculty of distinguishing the appearances of truth from falshood; so actions could not be discerned to be morally beautiful and fit, unless we had a faculty of distinguishing the moral differences of actions.
Farther reflexions on moral sense.
But all that relates to a moral sense in our nature, hath been so fully handled by several excellent writers,a that I shall only subjoin a few further reflexions upon it, with a view to such philosophers as do not deny the thing, but seem to quarrel with the name; which however will be of considerable use<125> to set our moral sense itself and its usefulness yet in a clearer light.
’Tis not worth while to dispute about a name or appellation, if the thing be owned.
And it must be owned by all who acknowledge moral differences of actions and characters.
I. First of all, it is no great matter for the name, if the thing itself in question be acknowledged. And it certainly is by all, who acknowledge the difference between good and evil; however, they may chuse to express that difference by calling it truth, reasonableness, fitness, or by whatever other appellation. For if there is truth, fitness, or reasonableness in actions with regard to us, it is perceivable by us; and if we perceive it, we are capable of perceiving it; that is, we have the faculty requisite to perceiving it, or which enables us to perceive it. Let therefore the capacity or faculty of perceiving moral differences of actions or characters, be called reason, as it is exercised about actions and their moral differences, moral discernment, or moral conscience; we shall not dispute for any word: All we want to establish, is, that as we are capable of distinguishing truth from falsehood, so we are capable of distinguishing good and approveable actions, affections, and characters from bad and disapproveable ones: And that we are not more necessarily determined by our nature, to assent or dissent according to the appearances of things to our understanding, than we are necessarily determined by our make to approve or disapprove affections, actions, and characters, according to their appearances to our understanding. Now as all, who own a necessary and essential difference of the moral kind between any action and its opposite, (as between gratitude, for example, and ingratitude) must own the necessary determination of our minds to approve the one, and disapprove the other, so soon as these moral differences are presented to the mind; so every one must be obliged to acknowledge certain necessary and essential differences of actions in the moral kind, resulting necessarily from their natures,<126> according to which the mind must approve or disapprove, so soon as the images of them are represented to it; or he must say that the mind in no case approves or disapproves, but that it is quite a stranger to all such sentiments as these words express. For it is self-evident that if ever approbation and disapprobation be excited, there must be an exciting quality. It is not more true, that when there is election there is some quality exciting to it; than it is necessarily so, that wherever there is approbation, there is a ground, a reason, a motive of approbation, some quality, some appearance to the mind that excites it. As we cannot have or conceive pleasure of any kind, without affection to it, nor alternately affection, without some pleasure towards which it tends; so we cannot conceive delight in approving, without something which creates that delight or complacency; nor alternately any thing fitted to excite delight or complacency felt in approbation, and yet the mind not affected by it in that manner. But it is no uncommon thing to find philosophers asserting propositions which necessarily terminate in affirming, “There may be pleasures without affections, and affections without objects; though hardly will any one philosopher make that assertion in direct terms.” I think an excellent philosopher has reduced most of the objections against a moral sense to such conclusions.a
However it is proper, nay necessary to give this sense in our natures a distinguishing name.
II. But if the determination in our nature to approve public affections and virtuous actions, and to disapprove their contraries, be acknowledged, though it is of no importance by what name that determination be expressed; yet it is certainly necessary, that some one should be given it, and fixed to it by philosophers who own the thing. If there is any reason for concluding from the pleasures of<127> harmony we receive by the ear; from the pleasures of light, and colours, and visible beauty we receive by the eye; from the pleasures of truth and knowledge we receive by the exercise of the understanding about speculative matters; or from the pleasures of affection and passion we receive by having our pathetic part agreeably moved and bestirred: If there be any reason to conclude from these perceptions that we really have the faculty of delighting in music, distinct from that of enjoying visible beauty, and both distinct from the faculty of comparing the relations of ideas, and perceiving their agreements or disagreements, and consequently of delighting in truth; and all these distinct from the capacity of receiving pleasures from our affections duly moved (as by a good tragedy for instance): There must be good reason to conclude from the manner in which we are differently affected by the moral appearances of actions and characters, when presented to our mind, either in real life, or by imitation, that we really have a faculty of discerning the moral differences of actions and characters, distinct not only from all our outward senses, but also from the capacity of perceiving the truth and falshood of propositions.
This is no less necessary than it is to give distinguishing name to our other senses and faculties.
And
