Two Objections To This System
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To this objection, I reply that when any object is fully fitted to attain any agreeable end, it naturally:
- gives us pleasure, and
- is esteemed beautiful, even if some external circumstances are lacking.
It is enough that everything is complete in the object itself.
A house that is built for comfort pleases us, even if we know that no one will ever live in it. A fertile soil and happy climate delight us through the happiness which they would afford its inhabitants, even if it is currently uninhabited. A man whose body and limbs promise strength and activity, is esteemed handsome, even if he were condemned to life imprisonment.
The imagination has a set of passions which our sentiments of beauty much depend on. These passions are moved by liveliness and strength, which are: inferior to belief, and independent of the real existence of their objects. When a character is fully fitted to be beneficial to society, the imagination passes easily from the cause to the effect. It does not consider that there are some circumstances lacking to render the cause complete. General rules create a kind of probability which influences: the judgment sometimes, and the imagination always.
When the cause is complete and a good disposition is attended with good fortune, which renders it really beneficial to society, it: gives a stronger pleasure to the spectator, and is attended with a more lively sympathy.
We are more affected by it. Yet we do not say: that it is more virtuous, or that we esteem it more.
We know that a change of fortune may render the benevolent disposition entirely impotent. We therefore separate the fortune from the disposition. The same happens when we correct the different sentiments of virtue proceeding from its different distances from ourselves. The passions do not always follow our corrections. These corrections: regulate our abstract notions, and are alone regarded when we pronounce the degrees of vice and virtue.
Critics observe that words or sentences that are difficult to pronounce are disagreeable to the ear. It does not matter whether such words are heard or read silently.
When I run over a book with my eye, I imagine I hear it all. By the force of imagination, I become uneasy from speaking those words. The uneasiness is not real. But as such a composition of words has a natural tendency to produce it, this is sufficient to: affect the mind with a painful sentiment, and render the discourse harsh and disagreeable. It is similar when any real quality is:
- rendered impotent by accidental circumstances, and
- is deprived of its natural influence on society.
On these principles, we may easily remove any contradiction between:
- the extensive sympathy which our sentiments of virtue depend on, and
- that limited generosity natural to men, which justice and property suppose.
My sympathy with another man may give me pain and disapprobation when any object, that gives him uneasiness, is presented. Though for his satisfaction, I may be unwilling to: sacrifice my own interest, or cross any of my passions. A house may displease me by being badly built for its owner’s convenience. Yet I may refuse to give a shilling towards rebuilding it. Sentiments must touch the heart to make them control our passions. But they do not need to extend beyond the imagination to make them influence our taste. When a building seems clumsy and tottering to the eye, it is ugly and disagreeable. Though we are fully assured of the solidity of its workmanship. It is a fear which causes this sentiment of disapprobation. But this fear is not the same with the fear we feel when we stand under a wall that we really think is insecure. The seeming tendencies of objects affect the mind. The emotions they excite are similar with those proceeding from the real consequences of objects. But their feeling is different. These emotions are so different in their feeling. They may often be contrary, without destroying each other. For example, an enemy city’s fortifications are esteemed beautiful because of their strength. Even if we wish that they were entirely destroyed. The imagination: adheres to the general views of things distinguishes the feelings they produce from those which arise from our particular and momentary situation.
There are two kinds of qualities of great men:
those that make them perform their part in society, and
those that render them serviceable to themselves and enable them to promote their own interest.
Their prudence, temperance, frugality, industry, assiduity, enterprise, dexterity, are celebrated as well as their generosity and humanity.
Indolence disables a man from making a figure in life.
Indolence does not deprive a man of his parts and capacity.
It only suspends their exercise without any inconvenience to himself, since it is from his own choice.
Yet indolence is always a fault.
It is a very great one if it is extreme.
A man's friends never acknowledge him to be subject to indolence to save his character in more material articles.
They say:
he could make a figure if he wanted to,
his understanding is sound,
his conception quick, and
his memory tenacious.
But he hates business and is indifferent about his fortune.
This may make a man sometimes even a subject of vanity, though with the air of confessing a fault.
Because he may think that his incapacity for business implies much more noble qualities such as:
a philosophical spirit
a fine taste
a delicate wit, or
a relish for pleasure and society.
But take any other case.
Suppose a quality always incapacitates a man for business and is destructive to his interest, such as:
a blundering understanding,
a wrong judgment of everything in life,
inconstancy and irresolution, or
a lack of address in the management of men and business.
These are all imperfections in a character.
Many men would rather acknowledge the greatest crimes than have it suspected that they are subject to them.
It is very happy when we find the same phenomenon diversified by a variety of circumstances in our philosophical researches.
By discovering what is common among them, we can better assure ourselves of the truth of any hypothesis we use to explain it.
If only those qualities that were beneficial to society were esteemed as virtue, the foregoing explanation of the moral sense should still be acceptable upon sufficient evidence. But this evidence will grow on us when we find other kinds of virtue which can only be explained by that hypothesis. Here is a man not remarkably defective in his social qualities. His main social quality is his dexterity in business. By this, he has: extricated himself from the greatest difficulties, and conducted the most delicate affairs with a singular address and prudence. I find an esteem for him immediately to arise in me: I am satisfied with his company. I would rather serve him than another person of the same character, but deficient in business. In this case, the qualities that please me are all useful to the person. It has a tendency to promote his interest and satisfaction. They are only regarded as means to an end. They please me in proportion to their fitness for that end. The end, therefore, must be agreeable to me. But what makes the end agreeable?
The person is a stranger.
I am not interested in him. I do not have any obligation to him. His happiness does not concern me more than the happiness of every other human. That is, it affects me only by sympathy. From sympathy, I enter so deeply into his happiness whenever I discover it, whether as a cause or effect. It gives me a sensible emotion. The appearance of qualities that promote sympathy: have an agreeable effect on my imagination, and command my love and esteem.
This theory may explain why the same qualities in all cases, produce pride and love and humility and hatred.
The same man is always virtuous or vicious, accomplished or despicable to others, who is so to himself. A person with any passion or habit, originally only incommodious to himself, always becomes disagreeable to us merely because of that passion or habit. On the other hand, one whose character is only dangerous and disagreeable to others, can never be satisfied with himself, as long as he is sensible of that disadvantage. This is observable with regard to characters and manners, even in the most minute circumstances. A violent cough in another gives us uneasiness. Though in itself, it does not affect us. A man will be mortified if you tell him he has a stinking breath. Though it is evidently no annoyance to himself. Our fancy easily changes its situation. It surveys ourselves as we appear to others, or considers others as they feel themselves. Through this, we enter into sentiments which: do not belong to us, and only sympathy is able to interest us in. We sometimes carry this sympathy so far. We are even displeased with a quality commodious to us, merely because it: displeases othersm, and makes us disagreeable in their eyes Though perhaps we never can have any interest in rendering ourselves agreeable to them.
Many systems of morality have been advanced by philosophers in all ages.
If strictly examined, they may be reduced to two which alone merit our attention.
Moral good and evil are distinguished by our sentiments, not by reason.
But these sentiments may arise from:
The mere appearance of characters and passions, or
The reflections on their tendency to the happiness of mankind and particular persons
I think that reflections on the tendencies of actions:
have the greatest influence by far, and
determine all the great lines of our duty.
I think both these causes are intermixed in our judgments of morals in the same way as they are intermixed in our decisions on external beauty.
However, there are instances wherein this immediate taste or sentiment produces our approbation in cases of less moment.
Wit and a certain easy and disengaged behaviour, are qualities immediately agreeable to others.
These command their love and esteem.
Some of these qualities produce satisfaction in others by specific original principles of human nature, which cannot be accounted for.
Others may be resolved into principles, which are more general.
This will best appear upon a particular enquiry.
Some qualities acquire their merit from their being immediately agreeable to others, without any tendency to public interest.
These are virtuous.
Some qualities are denominated virtuous from their being immediately agreeable to the person himself, who possesses them.
These are vicious.
This feeling constitutes the very nature of the passion.
Therefore it does not need to be accounted for.
The distinction of vice and virtue may seem to flow directly from the immediate pleasure or uneasiness, which particular qualities cause to ourselves or others.
It also depends on the principle of sympathy so often insisted on.
We approve of a person who has qualities agreeable to those he has commerce with.
Though perhaps we ourselves never reaped any pleasure from them.
We also approve of one who has qualities agreeable to himself.
Though they are of no service to anyone.
To account for this, we must turn to the foregoing principles.
As a general review of the present hypothesis:
Every quality of the mind is called:
virtuous if it gives pleasure,
vicious if it gives pain.
This pleasure and pain may arise from four different sources:
From being useful to others
From being useful to the person himself
From being aggreeable to others
From being aggreeable to the person himself
One may be surprised that amidst all these interests and pleasures, we should forget our own.
Every person's pleasure and interest are different.
It is impossible men could ever agree in their sentiments and judgments, unless they chose some common point of view from which they might:
survey their object, and
cause it to appear the same to all of them.
In judging characters, the only interest or pleasure which appears the same to every spectator is:
that of the person being observed, or
His interests and pleasures touch us more faintly than our own.
that of persons connected with him.
A person's interests is more constant and universal.
They counter-balance the interests of others even in practice.
They alone:
are speculatd to be the standard of virtue and morality.
produce that feeling or sentiment which moral distinctions depend on.
The good or ill desert of virtue or vice is an evident consequence of the sentiments of pleasure or uneasiness.
These sentiments produce love or hatred.
By the original constitution of human passion, love or hatred is attended with benevolence or anger.