Opening the text

The Theory of Moral Sentiments: Or, an Essay Towards an Analysis of the Principles by Which Men Naturally Judge Concerning the Conduct and Character, First of Their Neighbours, and Afterwards of Themselves. to Which Is Added, a Dissertation on the Origin of Languages.Smith, Adam

Philosophy

The Theory of Moral Sentiments: Or, an Essay Towards an Analysis of the Principles by Which Men Naturally Judge Concerning the Conduct and Character, First of Their Neighbours, and Afterwards of Themselves. to Which Is Added, a Dissertation on the Origin of Languages.

Name: The Theory of Moral Sentiments: Or, an Essay Towards an Analysis of the Principles by Which Men Naturally Judge Concerning the Conduct and Character, First of Their Neighbours, and Afterwards of Themselves. to Which Is Added, a Dissertation on the Origin of Languages.
Author: Smith, Adam

Smith, Adam

Ethics -- Early works to 1800; Language and languages -- Early works to 1800

Those systems which make sentiment the principle of approbation may be
divided into two different classes.

I. According to some the principle of approbation is founded upon a
sentiment of a peculiar nature, upon a particular power of perception
exerted by the mind at the view of certain actions or affections; some
of which affecting this faculty in an agreeable and others in a
disagreeable manner, the former are stampt with the characters of right,
laudable, and virtuous; the latter with those of wrong, blameable and
vicious. This sentiment being of a peculiar nature distinct from every
other, and the effect of a particular power of perception, they give it
a particular name, and call it a moral sense.

II. According to others, in order to account for the principle of
approbation, there is no occasion for supposing any new power of
perception which had never been heard of before: Nature, they imagine,
acts here, as in all other cases, with the strictest œconomy, and
produces a multitude of effects from one and the same cause; and
sympathy, a power which has always been taken notice of, and with which
the mind is manifestly endowed, is, they think, sufficient to account
for all the effects ascribed to this peculiar faculty.

I. Dr. Hutcheson[24] had been at great pains to prove that the principle
of approbation was not founded on self-love. He had demonstrated too
that it could not arise from any operation of reason. Nothing remained,
he thought, but to suppose it a faculty of a peculiar kind, with which
Nature had endowed the human mind, in order to produce this one
particular and important effect. When self-love and reason were both
excluded, it did not occur to him that there was any other known faculty
of the mind which could in any respect answer this purpose.

Footnote 24:

  Inquiry concerning Virtue.

This new power of perception he called a moral sense, and supposed it to
be somewhat analogous to the external senses. As the bodies around us,
by affecting these in a certain manner, appear to possess the different
qualities of sound, taste, odour, colour; so the various affections of
the human mind, by touching this particular faculty in a certain manner,
appear to possess the different qualities of amiable and odious, of
virtuous and vicious, of right and wrong.

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

Opening the text

Philosophy

The Theory of Moral Sentiments: Or, an Essay Towards an Analysis of the Principles by Which Men Naturally Judge Concerning the Conduct and Character, First of Their Neighbours, and Afterwards of Themselves. to Which Is Added, a Dissertation on the Origin of Languages.

Smith, Adam

Ethics -- Early works to 1800; Language and languages -- Early works to 1800

Those systems which make sentiment the principle of approbation may be
divided into two different classes.

I. According to some the principle of approbation is founded upon a
sentiment of a peculiar nature, upon a particular power of perception
exerted by the mind at the view of certain actions or affections; some
of which affecting this faculty in an agreeable and others in a
disagreeable manner, the former are stampt with the characters of right,
laudable, and virtuous; the latter with those of wrong, blameable and
vicious. This sentiment being of a peculiar nature distinct from every
other, and the effect of a particular power of perception, they give it
a particular name, and call it a moral sense.

II. According to others, in order to account for the principle of
approbation, there is no occasion for supposing any new power of
perception which had never been heard of before: Nature, they imagine,
acts here, as in all other cases, with the strictest œconomy, and
produces a multitude of effects from one and the same cause; and
sympathy, a power which has always been taken notice of, and with which
the mind is manifestly endowed, is, they think, sufficient to account
for all the effects ascribed to this peculiar faculty.

I. Dr. Hutcheson[24] had been at great pains to prove that the principle
of approbation was not founded on self-love. He had demonstrated too
that it could not arise from any operation of reason. Nothing remained,
he thought, but to suppose it a faculty of a peculiar kind, with which
Nature had endowed the human mind, in order to produce this one
particular and important effect. When self-love and reason were both
excluded, it did not occur to him that there was any other known faculty
of the mind which could in any respect answer this purpose.

Footnote 24:

  Inquiry concerning Virtue.

This new power of perception he called a moral sense, and supposed it to
be somewhat analogous to the external senses. As the bodies around us,
by affecting these in a certain manner, appear to possess the different
qualities of sound, taste, odour, colour; so the various affections of
the human mind, by touching this particular faculty in a certain manner,
appear to possess the different qualities of amiable and odious, of
virtuous and vicious, of right and wrong.

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

The Theory of Moral Sentiments: Or, an Essay Towards an Analysis of the Principles by Which Men Naturally Judge Concerning the Conduct and Character, First of Their Neighbours, and Afterwards of Themselves. to Which Is Added, a Dissertation on the Origin of Languages.

The Theory of Moral Sentiments: Or, an Essay Towards an Analysis of the Principles by Which Men Naturally Judge Concerning the Conduct and Character, First of Their Neighbours, and Afterwards of Themselves. to Which Is Added, a Dissertation on the Origin of Languages.

No reviews yet