xxxv. With respect to the motives that have been termed social, if any farther distinction should be of use, to that of goodwill alone may be applied the epithet of purely-social; while the love of reputation, the desire of amity, and the motive of religion, may together be comprised under the division of semi-social: the social tendency being much more constant and unequivocal in the former than in any of the three latter. Indeed these last, social as they may be termed, are self-regarding at the same time.

§ 4. ORDER OF PRE-EMINENCE AMONG MOTIVES

XXXVI. Of all these sorts of motives, good-will is that of which the dictates, taken in a general view, are surest of coinciding with those of the principle of utility. For the dictates of utility are neither more nor less than the dictates of the most extensive and enlightened (that is well-advised) benevolence. The dictates of the other motives may be conformable to those of utility, or repugnant, as it may happen.

XXXVIII. After good-will, the motive of which the dictates seem to have the next best chance for coinciding with those of utility, is that of the love of reputation. There is but one circumstance which prevents the dictates of this motive from coinciding in all cases with those of the former. This is, that men in their likings and dislikings, in the dispositions they manifest to annex to any mode of conduct their approbation or their disapprobation, and in consequence to the person who appears to practise it, their good or their ill will, do not govern themselves exclusively by the principle of utility. . . . Sometimes it is the principle of asceticism they are guided by: sometimes the principle of sympathy and antipathy.

CHAPTER XI. OF HUMAN DISPOSITIONS IN

GENERAL

I. In the foregoing chapter it has been shown at large, that goodness or badness cannot, with any propriety, be predicated of motives. Is there nothing then about a man that can properly

be termed good or bad, when, on such or such an occasion, he suffers himself to be governed by such or such a motive? Yes, certainly: his disposition. Now disposition is a kind of fictitious entity, feigned for the convenience of discourse, in order to express what there is supposed to be permanent in a man's frame of mind, where, on such or such an occasion, he has been influenced by such or such a motive, to engage in an act, which, as it appeared to him, was of such or such a tendency.

II. It is with disposition as with everything else: it will be good or bad according to its effects: according to the effects it has in augmenting or diminishing the happiness of the community. A man's disposition may accordingly be considered in two points of view: according to the influence it has, either, I. on his own happiness: or, 2. on the happiness of others. Viewed in both these lights together, or in either of them indiscriminately, it may be termed, on the one hand, good; on the other, bad; or, in flagrant cases, depraved. Viewed in the former of these lights, it has scarcely any peculiar name, which has as yet been appropriated to it. It might be termed, though but inexpressively, frail or infirm, on the one hand: sound or firm, on the other. Viewed in the other light, it might be termed beneficent or meritorious, on the one hand: pernicious or mischievous, on the other. Now of that branch of a man's disposition, the effects of which regard in the first instance only himself, there needs not much to be said here. To reform it when bad, is the business rather of the moralist than the legislator: nor is it susceptible of those various modifications which make so material a difference in the effects of the other. Again, with respect to that part of it, the effects whereof regard others in the first instance, it is only in as far as it is of a mischievous nature that the penal branch of law has any immediate concern with it: in as far as it may be of a beneficent nature, it belongs to a hitherto but little cultivated, and as yet unnamed branch of law, which might be styled the remuneratory.

RICHARD PRICE

(1723-1791)

A REVIEW OF THE PRINCIPAL
QUESTIONS IN MORALS*

CHAPTER I. OF THE ORIGIN OF OUR IDEAS
OF MORAL RIGHT AND WRONG

'Tis a very necessary previous observation, that our ideas of right and wrong are simple ideas, and must therefore be ascribed to some power of immediate perception in the human mind. He that doubts this, need only try to give definitions of them, which shall amount to more than synonymous expressions. Most of the confusion in which the question concerning the foundation of morals has been involved has proceeded from inattention to this remark. There are, undoubtedly, some actions that are ultimately approved, and for justifying which no reason can be assigned; as there are some ends, which are ultimately desired, and for chusing which no reason can be given. Were not this true, there would be an infinite progression of reasons and ends, and therefore nothing could be at all approved or desired.

Supposing then, that we have a power immediately perceiving right and wrong: the point I am now to endeavour to prove, is, that this power is the Understanding, agreeably to the assertion at the end of the first section. I cannot but flatter myself, that the main obstacle to the acknowledgment of this, has been already removed, by the observations made in the preceding section, to shew that the understanding is a power of immediate perception, which gives rise to new original ideas; nor do I think it possible that there should have been many disputes on this subject had this been properly considered.

But, in order more explicitly and distinctly to evince what I have asserted (in the only way the nature of the question seems capable of) let me,

* 1st ed., London, 1758. Reprinted from the 3d ed., ib. 1787.

First, Observe, that it implies no absurdity, but evidently may be true. It is undeniable, that many of our ideas are derived from our intuition of truth, or the discernment of the natures of things by the understanding. This therefore may be the source of our moral ideas. It is at least possible, that right and wrong may denote what we understand and know concerning certain objects, in like manner with proportion and disproportion, connexion and repugnancy, contingency and necessity, and the other ideas before-mentioned. I will add, that nothing has been offered which has any tendency to prove the contrary. All that can appear, from the objections and reasonings of the Author of the Enquiry into the original of our ideas of beauty and virtue, is only, what has been already observed, and what does not in the least affect the point in debate: namely, that the words right and wrong, fit and unfit, express simple and undeniable ideas. But that the power perceiving them is properly a sense and not reason; that these ideas denote nothing true of actions, nothing in the nature of actions; this, he has left entirely without proof. He appears, indeed, to have taken for granted, that if virtue and vice are immediately perceived, they must be perceptions of an implanted sense. But no conclusion could have been more hasty. For will any one take upon him to say, that all powers of immediate perception must be arbitrary and implanted; or that there can be no simple ideas denoting any thing besides the qualities and passions of the mind?—In short. Whatever some writers have said to the contrary, it is certainly a point not yet decided, that virtue is wholly factitious, and to be felt, not understood.

As there are some propositions, which, when attended to, necessarily determine all minds to believe them: And as (which will be shown hereafter) there are some ends, whose natures are such, that, when perceived, all beings immediately and necessarily desire them: So is it very credible, that, in like manner, there are some actions whose natures are such, that, when observed, all rational beings immediately and necessarily approve them.

I do not at all care what follows from Mr. Hume's assertion, that all our ideas are either impressions, or copies of impressions; or from Mr. Locke's assertion that they are all deducible

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from sensation and reflexion. The first of these assertions is, I think, destitute of all proof; supposes, when applied in this as well as many other cases, the point in question; and, when pursued to its consequences, ends in the destruction of all truth and the subversion of our intellectual faculties. The other wants much explication to render it consistent with any tolerable account of the original of our moral ideas: nor does there seem to be any thing necessary to convince a person, that all our ideas are not deducible from sensation and reflexion, except taken in a very large and comprehensive sense, besides considering how Mr. Locke derives from them our moral ideas. He places them among our ideas of relations, and represents rectitude as signifying the conformity of actions to some rules or laws; which rules or laws, he says, are either the will of God, the decrees of the magistrate, or the fashion of the country: from whence it follows, that it is an absurdity to apply rectitude to rules and laws themselves; to suppose the divine will to be directed by it; or to consider it as itself a rule and law. But, it is undoubted, that this great man would have detested these consequences; and, indeed, it is sufficiently evident, that he was strangely embarrassed in his notions on this, as well as some other subjects. But,

Secondly, I know of no better way of determining this point, than by referring those who doubt about it to common sense, and putting them upon considering the nature of their own perceptions. Could we suppose a person, who, when he perceived an external object, was at a loss to determine whether he perceived it by means of his organs of sight or touch; what better method could be taken to satisfy him? There is no possibility of doubting in any such cases. And it seems not more difficult to determine in the present case.

Were the question; what that perception is which we have of number, diversity, causation or proportion; and whether our ideas of them signify truth and reality perceived by the understanding, or impressions made by the objects to which we ascribe them, on our minds; were, I say, this the question; would it not be sufficient to appeal to every man's consciousness? - These perceptions seem to me to have no greater pretence to be de