Introduction
After the inquiry concerning the nature of virtue, the next
question of importance in Moral Philosophy, is concerning the
principle of approbation, concerning the power or faculty of the
mind which renders certain characters agreeable or disagreeable
to us, makes us prefer one tenour of conduct to another,
denominate the one right and the other wrong, and consider the
one as the object of approbation, honour, and reward; the other
as that of blame, censure, and punishment.
Three different accounts have been given of this principle of
approbation. According to some, we approve and disapprove both of
our own actions and of those of others, from self-love only, or
from some view of their tendency to our own happiness or
disadvantage: according to others, reason, the same faculty by
which we distinguish between truth and falsehood, enables us to
distinguish between what is fit and unfit both in actions and
affections: accorDing to others this distinction is altogether
the effect of immediate sentiment and feeling, and arises from
the satisfaction or disgust with which the view of certain
actions or affections inspires us. Self-love, reason, and
sentiment, therefore, are the three different sources which have
been assigned for the principle of approbation.
Before I proceed to give an account of those different
systems, I must observe, that the determination of this second
question, though of the greatest importance in speculation, is of
none in practice. The question concerning the nature of virtue
necessarily has some influence upon our notions of right and
wrong in many particular cases. That concerning the principle of
approbation can possibly have no such effect. To examine from
what contrivance or mechanism within, those different notions or
sentiments arise, is a mere matter of philosophical curiosity.