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to extremity, they are driven into the paradox, that pure selfishness may require of us the entire sacrifice of ourselves for the benefit of others.

6. The Platonists, ancient and modern, perceiving that every moral judgment includes the perception of a certain relation between acts done, and the consequences of those acts to the happiness of others and ourselves, vaguely define Virtue to consist in conformity to absolute relations, that is, the absolute nature of things; a definition easy to repeat, but more difficult to understand, and far more comprehensive than the thing which it attempts to define.

7. Aristotle, and his followers, brought this definition down from the clouds, and gave it a subjective character and a practical application. They defined Virtue to consist in conformity to the nature of man; a habit of mediocrity according to right reason. We have shown, in another place,* that this definition includes only ordinary virtue. It has, however, the advantage, like the definition given by the forensic partisans of the selfish theory, of making Virtue a thing possible for all men.

8. All the above definitions are true to a certain extent. Except the Platonic, they fail in not being sufficiently comprehensive; they fall into the common error of mistaking a part for the whole, The Platonic definition has the opposite fault of including too much.

See Chap. I. § 71, note.

CHAPTER V.

OF MORAL OBLIGATION, DUTY, RIGHTS, RESPONSIBILITY, MERIT, DEMERIT, PUNISHMENTS, AND REWARDS.

1. THE preceding investigations have prepared us to understand the origin and application of the terms Moral Obligation, Duty, Rights, Responsibility, Merit, Demerit, Punishments, and Rewards, terms which have given rise to infinite disputes among philosophers, and which stand for notions that have never yet been thoroughly analyzed, and fully explained.

2. (Moral Obligation is that which binds, compels, or obliges men to do certain moral acts, that is, certain acts beneficial to others.) It receives the name by way of analogy to physical obligation, as when a man is bound by a rope, and dragged along by some external force. All the terms employed in describing mental operations originate in similar analogies. Moral obligation differs, however, from physical compulsion, in the circumstance, that the force described by it is not an external, but an internal force, to wit, the force of the sentiment of benevolence, modified by the force of the other sentiments above pointed out as coöperating with it in the production of disinterested beneficial actions; in other words, the force of Moral Sentiment; by which phrase the compound force that impels to the performance of disinterested beneficial actions, is commonly described. Whatever a man does by the force of moral obliga

tion, or in other words, by the impulse of Moral Sentiment, he does voluntarily and spontaneously, from the inward force of moral motives determining his action.

3. Mental compulsion consists in presenting to a man, as inducements to do a certain act, certain pleasures and certain pains, such as, according to the average operation of human motives, will prevail upon him to do that act; such motives, so presented, in ordinary cases, creating a mental necessity of so acting.

The phrases Mental Compulsion and Mental Necessity are here used instead of the common phrase Moral Necessity, in order to avoid the ambiguity which arises from employing the epithet Moral in two different senses. Moral Obligation designates only that necessity of acting, which arises from the force of the moral sentiment; whereas Moral Necessity is used in opposition to Physical Necessity, to signify that necessity of acting which arises from the force of any, or all the sentiments. These two different uses of the same word, in immediate juxtaposition, lead to unavoidable confusion. Both uses of the word, however, are justified by its original sense; and, indeed, the one is only a limitation of the other. Moral is customary; moral necessity is customary necessity; moral obligation is that customary necessity which impels men to do disinterested beneficial actions. The first use of the word implies all customary methods of acting; the second use of it is limited to one particular kind of customary acts. Some writers, to avoid the ambiguity

here pointed out, have employed the phrase, philosophical necessity, but the term, mental necessity, seems preferable.

4. It is perfectly evident that all actions of whatever kind must originate in mental necessity.* Human actions, like other natural phenomena, are governed by certain natural laws; and in accordance with those laws, a certain preponderating force of motives being given, a certain course of action must of necessity follow; indeed, without such necessity, there would and could be no action at all.

5. Now so far as the motives upon which disinterested actions beneficial to others depend, or what is called Moral Sentiment, operate, in general, upon human conduct, such and no other, is the extent and force of moral obligation in general.

6. In any given community, the average force of the motives, which produce disinterested actions beneficial to others, will fix the standard of moral obligation in that community.

7. As regards particular individuals, the standard of moral obligation as respects them will depend upon the force over their individual conduct, of Moral Sentiment, as compared with the force of the other sentiments; and of course it will be very different in different individuals. One man will find himself morally obliged, bound, and compelled to do many things, which another finds himself under no necessity of doing at all.

* All metaphysicians of the slightest reputation, ancient or modern, have agreed upon this point, — almost the only one upon which they have agreed.!!

8. Those actions which in any given community the average force of moral obligation produces, are held in that community to be Duties, which all men are expected, and are esteemed bound, to perform, because all men are expected to have an average share of moral sentiment; and for the fulfilment of that expectation which they raise by the very fact of having the form of men, they are held answerable.

9. Correlative to every duty, there is a Right on the part of those individuals towards whom the duty ought to be performed.

10. The non-fulfilment of this expectation, the non-performance of duties, indicates Demerit that is to say, a want of ordinary benevolence; or a more than ordinary deficiency of those qualities which coöperate with benevolence to produce actions beneficial to others, or both. This deficiency causes the delinquent party to be pronounced vicious; and presents him to us as an object of distrust and dislike, as one who may probably inflict injuries upon us individually, and as certain to inflict moral pain upon us, by inflicting injuries upon others.

11. Thus the non-performance of duties produces in us a sentiment of moral pain, to which, in reference to the party causing it, we give the name of Disapprobation; and in consequence of that pain, there is excited in us a sentiment of malevolence towards the delinquent party, whereby the infliction of injuries upon him, in return for the injuries he has inflicted upon others, assumes the character of Punishment; which, so long as it does not exceed a cer

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