The Principles of Moral and Christian Philosophy. George Turnbull
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which affect the mind agreeably and disagreeably are distinguished and classed, that they may be estimated and apprized? One may as well think of carrying on philosophy distinctly without distinguishing the various pleasures of the senses from one another, because it is the mind perceives them all; and they may for that reason be all called perceptions and pleasures of sense; as think of carrying on philosophy distinctly without distinguishing not only moral pleasures from sensible ones; but the various kinds of moral ones from one another, according to their different values, degrees,<129> and natures. Pleasures of sense, pleasures of imagination, pleasures of contemplation, pleasures of sentiment, and several other classes, that might be named, are all of them but different sorts of pleasures; but because they are different sorts, they ought to be distinguished. Or till they are so, how can they be compared and have their moments determined? If any philosopher asks, “if one can elect or approve without being pleased?” I will answer, “That we cannot be pleased without being pleased.” But that election and approbation are as different perceptions or pleasures as any two he can name. If he continues to urge, “That one may say what he will, but one cannot be determined to act but by pleasure, for nothing can please without pleasing.” I answer, “Pleasure is pleasure, and nothing can be pleasure but pleasure.” But delight in a good action by approbation is as different a pleasure from delight in any advantage it may bring, as pleasure in a picture is from pleasure in music, or as both are from the pleasure of a dinner, a good picture or a fine tune may procure. Our determination to approve or disapprove actions and characters, renders us capable of a sett of pleasures far superior to any which sense can afford in the most prosperous circumstances of outward enjoyment: and it likewise renders us capable of a sett of pains far more insupportable than any we can possibly have from any other quarter. For what pleasures are equal to those of self-approbation, and the conscience of having acted agreeably to the relations of things, to moral beauty and fitness, the dignity and excellency of our nature, and in concert with that amiable temper and disposition of the Author of nature, which appears throughout the whole of his works? And what pains, on the other hand, can be compared with those of a self-condemning mind? But it is our sense of agreeableness and disagreeableness in actions, and our<130> necessary determination to approveordis approve according to the moral differences of affections and actions, which alone renders us, or can render us sussceptible of these highest of pleasures or pains. They are and must be peculiar to creatures capable of reflecting upon the images of actions and characters, and of approving or disapproving, according to a natural sense of amiableness and its contrary. And in fine, for any one to say, “That he who does good and virtuous actions because he has pleasure in doing them, and an aversion or abhorrence of their contrary, as much pursues his own pleasure as any other person can be said to do, whatever he takes pleasure in; and consequently that all men are equally selfish, though nothing be more true than what the poet tells us, nec voto vivitur uno.”a This is indeed no more than telling us, that pleasure is pleasure. And we shall not scruple to grant them all they demand, provided they will but allow, First, That no man can be said to be virtuous, unless he does virtuous deeds from good affections, and with an approving sense of what he does. And therefore, Secondly, That virtue and vice suppose a determination in our nature to approve the one and to disapprove the other, both which I think have been sufficiently proved.
The caution of the ancient moralists in using the words good and evil very commendable.
IV. But after all that has been granted with regard to saying, “That it is always pleasure which determines us to elect or approve;” I believe, all who acknowledge the reality of virtue, if they have attended to the importance or rather necessity of using distinct determinate terms, and keeping closely to definitions, especially in moral philosophy, in order to avoid all ambiguity and collusion; will<131> very readily approve the cautiousness of the better ancient moralists, “When they would not allow sensual gratifications, which so often come into competition with virtue and the pure solid satisfaction which virtuous consciousness alone can give, to be called by the same name of pleasure (bonum,) nor any pain to be called by the same term evil (malum) designed to signify the greatest of all evils and disorders, to avoid any steps towards the introduction of which into the mind, all other pains or evils ought to be undergone with fortitude: even the corruption of the mind by vice.” Such caution is very necessary in moral philosophy. And the reasons so often given for it by ancient philosophers, by Cicero in particular, in his reasonings against the Epicurean system, in which it was the fundamental and favourite maxim, that all our determinations to act, proceed from pleasure, Omnia initia agendi à voluptate proficiscuntur;39 is beautifully englished to us by an excellent modern philosopher, who was indeed a perfect master of all true ancient learning.a “To bring (says he) the satisfactions of the mind, and the enjoyments of reason and judgment under the denomination of pleasure is only a collusion and a plain receding from the common notion of the word. They deal not fairly with us, who in their philosophical hour admit that for pleasure, which at an ordinary time, and in the common practice of life is so little taken as such. The mathematician who labours at his problem, the bookish man who toils, the artist who endures voluntarily the greatest hardships and fatigues; none of these are said to follow pleasure. Nor<132> will the men of pleasure by any means admit them to be of their number. The satisfactions which are purely mental, and depend only on the motion of a thought, must in all likelihood be too refined for our modern Epicures, who are so taken up with pleasures of a more substantial kind. They who are full of the idea of such a sensible, solid good, can have but a slender fancy for the more spiritual and intellectual sort. But this latter they set up and magnify upon occasion, to save the ignominy which may redound to them from the former: this done, the latter may take its chance, its use is presently at an end. For it is observable, that when men of this sort have recommended the enjoyments of the mind under the title of pleasure, when they have thus dignified the word, and included in it whatever is mentally good and honest, they can afterwards suffer it contentedly to slide down again into its own genuine and vulgar sense; whence they raised it only to serve a turn. When pleasure is called in question and attacked, then reason and virtue is called on to her aid, and made principal parts of her constitution. A complicated form appears and comprehends streight all which is generous, beautiful, and honest in human life. But when the attack is over, and the objection once solved, the spectre vanishes: pleasure returns again to her former shape; she may even be pleasure still, and have as little concern with dry sober reason, as in the nature of the thing, and according to common understanding she really has. For if this reasonable sort of enjoyment be admitted into the nature of good, how is it possible to admit withal that kind of sensation, which in effect is rather opposite to this enjoyment? ’Tis certain, that in respect of the mind and its enjoyments, the eagerness and irritation<133> of mere pleasure is as disturbing, as the importunity and vexation of pain. If either throws the mind off its biass, and deprives it of the satisfaction it takes in its natural exercise and employment, the mind, in this case, must be a sufferer, as well by the one as by the other; if neither does this, there is no harm on either side.”
Hence it is that we are not only capable of computing our advantage and interest;
Upon the whole, that we have a moral sense appears, because we have not only the power of examining our appetites and affections, or of computing their tendencies and effects with respect to external hurt or interest, and determining the bounds within which their gratifications must be pursued and regulated, so that none of our pleasures may be too dearly bought:
— Nocet empta dolore voluptas.40
but likewise of rising higher, and taking in what is worthy and laudable in itself into the account.
But we have also clear ideas of moral order, decency, fitness and unfitness in affections, actions and characters, analogous to our ideas of beauty and regularity in outward forms. For as had we not sensitive appetites and affections towards sensible objects implanted in us by nature, reason could not compare and estimate sensible pleasures; or rather, there would be no such pleasures to estimate and reason about: in like manner, without a sense of moral beauty and fitness, reason could not compare and compute the moral differences of moral objects; or rather, there would be no such objects known to us, for reason to exercise itself about. “It must be true in general, that without appetites,