The Principles of Moral and Christian Philosophy. George Turnbull
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suited to particular objects, no one thing could give us more pleasure than another;” and it is fully as true, “That ultimately no other reason can be given why any object pleases us, gives delight, affects us agreeably, or excites our approbation, but that we are so framed by nature; or nature hath so constituted us, and so appointed<134> things.” So that if we have ideas of moral differences in affections and actions, there must be a moral sense in our constitution; and if there be, it must be from nature; there must be the same reason to ascribe it to nature, as to attribute any other of our senses or faculties to it.
It is only by a moral sense we can judge or have a notion of any thing, besides mere external advantage.
On the one hand, if there be no such sense in our make, virtue is really but an empty name; that is, the fitness or approveableness of affections, actions and characters in themselves, is an idle dream that hath no foundation; but advantage or interest is all that we have to consider or compute in our determinations. But, on the other side, if there be really a sense of beauty, fitness, or agreeableness in affections, actions and characters in themselves, independently of all other considerations, then it plainly follows that we are made, “Not merely to consider our private good, or what quantity of external safety, ease, profit, or gratification an action may bring along with it”; but to rise higher in our contemplation, and chiefly to enquire, “What is fit and becoming, agreeable, laudable and beautiful in itself ”; and thus to ask one’s heart in all consultations about actions. But is it fit, is it becoming, is it good to do so, whatever advantage may accrue from it?—Or, is it not base, to whatever dangers not doing it may expose? Shall I betray my trust, treat my friend ungratefully, forfeit my integrity, desert my country; or do any such unworthy action, even to save life itself; to gain an uninterrupted succession of sensual joys, or to avoid the most exquisite torments? Without such a sense there can be no foundation for honour and shame. But such a sense, wherever it takes place, teaches and obliges to distinguish between life itself, and the causes of living which are worthy of man; or between life and those noble enjoyments arising from a sense of virtue and merit, without which life is vilely prostituted—between<135>
— Vitam, & propter vitam vivendi perdere causas.41
But we have a nobler relish.
And therefore we have a moral sense.
Else what foundation have the poet’s questions? by which if we try ourselves, our moral sense will soon speak out its real sentiments.
Now in order to be convinced that we have such a sense, let any one but ask himself, (for it is, as hath been often said, a question that depends upon inward experience) whether there be not a very wide, a total difference, between doing a good action because it is good, or from love and affection to good, and a thorow feeling of its excellence, and doing it merely because it will gain him some external advantage or pleasure. Let him take the poets catechism, and strictly examine himself and his natural sentiments by it.
Falsus honor juvat, & mendax infamia terret,
Quem, nisi mendosum & mendacem? Vir bonus est quis?
Qui consulta patrum, qui leges juraque servat. —
Sed videt hunc omnis domus & vicinia tota,
Introrsum turpem, speciosum pelle decora.
Nec furtum feci, nec fugi, si mihi dicat
Servus: habes precium, loris non ureris, aio:
Non hominem occidi: non pasces in cruce corvos.
Sum bonus & frugi: renuit, negat atque Sabellus.
Cautus enim metuit foveam lupus accipiterque,
Suspectos laqueos, & opertum milvus hamum.
Oderunt peccare boni virtutis amore.
Tu nihil admittes in te formidine poenae.
Sit spes fallendi, miscebis sacra profanis.
Hor. Epist. Lib. I. 16.42
No man can put himself to a proper trial by examination, without feeling he has a moral sense.
Let him ask his heart, whether he can approve himself; or think he will be approved by any being who hath a sense of worth and integrity, however cunning, prudent and sagacious he may be to secure his outward interests; unless he hath a heart that contemns all villany; and would not sacrifice integrity in any one indulgence to the highest pleasures<136> of sense: The “jus fasque animo sanctosque recessus mentis & incoctum generoso pectus honesto?”43 Whether he can chuse but detest all treachery, all villany, all baseness, all dishonesty, however profitable it may be in the ordinary way of sensual appetite and gratification. Whether he can represent to his mind the images of veracity, truth, honesty, benevolence, a sincere, unaffected regard to honour and virtue; and the calm regular presidence of reason and moral conscience in the heart, without approving and loving them. And whether, finally, he can conceive a greater plague than that imprecated by the satyrist’s direful curse,
Virtutem videat intabescatque relicta. 44
To be satisfied of the universality of this sense, let one but try the lowest of mankind in understanding, and fairly representing to him the virtues and vices, bring forth his natural, his first sentiments about them; for he shall find that even the most illiterate have a strong moral sense. Quae enim natio non comitatem, non benignitatem, non gratum animum & beneficii memorem diligit, quae superbos, quae maleficos, quae crudeles, quae ingratos non aspernatur non odit?45
It is absurd to suppose a moral sense not to be from nature.
Art cannot create.
Indeed, if these sentiments of virtue and vice common to all men, and which none can fully extirpate from their minds, are not from nature, but are the offspring of flattery upon pride, and begot by the devices of cunning politicians; we are, that is, society is much more indebted to such politics than to nature: for such sentiments are the bond, the cement which holds society together, without which nothing that is truly great or noble could subsist in human life. But how ridiculous is it to ascribe them to any thing else but nature? For how can custom, education, example, or study, give us new ideas? “They might make us see private advantage<137> in actions whose uselessness did not at first appear; or give us opinions of some tendency of actions to our detriment, by some nice deductions of reason; or by a rash prejudice, when upon the first view of the action we should have observed no such thing: but they never could have made us apprehend actions as amiable or odious, without any consideration of our own advantage.”a Let such philosophers consider, that it must be a determination previous to reason, which makes us pursue even private good as our end. No end can be intended without desire or affection, and it is nature alone can implant any appetite, any affection or determination in our nature, whether toward private good or publick good; whether toward pleasure of outward sense, or pleasure of inward approbation. It is equally absurd in the natural and moral world, to suppose that art can create; it can only work upon subjects according to their original properties, and the laws of nature’s appointment, agreeably to which certain effects may be produced upon them. No art can therefore educe from our natures an affection or determination that is not originally there, no more than art can give bodies a property which they have not.
A moral sense does not suppose innate ideas.
But moral ideas are continually haunting our mind.
To assert a determination in our mind to receive the sentiments or simple ideas of approbation or disapprobation from actions so soon as they are presented, antecedent to any opinions of advantage or loss to redound to ourselves from them, is not to assert innate ideas, or innate knowledge; it is only to assert an aptitude or determination in our nature to be affected in a certain manner so soon as they occur to the mind. And this must be true with regard to the mind in respect of every