Eighteenth Century Collection Online Demo

The theory of moral sentiments: By Adam Smith, ...

and disapprobation, and of all solid judgments concerning right and wrong. It is by reason that we discover those general rules of justice by which we ought to regulate our actions: and it is by the same faculty that we form those more vague and indeterminate ideas of what is prudent, of what is decent, of what is generous or noble, which we carry con|stantly about with us, and according to which we endeavour, as well as we can, to model the tenor of our conduct. The general maxims of morality are formed, like all other general maxims, from experience and induc|tion. We observe in a great variety of par|ticular cases what pleases or displeases our moral faculties, what these approve or disap|prove of, and, by induction from this expe|rience, we establish those general rules. But induction is always regarded as one of the operations of reason. From reason, therefore, we are very properly said to derive all those general maxims and ideas. It is by these, however, that we regulate the greater part of our moral judgments, which would be extremely uncertain and precarious if they depended altogether upon what is liable to so many variations as immediate sentiment and feeling, which the different states of health
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Title
The theory of moral sentiments: By Adam Smith, ...
Author
Smith, Adam, 1723-1790.
Canvas
Page 502
Publication
London :: printed for A. Millar; and A. Kincaid and J. Bell, in Edinburgh,
1759.

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"The theory of moral sentiments: By Adam Smith, ..." In the digital collection Eighteenth Century Collection Online Demo. https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eccodemo/k111361.0001.001. University of Michigan Library Digital Collections. Accessed June 12, 2025.
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