Chapter 69

Rules. The interference of our passions is the great obstacle to our holding towards ourselves the position of an impartial spectator. Prom this notorious fact the author deduces an argument against a special moral faculty, or moral sense; he says that if we had such a faculty, it would surely judge our own passions, which are the most clearly laid open to it, more correctly than the passions of others.

To correct our self-partiality and self-deceit is the use of general rules. Our repeated observations on the tendency of particular acts, teach us what is fit to be done generally; and our conviction of the propriety of the general rules is a powerful motive for applying them to our own case. It is a mistake to suppose, as some have done, that rules precede experience; on the contrary, they are formed by finding from experience that all actions of a certain kind, in certain circumstances, are approved of. When established, we appeal to them as standards of judgment in right and wrong, but they are not the original judgments of mankind, nor the ultimate foundations of moral sentiment.