Sixth argument taken from the nature of morality.VI. My sixth and last argument to prove man a necessary agent is: if man was not a necessary agent determin’d by pleasure and pain, he would have no notion of morality, or motive to practise it: the distinction between morality and immorality, virtue and vice would be lost; and man would not be a moral agent.
Morality or Virtue,[1] consists of such actions as are in their own nature, and upon the whole, pleasant; and immorality or vice, consists in such actions as are in their own nature, and upon the whole painful. Wherefore a man must be affected with pleasure and pain, in order to know what morality is, and to distinguish it from immorality. He must also be affected with pleasure and pain, to have a reason to practise morality; for there can be no motives, but pleasure and pain, to make a Man do or forbear any action. And a man must be the more moral, the more he understands or is duly sensible, what actions give pleasure and what pain; and must be perfectly moral, if necessarily determin’d by
- ↑ Locke’s Essay of H. Und. l. II. c. 20. Serjeant’s Solid. Philos. asserted, p. 215.
