Is Justice A Natural Or Artificial Virtue?

The Virtuous Motive Comes Before The Regard To The Virtue

Our sense of virtue is not natural.

There are some virtues that produce pleasure and approbation through artifice arising from mankind’s circumstances and necessity.

• Justice is a virtue of this kind.

  When we praise any actions, we regard only the motives that produced them. We consider the actions as signs of certain principles in the mind. The external performance has no merit. We must look within to find the moral quality. We cannot do this directly. We therefore fix our attention on actions, as on external signs. But these actions are still considered as signs. The ultimate object of our praise and approbation is the motive that produced them.

  When we require any action, or blame a person for not performing it, we: always suppose that the person should be influenced by that action’s proper motive, and see it vicious for him to be regardless of it. We retract our blame if we find that the virtuous motive was still powerful over his breast, though checked by some circumstances unknown to us. We have the same esteem for him, as if he had actually performed the required action.

  All virtuous actions therefore: derive their merit only from virtuous motives, and are considered merely as signs of those motives. The first virtuous motive which bestows a merit on any action, can never be a regard to that action’s virtue. It must be some other natural motive or principle. We reason in a circle if we suppose that the mere regard to the action’s virtue may be the first motive which: produced the action, and rendered it virtuous. The action must be really virtuous before we can have such a regard. This virtue must be derived from some virtuous motive. Consequently, the virtuous motive must be different from the regard to the action’s virtue. A virtuous motive is needed to render an action virtuous. An action must be virtuous before we can have a regard to its virtue. Therefore, some virtuous motive must be antecedent.

  This is not merely a metaphysical subtlety. It enters into all our reasonings in common life. Though we may be unable to place it in such distinct philosophical terms. We blame a father for neglecting his child. Why? Because it shows a lack of natural affection which is the duty of every parent. If affection were not a natural duty, the care of children could not be a duty. It would then be impossible for us to have the duty for our offspring. In this case, all men suppose a motive to the action, distinct from a sense of duty.

  A man’s character is most amiable and virtuous if he does many benevolent actions, such as: relieving the distressed, comforting the afflicted, and extending his bounty even to the greatest strangers. We regard these actions as proofs of the greatest humanity. This humanity bestows a merit on the actions. Therefore, a regard to this merit is a secondary consideration. It is derived from the antecedent principle of humanity, which is meritorious and laudable.

  It may be an undoubted maxim, that no action can be virtuous, or morally good, unless there is in human nature some motive to produce it, distinct from the sense of its morality.

  But can the sense of morality or duty produce an action without any other motive? I answer, yes. This is not an objection to the present doctrine. When any virtuous motive or principle is common in human nature, a person who has no virtue may: hate himself, and perform the action without the motive, from a certain sense of duty to: acquire that virtuous principle by practice or disguise to himself his lack of it. An ungrateful man: is still pleased to perform grateful actions, and thinks he has, by that means, fulfilled his duty. Actions are initially only considered as signs of motives. But we usually: fix our attention on the signs, and neglect the thing signified. But sometimes, a person may perform an action merely out of regard to its moral obligation. Yet this still supposes some distinct principles in human nature: which are capable of producing the action, and whose moral beauty renders the action meritorious.

  Suppose a person lends me money on condition that I pay it back in a few days. He demands the sum after that day arrives. Why do I have to restore the money? My regard to justice and abhorrence of villainy and knavery are sufficient reasons for me, if I have the: smallest grain of honesty, or sense of duty. This answer is satisfactory to man: in his civilized state, and when trained up according to a certain discipline and education. But in his rude and more natural condition, this answer would be perfectly unintelligible and sophistical. A man in that situation would immediately ask: wherein consists this honesty and justice which you find in: restoring a loan, and abstaining from the property of others? It surely does not lie in the external action. Therefore, it must be placed in the motive from which the external action is derived. This motive can never be a regard to the action’s honesty. It is wrong to say: that a virtuous motive is needed to render an action honest, and that a regard to honesty is the motive of the action. We can never have a regard to an action’s virtue, unless the action is virtuous beforehand. No action can be virtuous, unless it proceeds from a virtuous motive. A virtuous motive, therefore, must precede the regard to the virtue. It is impossible that the virtuous motive and the regard to the virtue can be the same.