Morality is the relation of voluntary actions to these rules.
Whether the rule to which, as to a touchstone, we bring our
voluntary actions, to examine them by, and try their goodness, and
accordingly to name them, which is, as it were, the mark of the
value we set upon them: whether, I say, we take that rule from the
fashion of the country, or the will of a law-maker, the mind is easily
able to observe the relation any action hath to it, and to judge
whether the action agrees or disagrees with the rule; and so hath a
notion of moral goodness or evil, which is either conformity or not
conformity of any action to that rule: and therefore is often called
moral rectitude. This rule being nothing but a collection of several
simple ideas, the conformity thereto is but so ordering the action,
that the simple ideas belonging to it may correspond to those which
the law requires. And thus we see how moral beings and notions are
founded on, and terminated in, these simple ideas we have received
from sensation or reflection. For example: let us consider the complex
idea we signify by the word murder: and when we have taken it asunder,
and examined all the particulars, we shall find them to amount to a
collection of simple ideas derived from reflection or sensation,
viz. First, from reflection on the operations of our own minds, we
have the ideas of willing, considering, purposing beforehand,
malice, or wishing ill to another; and also of life, or perception,
and self-motion.
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