Lord Kames: Selected Writings by Andreas Rahmatian

Author:Andreas Rahmatian
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Philosophy, Lord Kames, Henry Home, Scottish Enlightenment, Adam Smith, Thomas Reid, law, legal history, moral philosophy, aesthetics, rhetoric, economics, agriculture, society, religion, perception, sensation, emotions, beauty, conjectural history, reasoning, justice, duty, liberty, causation, tort, contract, property, equity, feudalism
ISBN: 9781845409296
Publisher: Andrews UK Limited 2017
Published: 2017-02-01T00:00:00+00:00

2. Moral Sense, Duty and Justice

From: Essays on the Principles of Morality and Natural Religion, 3rd ed. (1779), part 1, essay 2, chapters 2 and 3, pp. 29–47

As we are placed in a great world, surrounded with beings and things, some beneficial, some hurtful; we are so constituted, that scarce any object is indifferent to us: it either gives pleasure or pain; witness sounds, tastes, and smells. This is the most remarkable in objects of sight, which affect us in a more lively manner than objects of any other external sense. Thus, a spreading oak, a verdant plain, a large river, are objects that afford delight. A rotten carcase, a distorted figure, create aversion; which, in some instances, goes the length of horror.

With regard to objects of sight, whatever gives pleasure is said to be beautiful : whatever gives pain, is said to be ugly. The terms beauty and ugliness, in their proper signification, are confined to objects of sight. And indeed such objects, being more highly agreeable or disagreeable than others, deserve well to be distinguished by a proper name. But, as it happens with words that convey a more lively idea than ordinary, the terms are applied in a figurative sense to almost everything that gives a high relish or disgust. Thus, we talk of a beautiful theorem, a beautiful thought, and a beautiful passage in music. And this way of speaking has become so familiar, that it is scarce reckoned a figurative expression.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.