For the universality with which these should hold
for all rational beings without distinction, the unconditional
practical necessity which is thereby imposed on them, is lost when
their foundation is taken from the particular constitution of human
nature, or the accidental circumstances in which it is placed. The
principle of private happiness, however, is the most objectionable,
not merely because it is false, and experience contradicts the
supposition that prosperity is always proportioned to good conduct,
nor yet merely because it contributes nothing to the establishment
of morality- since it is quite a different thing to make a
prosperous man and a good man, or to make one prudent and
sharp-sighted for his own interests and to make him virtuous- but
because the springs it provides for morality are such as rather
undermine it and destroy its sublimity, since they put the motives
to virtue and to vice in the same class and only teach us to make a
better calculation, the specific difference between virtue and vice
being entirely extinguished. On the other hand, as to moral feeling,
this supposed special sense,* the appeal to it is indeed superficial
when those who cannot think believe that feeling will help them out,
even in what concerns general laws: and besides, feelings, which
naturally differ infinitely in degree, cannot furnish a uniform
standard of good and evil, nor has anyone a right to form judgements
for others by his own feelings: nevertheless this moral feeling is
nearer to morality and its dignity in this respect, that it pays
virtue the honour of ascribing to her immediately the satisfaction and
esteem we have for her and does not, as it were, tell her to her
face that we are not attached to her by her beauty but by profit.
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