Whether these feelings
admit of analysis and explanation is another question, and one with
which I shall deal presently, but of their reality and distinctness no
competent and impartial person, on careful self-examination, can well
doubt. The answer, then, to our first question, I conceive to be that
the moral sanction, properly so called, is distinguished from all other
sanctions of conduct in that it has no regard to the prospect of
physical pleasure or pain, or to the hope of reward or fear of
punishment, or to the estimation in which we shall be held by any other
being than ourselves, but that it has regard simply and solely to the
internal feeling of satisfaction or dissatisfaction with which, on
reflexion, we shall look back upon our own acts.
CHAPTER II.
THE MORAL SANCTION OR MORAL SENTIMENT.
ITS FUNCTIONS AND THE JUSTIFICATION OF
ITS CLAIMS TO SUPERIORITY.
I now proceed to consider more at length what are the precise functions
of the moral sentiment or moral sanction[1], and what is the justification
of the weight which we attach to it, or rather of the preference which
we assign to it, or feel that we ought to assign to it, over all the
other sanctions of conduct. We have already seen that the moral
sentiment or sanction is the feeling of satisfaction or dissatisfaction
which we experience when we reflect on our own acts, without any
reference to any external authority or external opinion.
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