We are now in a position to see the source of much confusion in the
ordinary mode of speaking and writing on the subject of the moral
faculty, the moral judgment, the moral feeling, the moral sense, the
conscience, and kindred terms. The instantaneous, and the apparently
instinctive, authoritative, and absolute character of the act of moral
approbation or disapprobation attaches to the emotional, and not to the
intellectual part of the process. When an action has once been
pronounced to be right or wrong, morally good or evil, or has been
referred to some well-known class of actions whose ethical character is
already determined, the emotion of approval or disapproval is excited
and follows as a matter of course. There is no reasoning or hesitation
about it, simply because the act is not a reasoning act. Hence, it
appears to be instinctive, and becomes invested with those superior
attributes of authoritativeness, absoluteness, and even infallibility,
which are not unnaturally ascribed to an act in which, there being no
process of reasoning, there seems to be no room for error. And, indeed,
the feelings of moral approbation and disapprobation can never be
properly described as erroneous, though they are frequently misapplied.
The error attaches to the preliminary process of reasoning, reference,
or classification, and, if this be wrongly conducted, there is no
justification for the feeling which is consequent upon it.
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