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Full Idea
If a creature wanting reason has many good qualities and affections, it is certain that if you give this creature a reflecting faculty, it will at the same instant approve of gratitude, kindness and pity.
Gist of Idea
If an irrational creature with kind feelings was suddenly given reason, its reason would approve of kind feelings
Source
3rd Earl of Shaftesbury (Inquiry Concerning Virtue or Merit [1699], I.III.III)
Book Ref
'British Moralists 1650-1800 Vol. 1', ed/tr. Raphael,D.D. [Hackett 1991], p.175
A Reaction
A wonderful denunciation of the authority of reason, which must have influenced David Hume. I think, though, that the inverse of this case must be considered (if suddenly given feelings, they would fall in line with reasoning). We reason about feelings.
| 5642 | For Shaftesbury, we must already have a conscience to be motivated to religious obedience [Shaftesbury, by Scruton] |
| 6232 | Every creature has a right and a wrong state which guide its actions, so there must be a natural end [Shaftesbury] |
| 6233 | A person isn't good if only tying their hands prevents their mischief, so the affections decide a person's morality [Shaftesbury] |
| 6234 | If an irrational creature with kind feelings was suddenly given reason, its reason would approve of kind feelings [Shaftesbury] |
| 6235 | Self-interest is not intrinsically good, but its absence is evil, as public good needs it [Shaftesbury] |
| 6237 | Fear of God is not conscience, which is a natural feeling of offence at bad behaviour [Shaftesbury] |
| 6236 | People more obviously enjoy social pleasures than they do eating and drinking [Shaftesbury] |