JB/015/237/001

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91

XI
Self Interest or Self-regarding Prudence

Nature – artless and untutored nature engages man in the pursuit of
immediate pleasure and in the avoidance of immediate pain. What reason
can effect is to prevent the sacrifice of a greater distant pleasure, or the
visitation of a greater distant pain in exchange for those which are present in other words to prevent a miscalculation in the amount of happiness.
In this too consists the whole of virtue – it which is but the sacrifice of a smaller
present satisfaction in the shape of a temptation – to the a satisfaction of greater magnitude but of more remote which is in fact a recompense.
What can be done for morality in the field of self-interest is to show how
much his a man's own happiness depends upon himself – how much on the effects of these his conduct produces
in the breasts of those which with whom he is connected by the ties of mutual
sympathy – how much an the interest which others feel in his happiness & how much the desire to
promote it depend on his own doings. The self-regarding interest may be divided into the physical & the moral sanction. Suppose a man wedded to intoxication.
He will be taught to consider & weigh the amount of pleasure & pain growing out
of his conduct. He will view on one side the intensity and the duration of
the pleasurable excitement. This will be the account on the side of profit. Per
contra he will be led to estimate 1st Sickness and other effects prejudicial to health
2 Future contingent pains growing out of probable debility disease 3d The loss of
time, if time & the loss of money & these in proportion to the value of time &
money in his individual case. These are some of the more obvious the physical sanction.
4 The pain produced in the minds of those who are dear to him as for
instance a parent – a wife – a husband a child.
Par follows5 The disrepute attached to the practice – the loss of reputation in the
eyes of others
6 The risk of legal punishment
and the disgrace attaching it to it, – as when the public exhibition of that
temporary insanity which is produced by intoxication is visited by the Laws
1st7 The risk of punishments attached to crimes which a man is liable
to commit while gratifying the propensity to inebriety. It will be found that 8 The misery produced by apprehension of punishment in a future state of being
the whole of the sanctions which can be brought to bear operate in the self-regarding part
of the field of duty being either to the physical sanction, or that which concerns
a man's person physically considered of which the three first of the consequences
here displayed may be considered as examples & 3d the popular or moral
sanction, – that growing out of the proven opinion of which the 5 consideration is a specimen 2d the social or sympathetic, as in consideration which is a sort of mixture of the selfish with the social regard† † Insert or an application of the popular 1 where
the private family man 4th the legal political which includes the legal
as a branch of it, which is exhibited in consideration. 6 & 7 & 5 The
religious as in consideration the 8. To these five latter, as belonging to
subjects wholly distinct from Ethics, it is only intended casually to refer, for
reasons which will be found in their proper places.

Identifier: | JB/015/237/001 "JB/" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 15.
Date_1		Marginal Summary Numbering
Box	015	Main Headings	deontology
Folio number	237	Info in main headings field
Image	001	Titles	self interest or self-regarding prudence
Category	linking material	Number of Pages	1
Recto/Verso	recto	Page Numbering	f91
Penner	sir john bowring	Watermarks	m 1826
Marginals		Paper Producer
Corrections		Paper Produced in Year	1826
Notes public		ID Number	5453
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