JB/015/342/001

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17

The virtues of a man must be measured by the
number of indivi persons whose happiness he seeks to
promote – that is, the greatest portion & happiness to each
taking into account the sacrifice which he knowingly makes
of his own happiness.

When the accounts of pleasures & pains are
balanced – the balance of pleasure is the evidence of virtue –
the balance of pain – the evidence of vice.

Beyond – & exclusive of these balances of
pains & pleasures, the words virtue & vice are emptiness
and folly.

Not that the quantity of happiness
determines the quantity of virtue – there being much happiness
with which virtue has nothing whatever to do. Virtue
implies the presence of a difficulty – the presence of
fruitfulness too as to pains & pleasures. The greater the
sacrifice the greater the difficulty

The sources of happiness by which the
individual & the race act as preserved which sources too provide the
greatest portion of happiness are independent of the
exercise of virtue. They may be called acts of well-doing –
of beneficence – according to the strict meaning of the word –
but they are not acts of benevolence.

In pure it would be a self-contradiction
to say that an act which produced a balance of suffering
could be a virtue – as it would be to declare that an
act producing a balance of enjoyment, could be a vice.

Identifier: | JB/015/342/001 "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	342	Info in main headings field
Image	001	Titles
Category	linking material	Number of Pages	2
Recto/Verso	recto	Page Numbering	f17
Penner	sir john bowring	Watermarks	i i smith & son 1831
Marginals		Paper Producer	maria edgeworth
Corrections		Paper Produced in Year	1831
Notes public		ID Number	5558
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