1. Justice is the sort of virtue that is not natural, but arises artificially, “from the circumstances and necessities of mankind.” A short and convincing argument for this thesis will be given before the examination of the nature of the artifice.

2. Actions are not praiseworthy or blameworthy: they are only signs of the motive that produced them. “The external performance has no merit. We must look within to find the moral quality.”

3. The failure to perform an action is similarly indicative of a motive. If one should be influenced by a given motive, we blame the person for not performing the action. On the other hand, our esteem for a person is restored after he is initially blamed when we afterwards discover that he had the motive but the action could not be carried out because it was “check’d in its operation by some circumstances unknown to us.”

4. “It appears, therefore, that all virtuous actions derived their merit only from virtuous motives, and are consider’d merely as signs of those motives.” The author concludes from this that it would be arguing in a circle to say that a virtuous motive is one that takes as its motivation regarding the action to be virtuous (“a regard to the virtue of that action”). There must be another motive than that the action is virtuous. “A virtuous motive is requisite to render an action virtuous. An action must be virtuous, before we can have a regard to its virtue. Some virtuous motive, therefore, must be antecedent to that regard.”

5. This is not a merely metaphysical subtility, but it enters into our ordinary reasonings, even if we cannot “place it in such distinct philosophical terms.” The author claims that everyone supposes that there is a motivation for action distinct from duty. An example is the blame heaped on a father for neglecting his child. We blame him for his motive: not having natural affection for his child. His action should be influenced by that motive, but he lacks the motive that he should have. We also say that he has failed to do his duty. But this means only that he has failed to be motivated properly, by natural affection. To say that care of his children is his duty is no more than to say that such care is something he should do, from the motive of natural affection. Duty itself does not motivate, but is only a description of the obligatory character of the action: “’twere impossible we cou’d have the duty in our eye in the attention we give to our offspring,” unless there were a prior obligation stemming from natural affection.

6. Another example is a benevolent man who is kind even to strangers. His character is as virtuous as could be. His actions are meritorious because they flow from his virtuous character. To hold the actions in regard is no more than to laud his humanity.

7. So the author takes this maxim to be “undoubted”: “that no action can be virtuous, or morally good, unless there be in human nature some motive to produce it, distinct from the sense of its morality.”

8. This does not mean that no action can be performed merely from regard to its merit. It only means that it cannot be meritorious if performed merely from regard to its merit. So if a person lacks the qualities of character and motive that would makes his actions truly meritorious, he might cover this up, or try to attain the missing motive, by performing actions because they are regarded as meritorious. Actions are only signs of merit, but by paying attention to them apart from the motives, we can “neglect, in some measure, the thing signified.“ The author reiterates that even this kind of action requires that there be some principles capable of producing the action which make it meritorious in the first place.

9. Another example is given. I borrow money from someone, and on the date when I am supposed to repay it, I ask the creditor what reason or motive I have to pay him back. There are two answers. The first is one that can rightly be given by “man in his civiliz’d state, and when train’d up according to a certain discipline and education.” That is, it would be unjust not to repay the money, and if I am honest or have a sense of duty, I should do so. The second answer is appropriate in a more “rude and natural condition.” In that case, the first answer is “perfectly unintelligible and sophistical.” I could reply to it by asking, “Wherein consists this honesty and justice, which you find in restoring a loan, and abstaining from the property of others?” Since the honesty and justice do not lie in the action itself, they must lie in the motive from which the action sprang, which is where the second answer would have to be found. The author reiterates his main point, “’Tis a plain fallacy to say, that a virtuous motive is requisite to render an action honest, and at the same time that a regard for honesty is the motive of the action. We can never have a regard to the virtue of an action, unless the action be antecedently virtuous.” And this requires a virtuous motive.

10. The difficulty is finding the motive for acts of justice and honesty. It is not self-love, for it motivates us away from honesty, and when given free reign, “is the source of all injustice and violence.” We need to restrain the natural movements of the appetite of self-love to correct injustice and violence.

11. A second suggestion is that it is regard to the public interest that servers as the requisite motive. Dishonesty and injustice are contrary to this. But the author raises three considerations in this regard. 1) The public interest is connected to justice not naturally but artificially, which will be argued at length later. 2) If the whole deal had to be kept secret, the public has no interest, “tho’ I suppose no moralist, who will affirm, that the duty and obligation ceases.” 3) Experience shows that people are not in fact motivated by public interest when paying their creditors, keeping promises, not stealing, and generally behaving justly. “That is a motive too remote and too sublime to affect the generality of mankind, and operate with any force in actions so contrary to private interest as are frequently those of justice and common honesty.”

12. The author asserts that there is no passion of “love of mankind, merely as such, independent of personal qualities, of services, or of relation to ourself.” It is true that when a fellow creature (including non-human animals) are brought near to us “and represented in lively colors,” we are affected by their happiness or misery. But this can be attributed to sympathy, which extends beyond the species mankind and so does not demonstrate that we have a love of mankind as such. If there were universal love of mankind, it would operate in the same way as a passion between the sexes, which elevates our regard for the lover. But experience does not show this to hold. Human nature is the object of both love and hatred, and it requires a special cause to actuate either passion. No phenomenon can show the alleged universal love. True, we all desire company, but this has to do with our own amusement. We also love strangers from our own country when we are abroad, but this is because of their relation to us.

13. Neither can the answer be found in “private benevolence, or a regard to the interests of the party concern'd.” The creditor may be an enemy whom I have just cause to hate, or a miser who would not make use of the money, or a “profligate debauchee” to whom the money would bring harm. And what if I need the money for my family? “In all these cases, the original motive to justice wou’d fail; and consequently the justice itself, and along with it all property, right, and obligation.”

14. Private benevolence would not account for the fact that we have a moral obligation to leave people in possession of their private property. So a rich man would be under no obligation not to take from someone else anything more than he is obliged to share with them. The right to keep what you own is based on people's affection for their possessions, but this is not the only foundation of justice.

15. Also, the main reason people are attached to what they possess is that it is their property. But property is based on justice, which is the virtue at issue here.

16. Private benevolence is weak or non-existent in most people, so it cannot be the foundation of justice.

17. The question as to the motive for acting according to justice is not answered yet. There is no natural “real and universal motive” for acting justly. So unless “nature has establish’d a sophistry, and render’d it necessary and unavoidable,” (i.e., the circularity in regard for merit serving as motivation for meritorious actions), justice must be an artificial virtue, arising “necessarily from education, and human conventions.”

18. A corollary is that “motives and impelling passions” must have a great deal of influence on the sense of morals. In the case of the duty of the parent toward the child, the natural affection is to love one’s children better than one’s nephews, etc., all else being equal.“ “Hence arise our common measures of duty, in preferring the one to the other. Our sense of duty follows the common and natural course of our passions.”

19. Justice is natural in a sense, though artificial in another. This is because human beings are naturally inventive, and thus naturally produce artificial things, so “where an invention is obvious and absolutely necessary, it may as properly be said to be natural as any thing that proceeds immediately from original principles, without the intervention of thought or reflection.” The rules of justice are not arbitrary. We can even call them “laws of nature” in that they are common to or inseparable from the species human being.

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