Excerpt from The Utilitarian Theory of Morals
The easiest way by which to arrive at the true theory of morals is to begin, as in all other things, at the beginning; to take up, in the first instance, a very simple case, and thence to proceed to more complicated cases, and to trace out the common and essential quality which runs through them all.
The earliest and simplest germination of moral feeling which we observe to subsist in the human race, is to be found in the obedience paid by the infant to the mother and nurse ; not, indeed, in the child's persuasion that he must, (for in mere compulsion there can be no morality at all,) but that he ought to obey them. What process in the infant's mind may give birth to this persuasion; by what association with his pains or his pleasures it may become a motive power of his conduct; is a question of no direct importance in any moral inquiry.
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