Treatise Mapping
Map · Book 3: Of Morals · Part 3: Of the other virtues and vices · T 3.3.1 Of the origin of the natural virtues and vices

T 3.3.1.8

SBN 576-7 · cited directly by 0 papers, reached by 3 more through page or section ranges

Our sense of beauty depends very much on this principle; and where any object has a tendency to produce pleasure in its possessor, it is always regarded as beautiful; as every object, that has a tendency to produce pain, is disagreeable and deform'd. Thus the conveniency of a house, the fertility of a field, the strength of a horse, the capacity, security, and swift-sailing of a vessel, form the principal beauty of these several objects. Here the object, which is denominated beautiful, pleases only by its tendency to produce a certain effect. That effect is the pleasure or advantage of some other person. Now the pleasure of a stranger, for whom we have no friendship, pleases us only by sympathy. To this principle, therefore, is owing the beauty, which we find in every thing that is useful. How considerable a part this is of beauty will easily appear upon reflection. Wherever an |object has a tendency to produce pleasure in the possessor, or in other words, is the proper cause of pleasure, it is sure to please the spectator, by a delicate sympathy with the possessor. Most of the works of art are esteem'd beautiful, in proportion to their fitness for the use of man, and even many of the productions of nature derive their beauty from that source. Handsome and beautiful, on most occasions, is not an absolute but a relative quality, and pleases us by nothing but its tendency to produce an end that is agreeable[83].

Who cites it

0 of 3 papers cite this paragraph directly; the rest reach it through a page or section range. Snippets are the words around each citation.

PaperCited asContext
Ainslie 1995(T 577)
T 3.3.1 (4 paragraphs)
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…ympathetically sharing the pleasure of their beneficiaries, namely the members of society (T 577). Now, however, we m…
Spector 19983.3.1
T 3.3.1 (32 paragraphs)
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…-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 3.3.1 The Fiction of Self…
3.3.1
T 3.3.1 (32 paragraphs)
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…vol. i, and it remained a standard thought experiment through the eighteenth century. See 3.3.1, for more on the Sh…
3.3.1
T 3.3.1 (32 paragraphs)
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…about rights, justice and even personal identity, as we see with both Locke and Hume. See 3.3.1 note, for more on p…
3.3.1
T 3.3.1 (32 paragraphs)
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…ror made in the supposition of bodily continuity. ## 3.3 The Epistemological Problem ## 3.3.1 The Fiction of Self…
3.3.1
T 3.3.1 (32 paragraphs)
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…. 252. !8l am grateful to Candace Vogler for prompting me to clarify the difference. See 3.3.1 for a discussion of…
Ainslie 2003T 3.3.1
T 3.3.1 (32 paragraphs)
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…es - qualities useful or agreeable to the trait's possessor or to those who surround her (T 3.3.1) - offer little hel…