When the supporter of Utility arbitrarily confines his principles to the actions of living beings, he concedes the point in dispute; he admits an approvableness peculiar to living and voluntary agents, a capacity of exciting moral emotions not commensurate with any utility.  Hume says, that the sentiments of utility connected with human beings are mixed with affection, esteem, and approbation, which do not attach to the utility of inanimate things.  Brown replies, that these are the very sentiments to be accounted for, the moral part of the case.

But another contrast may be made; namely, between the utility of virtue and the utility of talent or genius, which we view with very different and unequal sentiments; the inventors of the printing press do not rouse the same emotions as the charities of the Man of Ross.

Still, he contends, like the other supporters of innate moral distinctions, for a pre-established harmony between the two attributes.  Utility and virtue are so intimately related, that there is perhaps no action generally felt by us as virtuous, but what is generally beneficial.  But this is only discovered by reflecting men; it never enters the mind of the unthinking multitude.  Nay, more, it is only the Divine Being that can fully master this relationship, or so prescribe our duties that they shall ultimately coincide with the general happiness.

He allows that the immediate object of the legislator is the general good; but then his relationship is to the community as a whole, and not to any particular individual.

He admits, farther, that the good of the world at large, if not the only moral object, is a moral object, in common with the good of parents, friends, and others related to us in private life.  Farther, it may be requisite for the moralist to correct our moral sentiments by requiring greater attention to public, and less to private, good; but this does not alter the nature of our moral feelings; it merely presents new objects to our moral discrimination.  It gives an exercise to our reason in disentangling the complicated results of our actions.

He makes it also an objection to Utility, that it does not explain why we feel approbation of the useful, and disapprobation of the hurtful; forgetting that Benevolence is an admitted fact of our constitution, and may fairly be assigned by the moralist as the source of the moral sentiment.

His next remarks are on the Selfish Systems, his reply to which is the assertion of disinterested Affections.  He distinguishes two modes of assigning self-interest as the sole motive of virtuous conduct.  First, it may be said that in every so-called virtuous action, we see some good to self, near or remote.  Secondly, it may be maintained that we become at last disinterested by the associations of our own interest.

He calls in question this alleged process of association.  Because a man’s own cane is interesting to him, it does not follow that every other man’s cane is interesting. [He here commits a mistake of fact; other men’s walking canes are interesting to the interested owner of a cane.  It may not follow that this interest is enough to determine self-sacrifice.]