(A) A liberal performance of duties properly so called. (a) The support of aged parents; this, though to a certain extent a legal duty, is still more a virtue, being stimulated by the approbation of one’s fellows.  The performance of the family duties generally is the subject of commendation. (b) The payment of debts that cannot be legally recovered, as in the case of bankrupts after receiving their discharge.

These examples typify cases (1) where no definite law is laid down, or where the law is content with a minimum; and (2) where the law is restrained by its rules of evidence or procedure.  Society, in such cases, steps in and supplies a motive in the shape of reward.

(B) Pure Virtue, or Beneficence; all actions for the benefit of others without stipulation, and without reward; relief of distress, promotion of the good of individuals or of society at large.  The highest honours of society are called into exercise by the highest services.

Bentham’s principle of the claims of superior need cannot be fully carried out, (although he conceives it might, in some cases), by either the legal or the popular sanction.  Thus, the act of the good Samaritan, the rescue of a ship’s crew from drowning, could not be exacted; the law cannot require heroism.  It is of importance to remark, that although Duty and Nobleness, Punishment and Reward, are in their extremes unmistakably contrasted, yet there may be a margin of doubt or ambiguity (like the passing of day into night).  Thus, expressed approbation, generally speaking, belongs to Reward; yet, if it has become a thing of course, the withholding of it operates as a Punishment or a Penalty.]

[Footnote 3:  The conditions that regulate the authoritative enforcement of actions, are exhaustively given in works on Jurisprudence, but they do not all concern Ethical Theory.  The expedience of imposing a rule depends on the importance of the object compared with the cost of the machinery.  A certain line of conduct may be highly beneficial, but may not be a fit case for coercion.  For example, the law can enforce only a minimum of service:  now, if the case be such, that a minimum is useless, as in helping a ship in distress, or in supporting aged parents, it is much, better to leave the case to voluntary impulses, seconded by approbation or reward.  Again, an offence punished by law must be, in its nature, definable; which, makes a difficulty in such cases as insult, and defamation, and many species of fraud.  Farther, the offence must be easy of detection, so that the vast majority of offenders may not escape.  This limits the action of the law in unchastity.]

[Footnote 4:  See, on the method of Sokrates, Appendix A.]

[Footnote 5:  In setting forth, the Ethical End, the language of Sokrates was not always consistent.  He sometimes stated it, as if it included an independent reference to the happiness of others; at other times, he speaks as if the end was the agent’s own happiness, to which, the happiness of others was the greatest and most essential means.  The first view, although not always adhered to, prevails in Xenophon; the second appears most in Plato.]