Note 152 — Chapter I · INTUITIONISM

It may seem, he admits, that “since interest, one’s own happiness, is a manifest obligation,” in any case in which virtuous action appears to be not conducive to the agent’s interest, he would be “under two contrary obligations, i.e. under none at all. But,” he urges, “the obligation on the side of interest really does not remain. For the natural authority of the principle of reflection or conscience is an obligation ... the most certain and known: whereas the contrary obligation can at the utmost appear no more than probable: since no man can be certain in any circumstances that vice is his interest in the present world, much less can he be certain against another: and thus the certain obligation would entirely supersede and destroy the uncertain one.”—(Preface to Butler’s Sermons.)