And when we think of motives and traits we believe usually to cause painful feelings, either to the person who has the traits, or to others, we may come to think of these painful effects themselves. These ideas of pleasurable or painful feelings will then be converted by sympathy into pleasurable or painful feelings. Suppose one is thinking of benevolence, which one takes to cause pleasure in others. One's disinterested contemplation of the motive will then carry one to thoughts of the pleasurable effects and then, by sympathy, to a pleasurable feeling. Because this pleasurable feeling results from a disinterested contemplation of the motive, it is approbation, the feeling we express in calling benevolence a virtue.
Similar remarks hold, with appropriate changes, for disapprobation.
This painful feeling, resulting from a disinterested contemplation of the motive or trait, is disapprobation. We will examine this difference, and particularly, the artificial virtues next time. I mention the distinction here because Hume makes his claims about the role of sympathy in explaining our finding traits of these two different kinds virtuous separately. With natural virtues things are a bit more complicated, but by and large the same explanation holds. Love, for example, is immediately agreeable to he who loves.