HKB
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Often appears with: public interest · political legitimacy and consent · political artifices · education and the training of the young · education · contracts, oaths, and obligation
Usually: argument (1) · detachment (1)
He argues that even though early perceptions of promise-obligations come from limited experience of society, later a moral sentiment joins interest, while promises still impose no natural obligation.
whoever uses them is immediately bound by his interest to execute his engagements, and must never expect to be trusted any more, if he refuse to perform what he promised. Nor is that knowledge, which is requisite to make mankind sensible of this interest in the institution and observance of promises, to be esteemed superior to the capacity of human nature, however savage and uncultivated. There needs but a very litt…