To apply this to Right and Wrong, the author begins by affirming [what goes a good way towards begging the question] that right and wrong are simple ideas, and therefore the result of an _immediate_ power of perception in the human mind. Beneficence and Cruelty are indefinable, and therefore ultimate. There must be some actions that are in the last resort an end in themselves. This being assumed, the author contends that the power of immediately perceiving these ultimate ideas is the Understanding. Shaftesbury had contended that, because the perception of right and wrong was immediate, therefore it must reside in a special Sense. The conclusion, thinks Price, was, to say the least of it, hasty; for it does not follow that every immediate perception should reside in a special sensibility or sense. He puts it to each one's experience whether, in conceiving Gratitude or Beneficence to be right, one feels a sensation merely, or performs an act of understanding. 'Would not a Being purely intelligent, having happiness within his reach, approve of securing it for himself? Would he not think this right; and would it not be right? When we contemplate the happiness of a species, or of a world, and pronounce on the actions of reasonable beings which promote it, that they are _right_, is this judging erroneously? Or is it no determination of the judgment at all, but a species of mental taste [as Shaftesbury and Hutcheson supposed]? [As against a moral sense, this reasoning may be effective; but it obviously assumes an end of desire,--happiness for self, or for others--and yet does not allow to that end any share in making up the sense of right and wrong.] Every one, the author goes on to say, must desire happiness for himself; and our rational nature thenceforth must approve of the actions for promoting happiness, and disapprove of the contrary actions. Surely the understanding has some share in the revulsion that we feel when any one brings upon himself, or upon others, calamity and ruin. A being flattered with hopes of bliss and then plunged into torments would complain _justly_; he would consider that violence had been done to a perception of the human _understanding_.
He next brings out a metaphysical difficulty in applying right and wrong to actions, on the supposition that they are mere effects of sensation. All sensations, as such, are modes of consciousness, or feelings, of a sentient being, and must be of a nature different from their causes. Colour is in the mind, not an attribute of the object; but right and wrong are qualities of actions, of objects, and therefore must be ideas, not sensations. Then, again, there can be nothing true or untrue in a sensation; all sensations are alike just; while the moral rectitude of an action is something absolute and unvarying. Lastly, all actions have a nature, or character; something truly belonging to them, and truly affirmable of them. If actions have no character, then they are all indifferent; but this no one can affirm; we all strongly believe the contrary. Actions are not indifferent. They are good or bad, better or worse. And if so, they are declared such by an act of _judgment_, a function of the understanding.