Mackenzie’s opinion:
According to Mackenzie, the subject of moral judgment is the point of view from which an action is judged to be good or bad. Whenever a subject is willing to do some act he has a particular viewpoint. The viewpoint is the subject of moral judgment.
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But to ask what is the subject of moral judgment is to inquire about the person who declares the moral judgment.
ADVERTISEMENTS:
It is evident that the subject of moral judgment is rational or the ideal sell and it pronounces judgment upon the motive and intentions of others no less than his own.
Shaftesbury’s opinion:
Shftesbury credited the moral connoisseur with being the subject of moral judgment According to him; it is only this connoisseur which can judge an act in regard to its beauty or ugliness. Here, either this connoisseur is intellectual self or distinct from it.
If is the intellectual self, then the subject of moral judgment is the intellectual self Even if it is not the intellectual self, the letter must still be the subject of moral judgment because if the connoisseur is true then its judgments’ must be acceptable to the rational or the ideal self.
Opinion of Adam Smith:
According to Adam Smith, the individual himself is the subject of moral judgment in the form of an impartial spectator. This impartial spectator is the highest determinant or judge of our actions. It is no other than the intellectual or ideal self of man.
ADVERTISEMENTS:
Moral and religious persons consider this an element of God in man. It is this who was Christ to St Paul and Rama to Gandhiji. Religious people take direction from this in times of trouble. In the words of Adam Smith, “When I endeavour to examine my own conduct, I divide myself, as it were, into two persons.
It, the examiner and judge represent a different character from the other I, the person whose conduct is being examined and judged. The first is the spectator. The second is the agent. The first is the judge the second the person judged of.”
Thus, his rational or ideal self is the subject of moral judgement and it is from this standpoint that morality of actions is judged.