Pleasure, pain, and their causes (good and evil) are the fundamental hinges on which our passions turn; by reflecting on how various considerations of good and evil produce internal sensations and tempers in us, we form our ideas of the passions.

By John Locke, from An Essay Concerning Human Understanding

Key Arguments

  • Locke asserts a foundational role: 'Pleasure and pain and that which causes them — good and evil, are the hinges on which our passions turn.'
  • He proposes a reflective method: if we 'reflect on ourselves, and observe how these, under various considerations, operate in us; what modifications or tempers of mind, what internal sensations ... they produce in us, we may thence form to ourselves the ideas of our passions.'
  • Thus, passions are construed as 'modes of pleasure and pain' arising from how we consider or anticipate good and evil.
  • This prepares the way for his subsequent definitions of particular passions (love, hatred, desire, joy, etc.) in terms of specific configurations of pleasure, pain, and temporal orientation.

Source Quotes

Our passions moved by good and evil. Pleasure and pain and that which causes them — good and evil, are the hinges on which our passions turn. And if we reflect on ourselves, and observe how these, under various considerations, operate in us; what modifications or tempers of mind, what internal sensations (if I may so call them) they produce in us we may thence form to ourselves the ideas of our passions.
Pleasure and pain and that which causes them — good and evil, are the hinges on which our passions turn. And if we reflect on ourselves, and observe how these, under various considerations, operate in us; what modifications or tempers of mind, what internal sensations (if I may so call them) they produce in us we may thence form to ourselves the ideas of our passions. 4.

Key Concepts

  • Pleasure and pain and that which causes them — good and evil, are the hinges on which our passions turn.
  • if we reflect on ourselves, and observe how these, under various considerations, operate in us; what modifications or tempers of mind, what internal sensations (if I may so call them) they produce in us we may thence form to ourselves the ideas of our passions.

Context

Book II, chapter XX, section 3, where Locke links the general notions of pleasure/pain and good/evil to the genesis of our ideas of the passions.