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• Introduction
• Note On the Texts
• Acknowledgments
• Book I
• Preliminaries
• Section I: Of Man and His Connections
• Section II: Of Duty, Or Moral Obligation
• Section III: Various Hypotheses Concerning Moral Obligation
• Section IV: The Final Causes of Our Moral Facultiesof Perception and Affection
• Book Ii
• Section I: The Principal Distinctions of Duty Or Virtue
• Section II: Of Man’s Duty to Himself. of the Nature of Good, and the Chief Good
• Section III: Duties to Society
• Chapter I: Filial and Fraternal Duty
• Chapter II: Concerning Marriage
• Chapter III: Of Parental Duty
• Chapter IV: Herile and Servile Duty
• Chapter V: Social Duties of the Private Kind
• Chapter VI: Social Duties of the Commercial Kind
• Chapter VII: Social Duties of the Political Kind
• Section IV: Duty to God
• Book Iii
• Section I: Of Practical Ethics, Or the Culture of the Mind
• Section II: Motives to Virtue From Personal Happiness
• Section III: Motives to Virtue From the Being and Providence of God
• Section IV: Motive to Virtue From the Immortality of the Soul, &c.
• Conclusion

Note on the Texts

This edition of The Elements of Moral Philosophy is based on the 1754 edition of Robert and John Dodsley, the first publication of The Elements as an independent work. Few alterations have been made to the text and those only to correct printer’s errors. In addition, notes have been added to clarify Fordyce’s references. Fordyce followed the not uncommon eighteenth-century practice of providing emphasis by placing material in quotation marks; we have not altered that practice.

We also include A brief Account of the Nature, Progress, and Origin of Philosophy delivered by the late Mr. David Fordyce, P. P. Marish. Col: Ab^dn to his Scholars, before they begun their Philosophical course. Anno 1743/4 with A Few advices of the late M^r Da. Fordyce to his Scholars at the end of the Session Concerning Reading, available here in print for the first time. This manuscript is held by the Aberdeen University Library, MS.M 184, fol. 28, and is likely the prolegomenon to the lectures on moral philosophy that Fordyce delivered to his magistrands, or senior students, during the 1743/44 school year. Minor changes have been made in the text in order to facilitate comprehensibility. Most frequently these changes consist of the removal of commas or the addition of some other punctuation. More significant interventions in the text are indicated by angle brackets, i.e., 〈 〉. Notes of correction and amplification have been added to both texts as well, identifying the sources upon which Fordyce drew and the figures he esteemed most highly. Fordyce’s own notes, as in the original, are indicated by the symbols * and †. The editor’s annotations of Fordyce’s notes appear in square brackets, i.e., [ ].

Thomas Kennedy