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What does “in this piece it was …” mean?
“In this Piece it was my Design to explain and enforce this Doctrine, that vicious Actions are not hurtful becasue they are forbidden, but forbidden becasue they are hurtful, the Nature of Man along Consider’d: That is was therefore everyone’s Interest to be virtuous, who wish’d to be Happy even in this World.” (Franklin, Autobiography)
Franklin is presenting an argument about morality, demonstrating his context in eighteenth-century empirical philosophy. For Franklin, human nature is an experientially measured condition, in which the sum total of observable actions and consequences determines morality. In other words, there is no metaphysical interdiction (i.e., forbiddance) that determines the moral value of an action, such as our experience of a “vicious” action as “hurtful”. Rather, we observe the viciousness or virtuousness of certain actions and develop moral imperatives that are in “everyone’s interest”. [See Steven Forde, “Benjamin Franklin: A Model American and an American Model.” In A History of American Political Thought, Bryan-Paul Frost and Jeffrey Sikkenga, eds. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2003: pp. 80–94.]
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