资料来源 : Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)

Moral \Mor"al\, a. [F., fr. It. moralis, fr. mos, moris, manner,
   custom, habit, way of life, conduct.]
   1. Relating to duty or obligation; pertaining to those
      intentions and actions of which right and wrong, virtue
      and vice, are predicated, or to the rules by which such
      intentions and actions ought to be directed; relating to
      the practice, manners, or conduct of men as social beings
      in relation to each other, as respects right and wrong, so
      far as they are properly subject to rules.

            Keep at the least within the compass of moral
            actions, which have in them vice or virtue.
                                                  --Hooker.

            Mankind is broken loose from moral bands. --Dryden.

            She had wandered without rule or guidance in a moral
            wilderness.                           --Hawthorne.

   2. Conformed to accepted rules of right; acting in conformity
      with such rules; virtuous; just; as, a moral man. Used
      sometimes in distinction from religious; as, a moral
      rather than a religious life.

            The wiser and more moral part of mankind. --Sir M.
                                                  Hale.

   3. Capable of right and wrong action or of being governed by
      a sense of right; subject to the law of duty.

            A moral agent is a being capable of those actions
            that have a moral quality, and which can properly be
            denominated good or evil in a moral sense. --J.
                                                  Edwards.

   4. Acting upon or through one's moral nature or sense of
      right, or suited to act in such a manner; as, a moral
      arguments; moral considerations. Sometimes opposed to
      {material} and {physical}; as, moral pressure or support.

   5. Supported by reason or probability; practically
      sufficient; -- opposed to {legal} or {demonstrable}; as, a
      moral evidence; a moral certainty.

   6. Serving to teach or convey a moral; as, a moral lesson;
      moral tales.

   {Moral agent}, a being who is capable of acting with
      reference to right and wrong.

   {Moral certainty}, a very high degree or probability,
      although not demonstrable as a certainty; a probability of
      so high a degree that it can be confidently acted upon in
      the affairs of life; as, there is a moral certainty of his
      guilt.

   {Moral insanity}, insanity, so called, of the moral system;
      badness alleged to be irresponsible.

   {Moral philosophy}, the science of duty; the science which
      treats of the nature and condition of man as a moral
      being, of the duties which result from his moral
      relations, and the reasons on which they are founded.

   {Moral play}, an allegorical play; a morality. [Obs.]

   {Moral sense}, the power of moral judgment and feeling; the
      capacity to perceive what is right or wrong in moral
      conduct, and to approve or disapprove, independently of
      education or the knowledge of any positive rule or law.

   {Moral theology}, theology applied to morals; practical
      theology; casuistry.

Sense \Sense\, n. [L. sensus, from sentire, sensum, to perceive,
   to feel, from the same root as E. send; cf. OHG. sin sense,
   mind, sinnan to go, to journey, G. sinnen to meditate, to
   think: cf. F. sens. For the change of meaning cf. {See}, v.
   t. See {Send}, and cf. {Assent}, {Consent}, {Scent}, v. t.,
   {Sentence}, {Sentient}.]
   1. (Physiol.) A faculty, possessed by animals, of perceiving
      external objects by means of impressions made upon certain
      organs (sensory or sense organs) of the body, or of
      perceiving changes in the condition of the body; as, the
      senses of sight, smell, hearing, taste, and touch. See
      {Muscular sense}, under {Muscular}, and {Temperature
      sense}, under {Temperature}.

            Let fancy still my sense in Lethe steep. --Shak.

            What surmounts the reach Of human sense I shall
            delineate.                            --Milton.

            The traitor Sense recalls The soaring soul from
            rest.                                 --Keble.

   2. Perception by the sensory organs of the body; sensation;
      sensibility; feeling.

            In a living creature, though never so great, the
            sense and the affects of any one part of the body
            instantly make a transcursion through the whole.
                                                  --Bacon.

   3. Perception through the intellect; apprehension;
      recognition; understanding; discernment; appreciation.

            This Basilius, having the quick sense of a lover.
                                                  --Sir P.
                                                  Sidney.

            High disdain from sense of injured merit. --Milton.

   4. Sound perception and reasoning; correct judgment; good
      mental capacity; understanding; also, that which is sound,
      true, or reasonable; rational meaning. ``He speaks
      sense.'' --Shak.

            He raves; his words are loose As heaps of sand, and
            scattering wide from sense.           --Dryden.

   5. That which is felt or is held as a sentiment, view, or
      opinion; judgment; notion; opinion.

            I speak my private but impartial sense With freedom.
                                                  --Roscommon.

            The municipal council of the city had ceased to
            speak the sense of the citizens.      --Macaulay.

   6. Meaning; import; signification; as, the true sense of
      words or phrases; the sense of a remark.

            So they read in the book in the law of God
            distinctly, and gave the sense.       --Neh. viii.
                                                  8.

            I think 't was in another sense.      --Shak.

   7. Moral perception or appreciation.

            Some are so hardened in wickedness as to have no
            sense of the most friendly offices.   --L' Estrange.

   8. (Geom.) One of two opposite directions in which a line,
      surface, or volume, may be supposed to be described by the
      motion of a point, line, or surface.

   {Common sense}, according to Sir W. Hamilton:
      (a) ``The complement of those cognitions or convictions
          which we receive from nature, which all men possess in
          common, and by which they test the truth of knowledge
          and the morality of actions.''
      (b) ``The faculty of first principles.'' These two are the
          philosophical significations.
      (c) ``Such ordinary complement of intelligence, that,if a
          person be deficient therein, he is accounted mad or
          foolish.''
      (d) When the substantive is emphasized: ``Native practical
          intelligence, natural prudence, mother wit, tact in
          behavior, acuteness in the observation of character,
          in contrast to habits of acquired learning or of
          speculation.''

   {Moral sense}. See under {Moral},
      (a) .

   {The inner}, or {internal}, {sense}, capacity of the mind to
      be aware of its own states; consciousness; reflection.
      ``This source of ideas every man has wholly in himself,
      and though it be not sense, as having nothing to do with
      external objects, yet it is very like it, and might
      properly enough be called internal sense.'' --Locke.

   {Sense capsule} (Anat.), one of the cartilaginous or bony
      cavities which inclose, more or less completely, the
      organs of smell, sight, and hearing.

   {Sense organ} (Physiol.), a specially irritable mechanism by
      which some one natural force or form of energy is enabled
      to excite sensory nerves; as the eye, ear, an end bulb or
      tactile corpuscle, etc.

   {Sense organule} (Anat.), one of the modified epithelial
      cells in or near which the fibers of the sensory nerves
      terminate.

   Syn: Understanding; reason.

   Usage: {Sense}, {Understanding}, {Reason}. Some philosophers
          have given a technical signification to these terms,
          which may here be stated. Sense is the mind's acting
          in the direct cognition either of material objects or
          of its own mental states. In the first case it is
          called the outer, in the second the inner, sense.
          Understanding is the logical faculty, i. e., the power
          of apprehending under general conceptions, or the
          power of classifying, arranging, and making
          deductions. Reason is the power of apprehending those
          first or fundamental truths or principles which are
          the conditions of all real and scientific knowledge,
          and which control the mind in all its processes of
          investigation and deduction. These distinctions are
          given, not as established, but simply because they
          often occur in writers of the present day.

资料来源 : WordNet®

moral sense
     n : motivation deriving logically from ethical or moral
         principles that govern a person's thoughts and actions
         [syn: {conscience}, {scruples}, {sense of right and wrong}]