 People who dwell on reward and punishment are more likely to become overly concerned with their own “Self-good, and private Interest,” which must “insensibly diminish the Affections towards publick Good, or the Interest of Society and introduce a certain Narrowness of spirit” (C 2.58). Stressing reward and punishment cannot make people more virtuous, and it may very well make them less so (C 1.97–98, 2.52–56). It is for this reason that Shaftesbury has one of his characters in The Moralists say that the author of the Inquiry