Search Legal Terms and Definitions. preliminary hearing. n. in criminal law, a hearing to determine if a person charged with a felony (a serious crime punishable by a term in the state prison) should be tried for the crime charged, based on whether there is some substantial evidence that he/she committed the crime.
On Hume 's view, the judgments and recommendations of traditional morality arise not from reason, but from a moral sense. As a straightforward matter of fact (discoverable by experience), virtue is always accompanied by a feeling of pleasure, and vice by a feeling of pain.
1752, moral principles or practice, from French morale morality, good conduct, from fem. of Old French moral moral (see moral (adj.)). Meaning confidence (especially in a military context) first recorded 1831, from confusion with French moral (French distinguishes le moral temperament and la morale morality).