Moral Philosophy: Ethics, Deontology and Natural Law Part 1

Moral Philosophy.

by Joseph Rickaby, S. J.

PREFACE (1905).

For fifteen years this Manual has enjoyed all the popularity that its author could desire. With that popularity the author is the last person to wish to interfere. Therefore, not to throw previous copies out of use, this edition makes no alteration either in the pagination or the text already printed. At the same time the author might well be argued to have lapsed into strange supineness and indifference to moral science, if in fifteen years he had learnt nothing new, and found nothing in his work which he wished to improve. Whoever will be at the expense of purchasing my _Political and Moral Essays_ (Benziger, 1902, 6s.) will find in the first essay on the _Origin and Extent of Civil Authority_ an advantageous subst.i.tute for the chapter on the State in this work. The essay is a dissertation written for the degree of B. Sc. in the University of Oxford; and represents, I hope, tolerably well the best contemporary teaching on the subject.

If the present work had to be rewritten, I should make a triple division of Moral Philosophy, into Ethics, Deontology (the science of [Greek: to deon], i.e., of what _ought_ to be done), and Natural Law.

For if "the princ.i.p.al business of Ethics is to determine what moral obligation is" (p. 2), then the cla.s.sical work on the subject, the _Nicomachean Ethics_ of Aristotle, is as the play of Hamlet with the character of Hamlet left out: for in that work there is no a.n.a.lysis of moral obligation, no attempt to "fix the comprehension of the idea I _ought_" (ib.). The system there exposed is a system of Eudaemonism, not of Deontology. It is not a treatise on Duty, but on Happiness: it tells us what Happiness, or rational well-being, is, and what conduct is conducive to rational well-being. It may be found convenient to follow Aristotle, and avow that the business of Ethics is not Duty, not Obligation, not Law, not Sanction, but Happiness. That fiery little word _ought_ goes unexplained in Ethics, except in an hypothetical sense, that a man _ought_ to do this, and avoid that, _if_ he means to be a happy man: cf. p. 115. Any man who declares that he does not care about ethical or rational happiness, stands to Ethics as that man stands to Music who "hath no ear for concord of sweet sounds."

All that Ethics or Music can do for such a Philistine is to "send him away to another city, pouring ointment on his head, and crowning him with wool," as Plato would dismiss the tragedian (_Republic_ III.

398). The author of the _Magna Moralia_ well says (I. i. 13): "No science or faculty ever argues the goodness of the end which it proposes to itself: it belongs to some other faculty to consider that.

Neither the physician says that health is a good thing, nor the builder that a house is a good thing: but the one announces that he produces health and how he produces it, and the builder in like manner a house." The professor of Ethics indeed, from the very nature of his subject-matter, says in pointing out happiness that it is the rational sovereign good of man: but to any one unmoved by that demonstration Ethics can have no more to say. Ethics will not threaten, nor talk of duty, law, or punishment.

Ethics, thus strictly considered on an Aristotelian basis, are antecedent to Natural Theology. They belong rather to Natural Anthropology: they are a study of human nature. But as human nature points to G.o.d, so Ethics are not wholly irrespective of G.o.d, considering Him as the object of human happiness and wors.h.i.+p,--the Supreme Being without whom all the aspirations of humanity are at fault (pp. 13-26, 191-197). Ethics do not refer to the commandments of G.o.d, for this simple reason, that they have nothing to say to commandments, or laws, or obligation, or authority. They are simply a system of moral hygiene, which a man may adopt or not: only, like any other physician, the professor of Ethics utters a friendly warning that misery must ensue upon the neglect of what makes for health.

Deontology, not Ethics, expounds and vindicates the idea, _I ought_.

It is the science of Duty. It carries the mild suasions of Ethics into laws, and out of moral prudence it creates conscience. And whereas Ethics do not deal with sin, except under the aspect of what is called "philosophical sin" (p. 119, -- 6), Deontology defines sin in its proper theological sense, as "an offence against G.o.d, or any thought, word, or deed against the law of G.o.d." Deontology therefore presupposes and is consequent upon Natural Theology. At the same time, while Ethics indicate a valuable proof of the existence of G.o.d as the requisite Object of Happiness, Deontology affords a proof of Him as the requisite Lawgiver. Without G.o.d, man's rational desire is frustrate, and man's conscience a misrepresentation of fact. [Footnote 1]

[Footnote 1: This is Cardinal Newman's proof of the existence of G.o.d from Conscience: see pp. 124, 125, and _Grammar of a.s.sent_, pp.

104-111, ed. 1895. With Newman's, "Conscience has both a critical and a judicial office," compare Plato, _Politicus_, 260 B, [Greek: sumpasaes taes gnostikaes to men epitaktikon meros, to de kritikon].

The "critical" office belongs to Ethics: the "judicial," or "preceptive" office [Greek: to epitaktikon] to Deontology; and this latter points to a Person who commands and judges, that is, to G.o.d.]

In this volume, pp. 1-108 make up the treatise on Ethics: pp. 109-176 that on Deontology.

Aristotle writes: "He that acts by intelligence and cultivates understanding, is likely to be best disposed and dearest to G.o.d. For if, as is thought, there is any care of human things on the part of the heavenly powers, we may reasonably expect them to delight in that which is best and most akin to themselves, that is, in intelligence, and to make a return of good to such as supremely love and honour intelligence, as cultivating the thing dearest to Heaven, and so behaving rightly and well. Such, plainly, is the behaviour of the wise. The wise man therefore is the dearest to G.o.d" (Nic. Eth. X. ix.

13). But Aristotle does not work out the connexion between G.o.d and His law on the one hand and human conscience and duty on the other. In that direction the Stoics, and after them the Roman Jurists, went further than Aristotle. By reason of this deficiency, Aristotle, peerless as he is in Ethics, remains an imperfect Moral Philosopher.

MORAL PHILOSOPHY.

PART I. ETHICS.

CHAPTER I.

OF THE OBJECT-MATTER AND PARt.i.tION OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY.

1. Moral Philosophy is the science of human acts in their bearing on human happiness and human duty.

2. Those acts alone are properly called _human_, which a man is master of to do or not to do. A _human act_, then, is an act voluntary and free. A man is what his human acts make him.

3. A _voluntary_ act is an act that proceeds from the will with a knowledge of the end to which the act tends.

4. A free act is an act which so proceeds from the will that under the same antecedent conditions it might have not proceeded.

An act may be more or less voluntary, and more or less free.

5. Moral Philosophy is divided into Ethics, Deontology, and Natural Law. Ethics consider human acts in their bearing on human happiness; or, what is the same thing, in their agreement or disagreement with man's rational nature, and their making for or against his last end.

Deontology is the study of moral obligation, or the fixing of what logicians call the comprehension of the idea _I ought_. Ethics deal with [Greek: to prepon], "the becoming"; Deontology with [Greek: to deon], "the obligatory". Deontology is the science of Duty, as such.

Natural Law (antecedent to Positive Law, whether divine or human, civil or ecclesiastical, national or international) determines duties in detail,--the _extension_ of the idea _I ought_,--and thus is the foundation of Casuistry.

6. In the order of sciences, Ethics are antecedent to Natural Theology; Deontology, consequent upon it.

_Readings_.--St. Thos., _in Eth_., I., lect. 1, init.; _ib_., 1a 2ae, q. 1, art. 1, in corp.; _ib_., q. 58, art. 1, in corp.

CHAPTER II.

OF HAPPINESS.

SECTION I.--_Of Ends_.

1. Every human act is done for some end or purpose. The end is always regarded by the agent in the light of something good. If evil be done, it is done as leading to good, or as bound up with good, or as itself being good for the doer under the circ.u.mstances; no man ever does evil for sheer evil's sake. Yet evil may be the object of the will, not by itself, nor primarily, but in a secondary way, as bound up with the good that is willed in the first place.

2. Many things willed are neither good nor evil in themselves. There is no motive for doing them except in so far as they lead to some good beyond themselves, or to deliverance from some evil, which deliverance counts as a good. A thing is willed, then, either as being good in itself and an end by itself, or as leading to some good end. Once a thing not good and desirable by itself has been taken up by the will as leading to good, it may be taken up again and again without reference to its tendency. But such a thing was not originally taken up except in view of good to come of it. We may will one thing as leading to another, and that to a third, and so on; thus one wills study for learning, learning for examination purposes, examination for a commission in the army, and the commission for glory. That end in which the will rests, willing it for itself without reference to anything beyond, is called the _last end_.

3. An end is either _objective_ or _subjective_. The _objective end_ is the thing wished for, as it exists distinct from the person who wishes it. The _subjective end_ is the possession of the objective end. That possession is a fact of the wisher's own being. Thus _money_ may be an objective end: the corresponding subjective end is _being wealthy_.

4. Is there one subjective last end to all the human acts of a given individual? Is there one supreme motive for all that this or that man deliberately does? At first sight it seems that there is not. The same individual will act now for glory, now for lucre, now for love. But all these different ends are reducible to one, _that it may be well with him and his_. And what is true of one man here, is true of all.

All the human acts of all men are done for the one (subjective) last end just indicated. This end is called _happiness_.

5. Men place their happiness in most different things; some in eating and drinking, some in the heaping up of money, some in gambling, some in political power, some in the gratification of affection, some in reputation of one sort or another. But each one seeks his own speciality because he thinks that he shall be happy, that it will be well with him, when he has attained that. All men, then, do all things for happiness, though not all place their happiness in the same thing.

6. Just as when one goes on a journey, he need not think of his destination at every step of his way, and yet all his steps are directed towards his destination: so men do not think of happiness in all they do, and yet all they do is referred to happiness. Tell a traveller that this is the wrong way to his destination, he will avoid it; convince a man that this act will not be well for him, will not further his happiness, and, while he keeps that conviction princ.i.p.ally before his eyes, he will not do the act. But as a man who began to travel on business, may come to make travelling itself a business, and travel for the sake of going about; so in all cases there is a tendency to elevate into an end that which was, to start with, only valued as a means to an end. So the means of happiness, by being habitually pursued, come to be a part of happiness. Habit is a second nature, and we indulge a habit as we gratify nature. This tendency works itself to an evil extreme in cases where men are become the slaves of habit, and do a thing because they are got into the way of doing it, though they allow that it is a sad and sorry way, and leads them wide of true happiness. These instances show perversion of the normal operation of the will.

_Readings_.--St. Thos., 1a 2ae, q. 1, art. 4, in corp.; _ib_., q. 1, art. 6, 7; _ib_., q. 5, art. 8; Ar., _Eth_., I., vii., 4, 5.

SECTION II.--_Definition of Happiness_.

1. Though all men do all things, in the last resort, that it may be well with them and theirs, that is, for happiness vaguely apprehended, yet when they come to specify what happiness is, answers so various are given and acted upon, that we might be tempted to conclude that each man is the measure of his own happiness, and that no standard of happiness for all can be defined. But it is not so. Man is not the measure of his own happiness, any more than of his own health. The diet that he takes to be healthy, may prove his poison; and where he looks for happiness, he may find the extreme of wretchedness and woe.

For man must live up to his nature, to his bodily const.i.tution, to be a healthy man; and to his whole nature, but especially to his mental and moral const.i.tution, if he is to be a happy man. And nature, though it admits of individual peculiarities, is specifically the same for all. There will, then, be one definition of happiness for all men, specifically as such.

2. _Happiness is an act, not a state_. That is to say, the happiness of man does not lie in his having something done to him, nor in his being habitually able to do something, but in his actually doing something. "To be up and doing," that is happiness,--[Greek: en to zaen kai energein]. (Ar., _Eth._, IX., ix., 5.) This is proved from the consideration that happiness is the crown and perfection of human nature; but the perfection of a thing lies in its ultimate act, or "second act," that is, in its not merely being able to act, but acting. But action is of two sorts. One proceeds from the agent to some outward matter, as cutting and burning. This action cannot be happiness, for it does not perfect the agent, but rather the patient.

There is another sort of act immanent in the agent himself, as feeling, understanding, and willing: these perfect the agent.

Happiness will be found to be one of these immanent acts. Furthermore, there is action full of movement and change, and there is an act done in stillness and rest. The latter, as will presently appear, is happiness; and partly for this reason, and partly to denote the exclusion of care and trouble, happiness is often spoken of as _a rest_. It is also called _a state_, because one of the elements of happiness is permanence. How the act of happiness can be permanent, will appear hereafter.

3. _Happiness is an act in discharge of the function proper to man, as man_. There is a function proper to the eye, to the ear, to the various organs of the human body: there must be a function proper to man as such. That can be none of the functions of the vegetative life, nor of the mere animal life within him. Man is not happy by doing what a rose-bush can do, digest and a.s.similate its food: nor by doing what a horse does, having sensations pleasurable and painful, and muscular feelings. Man is happy by doing what man alone can do in this world, that is, acting by reason and understanding. Now the human will acting by reason may do three things. It may regulate the pa.s.sions, notably desire and fear: the outcome will be the moral virtues of temperance and fort.i.tude. It may direct the understanding, and ultimately the members of the body, in order to the production of some practical result in the external world, as a bridge. Lastly, it may direct the understanding to speculate and think, contemplate and consider, for mere contemplation's sake. Happiness must take one or other of these three lanes.

4. First, then, _happiness is not the practice of the moral virtues of temperance and fort.i.tude_. Temperance makes a man strong against the temptations to irrationality and swinishness that come of the bodily appet.i.tes. But happiness lies, not in deliverance from what would degrade man to the level of the brutes, but in something which shall raise man to the highest level of human nature. Fort.i.tude, again, is not exercised except in the hour of danger; but happiness lies in an environment of security, not of danger. And in general, the moral virtues can be exercised only upon occasions, as they come and go; but happiness is the light of the soul, that must burn with steady flame and uninterrupted act, and not be dependent on chance occurrences.

5. Secondly, _happiness is not the use of the practical understanding with a view to production_. Happiness is an end in itself, a terminus beyond which the act of the will can go no further; but this use of the understanding is in view of an ulterior end, the thing to be produced. That product is either useful or artistic; if useful, it ministers to some further end still; if artistic, it ministers to contemplation. Happiness, indeed, is no exercise of the practical understanding whatever. The n.o.blest exercises of practical understanding are for military purposes and for statesmans.h.i.+p. But war surely is not an end in itself to any right-minded man. Statecraft, too, has an end before it, the happiness of the people. It is a labour in view of happiness. We must follow down the third lane, and say: