Moral Science; a Compendium of Ethics Part 12

c.u.mberland's' Latin work, _De Legibus Naturae, disquisitio philosophica contra Hobbium inst.i.tuta_, appeared in 1672. The book is important as a distinctly philosophical disquisition, but its extraordinarily discursive character renders impossible anything like a.n.a.lysis. His chief points will be presented in a fuller summary than usual.

I.--The STANDARD of Moral Good is given in the laws of Nature, which may all be summed up in one great Law--_Benevolence to all rational agents_ or the endeavour to the utmost of our power to promote the common good of all. His theory is hardly to be distinguished from the Greatest Happiness principle; unless it might be represented as putting forward still more prominently the search for Individual Happiness, with a fixed a.s.sumption that this is best secured through the promotion of the general good. No action, he declares, can be called 'morally good that does not in its own nature contribute somewhat to the happiness of men.' The speciality of his view is his professing not to make an induction as regards the character of actions from the observation of their effects, but to deduce the propriety of (benevolent) actions from, the consideration of the character and position of rational agents in nature. Rules of conduct, all directed to the promotion of the Happiness of rational agents, may thus be found in the form of propositions impressed upon the mind by the Nature of Things; and these are then interpreted to be laws of Nature (summed up in the one great Law), promulgated by G.o.d with the natural effects of actions as Sanctions of Reward and Punishment to enforce them.

II.--His Psychology of Ethics may be reduced to the following heads.

1. The Faculty is the Reason, apprehending the exact Nature of Things, and determining accordingly the modes of action that are best suited to promote the happiness of rational agents.

2. Of the Faculty, under the name of _Conscience_, he gives this description: 'The mind is conscious to itself of all its own actions, and both can, and often does, observe what counsels produced them; it naturally sits a judge upon its own actions, and thence procures to itself either tranquillity and joy, or anxiety and sorrow.' The princ.i.p.al design of his whole book is to show 'how this power of the mind, either by itself, or excited by external objects, forms certain universal practical propositions, which give us a more distinct idea of the happiness of mankind, and p.r.o.nounces by what actions of ours, in all variety of circ.u.mstances, that happiness may most effectually be obtained.' [Conscience is thus only Reason, or the knowing faculty in general, as specially concerned about actions in their effect upon happiness; it rarely takes the place of the more general term.]

3. He expressly leaves aside the supposition that we have _innate ideas_ of the laws of Nature whereby conduct is to be guided, or of the matters that they are conversant about. He has not, he says, been so happy as to learn the laws of Nature by so short a way, and thinks it ill-advised to build the doctrine of natural religion and morality upon a hypothesis that has been rejected by the generality of philosophers, as well heathen as Christian, and can never be proved against the Epicureans, with whom lies his chief controversy. Yet he declines to oppose the doctrine of innate ideas, because it looks with a friendly eye upon piety and morality; and perhaps it may be the case, that such ideas are _both_ born with us and afterwards impressed upon us from without.

4. Will, he defines as 'the consent of the mind with the judgment of the understanding, concerning things agreeing among themselves.'

Although, therefore, he supposes that nothing but Good and Evil can determine the will, and that the will is even _necessarily_ determined to seek the one and flee the other, he escapes the conclusion that the will is moved only by private good, by accepting the implication of private with common good as the fixed judgment of the understanding or right reason.

5. He argues against the resolution of all Benevolence into self-seeking, and thus claims for man a principle of disinterested action. But what he is far more concerned to prove is, that benevolence of all to all accords best with the whole frame of nature, stands forth with perfect evidence, upon a rational apprehension of the universe, as the great Law of Nature, and is the most effectual means of promoting the happiness of individuals, viz., through the happiness of all.

III.--Happiness is given as connected with the most full and constant exercise of all our powers, about the best and greatest objects and effects that are adequate and proportional to them; as consisting in the enlargement or perfection of the faculties of any one thing or several. Here, and in his protest against Hobbes's taking affection and desire, instead of Reason, as the measure of the goodness of things, may be seen in what way he pa.s.ses from the conception of Individual, to the notion of Common Good, as the end of action. Reason affirms the common good to be more essentially connected with the perfection of man than any pursuit of private advantage. Still there is no disposition in him to sacrifice private to the common good: he declares that no man is called on to promote the common good beyond his ability, and attaches no meaning to the general good beyond the special good of _all_ the particular rational agents in their respective places, from G.o.d (to whom he ventures to ascribe a Tranquillity, Joy, or Complacency) downwards. The happiness of men he considers as _Internal_, arising _immediately_ from the vigorous exercise of the faculties about their proper and n.o.blest objects; and _External_, the _mediate_ advantages procurable from G.o.d and men by a course of benevolent action.

IV.--His Moral Code is arrived at by a somewhat elaborate deduction from the great Law of Nature enjoining Benevolence or Promotion of the Common Good of all rational beings.

This Common Good comprehends the Honour of G.o.d, and the Good or Happiness of Men, as Nations, Families, and Individuals.

The actions that promote this Common Good, are Acts either of the understanding, or of the will and affections, or of the body as determined by the will. From this he finds that _Prudence_ (including Constancy of Mind and Moderation) is enjoined in the Understanding, and, in the Will, _Universal Benevolence_ (making, with Prudence, _Equity_), _Government of the Pa.s.sions_, and the Special Laws of Nature--_Innocence, Self-denial, Grat.i.tude, &c._

This he gets from the consideration of what is contained in the general Law of Nature. But the obligation to the various moral virtues does not appear, until he has shown that the Law of Nature, for procuring the Common Happiness of all, suggests a natural law of _Universal Justice_, commanding to make and preserve a _division_ of Rights, _i.e._, giving to particular persons Property or Dominion over things and persons necessary to their Happiness. There are thus Rights of G.o.d (to Honour, Glory, &c.) and Rights of Men (to have those advantages continued to them whereby they may preserve and perfect themselves, and be useful to all others).

For the same reason that _Rights_ of particular persons are fixed and preserved, viz., that the common good of all should be promoted by every one,--two _Obligations_ are laid upon all.

(1) Of GIVING: We are to contribute to others such a share of the things committed to our trust, as may not destroy the part that is necessary to our own happiness. Hence are obligatory the virtues (_a_) in regard to Gifts, _Liberality, Generosity, Compa.s.sion, &c._; (_b_) in regard to Common Conversation or Intercourse, _Gravity and Courteousness, Veracity, Faith, Urbanity, &c._

(2) Of RECEIVING: We are to reserve to ourselves such use of our own, as may be most advantageous to, or at least consistent with, the good of others. Hence the obligation or the virtues pertaining to the various branches of a limited Self-Love, (_a_) with regard to our _essential parts_, viz., Mind and Body--_Temperance_ in the natural desires concerned in the preservation of the individual and the species; (_b_) with regard to _goods of fortune--Modesty, Humility, and Magnanimity_.

V.--He connects Politics with Ethics, by finding, in the establishment of civil government, a more effectual means of promoting the common happiness according to the Law of Nature, than in any equal division of things. But the Law of Nature, he declares, being before the civil laws, and containing the ground of their obligation, can never be superseded by these. Practically, however, the difference between him and Hobbes comes to very little; he recognizes no kind of earthly check upon the action of the civil power.

VI.--With reference to Religion, he professes to abstain entirely from theological questions, and does abstain from mixing up the doctrines of Revelation. But he attaches a distinctly divine authority to his moral rules, and supplements earthly by supernatural sanctions.

RALPH CUDWORTH. [1617-88.]

Cudworth's _Treatise concerning Eternal and Immutable Morality_, did not appear until 1731, more than forty years after his death. Having in a former work ('Intellectual system of the Universe') contended against the 'Atheistical Fate' of Epicurus and others, he here attacks the 'Theologick Fate' (the arbitrarily omnipotent Deity) of Hobbes, charging him with reviving exploded opinions of Protagoras and the ancient Greeks, that take away the essential and eternal discrimination of moral good and evil, of just and unjust.

After piling up, out of the store of his cla.s.sical and scholastic erudition, a great ma.s.s of testimony regarding all who had ever founded distinctions of Right and Wrong upon mere arbitrary disposition, whether of G.o.d or the State of men in general, he shadows forth his own view. Moral Good and Evil, Just and Unjust, Honest and Dishonest (if they be not mere names without any signification, or names for nothing else but _Willed_ or _Commanded_, but have a reality in respect of the persons obliged to do and to avoid them), cannot possibly be arbitrary things, made by Will without nature; because it is universally true that Things are what they are not by Will, but by nature. As it is the nature of a triangle to have three angles equal to two right angles, so it is the nature of 'good things' to have the nature of goodness, and things just the nature of justice; and Omnipotence is no more able to make a thing good without the fixed nature of goodness, than to make a triangular body without the properties of a triangle, or two things like or equal, without the natures of Likeness and Equality. The Will of G.o.d is the supreme _efficient_ cause of all things, but not the _formal_ cause of anything besides itself. Nor is this to be understood as at all derogating from G.o.d's perfection; to make natural justice and right independent of his will is merely to set his Wisdom, which is a rule or measure, above his Will, which is something indeterminate, but essentially regulable and measureable; and if it be the case that above even his wisdom, and determining it in turn, stands his Infinite Goodness, the greatest perfection of his will must lie in its being thus twice determined.

By far the largest part of Cudworth's treatise consists of a general metaphysical argument to establish the independence of the mind's faculty of Knowledge, with reference to Sense and Experience. In Sense, according to the doctrine of the old 'Atomical philosophy' (of Democritus, Protagoras, &c.--but he thinks it must be referred back to Moses himself!), he sees nothing but _fancies_ excited in us by local motions in the organs, taken on from 'the motion of particles' that const.i.tute 'the whole world.' All the more, therefore, must there exist a superior power of Intellection and Knowledge of a different nature from sense, a power not terminating in mere seeming and appearance only, but in the reality of things, and reaching to the comprehension of what really and absolutely is; whose objects are the immutable and eternal essences and natures of things, and their unchangeable relations to one another. These _Rationes_ or Verities of things are _intelligible_. only; are all comprehended in the eternal mind or intellect of the Deity, and from Him derived to our 'particular intellects.' They are neither arbitrary nor phantastical--neither alterable by Will nor changeable by Opinion.

Such eternal and immutable Verities, then, the moral distinctions of Good and Evil are, in the pauses of the general argument, declared to be. They, 'as they must have some certain natures which are the actions or souls of men,' are unalterable by Will or Opinion. 'Modifications of Mind and Intellect,' they are as much more real and substantial things than Hard, Soft, Hot, and Cold, modifications of mere senseless matter--and even so, on the principles of the atomical philosophy, dependent on the soul for their existence--as Mind itself stands prior in the order of nature to Matter. In the mind they are as 'antic.i.p.ations of morality' springing up, not indeed 'from certain rules or propositions arbitrarily printed on the soul as on a book,'

but from some more inward and vital Principle in intellectual beings, as such whereby these have within themselves a natural determination to do some things and to avoid others.

The only other ethical determinations made by Cudworth may thus be summarized:--Things called _naturally_ Good and Due are such as _the intellectual nature_ obliges to immediately, absolutely, and perpetually, and upon no condition of any voluntary action done or omitted intervening; things _positively_ Good and Due are such as are in themselves indifferent, but the intellectual nature obliges to them accidentally or hypothetically, upon condition, in the case of a command, of some voluntary act of another person invested with lawful authority, or of one's self, in the case of a specific promise. In a positive command (as of the civil ruler), what _obliges_ is only the intellectual nature of him that is commanded, in that he recognizes the lawful authority of him that commands, and so far determines and modifies his general duty of obedience as to do an action immaterial in itself for the sake of the formality of yielding obedience to lawfully const.i.tuted authority. So, in like manner, a specific promise, in itself immaterial and not enjoined by natural justice, is to be kept for the sake of the formality of keeping faith, which _is_ enjoined.

Cudworth's work, in which these are nearly all the ethical allusions, gives no scope for a summary under the various topics.

I.--Specially excluding any such External _Standard_ of moral Good as the arbitrary Will, either of G.o.d or the Sovereign, he views it as a simple ultimate natural quality of actions or dispositions, as included among the verities of things, by the side of which the phenomena of Sense are unreal.

II.--The general Intellectual Faculty cognizes the moral verities, which it contains within itself and brings rather than finds.

III.--He does not touch upon Happiness; probably he would lean to asceticism. He sets up no moral code.

IV.--Obligation to the Positive Civil Laws in matters indifferent follows from the intellectual recognition of the established relation between ruler and subject.

V.--Morality is not dependent upon the Deity in any other sense than the whole frame of things is.

SAMUEL CLARKE. [1675-1729.]

Clarke put together his two series of Boyle Lectures (preached 1704 and 1705) as 'A Discourse, concerning the Being and Attributes of G.o.d, the Obligations of Natural Religion and the Truth and Certainty of the Christian Revelation,' in answer to Hobbes, Spinoza, &c. The burden of the ethical discussion falls under the head of the Obligations of Natural Religion, in the second series.

He enounces this all-comprehensive proposition: 'The same necessary and eternal different Relations that different Things bear one to another, and the same consequent Fitness or Unfitness of the application of different things or different relations one to another, with regard to which the will of G.o.d always and necessarily does determine itself to choose to act only what is agreeable to Justice, Equity, Goodness, and Truth, in order to the welfare of the whole universe--ought likewise constantly to determine the Wills of all subordinate rational beings, to govern all their actions by the same rules, for the good of the public, in their respective stations. That is, these eternal and necessary differences of things make it fit and reasonable for creatures so to act; they cause it to be their duty, or lay an obligation on them so to do; even separate from the consideration of these Rules being the positive Will or Command of G.o.d, and also antecedent to any respect or regard, expectation or apprehension of any particular private and personal Advantage or Disadvantage, Reward or Punishment, either present or future, annexed either by natural consequence, or by positive appointment, to the practising or neglecting of these rules. In the explication of this, nearly his whole system is contained.

His first concern is to impress the fact that there are necessary and eternal differences of ail things, and implied or consequent relations (proportions or disproportions) existing amongst them; and to bring under this general head the special case of differences of Persons (e.g., G.o.d and Man, Man and Fellow-man), for the sake of the implication that to different persons there belong peculiar _Fitnesses_ and _Unfitnesses_ of circ.u.mstances; or, which is the same thing, that there arises necessarily amongst them a suitableness or unsuitableness of certain manners of Behaviour. The counter-proposition that he contends against is, that the relations among persons depend upon _positive const.i.tution_ of some kind, instead of being founded unchangeably in _the nature and reason of things_.

Next he shows how, in the rational or intellectual recognition of naturally existent relations amongst things (he always means persons chiefly), there is contained an obligation. When G.o.d, in his Omniscience and absolute freedom from error, is found determining his Will always according to this eternal reason of things, it is very unreasonable and blameworthy in the intelligent creatures whom he has made so far like himself, not to govern their actions by the same eternal rule of Reason, but to suffer themselves to depart from it through negligent _misunderstanding_ or wilful _pa.s.sion_. Herein lies obligation: a man _ought_ to act according to the Law of Reason, because he can as little refrain from _a.s.senting_ to the reasonableness and fitness of guiding his actions by it, as refuse his a.s.sent to a geometrical demonstration when he understands the terms. The original obligation of all is the eternal Reason of Things; the sanction of Rewards and Punishments (though 'truly the most effectual means of keeping creatures in their duty') is only a secondary and additional obligation. Proof of his position he finds in men's judgment of their own actions, better still in their judgments of others' actions, best of all in their judgment of injuries inflicted on themselves. Nor does any objection hold from the ignorance of savages in matters of morality: they are equally ignorant of the plainest mathematical truths; the need of instruction does not take away the necessary difference of moral Good and Evil, any more than it takes away the necessary proportions of numbers. He, then, instead of deducing all our several duties as he might, contents himself with mentioning the three great branches of them, (_a_) Duties in respect of _G.o.d_, consisting of sentiments and acts (Veneration, Love, Wors.h.i.+p, &c.) called forth by the consideration of his attributes, and having a character of Fitness far beyond any that is visible in applying _equal_ geometrical figures to one another, (_b_) Duties in respect of our _Fellow-creatures:_ (1) Justice and Equity, the doing as we would be done by. Iniquity is the very same in Action, as Falsity or Contradiction in Theory; what makes the one _absurd_ makes the other _unreasonable_; 'it would be impossible for men not to be as much (!) ashamed of _doing Iniquity_, as they are of _believing Contradictions_;' (2) _Universal Love or Benevolence_, the promoting the welfare or happiness of all, which is obligatory on various grounds: the Good being the fit and reasonable, the greatest Good is the _most_ fit and reasonable; by this G.o.d's action is determined, and so ought ours; no Duty affords a more ample pleasure; besides having a 'certain natural affection' for those most closely connected with us, we desire to multiply affinities, which means to found society, for the sake of the more comfortable life that mutual good offices bring. [This is a very confused deduction of an _obligation_.'] (c) Duties in respect to our _Selves_, viz., _self-preservation, temperance, contentment, &c._; for not being authors of our being, we have no just power or authority to take it away directly, or, by abuse of our faculties, indirectly.

After expatiating in a rhetorical strain on the eternal, universal, and absolutely unchangeable character of the law of Nature or Right Reason, he specifies the sense wherein the eternal moral obligations are independent of the will of G.o.d himself; it comes to this, that, although G.o.d makes all things and the relations between them, nothing is holy and good because he commands it, but he commands it because it is holy and good. Finally, he expounds the relation of Reward and Punishment to the law of Nature; the obligation of it is before and distinct from these; but, while full of admiration for the Stoical idea of the self-sufficiency of virtue, he is constrained to add that 'men never will generally, and indeed 'tis not very reasonably to be expected they should, part with all the comforts of life, and even life itself, without any expectation of a future recompense.' The 'manifold absurdities' of Hobbes being first exposed, he accordingly returns, in pursuance of the theological argument of his Lectures, to show that the eternal moral obligations, founded on the natural differences of things, are at the same time the express will and command of G.o.d to all rational creatures, and must necessarily and certainly be attended with Rewards and Punishments in a future state.

The summary of Clarke's views might stand thus:--

I.--The STANDARD is a certain Fitness of action between persons, implicated in their nature as much as any fixed proportions between numbers or other relation among things. Except in such an expression as this, moral good admits of no kind of external reference.

II.--There is very little Psychology involved. The Faculty is the Reason; its action a case of mere intellectual apprehension. The element of Feeling is nearly excluded. Disinterested sentiment is so minor a point as to call forth only the pa.s.sing allusion to 'a certain natural affection.'

III.--Happiness is not considered except in a vague reference to good public and private as involved with Fit and Unfit action.

IV.--His account of Duties is remarkable only for the consistency of his attempt to find parallels for each amongst intellectual relations.

The climax intended in the a.s.similation of Injustice to Contradictions is a very anti-climax; if people were only '_as much_' ashamed of doing injustice as of believing contradictions, the moral order of the world would be poorly provided for.

V.--The relation of Ethics to Politics is hardly touched. Society is born of the desire to multiply affinities through mutual interchange of good offices.

VI.--His Ethical disquisition is only part of a Theological argument; and this helps to explain his a.s.sertion of the Independence as well as of the Insufficiency of Morality. The final outcome of the discussion is that Morality needs the support of Revelation. But, to get from this an argument for the truth of Revelation, it is necessary that morality should have an independent foundation in the nature of things, apart from any direct divine appointment.

WILLIAM WOLLASTON (1659-1724), author of the 'Religion of Nature Delineated,' is usually put into the same cla.s.s of moralists with Clarke. With him, a _bad_ action (whether of commission or omission) contains the denial of a true proposition. Truth can be denied by actions as well as by words. Thus, the violation of a contract is the denial by an action that the contract has been concluded. Robbing a traveller is the denial that what you take from him is his. An action that denies one or more true propositions cannot be good, and is necessarily bad. A _good_ action is one whose omission would be bad or whose contrary is bad, in the above sense. An _indifferent_ action is one that can be omitted or done without contradicting any truth.

Reason, the judge of what is true and false, is the only faculty concerned; but, at the same time, Wollaston makes large reference to the subject of Happiness, finding it to consist in an excess of pleasures as compared with pains. He holds that his doctrine is in conformity with all the facts. It affirms a progressive morality, that keeps pace with and depend upon the progress of Science. It can explain _errors_ in morals as distinct from vice. An error is the affirmation by an action of a false proposition, thought to be true; the action is bad, but the agent is innocent.

JOHN LOCKE. [1632-1704.]

Locke did not apply himself to the consecutive evolution of an Ethical theory; whence his views, although on the whole sufficiently unmistakeable, are not always reconcileable with one another.

In Book I. of the 'Essay on the Understanding' he devotes himself to the refutation of Innate Ideas, whether Speculative or Practical. Chap.

III. is on the alleged Innate Practical Principles, or rules of Right and Wrong. The objections urged against these Principles have scarcely been added to, and have never been answered. We shall endeavour to indicate the heads of the reasoning.

1. The Innate Practical Principles are for the most part not self-evident; they are, in this respect, not on an equal footing with the Speculative Principles whose innate origin is also disputed. They require reasoning and explanation in order to be understood. Many men are ignorant of them, while others a.s.sent to them slowly, if they do a.s.sent to them; all which is at variance with their being innate.