Moral Science; a Compendium of Ethics Part 13

2. There is no Practical Principle universally received among mankind.

All that can be said of Justice is that _most men_ agree to recognize it. It is vain to allege of confederacies of thieves, that they keep faith with one another; for this keeping of faith is merely for their own convenience. We cannot call that a sense of Justice which merely binds a man to a certain number of his fellow-criminals, in order the more effectually to plunder and kill honest men. Instead of Justice, it is the essential condition of success in Injustice.

If it be said in reply, that these men tacitly a.s.sent in their minds to what their practice contradicts, Locke answers, first, that men's actions must be held as the best interpreters of their thoughts; and if many men's practices, and some men's open professions, have been opposed to these principles, we cannot conclude them to be Innate.

Secondly, It is difficult for us to a.s.sent to Innate Practical Principles, ending only in contemplation. Such principles either influence our conduct, or they are nothing. There is no mistake as to the Innate principles of the desire of happiness, and aversion to misery; these do not stop short in tacit a.s.sent, but urge every man's conduct every hour of his life. If there were anything corresponding to these in the sense of Right and Wrong, we should have no dispute about them.

3. There is no Moral rule, that may not have a reason demanded for it; which ought not to be the case with any innate principle. That we should do as we would be done by, is the foundation of all morality, and yet, if proposed to any one for the first time, might not such an one, without absurdity, ask a reason why? But this would imply that there is some deeper principle for it to repose upon, capable of being a.s.signed as its motive; that it is not ultimate, and therefore not innate. That men should observe compacts is a great and undeniable rule, yet, in this, a Christian would give as reason the command of G.o.d; a Hobbist would say that the public requires it, and would punish for disobeying it; and an old heathen philosopher would have urged that it was opposed to human virtue and perfection.

Bound up with this consideration, is the circ.u.mstance that moral rules differ among men, according to their views of happiness. The existence of G.o.d, and our obedience to him, are manifest in many ways, and are the true ground of morality, seeing that only G.o.d can call to account every offender; yet, from the union of virtue and public happiness, all men have recommended the practice of what is for their own obvious advantage. There is quite enough in this self-interest to cause moral rules to be enforced by men that care neither for the supreme Lawgiver, nor for the h.e.l.l ordained by him to punish transgressors.

After all, these great principles of morality are more commended than practised. As to Conscience checking us in these breaches, making them fewer than they would otherwise be, men may arrive at such a conscience, or self-restraining sentiment, in other ways than by an innate endowment. Some men may come to a.s.sent to moral rules from a knowledge of their value as means to ends. Others may take up the same view as a part of their education. However the persuasion is come by, it will serve as a conscience; which conscience is nothing else than our own opinion of the rect.i.tude or pravity of our actions.

How could men with serenity and confidence transgress rules stamped upon their inmost soul? Look at the practices of nations civilized and uncivilized; at the robberies, murders, rapes of an army sacking a town; at the legalized usages of nations, the destruction of infants and of aged parents for personal convenience; cannibalism; the most monstrous forms of unchast.i.ty; the fas.h.i.+onable murder named Duelling.

Where are the innate principles of Justice, Piety, Grat.i.tude, Equity, Chast.i.ty?

If we read History, and cast our glance over the world, we shall scarcely find any rule of Morality (excepting such as are necessary to hold society together, and these too with great limitations) but what is somewhere or other set aside, and an opposite established, by whole societies of men. Men may break a law without disowning it; but it is inconceivable that a whole nation should publicly reject and renounce what every one of them, certainly and infallibly, knows to be a law.

Whatever practical principle is innate, must be known to every one to be just and good. The generally allowed breach of any rule anywhere must be held to prove that it is not innate. If there be any rule having a fair claim to be imprinted by nature, it is the rule that Parents should preserve and cherish their children. If such a principle be innate, it must be found regulating practice everywhere; or, at the lowest, it must be known and a.s.sented to. But it is very far from having been uniformly practised, even among enlightened nations. And as to its being an innate truth, known to all men, that also is untrue.

Indeed, the terms of it are not intelligible without other knowledge.

The statement, 'it is the duty of parents to preserve their children,'

cannot be understood without a Law; a Law requires a Lawmaker, and Reward or Punishment. And as punishment does not always follow in this life, nothing less than a recognition of Divine Law will suffice; in other words, there must be intuitions of G.o.d, Law, Obligation, Punishment, and a Future Life: every one of which may be, and is, deemed to be innate.

It is incredible that men, if all these things were stamped on their minds, could deliberately offend against them; still more, that rulers should silently connive at such transgressions.

4. The supporters of innate principles are unable to point out distinctly what they are.[18] Yet, if these were imprinted on the mind, there could be no more doubt about them than about the number of our fingers. We well know that, if men of different sects were to write out their respective lists, they would set down exactly such as suited their several schools or churches.

There is, Locke remarks, a ready, but not very material, answer to his objections, namely, that the innate principles may, by Education and Custom, be darkened and worn out of men's minds. But this takes away at once the argument from universal consent, and leaves nothing but what each party thinks should pa.s.s for universal consent, namely, their own private persuasion: a method whereby a set of men presuming themselves to be the only masters of right reason, put aside the votes and opinions of the rest of mankind. Thus, notwithstanding the innate light, we are as much in the dark as if it did not exist; a rule that will warp any way is not to be distinguished amidst its contraries. If these rules are so liable to vary, through advent.i.tious notions, we should find them clearest in children and in persons wholly illiterate.

He grants that there are many opinions, received by men of different countries, educations, and tempers, and held as unquestionable first principles; but then the absurdity of some, and the mutual contradiction of others, make it impossible that they should be all true. Yet it will often happen that these men will sooner part with their lives, than suffer the truth of their opinions to be questioned.

We can see from our experience how the belief in principles grows up.

Doctrines, with no better original than the superst.i.tion of a nurse, or the authority of an old woman, may in course of time, and by the concurrence of neighbours, grow up to the dignity of first truths in Religion and in Morality. Persons matured under those influences, and, looking into their own minds, find nothing anterior to the opinions taught them before they kept a record of themselves; they, therefore, without scruple, conclude that those propositions whose origin they cannot trace are the impress of G.o.d and nature upon their minds. Such a result is unavoidable in the circ.u.mstances of the bulk of mankind, who require some foundation of principles to rest upon, and have no means of obtaining them but on trust from others. _Custom is it greater power than Nature_, and, while we are yet young, seldom fails to make us wors.h.i.+p as divine what she has inured us to; nor is it to be wondered at, that, when we come to mature life, and are engrossed with quite different matters, we are indisposed to sit down and examine all our received tenets, to find ourselves in the wrong, to run counter to the opinions of our country or party, and to be branded with such epithets as whimsical, sceptical, Atheist. It is inevitable that we should take up at first borrowed principles; and unless we have all the faculties and the means of searching into their foundations, we naturally go on to the end as we have begun.

In the following chapter (IV.), he argues the general question of Innate Ideas in the case of the Idea of G.o.d.

In Book II., Chap. XXI., Locke discusses the freedom of the will, with some allusions to the nature of happiness and the causes of wrong conduct. Happiness is the utmost pleasure we are capable of, misery the utmost pain; pleasure and pain define Good and Evil. In practice, we are chiefly occupied in getting rid of troubles; absent good does not much move us. All uneasiness being removed, a moderate portion of good contents us; and some few degrees of pleasure in a succession of ordinary enjoyments are enough to make happiness. [Epicurus, and others among the ancients, said as much.]

Men have wrong desires, and do wrong acts, but it is from wrong judgments. They never mistake a present pleasure or pain; they always act correctly upon that. They are the victims of deceitful appearances; they make wrong judgments in comparing present with future pains, such is the weakness of the mind's const.i.tution in this department. Our wrong judgments proceed partly from ignorance and partly from inadvertence, and our preference of vice to virtue is accounted for by these wrong judgments.

Chap. XXVIII. discusses Moral Relations. Good and Evil are nothing but Pleasure and Pain, and what causes them. Moral Good or Evil is the conformity or unconformity of our voluntary actions to some Law, entailing upon us good or evil by the will and power of the Law-giver, to which good and evil we apply the names Reward and Punishment.

There are three sorts of Moral Rules: 1st, The Divine Law, whether promulgated by the Light of Nature or by Revelation, and enforced by rewards and punishments in a future life. This law, when ascertained, is the touchstone of moral rect.i.tude. 2nd, The Civil Law, or the Law of the State, supported by the penalties of the civil judge. 3rd, The Law of Opinion or Reputation. Even after resigning, to public authority, the disposal of the public force, men still retain the power of privately approving or disapproving actions, according to their views of virtue and vice. The being commended or dispraised by our fellows may thus be called the sanction of Reputation, a power often surpa.s.sing in efficacy both the other sanctions.

Morality is the reference of all actions to one or other of these three Laws. Instead of applying innate notions of good and evil, the mind, having been taught the several rules enjoined by these authorities, compares any given action with these rules, and p.r.o.nounces accordingly.

A rule is an aggregate of simple Ideas; so is an action; and the conformity required is the ordering of the action so that the simple ideas belonging to it may correspond to those required by the law.

Thus, all Moral Notions may be reduced to the simple ideas gained by the two leading sources--Sensation and Reflection. Murder is an aggregate of simple ideas, traceable in the detail to these sources.

The summary of Locke's views is as follows:--

I.--With reference to the Standard of Morality, we have these two great positions--

First, That the production of pleasure and pain to sentient beings is the ultimate foundation of moral good and evil.

Secondly, That morality is a system of Law, enacted by one or other of three different authorities.

II.--In the Psychology of Ethics, Locke, by implication, holds--

First, That there is no innate moral sentiment; that our moral ideas are the generalities of moral actions. That our faculties of moral discernment are--(1) those that discern the pleasures and pains of mankind; and (2), those that comprehend and interpret the laws of G.o.d, the Nation, and Public Opinion. And (3) he counts that the largest share in the formation of our Moral Sentiments is due to Education and Custom.

[We have seen his views on Free-will, p. 413.]

As regards the nature of Disinterested Action, he p.r.o.nounces no definite opinion. He makes few attempts to a.n.a.lyze the emotional and active part of our nature.

III.--His Summum Bonum is stated generally as the procuring of Pleasure and the avoiding of Pain.

IV.--He has no peculiar views on the Moral Code, or on the enforcements of Morality.

V.--The connexion of Ethics with Politics is, in him, the a.s.similating of Morality to Law.

VI.--With reference to Theology, he considers that, by the exercise of the Reason, we may discover the existence and attributes of G.o.d, and our duties to him; his ascertained will is the highest moral rule, the true touchstone of Moral Rect.i.tude.

JOSEPH BUTLER. [1692-1752.]

Butler's Ethical System may be found--First, in a short Dissertation on Virtue, appended to the a.n.a.logy; secondly, and chiefly, in his first three Sermons, ent.i.tled 'Human Nature;' thirdly, in other Sermons, as (V.) on Compa.s.sion, and (XL) on Benevolence. Various ill.u.s.trations of Ethical doctrine are interspersed through the a.n.a.logy, as in Part I., Chap. 2, ent.i.tled 'the government of G.o.d by rewards and punishments.'

The Dissertation on Virtue is intended to vindicate, in man, the existence of a moral nature, apart from both Prudence and Benevolence.

A moral government supposes a moral nature in man, or a power of distinguis.h.i.+ng right from wrong. All men and all systems agree as to the fact of moral perceptions.

As characteristics of these moral perceptions, it is to be noted--First, they refer to voluntary actions. Secondly, they are accompanied with the feelings of good or of ill desert, which good or ill desert is irrespective of the good of society. Thirdly, the perception of ill desert has regard to the capacities of the agent.

Fourthly, Prudence, or regard to ourselves, is a fair subject of moral approbation, and imprudence of the contrary. Our own self-interest seems to require strengthening by other men's manifested pleasure and displeasure. Still, this position is by no means indisputable, and the author is willing to give up the words 'virtue' and 'vice,' as applicable to prudence and folly; and to contend merely that our moral faculty is not indifferent to this cla.s.s of actions. Fifthly, Virtue is not wholly resolvable into Benevolence (that is, the general good, or Utility[19]). This is shown by the fact that our approbation is not in proportion to the amount of happiness flowing from an action [he means _immediately_ flowing, which does not decide the question]. We disapprove of falsehood, injustice, and unprovoked violence, even although more happiness would result from them than from the contrary.

Moreover, we are not always judges of the whole consequences of acting.

Undoubtedly, however, benevolence is our duty, if there be no moral principle to oppose it.

The t.i.tle 'Human Nature,' given to Butler's chief Ethical exposition, indicates that he does not take an _a priori_ view of the foundations of Ethics, like Cudworth and Clarke, but makes them repose on the const.i.tution of the human mind.

In Sermon first, he lays out the different parts of our Emotional and Active nature, including Benevolence, Self-love, Conscience. The recognition of these three as distinct, and mutually irresolvable, is the Psychological basis of his Ethics.[20]

The existence of pure or disinterested Benevolence is proved by such facts, as Friends.h.i.+p, Compa.s.sion, Parental and Filial affections, Benevolent impulses to mankind generally. But although the object of benevolence is the public good, and of self-love private good, yet the two ultimately coincide. [This questionable a.s.sertion must trammel any proof that the author can give of our possessing purely disinterested impulses.]

In a long note, he impugns the theory of Hobbes that Benevolent affection and its pleasures are merely a form of the love of Power. He maintains, and with reason, that the love of power manifests its consequences quite as much in cruelty as in benevolence.

The second argument, to show that Benevolence is a fact of our const.i.tution, involves the greatest peculiarity of Butler's Psychology, although he was not the first to announce it. The scheme of the human feelings comprehends, in addition to Benevolence and Self-Love, a number of pa.s.sions and affections tending to the same ends as these (some to the good of our fellows, others to our own good); while in following them we are not conscious of seeking those ends, but some different ends. Such are our various Appet.i.tes and Pa.s.sions. Thus, hunger promotes our private well-being, but in obeying its dictates we are not thinking of that object, but of the procuring of _food_.

Curiosity promotes both public and private good, but its direct and immediate object is _knowledge_.

This refined distinction appears first in Aquinas; there is in it a palpable confusion of ideas. If we regard the final impulse of hunger, it is not toward the food, but towards the appeasing of a pain and the gaining of a pleasure, which are certainly identical with self, being the definition of self in the last resort. We a.s.sociate the food with the gratification of these demands, and hence food becomes an end to us--one of the _a.s.sociated_ or _intermediate_ ends. So the desire of knowledge is the desire of the pleasure, or of the relief from pain, accruing from knowledge; while, as in the case of food, knowledge is to a great degree only an instrument, and therefore an intermediate and a.s.sociated end. So the desire of esteem is the desire of a pleasure, or else of the instrument of pleasure.

In short, Butler tries, without effect, to evade the general principles of the will--our being moved exclusively by pleasure and pain. Abundant reference has been already made to the circ.u.mstances that modify in appearance, or in reality, the operation of this principle. The distinction between self-love and the particular appet.i.tes, pa.s.sions, and affections, is mainly the distinction between a great aggregate of the reason (the total interests of our being) and the separate items that make it up.

The distinction is intended to prepare the way for the setting forth of Conscience,[21] which is called a 'principle of reflection in men, whereby they distinguish between, approve and disapprove, their own actions.' This principle has for its result the good of society; still, in following it, we are not conscious of aiming at the good of society.

A father has an affection for his children; this is one thing. He has also a principle of reflection, that urges him with added force and with more steady persistency than any affection, which principle must therefore be different from mere affection.