Moral Science; a Compendium of Ethics Part 28

In an act of moral consciousness two things are involved: a perception or judgment, and a sentiment or feeling. But the judgment itself may be farther divided into two parts: 'the one, an individual fact, presented now and here; the other, a general law, valid always and everywhere.'

This is the distinction between _presentative_ and _representative_ Knowledge. In every act of consciousness there is some individual fact presented, and an operation of the understanding. 'A conscious act of pure moral sense, like a conscious act of pure physical sense, if it ever takes place at all, takes place at a time of which we have no remembrance, and of which we can give no account.' The intuitive element may be called _conscience_; the representing element is the _understanding_. On another point he differs from the ordinary theory.

It is commonly said that we immediately perceive the moral character of acts, whether by ourselves or by others. But this would implicate two facts, neither of which we can be conscious of: (1) a law binding on a certain person, and (2) his conduct as agreeing or disagreeing with that law. Now, I can infer the existence of such a law only by _representing_ his mind as const.i.tuted like my own. We can, in fact, immediately perceive moral qualities only in our own actions.

2. _The Moral Standard_. This is treated as a branch of Ontology, and designated the 'Real in morality,' He declares that Kant's notion of an absolute moral law, binding by its inherent power over the mind, is a mere fiction. The difference between inclination and the moral imperative is merely a difference between lower and higher pleasure.

The moral law can have no authority unless imposed by a superior, as a law emanating from a lawgiver. If man is not accountable to some higher being, there is no distinction between duty and pleasure. The standard of right and wrong is the moral _nature_ (not the arbitrary _will_) of G.o.d.[25] Now, as we cannot know G.o.d--an infinite being,--so we have but a relative conception of morality. We may have lower and higher ideas of duty. Morality therefore admits of progress. But no advance in morality contradicts the _principles_ previously acknowledged, however it may vary the acts whereby those principles are carried out. And each advance takes its place in the mind, not as a question to be supported by argument, but as an axiom to be intuitively admitted. Each principle appears true and irreversible so far as it goes, but it is liable to be merged in a more comprehensive formula. It is an error of philosophers to imagine that they have an absolute standard of morals, and thereupon to set out _a priori_ the criterion of a possibly true revelation. Kant said that the revealed commands of G.o.d could have no religious value, unless approved by the moral reason; and Fichte held that no true revelation could contain any intimation of future rewards and punishments, or any moral rule not deducible from the principles of the practical reason. But revelation has enlightened the practical reason, as by the maxim--to love G.o.d with all thy heart, and thy neighbour as thyself--a maxim, says Mr. Mansel, that philosophy in vain toiled after, and subsequently borrowed without acknowledgment.

JOHN STUART MILL.

Mr. J.S. Mill examines the basis of Ethics in a small work ent.i.tled Utilitarianism.

After a chapter of General Remarks, he proposes (Chapter II.) to enquire, What Utilitarianism is? This creed holds that actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness. By happiness is intended pleasure, and the absence of pain; by unhappiness, pain, and the privation of pleasure. The things included under pleasure and pain may require farther explanation; but this does not affect the general theory. To the accusation that pleasure is a mean and grovelling object of pursuit, the answer is, that human beings are capable of pleasures that are not grovelling. It is compatible with utility to recognize some _kinds_ of pleasure as more valuable than others. There are pleasures that, irrespective of amount, are held by all persons that have experienced them to be preferable to others. Few human beings would consent to become beasts, or fools, or base, in consideration of a greater allowance of pleasure. Inseparable from the estimate of pleasure is a _sense of dignity_, which determines a preference among enjoyments.

But this distinction in kind is not essential to the justification of the standard of Utility. That standard is not the agent's own greatest happiness, but the greatest amount of happiness altogether. However little the higher virtues might contribute to one's own happiness, there can be no doubt that the world in general gains by them.

Another objection to the doctrine is, that happiness is a thing unattainable, and that no one has a _right_ to it. Not only can men do without happiness, but renunciation is the first condition of all n.o.bleness of character.

In reply, the author remarks that, supposing happiness impossible, the prevention of unhappiness might still be an object, which is a mode of Utility. But the alleged impossibility of happiness is either a verbal quibble or an exaggeration. No one contends for a life of sustained rapture; occasional moments of such, in an existence of few and transitory pains, many and various pleasures, with a predominance of the active over the pa.s.sive, and moderate expectations on the whole, const.i.tute a life worthy to be called happiness. Numbers of mankind have been satisfied with much less. There are two great factors of enjoyment--tranquillity and excitement. With the one, little pleasure will suffice; with the other, considerable pain can be endured. It does not appear impossible to secure both in alternation. The princ.i.p.al defect in persons of fortunate lot is to care for n.o.body but themselves; this curtails the excitements of life, and makes everything dwindle as the end approaches. Another circ.u.mstance rendering life unsatisfactory is the want of mental cultivation, by which men are deprived of the inexhaustible pleasures of knowledge, not merely in the shape of science, but as practice and fine art. It is not at all difficult to indicate sources of happiness; the main stress of the problem lies in the contest with the positive evils of life, the great sources of physical and of mental suffering--indigence, disease, and the unkindness, worthlessness, or premature loss of objects of affection. Poverty and Disease may be contracted in dimensions; and even vicissitudes of fortune are not wholly beyond control.

It is unquestionably possible to do without happiness. This is the lot of the greater part of mankind, and is often voluntarily chosen by the hero or the martyr. But self-sacrifice is not its own end; it must be made to earn for others immunity from sacrifice. It must be a very imperfect state of the world's arrangements that requires any one to serve the happiness of others by the absolute sacrifice of their own; yet undoubtedly while the world is in that imperfect state, the readiness to make such a sacrifice is the highest virtue that can be found in man. Nay, farther, the conscious ability to do without happiness, in such a condition of the world, is the best prospect of realizing such happiness as is attainable. Meanwhile, self-devotion belongs as much to the Utilitarian as to the Stoic or the Transcendentalist; with the reservation that a sacrifice not tending to increase the sum of happiness is to be held as wasted. The golden rule, do as you would be done by, is the ideal perfection of utilitarian morality. The means of approaching this ideal are, first, that laws and society should endeavour to place the interest of the individual in harmony with the interest of the whole; and, secondly, that education and opinion should establish in the mind of each individual an indissoluble a.s.sociation between his own good and the good of the whole.

The system of Utility is objected to, on another side, as being too high for humanity; men cannot be perpetually acting with a view to the general interests of society. But this is to mistake the meaning of a standard, and to confound the rule of action with the motive. Ethics tells us what are our duties, or by what test we are to know them; but no system of ethics requires that the motive of every action should be a feeling of duty; our actions are rightly done provided only duty does not condemn them. The great majority of actions have nothing to do with the good of the world--they end with the individual; it happens to few persons, and that rarely, to be public benefactors. Private utility is in the ma.s.s of cases all that we have to attend to. As regards abstinences, indeed, it would be unworthy of an intelligent agent not to be aware that the action is one that, if practised generally, would be generally injurious, and to not feel a sense of obligation on that ground; but such an amount of regard for the general interest is required under every system of morals.

It is farther alleged against Utility, that it renders men cold and unsympathizing, chills the moral feelings towards individuals, and regards only the dry consequences of actions, without reference to the moral qualities of the agent. The author replies that Utility, like any other system, admits that a right action does not necessarily indicate a virtuous character. Still, he contends, in the long run, the best proof of a good character is good actions. If the objection means that utilitarians do not lay sufficient stress on the beauties of character, he replies that this is the accident of persons cultivating their moral feelings more than their sympathies and artistic perceptions, and may occur under every view of the foundation of morals.

The next objection considered is that Utility is a _G.o.dless_ doctrine.

The answer is, that whoever believes in the perfect goodness and wisdom of G.o.d, necessarily believes that whatever he has thought fit to reveal on the subject of morals must fulfil the requirements of utility in a supreme degree.

Again, Utility is stigmatized as an immoral doctrine, by carrying out Expediency in opposition to Principle. But the Expedient in this sense means what is expedient for the agent himself, and, instead of being the same thing with the useful, is a branch of the hurtful. It would often be expedient to tell a lie, but so momentous and so widely extended are the utilities of truth, that veracity is a rule of transcendent expediency. Yet all moralists admit exceptions to it, solely on account of the manifest inexpediency of observing it on certain occasions.

The author does not omit to notice the usual charge that it is impossible to make a calculation of consequences previous to every action, which is as much as to say that no one can be under the guidance of Christianity, because there is not time, on the occasion of doing anything, to read through the Old and New Testaments. The real answer is (substantially the same as Austin's) that there has been ample time during the past duration of the species. Mankind have all that time been learning by experience the consequences of actions; on that experience they have founded both their prudence and their morality. It is an inference from the principle of utility, which regards morals as a practical art, that moral rules are improvable; but there exists under the ultimate principle a number of intermediate generalizations, applicable at once to the emergencies of human conduct. n.o.body argues that navigation is not founded on astronomy, because sailors cannot wait to calculate the Nautical Almanack.

As to the stock argument, that people will pervert utility for their private ends, Mr. Mill challenges the production of any ethical creed where this may not happen. The fault is due, not to the origin of the rules, but to the complicated nature of human affairs, and the necessity of allowing a certain lat.i.tude, under the moral responsibility of the agent, for accommodation to circ.u.mstances. And in cases of conflict, utility is a better guide than anything found in systems whose moral laws claim independent authority.

Chapter III. considers the ULTIMATE SANCTION OF THE PRINCIPLE OF UTILITY.

It is a proper question with regard to a supposed moral standard,--What is its sanction? what is the source of its obligation? wherein lies its binding force? The customary morality is consecrated by education and opinion, and seems to be obligatory _in itself_; but to present, as the source of obligation, some general principle, not surrounded by the halo of consecration, seems a paradox; the superstructure seems to stand better without such a foundation. This difficulty belongs to every attempt to reduce morality to first principles, unless it should happen that the principle chosen has as much sacredness as any of its applications.

Utility has, or might have, all the sanctions attaching to any other system of morals. Those sanctions are either External or Internal. The External are the hope of favour and the fear of displeasure (1) from our fellow-creatures, or (2) from the Ruler of the Universe, along with any sympathy or affection for them, or love and awe of Him, inclining us apart from selfish motives. There is no reason why these motives should not attach themselves to utilitarian morality.

The Internal Sanction, under every standard of duty, is of one uniform character--a feeling in our own mind; a pain, more or less intense, attendant on violation of duty, which in properly cultivated moral natures rises, in the more serious cases, into shrinking from it as an impossibility. This feeling, when disinterested, and connecting itself with the pure idea of duty, is _the essence of Conscience_; a complex phenomenon, involving a.s.sociations from sympathy, from love, and still more from fear; from the recollections of childhood, and of all our past life; from self-esteem, desire of the esteem of others, and occasionally even self-abas.e.m.e.nt. This extreme complication is an obstacle to our supposing that it can attach to other objects than what are found at present to excite it. The binding force, however, is _the ma.s.s of feeling to be broken through_ in order to violate our standard of right, and which, if we do violate that standard, will have to be afterwards encountered as remorse.

Thus, apart from external sanctions, the ultimate sanction, under Utility, is the same as for other standards, namely, the conscientious feelings of mankind. If there be anything innate in conscience, there is nothing more likely than that it should be a regard to the pleasures and pains of others. If so, the intuitive ethics would be the same as the utilitarian; and it is admitted on all hands that a _large_ portion of morality turns upon what is due to the interests of fellow-creatures.

On the other hand, if, as the author believes, the moral feelings are not innate, they are not for that reason less natural. It is natural to man to speak, to reason, to cultivate the ground, to build cities, though these are acquired faculties. So the moral faculty, if not a part of our nature, is a natural outgrowth of it; capable, in a certain small degree, of springing up spontaneously, and of being brought to a high pitch by means of cultivation. It is also susceptible, by the use of the external sanctions and the force of early impressions, of being cultivated in almost any direction, and of being perverted to absurdity and mischief.

The basis of natural sentiment capable of supporting the utilitarian morality is to be found in the _social feelings of mankind_. The social state is so natural, so necessary, and so habitual to man, that he can hardly conceive himself otherwise than as a member of society; and as civilization advances, this a.s.sociation becomes more firmly riveted.

All strengthening of social ties, and all healthy growth of society, give to each individual a stronger personal interest in consulting the welfare of others. Each comes, as though instinctively, to be conscious of himself as a being that _of course_ pays regard to others. There is the strongest motive in each person to manifest this sentiment, and, even if he should not feel it strongly himself, to cherish it in everybody else. The smallest germs of the feeling are thus laid hold of, and nourished by the contagion of sympathy and the influences of education; and by the powerful agency of the external sanctions there is woven around it a complete web of corroborative a.s.sociation. In an improving state of society, the influences are on the increase that generate in each individual a feeling of unity with all the rest; which, if perfect, would make him never think of anything for self, if they also were not included. Suppose, now, that this feeling of unity were taught as a religion, and that the whole force of education, of inst.i.tutions, and of opinion, were directed to make every person grow up surrounded with the profession and the practice of it; can there be any doubt as to the sufficiency of the ultimate sanction for the Happiness morality?

Even in our present low state of advancement, the deeply-rooted conception that each individual has of himself as a social being tends to make him wish to be in harmony with his fellow-creatures. The feeling may be, in most persons, inferior in strength to the selfish feelings, and may be altogether wanting; but to such as possess it, it has all the characters of a natural feeling, and one that they would not desire to be without.

Chapter IV. is OF WHAT SORT OF PROOF THE PRINCIPLE OF UTILITY is susceptible. Questions about ends are questions as to what things are desirable. According to the theory of Utility, happiness is desirable as an end; all other things are desirable as means. What is the proof of this doctrine?

As the proof, that the sun is visible, is that people actually see it, so the proof that happiness is desirable, is that people do actually desire it. No reason can be given why the general happiness is desirable, beyond the fact that each one desires their own happiness.

But granting that people desire happiness as _one_ of their ends of conduct, do they never desire anything else? To all appearance they do; they desire virtue, and the absence of vice, no less surely than pleasure and the absence of pain. Hence the opponents of utility consider themselves ent.i.tled to infer that happiness is not the standard of moral approbation and disapprobation.

But the utilitarians do not deny that virtue is a thing to be desired.

The very reverse. They maintain that it is to be desired, and that _for itself_. Although considering that what makes virtue is the tendency to promote happiness, yet they hold that the mind is not in a right state, not in a state conformable to Utility, not in the state conducive to the general happiness, unless it has adopted this essential instrumentality so warmly as to love it for its own sake. It is necessary to the carrying out of utility that certain things, originally of the nature of means, should come by a.s.sociation to be a part of the final end. Thus health is but a means, and yet we cherish it as strongly as we do any of the ultimate pleasures and pains. So virtue is not originally an end, but it is capable of becoming so; it is to be desired and cherished not solely as a means to happiness, but as a part of happiness.

The notorious instance of money exemplifies this operation. The same may be said of power and fame; although these are ends as well as means. We should be but ill provided with happiness, were it not for this provision of nature, whereby, things, originally indifferent, but conducive to the satisfaction of our primitive desires, become in themselves sources of pleasure, of even greater value than the primitive pleasures, both in permanency and in the extent of their occupation of our life. Virtue is originally valuable as bringing pleasure and avoiding pain; but by a.s.sociation it may be felt as a good in itself, and be desired as intensely as any other good; with this superiority over money, power, or fame, that it makes the individual a blessing to society, while these others may make him a curse.

With the allowance thus made for the effect of a.s.sociation, the author considers it proved that there is in reality nothing desired except happiness. Whatever is desired otherwise than as a means to some end beyond itself, and ultimately to happiness, is not desired for itself till it has become such. Human nature is so const.i.tuted, he thinks, that we desire nothing but what is either a part of happiness or a means of happiness; and no other proof is required that these are the only things desirable. Whether this psychological a.s.sertion be correct, must be determined by the self-consciousness and observation of the most practised observers of human nature.

It may be alleged that, although desire always tends to happiness, yet Will, as shown by actual conduct, is different from desire. We persist in a course of action long after the original desire has faded. But this is merely an instance of that familiar fact, the power of habit, and is nowise confined to the virtuous actions. Will is amenable to habit; we may will from habit what we no longer desire for itself, or desire only because we will it. But the will is the child of desire, and pa.s.ses out of the dominion of its parent only to come under the sway of habit. What is the result of habit may not be intrinsically good; we might think it better for virtue that habit did not come in, were it not that the other influences are not sufficiently to be depended on for unerring constancy, until they have acquired this farther support.

Chapter V. is ON THE CONNEXION BETWEEN JUSTICE AND UTILITY.

The strongest obstacle to the doctrine of Utility has been drawn from the Idea of Justice. The rapid perception and the powerful sentiment connected with the Just, seem to show it as generically distinct from every variety of the Expedient.

To see whether the sense of justice can be explained on grounds of Utility, the author begins by surveying in the concrete the things usually denominated just. In the first place, it is commonly considered unjust to deprive any one of their personal liberty, or property, or anything secured to them by law: in other words, it is unjust to violate any one's legal rights. Secondly, The legal rights of a man may be such as _ought_ not to have belonged to him; that is, the law conferring those rights may be a bad law. When a law is bad, opinions will differ as to the justice or injustice of infringing it; some think that no law should be disobeyed by the individual citizen; others hold that it is just to resist unjust laws. It is thus admitted by all that there is such a thing as _moral right_, the refusal of which is injustice. Thirdly, it is considered just that each person should receive what he _deserves_ (whether good or evil). And a person is understood to deserve good if he does right, evil if he does wrong; and in particular to deserve good in return for good, and evil in return for evil. Fourthly, it is unjust to _break faith_, to violate an engagement, or disappoint expectations knowingly and voluntarily raised. Like other obligations, this is not absolute, but may be overruled by some still stronger demand of justice on the other side.

Fifthly, it is inconsistent with justice to be _partial_; to show favour or preference in matters where favour does not apply. We are expected in certain cases to prefer our friends to strangers; but a tribunal is bound to the strictest impartiality; rewards and punishments should be administered impartially; so likewise the patronage of important public offices. Nearly allied to impartiality is the idea of _equality_. The justice of giving equal protection to the rights of all is maintained even when the rights themselves are very unequal, as in slavery and in the system of ranks or castes. There are the greatest differences as to what is equality in the distribution of the produce of labour; some thinking that all should receive alike; others that the neediest should receive most; others that the distribution should be according to labour or services.

To get a clue to the common idea running through all these meanings, the author refers to the etymology of the word, which, in most languages, points to something ordained by _law_. Even although there be many things considered just, that we do not usually enforce by law, yet in these cases it would give us pleasure if law could be brought to bear upon offenders. When we think a person bound in justice to do a thing, we should like to see him punished for not doing it; we lament the obstacles that may be in the way, and strive to make amends by a strong expression of our own opinion. The idea of legal constraint is thus the generating idea of justice throughout all its transformations.

The real turning point between morality and simple expediency is contained in the penal sanction. Duty is what we may _exact_ of a person; there may be reasons why we do not exact it, but the person himself would not be ent.i.tled to complain if we did so. Expediency, on the other hand, points to things that we may wish people to do, may praise them for doing, and despise them for not doing, while we do not consider it proper to bring in the aid of punishment.

There enters farther into the idea of Justice what has been expressed by the ill-chosen phrase, 'perfect obligation,' meaning that the duty involves a moral right on the part of some definite person, as in the case of a debt; an imperfect obligation is exemplified by charity, which gives no legal claim to any one recipient. Every such right is a case of Justice, and not of Beneficence.

The Idea of Justice is thus shown to be grounded in Law; and the next question is, does the strong feeling or sentiment of Justice grow out of considerations of utility? Mr. Mill conceives that though the notion of expediency or utility does not give birth to the sentiment, it gives birth to what is _moral_ in it.

The two essentials of justice are (1) the desire to punish some one, and (2) the notion or belief that harm has been done to some definite individual or individuals. Now, it appears to the author that the desire to punish is a spontaneous outgrowth of two sentiments, both natural, and, it may be, instinctive; the impulse of _self-defence_, and the feeling of _sympathy_. We naturally resent, repel, and retaliate, any harm done to ourselves and to any one that engages our sympathies. There is nothing moral in mere resentment; the moral part is the subordination of it to our social regards. We are moral beings, in proportion as we restrain our private resentment whenever it conflicts with the interests of society. All moralists agree with Kant in saying that no act is right that could not be adopted as a law by all rational beings (that is, consistently with the well-being of society).

There is in Justice a rule of conduct, and a right on the part of some one, which right ought to be enforced by society. If it is asked why society _ought_ to enforce the right, there is no answer but the general utility. If that expression seem feeble and inadequate to account for the energy of retaliation inspired by injustice, the author asks us to advert to the extraordinarily important and impressive kind of utility that is concerned. The interest involved is _security_, to every one's feelings the most vital of all interests. All other earthly benefits needed by one person are not needed by another; and many of them can, if necessary, be cheerfully foregone, or replaced by something else; but security no human being can possibly do without; on it we depend for all our immunity from evil, and for the whole value of all and every good, beyond the pa.s.sing moment. Now, this most indispensable of all necessaries, after physical nutriment, cannot be had unless the machinery for providing it is kept unintermittedly in active play. Our notion, therefore, of the claim we have on our fellow-creatures to join in making safe for us the very groundwork of our existence, gathers feelings around it so much more intense than those concerned in any of the more common cases of utility, that the difference in degree (as is often the case in psychology) becomes a real difference in kind. The claim a.s.sumes that character of absoluteness, that apparent infinity, and incommensurability with all other considerations, which const.i.tute the distinction between the feeling of right and wrong, and that of ordinary expediency and inexpediency.

Having presented his own a.n.a.lysis of the sentiment of Justice, the author proceeds to examine the _intuitive_ theory. The charge is constantly brought against Utility, that it is an uncertain standard, differently interpreted by each person. The only safety, it is pretended, is found in the immutable, ineffaceable, and unmistakeable dictates of Justice, carrying their evidence in themselves, and independent of the fluctuations of opinions. But so far is this from being the fact, that there is as much difference of opinion, and as much discussion, about what is just, as about what is useful to society.

To take a few instances. On the question of Punishment, some hold it unjust to punish any one by way of example, or for any end but the good of the sufferer. Others maintain that the good of the society is the only admissible end of punishment. Robert Owen affirms that punishment altogether is unjust, and that we should deal with crime only through education. Now, without an appeal to expediency, it is impossible to arbitrate among these conflicting views; each one has a maxim of justice on its side. Then as to the apportioning of punishments to offences. The rule that recommends itself to the primitive sentiment of justice is an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth; a rule formally abandoned in European countries, although not without its hold upon the popular mind. With many, the test of justice, in penal infliction, is that it should be proportioned to the offence; while others maintain that it is just to inflict only such an amount of punishment as will deter from the commission of the offence.

Besides the differences of opinion already alluded to, as to the payment of labour, how many, and irreconcileable, are the standards of justice appealed to on the matter of taxation? One opinion is, that taxes should be in proportion to pecuniary means; others think the wealthy should pay a higher proportion. In point of natural justice, a case might be made out for disregarding means, and taking the same sum from each, as the privileges are equally bestowed: yet from feelings of humanity and social expediency no one advocates that view. So that there is no mode of extricating the question but the utilitarian.

To sum up. The great distinction between, the Just and the Expedient is the distinction between the essentials of well-being--the moral rules forbidding mankind to hurt one another--and the rules that only point out the best mode of managing some department of human affairs. It is in the higher moralities of protection from harm that each individual has the greatest stake; and they are the moralities that compose the obligations of justice. It is on account of these that punishment, or retribution of evil for evil, is universally included in the idea. For the carrying out of the process of retaliation, certain maxims are necessary as instruments or as checks to abuse; as that involuntary acts are not punishable; that no one shall be condemned unheard; that punishment should be proportioned to the offence. Impartiality, the first of judicial virtues, is necessary to the fulfilment of the other conditions of justice: while from the highest form of doing to each according to their deserts, it is the abstract standard of social and distributive justice; and is in this sense a direct emanation from the first principle of morals, the principle of the greatest Happiness. All social inequalities that have ceased to be considered as expedient, a.s.sume the character, not of simple inexpediency, but of injustice.

Besides the 'Utilitarianism,' Mr. Mill's chief Ethical dissertations are his review of Whewell's Moral Treatises (_Dissertations and Discussions_, Vol. II.), and parts of his Essay on _Liberty_. By collecting his views generally under the usual heads, we shall find a place for some points additional to what are given in the foregoing abstract.

I.--Enough has been stated as to his Ethical Standard, the Principle of Utility.

II.--We have seen his Psychological explanation of the Moral Faculty, as a growth from certain elementary feelings of the mind.

He has also discussed extensively the Freedom of the Will, maintaining the strict causation of human actions, and refuting the supposed fatalistic tendency of the doctrine.