The principle of Asceticism means the approval of an action according to its tendency to diminish happiness, or obversely. Any one reprobating in any shape, pleasure as such, is a partisan of this principle. Asceticism has been adopted, on the one hand, by certain moralists, from the spur of philosophic pride; and on the other hand, by certain religionists, under the impulse of fear. It has been much less admitted into Legislation than into Morals. It may have originated, in the first instance, with hasty speculators, looking at the pains attending certain pleasures in the long run, and pushing the abstinence from such pleasures (justified to a certain length on prudential grounds) so far as to fall in love with pain.
The other principle, Sympathy and Antipathy, means the unreasoning approbation or disapprobation of the individual mind, where fancy, caprice, accidental liking or disliking, may mix with a regard to human happiness. This is properly the negation of a principle. What we expect to find in a principle is someexternalconsideration, warranting and guiding our sentiments of approbation and disapprobation; a basis that all are agreed upon.
It is under this head that Bentham rapidly surveys and dismisses all the current theories of Right and Wrong. They consist all of them, he says, in so many contrivances for avoiding an appeal to any external standard, and for requiring us to accept the author's sentiment or opinion as a reason for itself. The dictates of this principle, however, will often unintentionally coincide with utility; for what more natural ground of hatred to a practice can there be than its mischievous tendency? The things that men suffer by, they will be disposed to hate. Still, it is not constant in its operation; for people may ascribe the suffering to the wrong cause. The principle is most liable to err on the side of severity; differences of taste and of opinion are sufficient grounds for quarrel and resentment. It will err on the side of lenity, when a mischief is remote and imperceptible.
The author reserves a distinct handling for the Theological principle; alleging that it falls under one or other of the three foregoing. The Will of God must mean his will as revealed in the sacred writings, which, as the labours of divines testify, themselves stand in need of interpretation. What is meant, in fact, is thepresumptivewill of God; that is, what is presumed to be his will on account of its conformity with another principle. We are pretty sure that what is right is conformable to his will, but then this requires us first to know what is right. The usual mode of knowing God's pleasure (he remarks) is to observe what is our own pleasure, and pronounce that to be his.
Thephysicalsanction includes the pleasures and pains arising in the ordinary course of nature, unmodified by the will of any human being, or of any supernatural being.
Thepoliticalsanction is what emanates from the sovereign or supreme ruling power of the state. The punishments of the Law come under this head.
Themoralorpopularsanction results from the action of the community, or of the individuals that each person comes in contact with, acting without any settled or concerted rule. It corresponds to public opinion, and extends in its operation beyond the sphere of the law.
Thereligioussanction proceeds from the immediate hand of a superior invisible being, either in the present, or in a future life.
The name Punishment is applicable only to the three last. The suffering that befalls a man in the course of nature is termed acalamity; if it happen through imprudence on his part, it may be styled a punishment issuing from the physical sanction.
Next follows, in Chapter V., a classified enumeration of PLEASURES AND PAINS. In a system undertaking to base all Moral and Political action on the production of happiness, such a classification is obviously required. The author professes to have grounded it on an analysis of human nature, which analysis itself, however, as being too metaphysical, he withholds.
The simple pleasures are:—1. The pleasures of sense. 2. The pleasures of wealth. 3. The pleasures of skill. 4. The pleasures of amity. 5. The pleasures of a good name. 6. The pleasures of power. 7. The pleasures of piety. 8. The pleasures of benevolence. 9. The pleasures of malevolence. 10. The pleasures of memory. 11. The pleasures of imagination. 12. The pleasures of expectation. 13. The pleasures dependent on association. 14. The pleasures of relief.
The simple pains are:—1. The pains of privation. 2. The pains of the senses. 3. The pains of awkwardness. 4. The pains of enmity. 5. The pains of an ill name. 6. The pains of piety. 7. The pains of benevolence. 8. The pains of malevolence. 9. The pains of the memory. 10. The pains of the imagination. 11. The pains of expectation. 12. The pains dependent on association.
We need not quote his detailed subdivision and illustration of these. At the close, he marks the important difference betweenself-regardingandextra-regarding; the last being those of benevolence and of malevolence.
In a long chapter (VI.), he dwells on CIRCUMSTANCES INFLUENCING SENSIBILITY. They are such as the following:—1. Health. 2. Strength. 3. Hardiness. 4. Bodily imperfection. 5. Quantity and Quality of knowledge. 6. Strength of intellectual powers. 7. Firmness of mind. 8. Steadiness of mind. 9. Bent of inclination. 10. Moral sensibility. 11. Moral biases. 12. Religious Sensibility. 13. Religious biases. 14. Sympathetic Sensibility. 15. Sympathetic biases. 16. Antipathetic sensibility. 17. Antipathetic biases. 18. Insanity. 19. Habitual occupations. 20. Pecuniary circumstances. 21. Connexions in the way of sympathy. 22. Connexions in the way of antipathy. 23. Radical frame of body. 24. Radical frame of mind. 25. Sex. 26. Age. 27. Rank. 28. Education. 29. Climate. 30. Lineage. 31. Government. 32. Religious profession.
In Chapter X., he regards pleasures and pains in the aspect of MOTIVES. Since every pleasure and every pain, as a part of their nature, induce actions, they are often designated with reference to that circumstance. Hunger, thirst, lust, avarice, curiosity, ambition, &c., are names of this class. There is not a complete set of such designations; hence the use of the circumlocutions,appetite for, love of, desire of—sweet odours, sounds, sights, ease, reputation, &c.
Of great importance is theOrder of pre-eminence among motives. Of all the varieties of motives, Good-will, or Benevolence, taken in a general view, is that whose dictates are surest to coincide with Utility. In this, however, it is taken for granted that the benevolence is not so confined in its sphere, as to be contradicted by a more extensive, or enlarged, benevolence.
After good-will, the motive that has the best chance of coinciding with Utility is Love of Reputation. The coincidence would be perfect, if men's likings and dislikings were governed exclusively by the principle of Utility, and not, as they often are, by the hostile principles of Asceticism, and of Sympathy and Antipathy. Love of reputation is inferior as a motive to Good-will, in not governing the secret actions. These last are affected, only as they have a chance of becoming public, or as men contract a habit of looking to public approbation in all they do.
The desire of Amity, or of close personal affections, is placed next in order, as a motive. According as we extend the number of persons whose amity we desire, this prompting approximates to the love of reputation.
After these three motives, Bentham places the Dictates of Religion, which, however, are so various in their suggestions, that he can hardly speak of them in common. Were the Being, who is the object of religion, universally supposed to be as benevolent as he is supposed to be wise and powerful, and were the notions of his benevolence as correct as the notions of his wisdom and power, the dictates of religion would correspond, in all cases, with Utility. But while men call him benevolent in words, they seldom mean that he is so in reality. They do not mean that he is benevolent as man is conceived to be benevolent; they do not mean that he is benevolent in the only sense that benevolence has a meaning. The dictates of religion are in all countries intermixed, more or less, with dictates unconformable to utility, deduced from texts, well or ill interpreted, of the writings held for sacred by each sect. These dictates, however, gradually approach nearer to utility, because the dictates of the moral sanction do so.
Such are the four Social or Tutelary Motives, the antagonists of the Dissocial and Self-regarding motives, which include the remainder of the catalogue.
He then proceeds to the theory of PUNISHMENT (XIII., XIV., XV.), to the classification of OFFENCES (XVI.), and to the Limits of the Penal Branch of Jurisprudence (XVII.). The two first subjects—Punishments and Offences—are interesting chiefly in regard to Legislation. They have also a bearing on Morals; inasmuch as society, in its private administration of punishments, ought, no less than the Legislator, to be guided by sound scientific principles.
As respects Punishment, he marks off (1) cases where it isgroundless; (2) where it isinefficacious, as in Infancy, Insanity, Intoxication, &c.; (3) cases where it isunprofitable; and (4) cases where it isneedless. It is under this last herd that he excludes from punishment the dissemination of what may be deemed pernicious principles. Punishment is needless here, because the end can be served by reply and exposure.
The first part of Chapter XVII. is entitled the 'Limits between Private Ethics and the Art of Legislation;' and a short account of it will complete the view of the author's Ethical Theory.
Ethics at large, is defined the art of directing men's actions to the production of the greatest possible quantity of happiness, on the part of those whose interest is in view, Now, these actions may be a man's own actions, in which case they are styled theart of self-government, orprivate ethics. Or they may be the actions of other agents, namely, (1) Other human beings, and (2) Other Animals, whose interests Bentham considers to have been disgracefully overlooked by jurists as well as by mankind generally.
In so far as a man's happiness depends on his own conduct, he may be said toowe a duty to himself; the quality manifested in discharge of this branch of duty (if duty it is to be called) is PRUDENCE. In so far as he affects by his conduct the interests of those about him, he is undera duty to others. The happiness of others may be consulted in two ways. First, negatively, by forbearing to diminish it; this is called PROBITY. Secondly, in a positive way, by studying to increase it; which is expressed by BENEFICENCE.
But now the question occurs, how is it that under Private Ethics (or apart from legislation and religion) a man can be tinder a motive to consult other people's happiness? By what obligations can he be bound toprobityandbeneficence? A man can have noadequatemotives for consulting any interests but his own. Still there are motives for making us consult the happiness of others, namely, the purely social motive of Sympathy or Benevolence, and the semi-social motives of Love of Amity and Love of Reputation. [He does not say here whether Sympathy is a motive grounded on the pleasure it brings, or a motive irrespective of the pleasure; although from other places we may infer that he inclines to the first view.]
Private Ethics and Legislation can have but the same end, happiness. Their means, the actions prompted, must be nearly the same. Still they are different. There is no case where a man ought not to be guided by his own, or his fellow-creatures', happiness; but there are many cases where the legislature should not compel a man to perform such actions. The reason is that the Legislature works solely by Punishment (reward is seldom applied, and is not properly an act of legislation). Now, there are cases where the punishment of the political sanction ought not to be used; and if, in any of these cases, there is a propriety of using the punishments of private ethics (the moral or social sanction), this circumstance would indicate the line of division.
First, then, as to the cases where punishment would begroundless. In such cases, neither legislation nor private ethics should interfere.
Secondly. As to cases where it would beinefficacious, where punishment has no deterring motive power,—as in Infancy, Insanity, overwhelming danger, &c.,—the public and the private sanctions are also alike excluded.
Thirdly. It is in the cases where Legislative punishment would beunprofitable, that we have the great field of Private Ethics. Punishment is unprofitable in two ways. First, when the danger of detection is so small, that nothing but enormous severity, on detection, would be of avail, as in the illicit commerce of the sexes, which has generally gone unpunished by law. Secondly, when there is danger of involving the innocent with the guilty, from inability to define the crime in precise language. Hence it is that rude behaviour, treachery, and ingratitude are not punished by law; and that in countries where the voice of the people controls the hand of the legislature, there is a great dread of makingdefamation, especially of the government, an offence at law.
Private Ethics is not liable to the same difficulties as Legislation in dealing with such offences.
Of the three departments of Moral Duty—Prudence, Probity, and Beneficence—the one that least requires and admits of being enforced by legislative punishment is the first—Prudence. It can only be through some defect of the understanding, if people are wanting in duty to themselves. Now, although a man may know little of himself, is it certain the legislator knows more? Would it be possible to extirpate drunkenness or fornication by legal punishment? All that can be done in this field is to subject the offences, in cases of notoriety, to a slight censure, so as to cover them with a slight shade of artificial disrepute, and thus give strength and influence to the moral sanction.
Legislators have, in general, carried their interference too far in this class of duties; and the mischief has been most conspicuous in religion. Men, it is supposed, are liable to errors of judgment; and for these it is the determination of a Being of infinite benevolence to punish them with an infinity of torments. The legislator, having by his side men perfectly enlightened, unfettered, and unbiassed, presumes that he has attained by their means the exact truth; and so, when he sees his people ready to plunge headlong into an abyss of fire, shall he not stretch forth his hand to save them?
The second class of duties—the rules ofProbity, stand most in need of the assistance of the legislator. There are few cases where itwouldbe expedient to punish a man for hurting himself, and few where itwould notbe expedient to punish a man for hurting his neighbour. As regards offences against property, private ethics presupposes legislation, which alone can determine what things are to be regarded as each man's property. If private ethics takes a different view from the legislature, it must of course act on its own views.
The third class of duties—Beneficence—must be abandoned to the jurisdiction of private ethics. In many cases the beneficial quality of an act depends upon the disposition of the agent, or the possession by him of the extra-regarding motives—sympathy, amity, and reputation; whereas political action can work only through the self-regarding motives. In a word these duties must befreeorvoluntary. Still, the limits of law on this head might be somewhat extended; in particular, where a man's person is in danger, it might be made the duty of every one to save him from mischief, no less than to abstain from bringing it on him.
To resume the Ethics of Bentham. I.—The Standard or End of Morality is the production of Happiness, or Utility.
Bentham is thus at one in his first principle with Hume and with Paley; his peculiarity is to make it fruitful in numerous applications both to legislation and to morals. He carries out the principle with an unflinching rigour, and a logical force peculiarly his own.
II.—His Psychological Analysis is also studied and thorough-going.
He is the first person to provide a classification of pleasures and pains, as an indispensable preliminary alike to morals and to legislation. The ethical applications of these are of less importance than the legislative; they have a direct and practical bearing upon the theory of Punishment.
He lays down, as the constituents of the Moral Faculty, Good-will or Benevolence, the love of Amity, the love of Reputation, and the dictates of Religion—with a view to the Happiness of others; and Prudence—with a view to our own happiness. He gives no special account of the acquired sentiment of Obligation or Authority—the characteristic of Conscience, as distinguished from other impulses having a tendency to the good of others or of self. And yet it is the peculiarity of his system to identify morality with law; so that there is only one step to connecting conscience with our education under the different sanctions—legal and ethical.
He would of course give a large place to the Intellect or Reason in making up the Moral Faculty, seeing that the consequences of actions have to be estimated or judged; but he would regard this as merely co-operating with our sensibilities to pleasure and pain.
The Disinterested Sentiment is not regarded by Bentham. as arising from any disposition to pure self-sacrifice. He recognizesPleasuresof Benevolence andPainsof Benevolence; thus constituting a purely interested motive for doing good to others. He describes certain pleasures of Imagination or Sympathy arising through Association—the idea of plenty, the idea of the happiness of animals, the idea of health, the idea of gratitude. Under the head of Circumstances influencing Sensibility, he adverts to Sympathetic Sensibility, as being the propensity to derivepleasure from the happiness, and pain from the unhappiness, of other sensitive beings. It cannot but be admitted, he says, that the only interest that a man at all times, and on all occasions, is sure to findadequatemotives for consulting, is his own. He has no metaphysics of the Will. He uses the termsfreeandvoluntaryonly with reference to spontaneous beneficence, as opposed to the compulsion of the law.
III.—As regards Happiness, or the Summum Bonum, he presents his scientific classification of Pleasures and Pains, without, however, indicating any plan of life, for attaining the one and avoiding the other in the best manner. He makes no distinction among pleasures and pains excepting what strictly concerns their value as such—intensity, duration, certainty, and nearness. He makes happiness to mean only the presence of pleasure and the absence of pain. The renunciation of pleasure for any other motive than to procure a greater pleasure, or avoid a greater pain, he, disapprovingly, terms asceticism.
IV.—It being the essence of his system to consider Ethics as a Code of Laws directed by Utility, and he being himself a law reformer on the greatest scale, we might expect from him suggestions for the improvement of Ethics, as well as for Legislation and Jurisprudence. His inclusion of the interests of the lower animals has been mentioned. He also contends for the partly legislative and partly ethical innovation of Freedom of Divorce.
The inducements to morality are the motives assigned as working in its favour.
V.—The connexions of Ethics with Politics, the points of agreement and the points of difference of the two departments, are signified with unprecedented care and precision (Chap. XVII.)
VI.—As regards the connexions with Theology, he gives no uncertain sound. It is on this point that he stands in marked contrast to Paley, who also professes Utility as his ethical foundation.
He recognizes religion as furnishing one of the Sanctions of morality, although often perverted into the enemy of utility. He considers that the state may regard as offences any acts that tend to diminish or misapply the influence of religion as a motive to civil obedience.
While Paley makes a conjoined reference to Scripture and to Utility in ascertaining moral rules, Bentham insists on Utility alone as the final appeal. He does not doubt that if we had a clear unambiguous statement of the divine will, we should have a revelation of what is for human happiness; but he distrusts all interpretations of scripture, unless they coincide with a perfectly independent scientific investigation of the consequences of actions.
In the 'Dissertation on the progress of Ethical Philosophy chiefly during the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries,' Mackintosh advocates a distinct Ethical theory. His views and arguments occur partly in the course of his criticism of the other moralists, and partly in his concluding General Remarks (Section VII.).
In Section I., entitled PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS, he remarks on the universality of the distinction between Right and Wrong. On no subject do men, in all ages, coincide on so many points as on the general rules of conduct, and the estimable qualities of character. Even the grossest deviations may be explained by ignorance of facts, by errors with respect to the consequences of actions, or by inconsistency with admitted principles. In tribes where new-born infants are exposed, the abandonment of parents is condemned; the betrayal and murder of strangers is condemned by the very rules of faith and humanity, acknowledged in the case of countrymen.
He complains that, in the enquiry as to the foundation of morals, the two distinct questions—as to the Standard and the Faculty—have seldom been fully discriminated. Thus, Paley opposes Utility to a Moral Sense, not perceiving that the two terms relate to different subjects; and Bentham repeats the mistake. It is possible to represent Utility as thecriterionof Right, and a Moral Sense as thefaculty. In another place, he remarks that the schoolmen failed to draw the distinction.
In Section V., entitled 'Controversies concerning the Moral Faculty and the Social Affections,' and including the Ethical theories coming between Hobbes and Butler, namely, Cumberland, Cudworth, Clarke, &c., he gives his objections to the scheme that founds moral distinctions solely on the Reason. Reason, as such, can never be a motive to action; an argument to dissuade a man from drunkenness must appeal to the pains of ill-health, poverty, and infamy, that is, to Feelings. The influence of Reason is indirect; it is merely a channel whereby the objects of desire are brought into view, so as to operate on the Will.
The abused extension of the term Reason to the moral faculties, he ascribes to the obvious importance of Reason in choosing the means of action, as well as in balancing the ends, during which operation the feelings are suspended, delayed, and poised in a way favourable to our lasting interests. Hence the antithesis of Reason and Passion.
In remarking upon Leibnitz's view of Disinterested Sentiment, and the coincidence of Virtue with Happiness, he sketches his own opinion, which is that although every virtuousactmay not lead to the greater happiness of the agent, yet thedispositionto virtuous acts, in its intrinsic pleasures, far outweighs all the pains of self-sacrifice that it can ever occasion. 'The whole sagacity and ingenuity of the world may be fairly challenged to point out a case in which virtuous dispositions, habits, and feelings are not conducive in the highest degree to the happiness of the individual; or to maintain that he is not the happiest, whose moral sentiments and affections are such as to prevent the possibility of any unlawful advantage being presented to his mind.'
He finds fault with Hume for ascribing Virtue to qualities of the Understanding, and considers that this is to confound admiration with moral approbation. Hume's general Ethical doctrine, that Utility is a uniform ground of moral distinction, he says can never be impugned until some example be produced of a virtue generally pernicious, or a vice generally beneficial. But as to the theory of moral approbation, or the nature of the Faculty, he considers that Hume's doctrine of Benevolence (or, still better, Sympathy) does not account for our approbation of temperance and fortitude, nor for thesupremacyof the Moral Faculty over all other motives.
He objects to the theory of Adam Smith, that no allowance is made in it for the transfer of our feelings, and the disappearing of the original reference from the view. Granting that our approbation began in sympathy, as Smith says, certain it is, that the adult man approves actions and dispositions as right, while he is distinctly aware that no process of sympathy intervenes between the approval and its object. He repeats, against Smith, the criticism on Hume, that the sympathies have noimperativecharacter of supremacy. He further remarks that the reference, in our actions, to the point of view of the spectator, is rather an expedient for preserving our impartiality than a fundamental principle of Ethics. It nearly coincides with the Christian precept of doing unto others as we would they should do unto us,—an admirable practical maxim, but, as Leibnitz has said truly, intended only as a correction of self-partiality. Lastly, he objects to Smith, that his system renders all morality relative to the pleasure of our coinciding in feeling with others, which is merely to decide on the Faculty, without considering the Standard. Smith shrinks from Utility as a standard, or ascribes its power over our feelings to our sense of the adaptation of means to ends.
He commends Smith for grounding Benevolence on Sympathy, whereasButler, Hutcheson, and Hume had grounded Sympathy on Benevolence.
It is in reviewing Hartley, whose distinction it was to open up the wide capabilities of the principle of Association, that Mackintosh develops at greatest length his theory of the derived nature of Conscience.
Adverting to the usual example of the love of money, he remarks that the benevolent man might begin with an interested affection, but might end with a disinterested delight in doing good. Self-love, or the principle of permanent well-being, is gradually formed from the separate appetites, and is at last pursued without having them specially in view. So Sympathy may perhaps be the transfer, first, of our own personal feelings to other beings, and next, of their feelings to ourselves, thereby engendering the social affections. It is an ancient and obstinate error of philosophers to regard these two principles—Self-love and Sympathy—as thesourceof the impelling passions and affections, instead of being the last results of them.
The chief elementary feelings that go to constitute the moral sentiments appear to be Gratitude, Pity, Resentment, and Shame. To take the example of Gratitude. Acts of beneficence to ourselves give us pleasure; we associate this pleasure with the benefactor, so as to regard him with a feeling of complacency; and when we view other beneficent beings and acts there is awakened within us our own agreeable experience. The process is seen in the child, who contracts towards the nurse or mother all the feelings of complacency arising from repeated pleasures, and extends these by similarity to other resembling persons. As soon as complacency takes the form ofaction, it becomes (according to the author's theory, connecting conscience with will), a part of the Conscience. So much for the development of Gratitude. Next as to Pity. The likeness of the outward signs of emotion makes us transfer to others our own feelings, and thereby becomes, even more than gratitude, a source of benevolence; being one of the first motives to impart the benefits connected with affection. In our sympathy with the sufferer, we cannot but approve the actions that relieve suffering, and the dispositions that prompt them. We also enter into his Resentment, or anger towards the causes of pain, and the actions and dispositions corresponding; and this sympathetic anger is at length detached from special cases and extended to all wrong-doers; and is the root of the most indispensable compound of our moral faculties, the 'Sense of Justice.'
To these internal growths, from Gratitude, Pity, and Resentment, must be added the education by means of well-framed penal laws, which are the lasting declaration of the moral indignation of mankind. These laws may be obeyed as mere compulsory duties; but with the generous sentiments concurring, men may rise above duty tovirtue, and may contract that excellence of nature whence acts of beneficence flow of their own accord.
He next explains the growth of Remorse, as another element of the Moral Sense. The abhorrence that we feel for bad actions is extended to the agent; and, in spite of certain obstacles to its full manifestation, that abhorrence is prompted when the agent is self.
The theory of derivation is bound to account for the fact, recognized in the language of mankind, that the Moral Faculty is ONE. The principle of association would account for the fusion of many different sentiments into one product, wherein the component parts would cease to be discerned; but this is not enough. Why do these particular sentiments and no others coalesce in the total—Conscience. The answer is what was formerly given with reference to Butler; namely, while all other feelings relate to outward objects, the feelings brought together in conscience, contemplate exclusivelythe dispositions and actions of voluntary agents. Conscience is thus an acquired faculty, but one that isuniversally and necessarilyacquired.
The derivation is farther exemplified by a comparison with the feelings of Taste. These may have an original reference to fitness—as in the beauty of a horse—but they do not attain their proper character until the consideration of fitness disappears. So far they resemble the moral faculty. They differ from it, however, in this, that taste ends in passive contemplation or quiescent delight; conscience looks solely to the acts and dispositions of voluntary agents. This is the author's favourite way of expressing what is otherwise called the authority and supremacy of conscience.
To sum up:—the principal constituents of the moral sense areGratitude, Sympathy (or Pity), Resentment, and Shame; the secondary andauxiliary causes are Education, Imitation, General Opinion, Laws andGovernment.
In criticising Paley, he illustrates forcibly the position, thatReligion must pre-suppose morality.
His criticism of Bentham gives him an opportunity of remarking on the modes of carrying into effect the principle of Utility as the Standard. He repeats his favourite doctrine of the inherent pleasures of a virtuous disposition, as the grand circumstance rendering virtue profitable and vice unprofitable. He even uses the Platonic figure, and compares vice to mental distemper. It is his complaint against Bentham and the later supporters of Utility, that they havemisplacedthe application of the principle, and have encouraged the too frequent appeal to calculation in the details of conduct. Hence arise sophistical evasions of moral rules; men will slide from general to particular consequences; apply the test of utility to actions and not todispositions; and, in short, take too much upon themselves in settling questions of moral right and wrong. [He might have remarked that the power of perverting the standard to individual interests is not confined to the followers of Utility.] He introduces the saying attributed to Andrew Fletcher, 'that he would lose his life toservehis country, but would not do a base thing tosaveit.'
He farther remarks on the tendency of Bentham and his followers to treat Ethics toojuridically. He would probably admit that Ethics is strictly speaking a code of laws, but draws the line between it and the juridical code, by the distinction of dispositions and actions. We may have to approve the author of an injurious action, because it is well-meant; the law must nevertheless punish it. Herein Ethics has its alliance with Religion, which looks at the disposition or the heart.
He is disappointed at finding that Dugald Stewart, who made applications of the law of association and appreciated its powers, held back from, and discountenanced, the attempt of Hartley to resolve the Moral Sense, styling it 'an ingenious refinement on the Selfish system,' and representing those opposed to himself in Ethics as deriving the affections from 'self-love.' He repeats that the derivation theory affirms the disinterestedness of human actions as strongly as Butler himself; while it gets over the objection from the multiplication of original principles; and ascribes the result to the operation of a real agent.
In replying to Brown's refusal to accept the derivation of Conscience, on the ground that the process belongs to a time beyond remembrance, he affirms it to be a sufficient theory, if the supposed actionresembleswhat we know to be the operation of the principle where we have direct experience of it.
His concluding Section, VII., entitled General Remarks, gives some farther explanations of his characteristic views. He takes up the principle of Utility, at the point where Brown bogled at it; quoting Brown's concession, that Utility and virtue are so related, that there isperhapsno action generally felt to be virtuous that is not beneficial, and that every case of benefit willingly done excites approbation. He strikes out Brown's word 'perhaps,' as making the affirmation either conjectural or useless; and contends that the two facts,—morality and the general benefit,—being co-extensive, should be reciprocally tests of each other. He qualifies, as usual, by not allowing utility to be, on all occasions, the immediate incentive of actions. He holds, however, that the main doctrine is an essential corollary from the Divine Benevolence.
He then replies specifically to the question, 'Why is utility not to be the sole end present to the mind of the virtuous agent?' The answer is found in the limits of man's faculties. Every man is not always able, on the spur of the moment, to calculate all the consequences of our actions. But it is not to be concluded from this, that the calculation of consequences is impracticable in moral subjects. To calculate the general tendency of every sort of human action is, he contends, a possible, easy, and common operation. The general good effects of temperance, prudence, fortitude, justice, benevolence, gratitude, veracity, fidelity, domestic and patriotic affections, may be pronounced with as little error, as the best founded maxims of the ordinary business of life.
He vindicates the rules of sexual morality on the grounds of benevolence.
He then discusses the question, (on which he had charged Hume with mistake), 'Why is approbation confined to voluntary acts?' He thinks it but a partial solution to say that approbation and disapprobation are wasted on what is not in the power of the will. The full solution he considers to be found in the mode of derivation of the moral sentiment; which, accordingly, he re-discusses at some length. He produces the analogies of chemistry to show that compounds may be totally different from their elements. He insists on the fact that a derived pleasure is not the less a pleasure; it may even survive the primary pleasure. Self-love (improperly so called) is intelligible if its origin be referred to Association, but not if it be considered as prior to the appetites and passions that furnish its materials. And as the pleasure derived from low objects may be transferred to the most pure, so Disinterestedness may originate with self, and yet become as entirely detached from that origin as if the two had never been connected.
He then repeats his doctrine, that these social or disinterested sentiments prompt the will as the means of their gratification. Hence, by a farther transfer of association, the voluntary acts share in the delight felt in the affections that determine them. We then desire to experiencebeneficent volitions, and to cultivate the dispositions to these. Such dispositions are at last desired for their own sake; and, when so desired, constitute the Moral Sense, Conscience, or the Moral Sentiment, in its consummated form. Thus, by a fourth or fifth stage of derivation from the original pleasures and pains of our constitution, we arrive at this highly complex product, called our moral nature.
Nor is this all. We must not look at the side of indignation to the wrong-doer. We are angry at those who disappoint our wish for the happiness of others; we make their resentment our own. We hence approve of the actions and dispositions for punishing such offenders; while we so far sympathize with the culprit as to disapprove of excess of punishment. Such moderated anger is the sense of Justice, and is a new element of Conscience. Of all the virtues, this is the one mostdirectlyaided by a conviction of general interest or utility. All laws profess it as their end. Hence the importance of good criminal laws to the moral education of mankind.
Among contributary streams to the moral faculty, he enumerates courage, energy, and decision, properly directed.
He recognizes 'duties to ourselves,' although condemning the expression as absurd. Intemperance, improvidence, timidity are morally wrong. Still, as in other cases, a man is not truly virtuous on such points, till he loves them for their own sake, and even performs them without an effort. These prudential qualities having an influence on the will, resemble in that the other constituents of Conscience. As a final result, all those sentiments whose object is a state of the will become intimately and inseparably blended in the unity of Conscience, the arbiter and judge of human actions, the lawful authority over every motive to conduct.
In this grand coalition of the public and the private feelings, he sees a decisive illustration of the reference of moral sentiments to the Will. He farther recognizes in it a solution of the great problem of the relation of virtue to private interest. Qualities useful to ourselves are raised to the rank of virtues; and qualities useful to others are converted into pleasures. In moral reasonings, we are enabled to bring home virtuous inducements by the medium of self-interest; we can assure a man that by cultivating the disposition towards other men's happiness he gains a source of happiness to himself.
The question, Why we do not morally approve involuntary actions, is now answered. Conscience is associated exclusively with the dispositions and actions of voluntary agents. Conscience and Will are co-extensive.
A difficulty remains. 'If moral approbation involve no perception of beneficial tendency, how do we make out the coincidence of the two?' It might seem that the foundation of morals is thus made to rest on a coincidence that is mysterious and fantastic. According to the author, the conclusive answer is this. Although Conscience rarely contemplates anything so distant as the welfare of all sentient beings, yet in detail it obviously points to the production of happiness. The social affections all promote happiness. Every one must observe the tendency of justice to the welfare of society. The angry passions, as ministers of morality, remove hindrances to human welfare. The private desires have respect to our own happiness. Every element of conscience has thus some portion of happiness for its object. All the affections contribute to the general well-being, although it is not necessary, nor would it be fit, that the agent should be distracted by the contemplation of that vast and remote object.
To sum up Mackintosh:—
I.—On the Standard, he pronounces for Utility, with certain modifications and explanations. The Utility is the remote and final justification of all actions accounted right, but not the immediate motive in the mind of the agent. [It may justly be feared, that, by placing so much stress on the delights attendant on virtuous action, he gives an opening for the admission ofsentimentinto the consideration of Utility.]
II.—In the Psychology of Ethics, he regards the Conscience as a derived or generated faculty, the result of a series of associations. He assigns the primary feelings that enter into it, and traces the different stages of the growth. The distinctive feature of Conscience is its close relation to the Will.
He does not consider the problem of Liberty and Necessity.
He makes Disinterested Sentiment a secondary or derived feeling—a stage on the road to Conscience. While maintaining strongly the disinterested character of the sentiment, he considers that it may be fully accounted for by derivation from our primitive self-regarding feelings, and denies, as against Stewart and Brown, that this gives it a selfish character.
He carries the process of associative growth a step farther, and maintains that we re-convert disinterestedness into a lofty delight—the delight in goodness for its own sake; to attain this characteristic is the highest mark of a virtuous character.
III.—-His Summum Bonum, or Theory of Happiness, is contained in his much iterated doctrine of the deliciousness of virtuous conduct, by which he proposes to effect the reconciliation of our own good with the good of others—prudence with virtue. Virtue is 'an inward fountain of pure delight;' the pleasure of benevolence, 'if it could become lasting and intense, would convert the heart into a heaven;' they alone are happy, or truly virtuous, that do not need the motive of a regard to outward consequences.
His chief Ethical precursor in this vein is Shaftesbury; but he is easily able to produce from Theologians abundant iterations of it.
IV.—He has no special views as to the Moral Code. With reference to the inducements to virtue, he thinks he has a powerful lever in the delights that the virtuous disposition confers on its owner.
V.—His theory of the connexion of Ethics and Politics is stated in his account of Bentham, whom he charges with making morality too judicial.
VI.—The relations of Morality to Religion are a matter of frequent and special consideration in Mackintosh.
The work of James Mill, entitled the 'Analysis of the Human Mind,' is distinguished, in the first glace, by the studied precision of its definitions of all leading terms, giving it a permanent value as a logical discipline; and in the second place, by the successful carrying out of the principle of Association in explaining the powers of the mind. The author endeavours to show that the moral feelings are a complex product or growth, of which the ultimate constituents are our pleasurable and painful sensations. We shall present a brief abstract of the course of his exposition, as given in Chapters XVII.—XXIII. of the Analysis.
The pleasurable and painful sensations being assumed, it is important to take notice of their Causes, both immediate and remote, by whose means they can be secured or avoided. We contract a habit of passing rapidly from every sensation to its procuring cause; and, as in the typical case of money, these causes are apt to rank higher in importance, to take a greater hold on the mind, than the sensations themselves. The mind is not much interested in attending to the sensation; that can provide for itself. The mind is deeply interested in attending to the cause.
The author next (XIX.) considers the Ideas of the pleasurable sensations, and of the causes of them. The Idea of a pain is not the same as the pain; it is a complex state, containing, no doubt, an element of pain; and the name for it is Aversion. So the name for an idea of pleasure is Desire. Now, these states extend to the causes of pains and pleasures, though in other respects indifferent; we have an aversion for a certain drug, but there is in this a transition highly illustrative of the force of the associating principle; our real aversion being to a bitter sensation, and not to the visible appearance of the drug.
Alluding (XX.) to the important difference between past and future time in our ideas of pleasure and pain, he defines Hope and Fear as the contemplation of a pleasurable or of a painful sensation, as future, but not certain.
When the immediate causes of pleasurable and painful sensations are viewed as past or future, we have a new series of states. In the past, they are called Love and Hatred, or Aversion; in the future, the idea of a pleasure, as certain in its arrival, is Joy—as probable, Hope; the idea of future pain (certain) is not marked otherwise than by the names Hatred, Aversion, Horror; the idea of the pain as probable is some form of dread.
Theremotecauses of our pleasures and pains are more interesting than the immediate causes. The reason is their wide command. Thus, Wealth, Power, and Dignity are causes cf a great range of pleasures: Poverty, Impotence, and Contemptibility, of a wide range of pains. For one thing, the first are the means of procuring the services of our fellow-creatures; this fact is of the highest consequence in morals, as showing how deeply our happiness is entwined with the actions of other beings. The author illustrates at length the influence of these remote and comprehensive agencies; and as it is an influence entirely the result of association, it attests the magnitude of that power of the mind.
But our fellow-creatures are the subjects of affections, not merely as the instrumentality set in motion by Wealth, Power, and Dignity, but in their proper personality. This leads the author to the consideration of the pleasurable affections of Friendship, Kindness, Family, Country, Party, Mankind. He resolves them all into associations with our primitive pleasures. Thus, to take the example of Kindness, which will show how he deals with the disinterested affection;—The idea of a man enjoying a train of pleasures, or happiness, is felt by everybody to be a pleasurable idea; this can arise from nothing but the association of our own pleasures with the idea of his pleasures. The pleasurable association composed of the ideas of a man and of his pleasures, and the painful association composed of the idea of a man and of his pains, are both Affections included under one name Kindness; although in the second case it has the more specific name Compassion.
Under the other heads, the author's elucidation is fuller, but his principle is the same.
He next goes on (XXII.) to MOTIVES. When the idea of a Pleasure is associated with an action of our own as the cause, that peculiar state of mind is generated, called a motive. The idea of the pleasure, without the idea of an action for gaining it, does not amount to a motive. Every pleasure may become a motive, but every motive does not end in action, because there may be counter-motives; and the strength attained by motives depends greatly on education. The facility of being acted on by motives of a particular kind is a DISPOSITION. We have, in connexion with all our leading pleasures and pains, names indicating their motive efficacy. Gluttony is both motive and disposition; so Lust and Drunkenness; with the added sense of reprobation in all the three. Friendship is a name for Affection, Motive, and Disposition.
In Chapter XXIII., the author makes the application of his principles to Ethics. The actions emanating from ourselves, combined with those emanating from our fellow-creatures, exceed all other Causes of our Pleasures and Pains. Consequently such actions are objects of intense affections or regards.
The actions whence advantages accrue are classed under the four titles, Prudence, Fortitude, Justice, Benevolence. The two first—Prudence and Fortitude [in fact, Prudence]—express acts useful to ourselves in the first instance, to others in the second instance. Justice and Benevolence express acts useful to others in the first instance, to ourselves in the second instance. We have two sets of association with all these acts, one set with them as our own, another set with them as other people's. With Prudence (and Fortitude) as our own acts, we associate good to ourselves, either in the shape of positive pleasure, or as warding off pain. Thus Labour is raised to importance by numerous associations of both classes. Farther, Prudence, involving the foresight of a train of consequences, requires a large measure of knowledge of things animate and inanimate. Courage is defined by the author, incurring the chance of Evil, that is danger, for the sake of a preponderant good; which, too, stands in need of knowledge. Now, when the ideas of acts of Prudence and acts of Courage have been associated sufficiently often with beneficial consequences, they become pleasurable ideas, or Affections, and they have also, from the nature of the case, the character of Motives. In short, there is nothing in prudential conduct that may not be explained by a series of associations, grounded on our pleasurable and painful sensations, on the ideas of them, and on the ideas of their causes.
The real difficulty attaches to Justice and to Beneficence.
As to Justice. Men, in society, have found it essential for mutual benefit, that the powers of Individuals over the general causes of good should be fixed by certain rules, that is, Laws. Acts done in accordance with these rules are Just Acts; although, when duly considered, they are seen to include the main fact of beneficence, the good of others. To the performance of a certain class of just acts, our Fellow-creatures annex penalties; these, therefore, are determined partly by Prudence; others remain to be performed voluntarily, and for them the motive is Beneficence.
What then is the source of the motives towards Beneficence? How do the ideas of acts, having the good of our fellows for their end, become Affections and Motives? In the first place, we have associations of pleasure with all the pleasurable feelings of fellow-creatures, and hence, with such acts of ours as yield them pleasure. In the second place, those are the acts for procuring to ourselves the favourable Disposition of our Fellow-men, so that we have farther associations of the pleasures flowing from such favourable dispositions. Thus, by the union of two sets of influences—two streams of association—the Idea of our beneficent acts becomes a pleasurable idea, that is, an Affection, and, being connected with actions of ours, is also a Motive. Such is the genesis of Beneficent or Disinterested impulses.
We have next a class of associations with other men's performance of the several virtues. The Prudence and the Fortitude of others are directly beneficial to them, and indirectly beneficial to us; and with both these consequences we have necessarily agreeable associations. The Justice and the Beneficence of other men are so directly beneficial to the objects of them, that it is impossible for us not to have pleasurable associations with acts of Justice and Beneficence, first as concerns ourselves in particular, and next as concerns the acts generally. Hence, therefore, the rise of Affections and Motives in favour of these two virtues. As there is nothing so deeply interesting to me as that the acts of men, regarding myself immediately, should be acts of Justice and Beneficence, and the acts regarding themselves immediately, acts of Prudence and Fortitude; it follows that I have an interest in all such acts of my own as operate to cause those acts in others. By similar acts of our own, by the manifestation of dispositions to perform those acts, we obtain their reciprocal performance by others. There is thus a highly complex, concurring stimulus to acts of virtue,—a large aggregate of influences of association, the power at bottom being still our own pleasurable and painful sensations. We must add the ascription of Praise, an influence remarkable for its wide propagation and great efficacy over men's minds, and no less remarkable as a proof of the range of the associating principle, especially in its character of Fame, which, in the case of future fame, is a purely ideal or associated delight. Equally, if not more, striking are the illustrations from Dispraise. The associations of Disgrace, even when not sufficient to restrain the performance of acts abhorred by mankind, are able to produce the horrors of Remorse, the most intense of human sufferings. The love of praise leads by one step to the love of Praiseworthiness; the dread of blame, to the dread of Blameworthiness.
Of these various Motives, the most constant in operation, and the most in use in moral training, are Praise and Blame. It is the sensibility to Praise and Blame—the joyful feelings associated with the one, and the dread associated with the other—that gives effect to POPULAR OPINION, or the POPULAR SANCTION, and, with reference to men generally, the MORAL SANCTION.
The other motives to virtue, namely, the association of our own acts of Justice and Beneficence, as cause, with other men's as effects, are subject to strong counteraction, for we can rarely perform such acts without sacrifice to ourselves. Still, there is in all men a certain surplus of motive from this cause, just as there is a surplus from the association of acts of ours, hostile to other men, with a return of hostility on their part.
The best names for the aggregate Affection, Motive, and Disposition in this important region of conduct, areMoral ApprobationandDisapprobation. The terms Moral Sense, Sense of Right and Wrong, Love of Virtue and Hatred of Vice, are not equally appropriate. Virtue and Morality are other synonyms.
In the work entitled, 'A Fragment on Mackintosh,' there are afforded farther illustrations of the author's derivation of the Moral Sentiment, together with an exposition and defence of Utility as the standard, in which his views are substantially at one with Bentham. Two or three references will be sufficient.
In the statement of the questions in dispute in Morals, he objects to the words 'test' and 'criterion,' as expressing the standard. He considers it a mistake to designate as a 'test' what is the thing itself; the test of Morality is Morality. Properly, the thing testing is one thing; the thing tested another thing. The same objection would apply to the use of the word Standard; so that the only form of the first question of Ethics would be, Whatismorality? What does it consist in? [The remark is just, but somewhat hypercritical. The illustration from Chemical testing is not true in fact; the test of gold is some essential attribute of gold, as its weight. And when we wish to determine as to a certain act, whether it is a moral act, we compare it with what we deem the essential quality of moral acts—Utility, our Moral Instinct, &c.—and the operation is not improperly called testing the act. Since, therefore, whatever we agree upon as the essence of morality, must be practically used by us as a test, criterion, or standard, there cannot be much harm in calling this essential quality the standard, although the designation is to a certain extent figurative.]
The author has some additional remarks on the derivation of our Disinterested feelings: he reiterates the position expressed in the 'Analysis,' that although we have feelings directly tending to the good of others, they are nevertheless the growth of feelings that are rooted in self. That feelings should be detached from their original root is a well known phenomenon of the mind.
His illustrations of Utility are a valuable contribution to the defence of that doctrine. He replies to most of the common objections. Mackintosh had urged that the reference to Utility would be made a dangerous pretext for allowing exceptions to common rules. Mill expounds at length (p. 246) the formation of moral rules, and retorts that there are rules expressly formed to make exceptions to other rules, as justice before generosity, charity begins at home, &c.
He animadverts with great severity on Mackintosh's doctrines, as to the delight of virtue for its own sake, and the special contact of moral feelings with the will. Allowance being made for the great difference in the way that the two writers express themselves, they are at one in maintaining Utility to be the ultimate standard, and in regarding Conscience as a derived faculty of the mind.
The author's handling of Ethics does not extend beyond the first and second topics—the STANDARD and the FACULTY. His Standard is Utility. The Faculty is based on our Pleasures and Pains, with which there are multiplied associations. Disinterested Sentiment is a real fact, but has its origin in our own proper pleasures and pains.
Mill considers that the existing moral rules are all based on our estimate, correct or incorrect, of Utility.
Austin, in his Lectures on 'The Province of Jurisprudence determined,' has discussed the leading questions of Ethics. We give an abstract of the Ethical part.
LECTURE I. Law, in its largest meaning, and omitting metaphorical applications, embraces Laws set by God to his creatures, and Laws set by man to man. Of the laws set by man to man, some are established bypoliticalsuperiors, or by persons exercising government in nations or political societies. This is law in the usual sense of the word, forming the subject of Jurisprudence. The author terms itPositive Law. There is another class of laws not set by political superiors in that capacity. Yet some of these are properly termed laws, although others are only so by a close Analogy. There is no name for the laws proper, but to the others are applied such names as 'moralrules,' 'themorallaw,' 'generalorpublic opinion,' 'the law ofhonouror offashion.' The author proposes for these laws the namepositive morality. The laws now enumerated differ in many important respects, but agree in this—that all of them are setbyintelligent and rational beingstointelligent and rational beings. There is a figurative application of the word 'law,' to the uniformities of the natural world, through which, the field of jurisprudence and morals has been deluged with muddy speculation.
Laws properly so called arecommands. A command is the signification of a desire or wish, accompanied with the power and the purpose to inflict evil if that desire is not complied with. The person so desired isboundorobliged, or placed under aduty, to obey. Refusal is disobedience, or violation of duty. The evil to be inflicted is called asanction, or anenforcement of obedience; the termpunishmentexpresses one class of sanctions.
The term sanction is improperly applied to a Reward. We cannot say that an action iscommanded, or that obedience isconstrainedorenforcedby the offer of a reward. Again, when a reward is offered, arightand not an obligation is created: the imperative function passes to the party receiving the reward. In short, it is only by conditionalevil, that duties aresanctionedorenforced.
The correct meaning ofsuperiorandinferioris determined by command and obedience.
LECTURE II. TheDivine Lawsare the known commands of the Deity, enforced by the evils that we may suffer here or hereafter for breaking them. Some of these laws arerevealed, othersunrevealed. Paley and others have proved that it was not the purpose of Revelation to disclose the whole of our duties; the Light of Nature is an additional source. But how are we to interpret this Light of Nature?
The various hypotheses for resolving this question may be reduced to two: (1) an Innate Sentiment, called a Moral Sense, Common Sense, Practical Reason, &c.; and (2) the Theory of Utility.
The author avows his adherence to the theory of Utility, which he connects with the Divine Benevolence in the manner of Bentham. God designs the happiness of sentient beings. Some actions forward that purpose, others frustrate it. The first, God has enjoined; the second, He has forbidden. Knowing, therefore, the tendency of any action, we know the Divine command with respect to it.
The tendency of an action is all its consequences near and remote, certain and probable, direct and collateral. A petty theft, or the evasion of a trifling tax, may be insignificant, or even good, in the direct and immediate consequences; but before the full tendency can be weighed, we must resolve the question:—What would be the probable effect on the general happiness or good, ifsimilaracts, or omissions, were general or frequent?
When the theory of Utility is correctly stated, the current objections are easily refuted. As viewed by the author, Utility is not thefountainorsourceof our duties; this must be commands and sanctions. But it is theindexof the will of the law-giver, who is presumed to have for his chief end the happiness or good of mankind.
The most specious objection to Utility is the supposed necessity of going through a calculation of the consequences of every act that we have to perform, an operation often beyond our power, and likely to be abused to forward our private wishes. To this, the author replies first, that supposing utility our only index, we must make the best of it. Of course, if we were endowed with a moral sense, a special organ for ascertaining our duties, the attempt to displace that invincible consciousness, and to thrust the principle of utility into the vacant seat, would be impossible and absurd.
According to the theory of Utility, our conduct would conform torulesinferred from the tendencies of actions, but would not be determined by a direct resort to the principle of general utility. Utility would be the ultimate, not the immediate test. To preface each act or forbearance by a conjecture and comparison of consequences were both superfluous and mischievous:—superfluous, inasmuch as the result is already embodied in a known rule; and mischievous, inasmuch as the process, if performed on the spur of the occasion, would probably be faulty.
With the rules are associatedsentiments, the result of the Divine, or other, command to obey the rules. It is a gross and flagrant error to talk ofsubstitutingcalculation for sentiment; this is to oppose the rudder to the sail. Sentiment without calculation were capricious; calculation without sentiment is inert.
There are cases where thespecificconsequences of an action are so momentous as to overbear the rule; for example, resistance to a bad government, which the author calls ananomalousquestion, to be tried not by the rule, but by a direct resort to the ultimate or presiding-principle, and by a separate calculation of good and evil. Such was the political emergency of the Commonwealth, and the American revolution. It would have been well, the author thinks, if utility had been the sole guide in both cases.
There is a second objection to Utility, more perplexing to deal with. How can we know fully and correctly all the consequences of actions? The answer is that Ethics, as a science of observation and induction, has been formed, through a long succession of ages, by many and separate contributions from many and separate discoverers. Like all other sciences, it is progressive, although unfortunately, subject to special drawbacks. The men that have enquired, or affected to enquire, into Ethics, have rarely been impartial; they have laboured under prejudices or sinister interests; and have been the advocates of foregone conclusions. There is not on this subjecta concurrence or agreement of numerous and impartial enquirers. Indeed, many of the legal and moral rules of the most civilized communities arose in the infancy of the human mind, partly from caprices of the fancy (nearly omnipotent with barbarians), and partly from an imperfect apprehension of general utility, the result of a narrow experience. Thus the diffusion and the advancement of ethical truth encounter great and peculiar obstacles, only to be removed by a better general education extended to the mass of the people. It is desirable that the community should be indoctrinated with sound views of property, and with the dependence of wealth, upon the true principle of population, discovered by Malthus, all which they are competent to understand.
The author refers to Paley's Moral Philosophy as an example of the perverting tendency of narrow and domineering interests in the domain of ethics. With many commendable points, there is, in that work, much ignoble truckling to the dominant and influential few, and a deal of shabby sophistry in defending abuses that the few were interested in upholding.
As a farther answer to the second objection, he remarks, that it applies to every theory of ethics that supposes our duties to be set by the Deity. Christianity itself is defective, considered as a system of rules for tho guidance of human conduct.
He then turns to the alternative of a Moral Sense. This involves two assumptions.
First, Certain sentiments, or feelings of approbation or disapprobation, accompany our conceptions of certain human actions. These feelings are neither the result of our reflection on the tendencies of actions, nor the result of education; the sentiments would follow the conception, although we had neither adverted to the good or evil tendency of the actions, nor become aware of the opinions of others regarding them. This theory denies that the sentiments known to exist can be produced by education. We approve and disapprove of actionswe know not why.
The author adapts Paley's supposition of the savage, in order to express strongly what the moral sense implies. But we will confine ourselves to his reasonings. Is there, he asks, any evidence of our being gifted with such feelings? The very putting of such a question would seem a sufficient proof that we are not so endowed. There ought to be no more doubt about them, than about hunger or thirst.
It is alleged in their favour that our judgments of rectitude and depravity are immediate and voluntary. The reply is that sentiments begotten by association are no less prompt and involuntary than our instincts. Our response to a money gain, or a money loss, is as prompt as our compliance with the primitive appetites of the system. We begin by loving knowledge as a means to ends; but, in time, the end is inseparably associated with the instrument. So a moral sentiment dictated by utility, if often exercised, would be rapid and direct in its operation.
It is farther alleged, as a proof of the innate character of the moral judgments, that the moral sentiments of all men are precisely alike. The argument may be put thus:—No opinion or sentiment resulting from observation and induction is held or felt by all mankind: Observation and induction, as applied to the same subject, lead different men to different conclusions. Now, the judgments passed internally on the rectitude or pravity of actions, or the moral sentiments, are precisely alike with all men. Therefore, our moral sentiments are not the result of our inductions of the tendencies of actions; nor were they derived from others, and impressed by authority and example. Consequently, the moral sentiments are instinctive, or ultimate and inscrutable facts.
To refute such an argument is superfluous; it is based on a groundless assertion. The moral sentiments of men have differed to infinity. With regard to a few classes of actions, the moral judgments of most, though not of all, men have been alike. With regard to others, they have differed, through every shade or degree, from slight diversity to direct opposition.