A Manual of Moral Philosophy Part 1

A Manual of Moral Philosophy.

by Andrew Preston Peabody.

PREFACE.

This book has been prepared, particularly, for the use of the Freshman Cla.s.s in Harvard College. The author has, at the same time, desired to meet the need, felt in our high schools, of a manual of Moral Science fitted for the more advanced cla.s.ses.

In the preparation of this treatise, the author has been at no pains to avoid saying what others had said before. Yet the book is original, so far as such a book can be or ought to be original. The author has directly copied nothing except Dugald Stewart's cla.s.sification of the Desires. But as his reading for several years has been princ.i.p.ally in the department of ethics, it is highly probable that much of what he supposes to be his own thought may have been derived from other minds. Of course, there is no small part of the contents of a work of this kind, which is the common property of writers, and must in some form reappear in every elementary manual.

Should this work be favorably received, the author hopes to prepare, for higher college-cla.s.ses, a textbook, embracing a more detailed and thorough discussion of the questions at issue among the different schools-past and present-of ethical science.

Chapter 1.

ACTION.

An act or action is a voluntary exercise of any power of body or mind. The character of an action, whether good or bad, depends on the intention of the agent. Thus, if I mean to do my neighbor a kindness by any particular act, the action is kind, and therefore good, on my part, even though he derive no benefit from it, or be injured by it. If I mean to do my neighbor an injury, the action is unkind, and therefore bad, though it do him no harm, or though it even result to his benefit. If I mean to perform an action, good or bad, and am prevented from performing it by some unforeseen hindrance, the act is as truly mine as if I had performed it.

Words which have any meaning are actions. So are thoughts which we purposely call up, or retain in the mind.

On the other hand, the actions which we are compelled to perform against our wishes, and the thoughts which are forced upon our minds, without our own consent, are not our actions. This is obviously true when our fellow-men forcibly compel us to do or to hear things which we do not wish to do or to hear. It is their action solely, and we have no more part in it than if we were brute beasts, or inanimate objects. It is, then, the intention that gives character to the action.

That we commonly do what we intend to do there can be no doubt. We do not act under _immediate_ compulsion. We are, therefore, free _agents_, or actors. But are our intentions free? Is it in our power to will otherwise than we will? When we choose to perform an act that is just or kind, is it in our power to choose to perform an act of the opposite character? In other words, is the _will_ free? If it be not so, then what we call our intentions are not ours, but are to be attributed to the superior will which has given direction to our wills. If G.o.d has so arranged the order of nature and the course of events as to force my will in certain directions, good or evil, then it is He that does the good or evil which I seem to do. On this supposition G.o.d is the only agent or actor in the universe. Evil, if it be wrought, is wrought by Him alone; and if we cannot admit that the Supreme Being does evil, the only alternative is to deny the existence of evil, and to maintain that what we call evil bears an essential part in the production of good. For instance, if the horrible enormities imputed to Nero were utterly bad, the evil that was in them is chargeable, not on Nero, but on G.o.d; or if it be maintained that G.o.d cannot do evil, then Nero was an instrument for the advancement of human happiness and well-being.

What reasons have we for believing that the human will is free?

1. We have the direct evidence of consciousness. We are distinctly conscious, not only of doing as we choose, but of exercising our free choice among different objects of desire, between immediate and future enjoyment, between good and evil. Now, though consciousness may sometimes deceive us, it is the strongest evidence that we can have; we are so const.i.tuted that we cannot refuse our credence to it; and our belief in it lies at the basis of all evidence and of all knowledge.

2. We are clearly conscious of merit or demerit, of self-approval or self-condemnation, in consequence of our actions. If our wills were acted upon by a force beyond our control, we might congratulate or pity ourselves, but we could not praise or blame ourselves, for what we had done.

3. We praise or blame others for their good or evil actions; and in our conduct toward them we show that we believe them to have been not merely fortunate or unfortunate, but praiseworthy or blameworthy. So far as we suppose their wills to have been influenced by circ.u.mstances beyond their control, we regard them with diminished approval or censure. On the other hand, we give the highest praise to those who have chosen the good amidst strong temptations to evil, and bestow the severest censure on those who have done evil with virtuous surroundings and influences. Now our judgment of others must of necessity be derived from our own consciousness, and if we regard and treat them as freely willing beings, it can only be because we know that our own wills are free.

These arguments, all derived from consciousness, can be directly met only by denying the validity of consciousness as a ground of belief. The opposing arguments are drawn from sources independent of consciousness.

1. The most obvious objection to the freedom of the human will is derived from the power of motives. It is said, We never act without a motive; we always yield to the strongest motive; and motives are not of our own creation or choice, but are brought to bear upon us independently of our own action. There has been, from the creation until now, an unbroken series of causes and effects, and we can trace every human volition to some anterior cause or causes belonging to this inevitable series, so that, in order for the volition to have been other than it was, some member of this series must have been displaced.

To this it may be answered:-

(_a_) We are capable of acting without a motive, and we do so act in numberless instances. It was a common saying among the Schoolmen, that an a.s.s, at equal distances from two equal bundles of hay, would starve to death for lack of a motive to choose either. But have we any motive whatever in the many cases in which we choose-sometimes after the vain endeavor to discover a ground of preference-between two equally valuable, beautiful, or appetizing objects, between two equally pleasant routes to the same terminus, or between two equally agreeable modes of pa.s.sing a leisure day or hour? Yet this choice, made without motive, may be a fruitful cause of motives that shall have a large influence in the future.

Thus, on the route which one chooses without any a.s.signable reason, he may encounter persons or events that shall modify his whole plan of life. The instances are by no means few, in which the most decisive results have ensued upon a choice thus made entirely without motive.

(_b_) Motives of equal strength act differently on different temperaments.

The same motive, when it stands alone, with no opposing motive, has not the same effect on different minds. There is in the will of every human being a certain reluctance to action-in some greater, in others less-corresponding to the _vis inertiae_ in inanimate substances; and as the impulse which will move a wooden ball may not suffice to move a leaden ball, so the motive which will start into action a quick and sensitive temperament, may produce no effect on a person of more sluggish nature.

Thus, among men utterly dest.i.tute of honesty, some are tempted by the most paltry opportunities for theft or fraud; others, not one whit more scrupulous, have their cupidity aroused only by the prospect of some substantial gain. So, too, some sincerely benevolent persons are moved to charitable actions by the slightest needs and sufferings; others, equally kind and generous, have their sympathies excited only on grave occasions and by imperative claims. Motives, then, have not a determinate and calculable strength, but a power which varies with the previous character of the person to whom they are addressed. Moreover, the greater or less susceptibility to motives from without is not a difference produced by education or surroundings; for it may be traced in children from the earliest development of character. Nor can it be hereditary; for it may be found among children of the same parents, and not infrequently between twins nurtured under precisely the same care, instruction, and discipline.

(_c_) External motives are not the causes of action, but merely its occasions or opportunities. The cause of the action already exists in the character of the agent, before the motive presents itself. A purse of gold that may be stolen without detection is an irresistible motive to a thief, or to a person who, though not previously a thief, is covetous and unprincipled; but the same purse might lie in the way of an honest man every day for a month, and it would not make him a thief. If I recognize the presence of a motive, I must perform some action, whether exterior or internal; but whether that action will be in accordance with the motive, or in the opposite direction, is determined by my previous character and habits of action.

(_d_) The objection which we are considering a.s.sumes, without sufficient reason, that the phenomena of human action are closely a.n.a.logous to those of motion in the material world. The a.n.a.logy fails in several particulars.

No material object can act on itself and change its own nature, adaptations, or uses, without any external cause; but the human mind can act upon itself without any external cause, as in repentance, serious reflection, religious purposes and aims. Then again, if two or more forces in different directions act upon a material object, its motion is not in the direction of either, or with the momentum derived from either, but in a direction and with a momentum resulting from the composition of these forces; whereas the human will, in the presence of two or more motives, pursues the direction and yields to the force of but one of those motives.

We are not, then, authorized to reason about the power of motives from the action of material forces.

(_e_) Were the arguments against the freedom of the will logically sound and unanswerable, they would be of no avail against the testimony of consciousness. Axioms, intuitive beliefs, and truths of consciousness can be neither proved nor disproved by reasoning; and the reasoning by which they seem to be disproved only evinces that they are beyond the range and reach of argument. Thus it may be maintained with show of reason that motion is impossible; for an object cannot move where it is, and cannot move where it is not,-a dilemma which does not disprove the reality of motion, but simply indicates that the reality of motion, being an intuitive belief, neither needs nor admits logical proof.

2. It is urged against the freedom of the human will that it is inconsistent with G.o.d's foreknowledge of future events, and thus represents the Supreme Being as not omniscient, and in that particular finite and imperfect.

To this objection we reply:-

(_a_) If human freedom and the Divine foreknowledge of human acts are mutually incompatible, we must still retain the freedom of the will as a truth of consciousness; for if we discredit our own consciousness, we cannot trust even the act of the understanding by which we set it aside, which act we know by the testimony of consciousness alone.

(_b_) If the acts of a freely willing being cannot be foreknown, the ignorance of them does not detract from the perfectness of the Supreme Being. Omnipotence cannot make two and two five. Omnipotence cannot do what is intrinsically impossible. No more can Omniscience know what is intrinsically unknowable.

(_c_) If G.o.d's foreknowledge is entire, it must include his own acts, no less than those of men. If his foreknowledge of men's acts is incompatible with their freedom, then his foreknowledge of his own acts is incompatible with his own freedom. We have, therefore, on the theory of necessity, instead of a Supreme Will on the throne of the universe, mere fate or destiny. This is equivalent to the denial of a personal G.o.d.

(_d_) It cannot be proved that G.o.d's foreknowledge and man's free will are incompatible with each other. The most that we can say is that we do not fully see how they are to be reconciled, which is the case with many pairs of undoubted truths that might be named. But while a perfect explanation of the harmony of the Divine foreknowledge and human freedom is beyond the scope of our faculties, we may explain it in part, from our own experience. Human foreknowledge extends very far and with a great degree of certainty, without abridging the freedom of those to whom it relates.

When we can foresee outward events, we can often foretell, with little danger of mistake, the courses of conduct to which they will give rise. In view of the extent and accuracy of human foresight, we cannot p.r.o.nounce it impossible, that He who possesses antecedent knowledge of the native const.i.tution of every human being, and of the shaping circ.u.mstances and influences to which each being is subjected, may foreknow men's acts, even though their wills be entirely free.

Chapter II.

THE SPRINGS OF ACTION.

There are certain elements of the human const.i.tution, in part natural, in part acquired, which always prompt and urge men to action, without reference to the good or evil there may be in the action, and without reference to its ultimate effects on the actor's well-being. These are the Appet.i.tes, the Desires, and the Affections.

Section I.

The Appet.i.tes.

The Appet.i.tes are cravings of the body, adapted, and undoubtedly designed, to secure the continued life of the individual and the preservation of the species. They are common to man with the lower orders of animals, with this difference, that in man they may be controlled, directed, modified, in part suppressed, while in brutes they are uncontrollable, and always tend to the same modes of gratification.

Appet.i.te is intermittent. When gratified, it ceases for a time, and is renewed for the same person nearly at the same intervals, and under similar circ.u.mstances. It is, while it lasts, an uneasy, even a painful sensation, and therefore demands prompt relief, and leads to action with a view to such relief. It is also a characteristic of appet.i.te that its indulgence is attended, not merely by relief, but by positive pleasure.

The appet.i.tes are essential to the well-being of men, individually and collectively. Were it not for the pain of hunger and thirst, and the pleasure of gratifying them, both indolence and engrossing industry would draw off the attention of men from their bodily needs; nourishment would be taken irregularly, and with little reference to quality; and one would often become aware of his neglect only too late to arrest its consequences. A similar remark applies to the appet.i.te designed to secure the preservation of the species. But for this, it may be doubted whether men would willingly take upon themselves the cares, labors, responsibilities, and contingent disappointments and sorrows involved in the rearing of children.

In a life conformed to nature, hunger and thirst recur only when the body actually needs the supply which they crave. But stimulating food, by the reaction that follows strong excitement of any portion of the nervous system, may create hunger when there is no need of food, and in like manner not only intoxicating, but highly stimulating liquids, may occasion an excessive, morbid, and injurious thirst.