Moral Science; a Compendium of Ethics Part 25

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 pa.s.sive 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 princ.i.p.al const.i.tuents of the moral sense are Grat.i.tude, Sympathy (or Pity), Resentment, and Shame; the secondary and auxiliary causes are Education, Imitation, General Opinion, Laws and Government.

In criticising Paley, he ill.u.s.trates forcibly the position, that Religion 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 circ.u.mstance 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 have _misplaced_ the 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 to _dispositions_; 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 to _serve_ his country, but would not do a base thing to _save_ it.'

He farther remarks on the tendency of Bentham and his followers to treat Ethics too _juridically_. 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 a.s.sociation 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 action _resembles_ what we know to be the operation of the principle where we have direct experience of it.

His concluding Section, VII., ent.i.tled 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 is _perhaps_ no 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, fort.i.tude, justice, benevolence, grat.i.tude, veracity, fidelity, domestic and patriotic affections, may be p.r.o.nounced with as little error, as the best founded maxims of the ordinary business of life.

He vindicates the rules of s.e.xual 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 a.n.a.logies 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 a.s.sociation, but not if it be considered as prior to the appet.i.tes and pa.s.sions 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 a.s.sociation, the voluntary acts share in the delight felt in the affections that determine them. We then desire to experience _beneficent volitions_, and to cultivate the dispositions to these. Such dispositions are at last desired for their own sake; and, when so desired, const.i.tute 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 const.i.tution, 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 most _directly_ aided 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 const.i.tuents 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 ill.u.s.tration 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 a.s.sure 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 a.s.sociated 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 pa.s.sions, 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 p.r.o.nounces 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 of _sentiment_ into 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 a.s.sociations.

He a.s.signs 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 a.s.sociative 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.

JAMES MILL. [1783-1836.]

The work of James Mill, ent.i.tled the 'a.n.a.lysis 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 a.s.sociation 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 const.i.tuents 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 a.n.a.lysis.

The pleasurable and painful sensations being a.s.sumed, 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 pa.s.sing 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 ill.u.s.trative of the force of the a.s.sociating 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.

The _remote_ causes 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 ill.u.s.trates at length the influence of these remote and comprehensive agencies; and as it is an influence entirely the result of a.s.sociation, 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 a.s.sociations 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 a.s.sociation of our own pleasures with the idea of his pleasures. The pleasurable a.s.sociation composed of the ideas of a man and of his pleasures, and the painful a.s.sociation 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 Compa.s.sion.

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 a.s.sociated 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 l.u.s.t 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 cla.s.sed under the four t.i.tles, Prudence, Fort.i.tude, Justice, Benevolence. The two first--Prudence and Fort.i.tude [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 a.s.sociation with all these acts, one set with them as our own, another set with them as other people's. With Prudence (and Fort.i.tude) as our own acts, we a.s.sociate good to ourselves, either in the shape of positive pleasure, or as warding off pain. Thus Labour is raised to importance by numerous a.s.sociations of both cla.s.ses. 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 a.s.sociated 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 a.s.sociations, 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 cla.s.s 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 a.s.sociations 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 a.s.sociations of the pleasures flowing from such favourable dispositions. Thus, by the union of two sets of influences--two streams of a.s.sociation--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 cla.s.s of a.s.sociations with other men's performance of the several virtues. The Prudence and the Fort.i.tude of others are directly beneficial to them, and indirectly beneficial to us; and with both these consequences we have necessarily agreeable a.s.sociations. 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 a.s.sociations 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 Fort.i.tude; 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 a.s.sociation, 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 a.s.sociating principle, especially in its character of Fame, which, in the case of future fame, is a purely ideal or a.s.sociated delight.

Equally, if not more, striking are the ill.u.s.trations from Dispraise.

The a.s.sociations 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 a.s.sociated with the one, and the dread a.s.sociated with the other--that gives effect to POPULAR OPINION, or the POPULAR SANCTION, and, with reference to men generally, the MORAL SANCTION.