Moral Science by Alexander Bain (top 20 books to read txt) 📖

might be committed on this plea. He is equally opposed to those that would deny disinterested benevolence, or would resolve beneficence into veracity. He urges against Hutcheson, that, these being independent and distinct virtues, a distinct sense would be necessary to each; in other words, we should, for the whole of virtue, need a plurality of moral senses.

His classification of Virtue comprehends (1) Duty to God, which he dilates upon at some length. (2) Duty to Ourselves, wherein he maintains that our sense of self-interest is not enough for us. (3) Beneficence, the Good of others. (4) Gratitude. (5) Veracity, which he inculcates with great earnestness, adverting especially to impartiality and honesty in our enquiries after truth. (6) Justice, which he treats in its application to the Rights of Property. He considers that the difficulties in practice arise partly from the conflict of the different heads, and partly from the different modes of applying the same principles; which he gives as an answer to the objection from the great differences of men's moral sentiments and practices. He allows, besides, that custom, education, and example, may blind and deprave our intellectual and moral powers; but denies that the whole of our notions and sentiments could result from education. No amount of depravity is able utterly to destroy our moral discernment.

Chapter VIII. treats of Intention as an element in virtuous action. He makes a distinction between Virtue in the Abstract and Virtue in Practice, or with reference to all the circumstances of the agent. A man may do abstract wrong, through mistake, while as he acts with his best judgment and with upright intentions, he is practically right. He grounds on this a powerful appeal against every attempt at dominion over conscience. The requisites of Practical Morality are (1) Liberty, or Free-will, on which he takes the side of free-agency. (2) Intelligence, without which there can be no perception of good and evil, and no moral agency. (3) The Consciousness of Rectitude, or Righteous Intention. On this he dwells at some length. No action is properly the action of a moral agent unless designed by him. A virtuous motive is essential to virtue. On the question--Is Benevolence a virtuous motive? he replies: Not the Instinctive benevolence of the parent, but only Rational benevolence; which he allows to coincide with rectitude. Reason presiding over Self-love renders it a virtuous principle likewise. The presence of Reason in greater or less degree is the criterion of the greater or less virtue of any action.

Chapter IX. is on the different Degrees of Virtue and Vice, and the modes of estimating them; the Difficulties attending the Practice of Virtue; the use of Trials, and the essentials of a good or a bad Character. The considerations adduced are a number of perfectly well-known maxims on the practice of morality, and scarcely add anything to the elucidation of the author's Moral Theory. The concluding chapter, on Natural Religion, contains nothing original.

To sum up the views of Price:--

I.--As regards the Moral Standard, he asserts that a perception of the Reason or the Understanding,--a sense of fitness or congruity between actions and the agents, and all the circumstances attending them,--is what determines Right and Wrong.

He finds it impracticable to maintain his position without sundry qualifications, as we have seen. Virtue is naturally adapted to _please_ every observing mind; vice the contrary. Right actions must be _grateful_, wrong ungrateful to us. To _behold_ virtue is to _admire_ her. In contemplating the actions of moral agents, we have _both_ a perception of the understanding and a feeling of the heart. He thus re-admits an element of feeling, along with the intellect, in some undefined degree; contending only that _all morality_ is not to be resolved into feeling or instinct. We have also noticed another singular admission, to the effect that only superior natures can discover virtue by the understanding. Reason alone, did we possess it in a high degree, would answer all the ends of the passions. Parental affection would be unnecessary, if parents were sufficiently alive to the reasons of supporting the young, and were virtuous enough to be always determined by them.

Utility, although not the _sole_ ground of Justice, is yet admitted to be _one_ important reason or ground of many of its maxims.

II.--The nature of the Moral Faculty, in Price's theory, is not a separate question from the standard, but the same question. His discussion takes the form of an enquiry into the Faculty:--'What is the power within us that perceives the distinctions of Right and Wrong?' The two questions are mixed up throughout, to the detriment of precision in the reasoning.

With his usual facility of making concessions to other principles, he says it is not easy to determine how far our natural sentiments may be altered by custom, education, and example: while it would be unreasonable to conclude that all is derived from these sources. That part of our moral constitution depending on instinct is liable to be corrupted by custom and education to almost any length; but the most depraved can never sink so low as to lose all moral discernment, all ideas of just and unjust; of which he offers the singular proof that men are never wanting in resentment when they are _themselves_ the objects of ill-treatment.

As regards the Psychology of Disinterested Action, he provides nothing but a repetition of Butler (Chapter III.) and a vague assertion of the absurdity of denying disinterested benevolence.

III.--On Human Happiness, he has only a few general remarks. Happiness is an object of essential and eternal value. Happiness is the _end_, and the _only_ end, conceivable by us, of God's providence and government; but He pursues this end in subordination to rectitude. Virtue tends to happiness, but does not always secure it. A person that sacrifices his life rather than violate his conscience, or betray his country, gives up all possibility of any present reward, and loses the more in proportion as his virtue is more glorious.

Neither on the Moral Code, nor in the relations of Ethics to Politics and to Theology, are any further remarks on Price called for.


ADAM SMITH. [1723-90.]

The 'Theory of the Moral Sentiments' is a work of great extent and elaboration. It is divided into five Parts; each part being again divided into Sections, and these subdivided into Chapters.

PART I. is entitled, OF THE PROPRIETY OF ACTION. _Section I._ is, _'Of the Sense of Propriety.'_ Propriety is his word for Rectitude or Right.

Chapter I., entitled, 'Of Sympathy,' is a felicitous illustration of the general nature and workings of Sympathy. He calls in the experience of all mankind to attest the existence of our sympathetic impulses. He shows through what medium sympathy operates; namely, by our placing ourselves in the situation of the other party, and imagining what we should feel in that case. He produces the most notable examples of the impressions made on us by our witnessing the actions, the pleasurable and the painful expression of others; effects extending even to fictitious representations. He then remarks that, although on some occasions, we take on simply and purely the feelings manifested in our presence,--the grief or joy of another man, yet this is far from the universal case: a display of angry passion may produce in us hostility and disgust; but this very result may be owing to our sympathy for the person likely to suffer from the anger. So our sympathy for grief or for joy is imperfect until we know the cause, and may be entirely suppressed. We take the whole situation into view, as well as the expression of the feeling. Hence we often feel for another person what that person does not feel for himself; we act out our own view of the situation, not his. We feel for the insane what they do not feel; we sympathize even with the dead.

Chapter II. is 'Of the Pleasure of Mutual Sympathy.' It contains illustrations of the delight that we experience in the sympathy of others; we being thereby strengthened in our pleasures and relieved in our miseries. He observes that we demand this sympathy more urgently for our painful emotions than for such as are pleasurable; we are especially intolerant of the omission of our friends to join in our resentments. On the other hand, we feel pleasure in the act of sympathizing, and find in that a compensation for the pain that the sight of pain gives us. Still, this pleasure may be marred if the other party's own expression of grief or of joy is beyond what we think suitable to the situation.

Chapter III. considers 'the manner of our judging of the propriety of other men's affections by their consonance with our own,' The author illustrates the obvious remark, that we approve of the passions of another, if they are such as we ourselves should feel in the same situation. We require that a man's expression and conduct should be suitable to the occasion, according to our own standard of judging, namely, our own procedure in such cases.

Chapter IV. continues the subject, and draws a distinction between two cases; the case where the objects of a feeling do not concern either ourselves or the person himself, and the case where they do concern one or other. The first case is shown in matters of taste and science, where we derive pleasure from sympathy, but yet can tolerate difference. The other case is exemplified in our personal fortunes; in these, we cannot endure any one refusing us their sympathy. Still, it is to be noted that the sympathizer does not fully attain the level of the sufferer; hence the sufferer, aware of this, and desiring the satisfaction of a full accord with his friend, tones down his own vehemence till it can be fully met by the other; which very circumstance is eventually for his own good, and adds to, rather than detracts from, the tranquillizing influence of a friendly presence. We sober down our feelings still more before casual acquaintance and strangers; and hence the greater equality of temper in the man of the world than in the recluse.

Chapter V. makes an application of these remarks to explain the difference between the Amiable and the Respectable Virtues. The soft, the gentle, and the amiable qualities are manifested when, as sympathizers, we enter fully into the expressed sentiments of another; the great, the awful and respectable virtues of self-denial, are shown when the principal person concerned brings down his own case to the level that the most ordinary sympathy can easily attain to. The one is the virtue of giving much, the other of expecting little.

_Section II._ is '_Of the Degrees of the different passions which are consistent with propriety_.' Under this head he reviews the leading passions, remarks how far, and why, we can sympathize with each.

Chapter I. is on the Passions having their origin in the body. We can sympathize with hunger to a certain limited extent, and in certain circumstances; but we can rarely tolerate any very prominent expression of it. The same limitations apply to the passion of the sexes. We partly sympathize with bodily pain, but not with the violent expression of it. These feelings are in marked contrast to the passions seated in the imagination: wherein our appetite for sympathy is complete; disappointed love or ambition, loss of friends or of dignity, are suitable to representation in art. On the same principle, we can sympathize with danger; as regards our power of conceiving, we are on a level with the sufferer. From our inability to enter into bodily pain, we the more admire the man that can bear it with firmness.

Chapter II. is on certain Passions depending on a peculiar