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

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 action _resembles_ what 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 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, 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 experience _beneficent 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 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 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 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 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.


JAMES MILL. [1783-1836.]

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