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

well-being--the moral rules forbidding mankind to hurt one another--and the rules that only point out the best mode of managing some department of human affairs. It is in the higher moralities of protection from harm that each individual has the greatest stake; and they are the moralities that compose the obligations of justice. It is on account of these that punishment, or retribution of evil for evil, is universally included in the idea. For the carrying out of the process of retaliation, certain maxims are necessary as instruments or as checks to abuse; as that involuntary acts are not punishable; that no one shall be condemned unheard; that punishment should be proportioned to the offence. Impartiality, the first of judicial virtues, is necessary to the fulfilment of the other conditions of justice: while from the highest form of doing to each according to their deserts, it is the abstract standard of social and distributive justice; and is in this sense a direct emanation from the first principle of morals, the principle of the greatest Happiness. All social inequalities that have ceased to be considered as expedient, assume the character, not of simple inexpediency, but of injustice.

Besides the 'Utilitarianism,' Mr. Mill's chief Ethical dissertations are his review of Whewell's Moral Treatises (_Dissertations and Discussions_, Vol. II.), and parts of his Essay on _Liberty_. By collecting his views generally under the usual heads, we shall find a place for some points additional to what are given in the foregoing abstract.

I.--Enough has been stated as to his Ethical Standard, the Principle of Utility.

II.--We have seen his Psychological explanation of the Moral Faculty, as a growth from certain elementary feelings of the mind.

He has also discussed extensively the Freedom of the Will, maintaining the strict causation of human actions, and refuting the supposed fatalistic tendency of the doctrine.

He believes, as we have seen, in Disinterested impulses, but traces them to a purely self-regarding origin.

III.--He does not give any formal dissertation on Human Happiness, but indicates many of its important conditions, as in the remarks cited above, p. 702. In the chapter of the work on 'Liberty,' entitled Individuality, he illustrates the great importance of special tastes, and urges the full right of each person to the indulgence of these in every case where they do not directly injure others. He reclaims against the social tyranny prevailing on such points as dress, personal habits, and eccentricities.

IV.--As regards the Moral Code, he would repeal the legal and moral rule that makes marriage irrevocable. He would also abolish all restraints on freedom of thought, and on Individuality of conduct, qualified as above stated.

He would impose two new moral restraints. He considers that every parent should be bound to provide a suitable education for his own children. Farther, for any one to bring into the world human beings without the means of supporting them, or, in an over-peopled country, to produce children in such number as to depress the reward of labour by competition, he regards as serious offences.


SAMUEL BAILEY.

Mr. Samuel Bailey devotes the last four in his Third Series of 'Letters on the Philosophy of the Human Mind,' to the subject of the Moral Sentiments, or the feelings inspired in us by human conduct. He first sets down five facts in the human constitution, in which moral phenomena originate--

1. Man is susceptible of pleasure and pain of various kinds and degrees.

2. He likes and dislikes respectively the causes of them.

3. He desires to reciprocate pleasure and pain received, when intentionally given by other sentient beings.

4. He himself expects such reciprocation from his fellows, coveting it in the one case, and shunning it in the other.

5. He feels, under certain circumstances, more or less sympathy with the pleasures and pains given to others, accompanied by a proportionate desire that those affections should be reciprocated to the givers.

These rudimentary affections, states and operations of consciousness [he is careful to note that, besides feelings, intellectual conditions and processes are involved in them] are found more or less developed in all, or nearly all the human race. In support of the limitation now made, he adduces what are given as authentic accounts of savages devoid of all gratitude and fellow-feeling; and then goes on to trace the nature and development of moral sentiment from the rudimentary powers and susceptibilities mentioned, in those that do possess them. In doing so, he follows the convenient mode of speech that takes actions for the objects that excite the susceptibilities, although, in reality, the objects are no other than human beings acting in particular ways.

The feelings he supposes to be modified in manner or degree, according as actions are (1) done by ourselves to others, or (2) done to others by others, or (3) done to others by ourselves; _i.e._, according as we ourselves are the subjects, the spectators, or doers of them.

First, then, he considers our feelings in regard to actions done to us by others, and the more carefully, because these lie at the foundation of the rest. When a fellow-creature intentionally contributes to our pleasure, we feel the pleasure; we feel a liking to the person intentionally conferring it, and we feel an inclination to give him pleasure in return. The two last feelings--liking and inclination to reciprocate, constitute the simplest form of moral approbation; in the contrary case, dislike and resentment give the rudimentary form of moral disapprobation. It is enough to excite the feelings, that the actions are merely _thought_ to be done by the person. They are moral sentiments, even although it could be supposed that there were no other kinds of actions in the world except actions done to ourselves; but they are moral sentiments in the purely selfish form. That, for moral sentiment, mere liking and disliking must be combined with the desire to reciprocate good and evil, appears on a comparison of our different feelings towards animate and inanimate causes of pleasure and pain; there being towards inanimate objects no desire of reciprocation. To a first objection, that the violent sentiments, arising upon actions done to ourselves, should not get the temperate designation of moral approbation and disapprobation, he replies, that such extremes as the passions of gratitude and resentment must yet be identified in their origin with our cooler feelings, when we are mere spectators or actors. A second objection, that the epithet _moral_ is inapplicable to sentiments involving purely personal feeling, and destitute of sympathy, he answers, by remarking that the word _moral_, in philosophy, should not eulogistically be opposed to _immoral_, but should be held as neutral, and to mean 'relating to conduct, whatever that conduct may be.' He closes the first head with the observation, that in savage life the violent desire of reciprocation is best seen; generally, however, as he gives instances to show, in the form of revenge and reciprocation of evil.

In the second place, he considers our feelings when we are spectators of actions done to others by others. These form the largest class of actions, but to us they have a meaning, for the most part at least, only as they have an analogy to actions done to ourselves. The variety of the resulting feelings, generally less intense than when we are the subjects of the actions, is illustrated first by supposing the persons affected to be those we love; in this case, the feelings are analogous to those already mentioned, and they may be even more intense than when we ourselves are personally affected. If those affected are indifferent to us, our feelings are less intense, but we are still led to feel as before, from a natural sympathy with other men's pains and pleasures--always supposing the sympathy is not (as often happens) otherwise counteracted or superseded; and also from the influence of association, if that, too, happen not to be countervailed. Of sympathy for human beings in general, he remarks that a certain measure of civilization seems required to bring it properly out, and he cites instances to prove how much it is wanting in savages. In a third case, where the persons affected are supposed to be those we hate, we are displeased when they are made to rejoice, and pleased when they suffer, unless we are overcome by our habitual associations with good and evil actions. Such associations weigh least with rude and savage peoples, but even the most civilized nations disregard them in times of war.

He takes up, in the third place, actions done by ourselves to others. Here, when the action is beneficent, the peculiarity is that an expectation of receiving good in return from our neighbours takes the place of a desire to reciprocate; we consider ourselves the proper object of grateful thoughts, &c., on the part both of receiver and of spectators. We are affected with the gratification of a benevolent desire, with self-complacency, and with undefined hopes. When we have inflicted injury, there is the expectation of evil, and a combination of feelings summed up in the word Remorse. But Remorse, like other sentiments, may fail in the absence of cultivation of mind or under special circumstances.

Having considered the three different kinds of actions separately, he next remarks that the sentiment prevailing in each case must be liable to a reflex influence from the other cases, whereby it will be strengthened or intensified; thus we come to associate certain intensities of moral sentiment with certain kinds of action, by whomsoever or to whomsoever performed. He also notes, that in the first and third cases, as well as in the second, there is a variation of the sentiment, according as the parties affected are friends, neutrals, or enemies. Finally, a peculiar and important modification of the sentiments results from the outward manifestations of them called forth from the persons directly or indirectly affected by actions. Such are looks, gestures, tones, words, or actions, being all efforts to gratify the natural desire of reciprocating pleasure or pain. Of these the most notable are the verbal manifestations, as they are mostly irrepressible, and can alone always be resorted to. While relieving the feelings, they can also become a most powerful, as they are often the only, instrument of reward and punishment. Their power of giving to moral sentiments greater precision, and of acting upon conduct like authoritative precepts, is seen in greatest force when they proceed from, bodies of men, whether they are regarded as signs of material consequences or not. He ends this part of the subject by defending, with Butler, the place of resentment in the moral constitution.

He proceeds to inquire how it is that not only the perfection of moral sentiment that would apportion more approbation and disapprobation according to the real tendencies of actions, is not attained, but men's moral feelings are not seldom in extreme contrariety with the real effects of human conduct. First, he finds that men, from partial views, or momentarily, or from caprice, may bestow their sentiments altogether at variance with the real consequences of actions. Next there is the difficulty, or even impossibility, of calculating all the consequences far and near; whence human conduct is liable to be appreciated on whimsical grounds or on no discernible grounds at all, and errors in moral sentiment arise, which it takes increased knowledge to get rid of. In the third place, it is a fact that our moral sentiments are to a very great extent derived from tradition, while the approbation and disapprobation may have originally been wrongly applied. The force of tradition he illustrates by supposing the case of a patriarchal family, and he cannot too strongly represent its strength in overcoming or at least struggling against natural feeling. The authoritative precept of a superior may also make actions be