Moral Science; a Compendium of Ethics

by Alexander Bain

CHAPTER II.

THE ETHICAL STANDARD.

1. ETHICS, or Morality, is a department of Practice; and, as with other practical departments, is defined by its End.

Ethics is not mere knowledge or speculation, like the sciences of Astronomy, Physiology, or Psychology; it is knowledge applied to practice, or useful ends, like Navigation, Medicine, or Politics. Every practical subject has some end to be served, the statement of which is its definition in the first instance. Navigation is the applying of different kinds of knowledge, and of a variety of devices, to the end of sailing the seas.

2. The Ethical End is a certain portion of the welfare of human beings living together in society, realized through rules of conduct duly enforced.

The obvious intention of morality is the good of mankind. The precepts—do not steal, do not kill, fulfil agreements, speak truth—whatever other reasons may be assigned for them, have a direct tendency to prevent great evils that might otherwise arise in the intercourse of human beings.

Farther, the good aimed at by Ethics is attained by rules of acting, on the part of one human being to another; and, inasmuch as these rules often run counter to the tendencies of the individual mind, it is requisite to provide adequate inducements to comply with them.

The Ethical End is what is otherwise called the STANDARD, test, or criterion, of Right and Wrong. The leading controversy of Morals is centered in this point.

3. The Rules of Ethics, termed also Law, Laws, the Moral Law, are of two kinds:—

The first are rules imposed under a Penalty for neglect, or violation.
The penalty is termed Punishment; the imposing party is named
Government, or Authority; and the rules so imposed and enforced, are
called Laws proper, Morality proper, Obligatory Morality, Duty.

4. The second are rules whose only external support is Rewards; constituting Optional Morality, Merit, Virtue, or Nobleness.

Moral duties are a set of rules, precepts, or prescriptions, for the direction of human conduct in a certain sphere or province. These rules are enforced by two kinds of motives, requiring to be kept distinct.

I.—One class of rules are made compulsory by the infliction of pain, in the case of violation or neglect. The pain so inflicted is termed a Penalty, or Punishment; it is one of the most familiar experiences of all human beings living in society.

The Institution that issues Rules of this class, and inflicts punishment when they are not complied with, is termed Government, or Authority; all its rules are authoritative, or obligatory; they are Laws strictly so called, Laws proper. Punishment, Government, Authority, Superiority, Obligation, Law, Duty,—define each other; they are all different modes of regarding the same fact.

Morality is thus in every respect analagous to Civil Government, or the Law of the Land. Nay, farther, it squares, to a very great extent, with Political Authority. The points where the two coincide, and those where they do not coincide, may be briefly stated:—

(1) All the most essential parts of Morality are adopted and carried out by the Law of the Land. The rules for protecting person and property, for fulfilling contracts, for performing reciprocal duties, are rules or laws of the State; and are enforced by the State, through its own machinery. The penalties inflicted by public authority constitute what is called the Political Sanction; they are the most severe, and the most strictly and dispassionately administered, of all penalties.

(2) There are certain Moral duties enforced, not by public and official authority, but by the members of the community in their private capacity. These are sometimes called the Laws of Honour, because they are punished by withdrawing from the violator the honour or esteem of his fellow-citizens. Courage, Prudence as regards self, Chastity, Orthodoxy of opinion, a certain conformity in Tastes and Usages,—are all prescribed by the mass of each community, to a greater or less extent, and are insisted on under penalty of social disgrace and excommunication. This is the Social or the Popular Sanction. The department so marked out, being distinct from the Political sphere, is called, by Austin, Positive Morality, or Morality proper.

Public opinion also chimes in with the Law, and adds its own sanction to the legal penalties for offences: unless the law happens to be in conflict with the popular sentiment. Criminals, condemned by the law, are additionally punished by social disgrace.

(3) The Law of the Land contains many enactments, besides the Moral Code and the machinery for executing it. The Province of government passes beyond the properly protective function, and includes many institutions of public convenience, which are not identified with right and wrong. The defence from external enemies; the erection of works of public utility; the promotion of social improvements,—are all within the domain of the public authority.[1]

II.—The second class of Rules are supported, not by penalties, but by Rewards. Society, instead of punishing men for not being charitable or benevolent, praises and otherwise rewards them, when they are so. Hence, although Morality inculcates benevolence, this is not a Law proper, it is not obligatory, authoritative, or binding; it is purely voluntary, and is termed merit, virtuous and noble conduct.

In this department, the members of the community, in their unofficial capacity, are the chief agents and administrators. The Law of the Land occupies itself with the enforcement of its own obligatory rules, having at its command a perfect machinery of punishment. Private individuals administer praise, honour, esteem, approbation, and reward. In a few instances, the Government dispenses rewards, as in the bestowal of office, rank, titles, and pensions, but this function is exceptional and limited.

The conduct rewarded by Society is chiefly resolvable into Beneficence. Whoever is moved to incur sacrifices, or to go through labours, for the good of others, is the object, not merely of gratitude from the persons benefited, but of approbation from society at large.

Any remarkable strictness or fidelity in the discharge of duties properly so called, receives general esteem. Even in matters merely ceremonial, if importance be attached to them, sedulous and exact compliance, being the distinction of the few, will earn the approbation of the many.[2]

5. The Ethical End, or Morality, as it has been, is founded partly on Well-being, or Utility: and partly on Sentiment.

The portions of Morality, having in view the prevention of human misery and the promotion of human happiness, are known and obvious. They are not the whole of Morality as it has been.

Sentiment, caprice, arbitrary liking or disliking, are names for states of feeling that do not necessarily arise from their objects, but may be joined or disjoined by education, custom, or the power of the will. The revulsion of mind, on the part of the Jews, against eating the pig, and on our own part, as regards horse flesh, is not a primitive or natural sensibility, like the pain of hunger, or of cold, or of a musical discord; it is purely artificial; custom has made it, and could unmake it. The feeling of fatigue from overwork is natural; the repugnance of caste to manual labour is factitious. The dignity attached to the military profession, and the indignity of the office of public executioner, are capricious, arbitrary, and sentimental. Our prospective regard to the comforts of our declining years points to a real interest; our feelings as to the disposal of the body after death are purely factitious and sentimental. Such feelings are of the things in our own power; and the grand mistake of the Stoics was their viewing all good and evil whatever in the same light.

It is an essential part of human liberty, to permit each person to form and to indulge these sentiments or caprices; although a good education should control them with a view to our happiness on the whole. But, when any individual liking or fancy of this description is imposed as a law upon the entire community, it is a perversion and abuse of power, a confounding of the Ethical end by foreign admixtures. Thus, to enjoin authoritatively one mode of sepulture, punishing all deviations from that, could have nothing to do with the preservation of the order of society. In such a matter, the interference of the state in modern times, has regard to the detection of crime in the matter of life and death, and to the evils arising from the putrescence of the dead.

6. The Ethical End, although properly confined to Utility, is subject to still farther limitations, according to the view taken of the Province of Moral Government, or Authority.

Although nothing should be made morally obligatory but what is generally useful, the converse does not hold; many kinds of conduct are generally useful, but not morally obligatory. A certain amount of bodily exercise in the open air every day would be generally useful; but neither the law of the land nor public opinion compels it. Good roads are works of great utility; it is not every one's duty to make them.

The machinery of coercion is not brought to bear upon every conceivable utility. It is principally reserved, when not abused, for a select class of utilities.

Some utilities are indispensable to the very existence of men in society. The primary moral duties must be observed to some degree, if men are to live together as men, and not to roam at large as beasts. The interests of Security are the first and most pressing concern of human society. Whatever relates to this has a surpassing importance. Security is contrasted with Improvement; what relates to Security is declared to be Right; what relates to Improvement is said to be Expedient; both are forms of Utility, but the one is pressing and indispensable, the other is optional. The same difference is expressed by the contrasts—Being and Well-being; Existence and Prosperous Existence; Fundamentals or Essentials and Circumstantials. That the highway robber should be punished is a part of Being; that the highways should be in good repair, is a part of Well-being. That Justice should be done is Existence; that farmers and traders should give in to government the statistics of their occupation, is a means to Prosperous Existence.[3]

It is proper to advert to one specific influence in moral enactments, serving to disguise the Ethical end, and to widen the distinction between morality as it has been, and morality as it ought to be. The enforcing of legal and moral enactments demands a power of coercion, to be lodged in the hands of certain persons; the possession of which is a temptation to exceed the strict exigencies of public safety, or the common welfare. Probably many of the whims, fancies, ceremonies, likings and antipathies, that have found their way into the moral codes of nations, have arisen from the arbitrary disposition of certain individuals happening to be in authority at particular junctures. Even the general community, acting in a spontaneous manner, imposes needless restraints upon itself, delighting more in the exercise of power, than in the freedom of individual action.

7. Morality, in its essential parts, is 'Eternal and Immutable;' in other parts, it varies with Custom.

(1) The rules for protecting one man from another, for enforcing justice, and the observance of contracts, are essential and fundamental, and may be styled 'Eternal and Immutable.' The ends to be served require these rules; no caprice of custom could change them without sacrificing these ends. They are to society what food is to individual life, of sexual intercourse and mother's care to the continuance of the race. The primary moralities could not be exchanged for rules enacting murder, pillage, injustice, unveracity, repudiation of engagements; because under these rules, human society would fall to pieces.

(2) The manner of carrying into effect these primary regulations of society, varies according to Custom. In some communities the machinery is rude and imperfect; while others have greatly improved it. The Greeks took the lead in advancing judicial machinery, the Romans followed.

In the regulations not essential to Being, but important to Well-being, there has prevailed the widest discrepancy of usage. The single department relating to the Sexes is a sufficient testimony on this head. No one form of the family is indispensable to the existence of society; yet some forms are more favourable to general happiness than others. But which form is on the whole the best, has greatly divided opinion; and legislation has varied accordingly. The more advanced nations have adopted compulsory monogamy, thereby giving the prestige of their authority in favour of that system. But it cannot be affirmed that the joining of one man to one woman is a portion of 'Eternal and Immutable Morality.'

Morality is an Institution of society, but not an arbitrary institution.

8. Before adducing the proofs in support of the position above assumed, namely, that Utility or Human Happiness, with certain limitations, is the proper criterion of Morality, it is proper to enquire, what sort of evidence the Ethical Standard is susceptible of.

Hitherto, the doctrine of Utility has been assumed, in order to be fully stated. We must next review the evidence in its favour, and the objections urged against it. It is desirable, however, to ask what kind of proof should be expected on such a question.

In the Speculative or Theoretical sciences, we prove a doctrine by referring it to some other doctrine or doctrines, until we come at last to some assumption that must be rested in as ultimate or final. We can prove the propositions of Euclid, the law of gravitation, the law of atomic proportions, the law of association; we cannot prove our present sensations, nor can we demonstrate that what has been, will be. The ultimate data must be accepted as self-evident; they have no higher authority than that mankind generally are disposed to accept them.

In the practical Sciences, the question is not as to a principle of the order of nature, but as to an end of human action. There may be derived Ends, which are susceptible of demonstrative proof; but there must also be ultimate Ends, for which no proof can be offered; they must be received as self-evident, and their sole authority is the person receiving them. In most of the practical sciences, the ends are derived; the end of Medicine is Health, which is an end subsidiary to the final end of human happiness. So it is with Navigation, with Politics, with Education, and others. In all of them, we recognize the bearing upon human welfare, or happiness, as a common, comprehensive, and crowning end. On the theory of Utility, Morals is also governed by this highest end.

Now, there can be no proof offered for the position that Happiness is the proper end of all human pursuit, the criterion of all right conduct. It is an ultimate or final assumption, to be tested by reference to the individual judgment of mankind. If the assumption, that misery, and not happiness, is the proper end of life, found supporters, no one could reply, for want of a basis of argument—an assumption still more fundamental agreed upon by both sides. It would probably be the case, that the supporters of misery, as an end, would be at some point inconsistent with themselves; which would lay them open to refutation. But to any one consistently maintaining the position, there is no possible reply, because there is no medium of proof.

If then, it appears, on making the appeal to mankind, that happiness is admitted to be the highest end of all action, the theory of Utility is proved.

9. The judgment of Mankind is very generally in favour of Happiness, as the Supreme end of human conduct, Morality included.

This decision, however, is not given without qualifications and reservations; nor is there perfect unanimity regarding it.

The theory of Motives to the Will is the answer to the question as to the ends of human action. According to the primary law of the Will, each one of us, for ourselves, seeks pleasure and avoids pain, present or prospective. The principle is interfered with by the operation of Fixed Ideas, under the influence of the feelings; whence we have the class of Impassioned, Exaggerated, Irrational Motives or Ends. Of these influences, one deserves to be signalized as a source of virtuous conduct, and as approved of by mankind generally; that is, Sympathy with others.

Under the Fixed Idea, may be ranked the acquired sense of Dignity, which induces us often to forfeit pleasure and incur pain. We should not choose the life of Plato's beatified oyster, or (to use Aristotle's example) be content with perpetual childhood, with however great a share of childish happiness.

10. The Ethical end that men are tending to, and may ultimately adopt without reservation, is human Welfare, Happiness, or Being and Well-being combined, that is, Utility.

The evidence consists of such facts as these:—

(1) By far the greater part of the morality of every age and country has reference to the welfare of society. Even in the most superstitious, sentimental, and capricious despotisms, a very large share of the enactments, political and moral, consist in protecting one man from another, and in securing justice between man and man. These objects may be badly carried out, they may be accompanied with much oppression of the governed by the governing body, but they are always aimed at, and occasionally secured. Of the Ten Commandments, four pertain to Religious Worship; six are Utilitarian, that is, have no end except to ward off evils, and to further the good of mankind.

(2) The general welfare is at all times considered a strong and adequate justification of moral rules, and is constantly adduced as a motive for obedience. The commonplaces in support of law and morality represent, that if murder and theft were to go unpunished, neither life nor property would be safe; men would be in eternal warfare; industry would perish; society must soon come to an end.

There is a strong disposition to support the more purely sentimental requirements, and even the excesses of mere tyranny, by utilitarian reasons.

The cumbersome ablutions of oriental nations are defended on the ground of cleanliness. The divine sanctity of kings is held to be an aid to social obedience. Slavery is alleged to have been at one time necessary to break in mankind to industry. Indissoluble marriage arose from a sentiment rather than from utility; but the arguments, commonly urged in its favour, are utilitarian.

(3) In new cases, and in cases where no sentiment or passion is called into play, Utility alone is appealed to. In any fresh enactment, at the present day, the good of the community is the only justification that would be listened to. If it were proposed to forbid absolutely the eating of pork in Christian countries, some great public evils would have to be assigned as the motive. Were the fatalities attending the eating of pork, on account of trichiniae, to become numerous, and unpreventible, there would then be a reason, such as a modern civilized community would consider sufficient, for making the rearing of swine a crime and an immorality. But no mere sentimental or capricious dislike to the pig, on the part of any number of persons, could now procure an enactment for disusing that animal.

(4) There is a gradual tendency to withdraw from the moral code, observances originating purely in sentiment, and having little or no connexion with human welfare.

We have abandoned the divine sacredness of kings. We no longer consider ourselves morally bound to denounce and extirpate heretics and witches, still less to observe fasts and sacred days. Even in regard to the Christian Sabbath, the opinion is growing in favour of withdrawing both the legal and popular sanction formerly so stringent; while the arguments for Sabbath observance are more and more charged with considerations of secular utility.

Should these considerations be held as adequate to support the proposition advanced, they are decisive in favour of Utility as the Moral Standard that ought to be. Any other standard that may be set up in competition with Utility, must ultimately ground itself on the very same appeal to the opinions and the practice of mankind.

11. The chief objections urged against Utility as the moral Standard have been in great part anticipated. Still, it is proper to advert to them in detail.

I.—It is maintained that Happiness is not, either in fact or in right, the sole aim of human pursuit; that men actually, deliberately, and by conscientious preference, seek other ends. For example, it is affirmed that Virtue is an end in itself, without regard to happiness.

On this argument it may be observed:—

(1) It has been abundantly shown in this work, that one part of the foregoing affirmation is strictly true. Men are not urged to action exclusively by their pleasures and their pains. They are urged by other motives, of the impassioned kind; among which, is to be signalized sympathy with the pains and pleasures of others. If this had been the only instance of action at variance with the regular course of the will, we should be able to maintain that the motive to act is still happiness, but not always the agent's own happiness. We have seen, however, that individuals, not unfrequently, act in opposition both to their own, and to other people's happiness; as when mastered by a panic, and when worked up into a frenzy of anger or antipathy.

The sound and tenable position seems to be this:—Human beings, in their best and soberest moods, looking before and after, weighing all the consequences of actions, are generally disposed to regard Happiness, to some beings or others, as the proper end of all endeavours. The mother is not exclusively bent on her own happiness; she is upon her child's. Howard abandoned the common pleasures of life for himself, to diminish the misery of fellow creatures.

(2) It is true that human beings are apt to regard Virtue as an end-in-itself, and not merely as a means to happiness as the final end. But the fact is fully accounted for on the general law of Association by Contiguity; there being many other examples of the same kind, as the love of money. Justice, Veracity, and other virtues, are requisite, to some extent, for the existence of society, and, to a still greater extent, for prosperous existence. Under such circumstances, it would certainly happen that the means would participate in the importance of the end, and would even be regarded as an end in itself.

(3) The great leading duties may be shown to derive their estimation from their bearing upon human welfare. Take first, Veracity or Truth. Of all the moral duties, this has most the appearance of being an absolute and independent requirement. Yet mankind have always approved of deception practised upon an enemy in war, a madman, or a highway robber. Also, secrecy or concealment, even although misinterpreted, is allowed, when it does not cause pernicious results; and is even enjoined and required in the intercourse of society, in order to prevent serious evils. But an absolute standard of truth is incompatible, even with secrecy or disguise; in departing from the course of perfect openness, or absolute publicity of thought and action, in every possible circumstance, we renounce ideal truth in favour of a compromised or qualified veracity—a pursuit of truth in subordination to the general well-being of society.

Still less is there any form of Justice that does not have respect to Utility. If Justice is defined as giving to every one their own, the motive clearly is to prevent misery to individuals. If there were a species of injustice that made no one unhappier, we may be quite sure that tribunals would not be set up for enforcing and punishing it. The idea of equality in Justice is seemingly an absolute conception, but, in point of fact, equality is a matter of institution. The children of the same parent are, in certain circumstances, regarded as unequal by the law; and justice consists in respecting this inequality.

The virtue of Self-denial, is one that receives the commendation of society, and stands high in the morality of reward. Still, it is a means to an end. The operation of the associating principle tends to raise it above this point to the rank of a final end. And there is an ascetic scheme of life that proceeds upon this supposition; but the generality of mankind, in practice, if not always in theory, disavow it.

(4) It is often affirmed by those that regard virtue, and not happiness, as the end, that the two coincide in the long run. Now, not to dwell upon the very serious doubts as to the matter of fact, a universal coincidence without causal connexion is so rare as to be in the last degree improbable. A fiction of this sort was contrived by Leibnitz, under the title of 'pre-established harmony;' but, among the facts of the universe, there are only one or two cases known to investigation.

12. II.—It is objected to Utility as the Standard, that the bearings of conduct on general happiness are too numerous to be calculated; and that even where the calculation is possible, people have seldom time to make it.

(1) It is answered, that the primary moral duties refer to conduct where the consequences are evident and sure. The disregard of Justice and Truth would to an absolute certainty bring about a state of confusion and ruin; their observance, in any high degree, contributes to raise the standard of well-being.

In other cases, the calculation is not easy, from the number of opposing considerations. For example, there are two sides to the question, Is dissent morally wrong? in other words, Ought all opinions to be tolerated? But if we venture to decide such a question, without the balancing or calculating process, we must follow blindfold the dictates of one or other of the two opposing sentiments,—Love of Power and Love of Liberty.

It is not necessary that we should go through the process of calculation every time we have occasion to perform a moral act. The calculations have already been performed for all the leading duties, and we have only to apply the maxims to the cases as they arise.

13. III.—The principle of Utility, it is said, contains no motives to seek the Happiness of others; it is essentially a form of Self-Love.

The averment is that Utility is a sufficient motive to pursue our own happiness, and the happiness of others as a means to our own; but it does not afford any purely disinterested impulses; it is a Selfish theory after all.

Now, as Utility is, by profession, a benevolent and not a selfish theory, either such profession is insincere, or there must be an obstruction in carrying it out. That the supporters of the theory are insincere, no one has a right to affirm. The only question then is, what are the difficulties opposed by this theory, and not present in other theories (the Moral Sense, for example) to benevolent impulses on the part of individuals?

Let us view the objection first as regards the Morality of Obligation, or the duties that bind society together. Of these duties, only a small number aim at positive beneficence; they are either Protective of one man against another, or they enforce Reciprocity, which is another name for Justice. The chief exception is the requiring of a minimum of charity towards the needy.

This department of duty is maintained by the force of a certain mixture of prudential and of beneficent considerations, on the part of the majority, and by prudence (as fear of punishment) on the part of the minority. But there does not appear to be anything in our professedly Benevolent Theory of Morals to interfere with the small portion of disinterested impulse that is bound up-with prudential regards, in the total of motives concerned in the morality of social order called the primary or obligatory morality.

Let us, in the next place, view the objection as regards Optional Morality, where positive beneficence has full play. The principal motive in this department is Reward, in the shape either of benefits or of approbation. Now, there is nothing to hinder the supporters of the standard of Utility from joining in the rewards or commendations bestowed on works of charity and beneficence.

Again, there is, in the constitution of the mind, a motive superior to reward, namely, Sympathy proper, or the purely Disinterested impulse to alleviate the pains and advance the pleasures of others. This part of the mind is wholly unselfish; it needs no other prompting than the fact that some one is in pain, or may be made happier by something within the power of the agent.

The objectors need to be reminded that Obligatory Morality, which works by punishment, creates a purely selfish motive; that Optional Morality, in so far as stimulated by Reward, is also selfish; and that the only source of purely disinterested impulses is in the unprompted Sympathy of the individual mind. If such sympathies exist, and if nothing is done to uproot or paralyze them, they will urge men to do good to others, irrespective of all theories. Good done from any other source or motive is necessarily self-seeking. It is a common remark, with reference to the sanctions of a future life, that they create purely self-regarding motives. Any proposal to increase disinterested action by moral obligation contains a self-contradiction; it is suicidal. The rich may be made to give half their wealth to the poor; but in as far as they are made to do it, they are not benevolent. Law distrusts generosity and supersedes it. If a man is expected to regard the happiness of others as an end in itself, and not as means to his own happiness, he must be left to his own impulses: 'the quality of mercy is not strained' The advocates of Utility may observe non-interference as well as others.