It is alleged in their favour that our judgments of rectitude and depravity are immediate and voluntary. The reply is that sentiments begotten by association are no less prompt and involuntary than our instincts. Our response to a money gain, or a money loss, is as prompt as our compliance with the primitive appetites of the system. We begin by loving knowledge as a means to ends; but, in time, the end is inseparably associated with the instrument. So a moral sentiment dictated by utility, if often exercised, would be rapid and direct in its operation.
It is farther alleged, as a proof of the innate character of the moral judgments, that the moral sentiments of all men are precisely alike. The argument may be put thus:—No opinion or sentiment resulting from observation and induction is held or felt by all mankind: Observation and induction, as applied to the same subject, lead different men to different conclusions. Now, the judgments passed internally on the rectitude or pravity of actions, or the moral sentiments, are precisely alike with all men. Therefore, our moral sentiments are not the result of our inductions of the tendencies of actions; nor were they derived from others, and impressed by authority and example. Consequently, the moral sentiments are instinctive, or ultimate and inscrutable facts.
To refute such an argument is superfluous; it is based on a groundless assertion. The moral sentiments of men have differed to infinity. With regard to a few classes of actions, the moral judgments of most, though not of all, men have been alike. With regard to others, they have differed, through every shade or degree, from slight diversity to direct opposition.
But this is exactly what we should expect on the principle of utility. With regard to some actions, the dictates of utility are the same at all times and places, and are so obvious as hardly to admit of mistake or doubt. On the other hand, men's positions in different ages and nations are in many respects widely different; so that what was useful there and then is useless or pernicious here and now. Moreover, since human tastes are various, and human reason is fallible, men's moral sentiments often widely differ in the same positions.
He next alludes to some prevailing misconceptions in regard to utility. One is the confusion of the test with the motive. The general good is the test, or rather the index to the ultimate measure or test, the Divine commands; but it is not in all, or even in most cases, the motive or inducement.
The principle of utility does not demand that we shall always or habitually attend to the general good; although it does demand that we shall not pursue our own particular good by means that are inconsistent with that paramount object. It permits the pursuit of our own pleasures as pleasure. Even as regards the good of others, it commonly requires us to be governed by partial, rather than by general benevolence; by the narrower circle of family and friends rather than by the larger humanity that embraces mankind. It requires us to act where we act with the utmost effect; that is, within the sphere best known to us. The limitations to this principle, the adjustment of the selfish to the social motives, of partial sympathy to general benevolence, belong to the detail of ethics.
The second misconception of Utility is to confound it with a particular hypothesis concerning the Origin of Benevolence, commonly styled the selfish system. Hartley and some others having affirmed that benevolence is not an ultimate fact, but an emanation from self-love, through the association of ideas, it has been fancied that these writers dispute the existence of disinterested benevolence or sympathy. Now, the selfish system, in its literal import, is flatly inconsistent with obvious facts, but this is not the system contended for by the writers in question. Still, this distortion has been laid hold of by the opponents of utility, and maintained to be a necessary part of that system; hence the supporters of utility are styled 'selfish, sordid, and cold-blooded calculators.' But, as already said, the theory of utility is not a theory of motives; it holds equally good whether benevolence be what it is called, or merely a provident regard to self: whether it be a simple fact, or engendered by association on self-regard. Paley mixed up Utility with self-regarding motives; but his theory of these is miserably shallow and defective, and amounted to a denial of genuine benevolence or sympathy.
Austin's Fifth LECTURE is devoted to a full elucidation of the meanings of Law. He had, at the outset, made the distinction between Laws properly so called, and Laws improperly so called. Of the second class, some are closely allied to Laws proper, possessing in fact their main or essential attributes; others are laws only by metaphor. Laws proper, and those closely allied to them among laws proper, are divisible into three classes. The first are the Divine Law or Laws. The second is named Positive Law or Positive Laws; and corresponds with Legislation. The third he calls Positive Morality, or positive moral rules; it is the same as Morals or Ethics.
Reverting to the definition of Law, he gives the following three essentials:—1. Every law is a command, and emanates from a determinate source or another. 2. Every sanction is an eventual evil annexed to a command. 3. Every duty supposes a command whereby it is created. Now, tried by these tests, the laws of God are laws proper; so are positive laws, by which are meant laws established by monarchs as supreme political superiors, by subordinate political superiors, and by subjects, as private persons, in pursuance of legal rights.
But as regards Positive Morality, or moral rules, some have so far the essentials of an imperative law or rule, that they are rules set by men to men. But they are not set by men as political superiors, nor by men as private persons, in pursuance of legal rights; in this respect they differ from positive laws, they are not clothed with legal sanctions.