Moral Science; a Compendium of Ethics

by Alexander Bain

In arguing for the existence of Divine power and government, they employed what has been called the argument from Design, which is as old as Sokrates. Man is conscious that he is in himself an intellectual or spiritual power, from which, by analogy, he is led to believe that a greater power pervades the universe, as intellect pervades the human system.

II.—In the PSYCHOLOGY of the Stoics, two questions, are of interest, their theory of Pleasure and Pain, and their views upon the Freedom of the Will.

1. The theory of Pleasure and Pain. The Stoics agreed with the Peripatetics (anterior to Epicurus, not specially against him) that the first principle of nature is (not pleasure or relief from pain, but) self-preservation or self-love; in other words, the natural appetite or tendency of all creatures is, to preserve their existing condition with its inherent capacities, and to keep clear of destruction or disablement. This appetite (they said) manifests itself in little children before any pleasure or pain is felt, and is moreover a fundamental postulate, pre-supposed in all desires of particular pleasures, as well as in all aversions to particular pains. We begin by loving our own vitality; and we come, by association, to love what promotes or strengthens our vitality; we hate destruction or disablement, and come (by secondary association) to hate whatever produces that effect.[8] The doctrine here laid down associated, and brought under one view, what was common to man, not merely with the animal, but also with the vegetable world; a plant was declared to have an impulse or tendency to maintain itself, even without feeling pain or pleasure. Aristotle (in the tenth Book of the Ethics) says, that he will not determine whether we love life for the sake of pleasure, or pleasure for the sake of life; for he affirms the two to be essentially yoked together and inseparable; pleasure is the consummation of our vital manifestations. The Peripatetics, after him, put pleasure down to a lower level, as derivative and accidental; the Stoics went farther in the same direction—possibly from antithesis against the growing school of Epicurus.

The primary officium (in a larger sense than our word Duty) of man is (they said) to keep himself in the state of nature; the second or derivative officium is to keep to such things as are according to nature, and to avert those that are contrary to nature; our gradually increasing experience enabled us to discriminate the two. The youth learns, as he grows up, to value bodily accomplishments, mental cognitions and judgments, good conduct towards those around him,—as powerful aids towards keeping up the state of nature. When his experience is so far enlarged as to make him aware of the order and harmony of nature and human society, and to impress upon him the comprehension of this great ideal, his emotions as well as his reason become absorbed by it. He recognizes this as the only true Bonum or Honestum, to which all other desirable things are referable,—as the only thing desirable for itself and in its own nature. He drops or dismisses all those prima naturae that he had begun by desiring. He no longer considers any of them as worthy of being desired in itself, or for its own sake.

While therefore (according to Peripatetics as well as Stoics) the love of self and of preserving one's own vitality and activity, is the primary element, intuitive and connate, to which all rational preference (officium) was at first referred,—they thought it not the less true, that in process of time, by experience, association, and reflection, there grows up in the mind a grand acquired sentiment or notion, a new and later light, which extinguishes and puts out of sight the early beginning. It was important to distinguish the feeble and obscure elements from the powerful and brilliant aftergrowth; which indeed was fully realized only in chosen minds, and in them, hardly before old age. This idea, when once formed in the mind, was The Good—the only thing worthy of desire for its own sake. The Stoics called it the only Good, being sufficient in itself for happiness; other things being not good, nor necessary to happiness, but simply preferable or advantageous when they could be had: the Peripatetics recognized it as the first and greatest good, but said also that it was not sufficient in itself; there were two other inferior varieties of good, of which something must be had as complementary (what the Stoics called praeposita or sumenda). Thus the Stoics said, about the origin of the Idea of Bonum or Honestum, much the same as what Aristotle says about ethical virtue. It is not implanted in us by nature; but we have at birth certain initial tendencies and capacities, which, if aided by association and training, enable us (and that not in all cases) to acquire it.

2. The Freedom of the Will. A distinction was taken by Epictetus and other Stoics between things in our power and things not in our power. The things in our power are our opinions and notions about objects, and all our affections, desires, and aversions; the things not in our power are our bodies, wealth, honour, rank, authority, &c., and their opposites. The practical application is this: wealth and high rank may not be in our power, but we have the power to form an idea of these—namely, that they are unimportant, whence the want of them will not grieve us. A still more pointed application is to death, whose force is entirely in the idea.

With this distinction between things in our power and things not in our power, we may connect the arguments between the Stoics and their opponents as to what is now called the Freedom of the Will. But we must first begin by distinguishing the two questions. By things in our power, the Stoics meant, things that we could do or acquire, if we willed: by things not in our power, they meant, things that we could not do or acquire if we willed. In both cases, the volition was assumed as a fact: the question, what determined it—or whether it was non-determined, i.e. self-determining—was not raised in the abovementioned antithesis. But it was raised in other discussions between the Stoic theorist Chrysippus, and various opponents. These opponents denied that volition was determined by motives, and cited the cases of equal conflicting motives (what is known as the ass of Buridan) as proving that the soul includes in itself, and exerts, a special supervenient power of deciding action in one way or the other: a power not determined by any causal antecedent, but self-originating, and belonging to the class of agency that Aristotle recognizes under the denomination of automatic, spontaneous (or essentially irregular and unpredictable). Chrysippus replied by denying not only the reality of this supervenient force said to be inherent in the soul, but also the reality of all that Aristotle called automatic or spontaneous agency generally. Chrysippus said that every movement was determined by antecedent motives; that, in cases of equal conflict, the exact equality did not long continue, because some new but slight motive slipped in unperceived and turned the scale on one side or the other. (See Plutarch De Stoicorum Repugnantiis, c. 23, p. 1045.) Here, we see, the question now known as the Freedom of the Will is discussed: and Chrysippus declares against it, affirming that volition is always determined by motives.

But we also see that, while declaring this opinion, Chrysippus does not employ the terms Necessity or Freedom of the Will: neither did his opponents, so far as we can see: they had a different and less misleading phrase. By Freedom, Chrysippus and the Stoics meant the freedom of doing what a man willed, if he willed it. A man is free, as to the thing that is in his power, when he wills it: he is not free, as to what is not in his power, under the same supposition. The Stoics laid great stress on this distinction. They pointed out how much it is really in a man's power to transform or discipline his own mind: in the way of controlling or suppressing some emotions, generating or encouraging others, forming new intellectual associations, &c., how much a man could do in these ways, if he willed it, and if he went through the lessons, habits of conduct, meditations, suitable to produce such an effect. The Stoics strove to create in a man's mind the volitions appropriate for such mental discipline, by depicting the beneficial consequences resulting from it, and the misfortune and shame inevitable, if the mind were not so disciplined. Their purpose was to strengthen the governing reason of his mind, and to enthrone it as a fixed habit and character, which would control by counter suggestions the impulse arising at each special moment—particularly all disturbing terrors or allurements. This, in their view, is a free mind; not one wherein volition is independent of all motive, but one wherein the susceptibility to different motives is tempered by an ascendant reason, so as to give predominance to the better motive against the worse. One of the strongest motives that they endeavoured to enforce, was the prudence and dignity of bringing our volitions into harmony with the schemes of Providence: which (they said) were always arranged with a view to the happiness of the kosmos on the whole. The bad man, whose volitions conflict with these schemes, is always baulked of his expectations, and brought at last against his will to see things carried by an overruling force, with aggravated pain and humiliation to himself: while the good man, who resigns himself to them from the first, always escapes with less pain, and often without any at all. Ducunt volentem fata, nolentem trahunt.

We have thus seen that in regard to the doctrine called in modern times the Freedom of the Will (i.e., that volitions are self-originating and unpredictable), the Stoic theorists not only denied it, but framed all their Ethics upon the assumption of the contrary. This same assumption of the contrary, indeed, was made also by Sokrates, Plato, Aristotle, and Epicurus: in short, by all the ethical teachers of antiquity. All of them believed that volitions depended on causes: that under the ordinary conditions of men's minds, the causes that volitions generally depended upon are often misleading and sometimes ruinous: but that by proper stimulation from without and meditation within, the rational causes of volition might be made to overrule the impulsive. Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus, not less than the Stoics, wished to create new fixed habits and a new type of character. They differed, indeed, on the question what the proper type of character was: but each of them aimed at the same general end—a new type of character, regulating the grades of susceptibility to different motives. And the purpose of all and each of these moralists precludes the theory of free-will—i.e., the theory that our volitions are self-originating and unpredictable.

III.—We must consider next the Stoical theory of Happiness, or rather of the Good, which with them was proclaimed to be the sole, indispensable, and self-sufficing condition of Happiness. They declared that Pleasure was no part of Good, and Pain no part of Evil; therefore, that even relief from pain was not necessary to Good or Happiness. This, however, if followed out consistently, would dispense with all morality and all human endeavour. Accordingly, the Stoics were obliged to let in some pleasures as an object of pursuit, and some pains as an object of avoidance, though not under the title of Good and Evil, but with the inferior name of Sumenda and Rejicienda.[9] Substantially, therefore, they held that pains are an evil, but, by a proper discipline, may be triumphed over. They disallowed the direct and ostensible pursuit of pleasure as an end (the point of view of Epicurus), but allured their followers partly by promising them the victory over pain, and partly by certain enjoyments of an elevated cast that grew out of their plan of life.