Moral Science; a Compendium of Ethics

by Alexander Bain

In the first part of the Leviathan, then, bearing the title Of Man, and designed to consider Man as at once the matter and artificer of the Commonwealth or State, Hobbes is led, after discussing Sense, Imagination, Train of Imaginations, Speech, Reason and Science, to take up, in chapter sixth, the Passions, or, as he calls them, the Interior beginnings of voluntary motions. Motions, he says, are either vital and animal, or voluntary. Vital motions, e.g., circulation, nutrition, &c., need no help of imagination; on the other hand, voluntary motions, as going and speaking—since they depend on a precedent thought of whither, which way, and what—have in the imagination their first beginning. But imagination is only the relics of sense, and sense, as Hobbes always declares, is motion in the human organs communicated by objects without; consequently, visible voluntary motions begin in invisible internal motions, whose nature is expressed by the word Endeavour. When the endeavour is towards something causing it, there is Appetite or Desire; endeavour 'fromward something' is Aversion. These very words, and the corresponding terms in Greek, imply an actual, not—as the schoolmen absurdly think—a metaphorical motion. Passing from the main question, he describes Love and Hate as Desire and Aversion when the object is present. Of appetites, some are born with us, others proceed from experience, being of particular things. Where we neither desire nor hate, we contemn [he means, disregard]. Appetites and aversions vary in the same person, and much more in different persons.

Then follows his definition of good,—the object of any man's appetite or desire, as evil is the object of his hate and aversion. Good and evil are always merely relative, either to the person of a man, or in a commonwealth to the representative person, or to an arbitrator if chosen to settle a dispute. Good in the promise is pulchrum, for which there is no exact English term; good in the effect, as the end desired, is delightful; good as the means, is useful or profitable. There is the same variety of evil.

His next topic is Pleasure. As sense is, in reality, motion, but, in 'apparence,' light or sound or odour; so appetite, in reality a motion or endeavour effected in the heart by the action of objects through the organs of sense, is, in 'apparence,' delight or trouble of mind. The emotion, whose apparence (i.e., subjective side) is pleasure or delight, seems to be a corroboration of vital motion; the contrary, in the case of molestation. Pleasure is, therefore, the sense of good; displeasure, the sense of evil. The one accompanies, in greater or less degree, all desire and love; the other, all aversion and hatred. Pleasures are either of sense; or of the mind, when arising-from the expectation that proceeds from the foresight of the ends or consequence of things, irrespective of their pleasing the senses or not. For these mental pleasures, there is the general name joy. There is a corresponding division of displeasure into pain and grief.

All the other passions, he now proceeds to show, are these simple passions—appetite, desire, love, aversion, hate, joy, and grief, diversified in name for divers considerations. Incidental remarks of ethical importance are these. Covetousness, the desire of riches, is a name signifying blame, because men contending for them are displeased with others attaining them; the desire itself, however, is to be blamed or allowed, according to the means whereby the riches are sought. Curiosity is a lust of the mind, that by a perseverance of delight in the continual generation of knowledge, exceedeth the short vehemence of any carnal pleasure. Pity is grief for the calamity of another, arising from the imagination of the like calamity befalling one's self; the best men have, therefore, least pity for calamity arising from great wickedness. Contempt, or little sense of the calamity of others, proceeds from security of one's own fortune; 'for that any man should take pleasure in other men's great harms, without other end of his own, I do not conceive it possible.'

Having explained the various passions, he then gives his theory of the Will. He supposes a liberty in man of doing or omitting, according to appetite or aversion. But to this liberty an end is put in the state of deliberation wherein there is kept up a constant succession of alternating desires and aversions, hopes and fears, regarding one and the same thing. One of two results follows. Either the thing is judged impossible, or it is done; and this, according as aversion or appetite triumphs at the last. Now, the last aversion, followed by omission, or the last appetite, followed by action, is the act of Willing. Will is, therefore, the last appetite (taken to include aversion) in deliberating. So-called Will, that has been forborne, was inclination merely; but the last inclination with consequent action (or omission) is Will, or voluntary action.

After mentioning the forms of speech where the several passions and appetites are naturally expressed, and remarking that the truest signs of passion are in the countenance, motions of the body, actions, and ends or aims otherwise known to belong to a man,—he returns to the question of good and evil. It is apparent good and evil, come at by the best possible foresight of all the consequences of action, that excite the appetites and aversions in deliberation. Felicity he defines continual success in obtaining the things from time to time desired; perpetual tranquillity of mind being impossible in this life, which is but motion, and cannot be without desire and fear any more than without sense. The happiness of the future life is at present unknown.

Men, he says at the close, praise the goodness, and magnify the greatness, of a thing; the Greeks had also the word [Greek: makarismos], to express an opinion of a man's felicity.

In Chapter VII., Of the Ends of Discourse, he is led to remark on the meaning of Conscience, in connection-with the word Conscious. Two or more men, he says, are conscious of a thing when they know it together (con-scire.) Hence arises the proper meaning of conscience; and the evil of speaking against one's conscience, in this sense, is to be allowed. Two other meanings are metaphorical: when it is put for a man's knowledge of his own secret facts and thoughts; and when men give their own new opinions, however absurd, the reverenced name of conscience, as if they would have it seem unlawful to change or speak against them. [Hobbes is not concerned to foster the moral independence of individuals.]

He begins Chapter VIII. by defining Virtue as something that is valued for eminence, and that consists in comparison, but proceeds to consider only the intellectual virtues—all that is summed up in the term of a good wit—and their opposites. Farther on, he refers difference of wits—discretion, prudence, craft, &c.—to difference in the passions, and this to difference in constitution of body and of education. The passions chiefly concerned are the desires of power, riches, knowledge, honour, but all may be reduced to the single desire of power.

In Chapter IX. is given his Scheme of Sciences. The relation in his mind between Ethics and Politics is here seen. Science or Philosophy is divided into Natural or Civil, according as it is knowledge of consequences from the accidents of natural bodies or of politic bodies. Ethics is one of the ultimate divisions of Natural Philosophy, dealing with consequences from the passions of men; and because the passions are qualities of bodies, it falls more immediately under the head of Physics. Politics is the whole of the second main division, and deals with consequences from the institution of commonwealths (1) to the rights and duties of the Sovereign, and (2) to the duty and right of the Subject.