Life of Frances Power Cobbe, as told by herself / with additions by the author, and introduction by Blanche Atkinson

by Frances Power Cobbe

“Unconsciously this Sense of Pleasure in a Virtuous Act, the thought of the peace of conscience which will follow it, or the dread of remorse for its neglect, must mingle with our motives. But we can never be permitted, consciously to exhibit them to ourselves as the ground of our resolution to obey the Law. That Law is not valid for man because it interests him, but it interests him because it has validity for him—because it springs from his true being, his proper self. The interest he feels is an Effect, not a Cause; a Contingency, not a Necessity. Were he to obey the Law merely from this Interest, it would not be free Self-legislation (autonomy), but (heteronomy) subservience of the Pure Will to a lower faculty—a Sense of Pleasure. And, practically, we may perceive that all manner of mischiefs and absurdities must arise if a man set forth Moral Pleasure as the determinator of his Will....

“Thus, the maxim of Euthumism, ‘Be virtuous for the sake of the Moral Pleasure of Virtue,’ may be pronounced false.

“2nd. Public Eudaimonism sets forth, both as the ground of our knowledge of Virtue and the motive for our practice of it, ‘The Greatest Happiness of the Greatest Number.’ This Happiness, as Paley understood it, is composed of Pleasures to be estimated only by their Intensity and Duration; or, as Bentham added, by their Certainty, Propinquity, Fecundity, and Purity (or freedom from admixture of evil).

“Let it be granted for argument’s sake, that the calculable Happiness resulting from actions can determine their Virtue (although all experience teaches that resulting Happiness is not calculable, and that the Virtue must at least be one of the items determining the resulting Happiness). On the Utilitarian’s own assumption, what sort of motive for Virtue can be his end of ‘The Greatest Happiness of the Greatest Number?’

“No sooner had Paley laid down the grand principle of his system, ‘Whatever is Expedient is Right,’ than he proceeds (as he thinks) to guard against its malapplication by arguing that nothing is expedient which produces, along with particular good consequences, general bad ones, and that this is done by the violation of any general rule. ‘You cannot,’ says he, ‘permit one action, and forbid another without showing a difference between them. Consequently the same sort of actions must be generally permitted or generally forbidden. Where therefore, the general permission of them would be pernicious, it becomes necessary to lay down and support the rule which generally forbids them.’

“Now, let the number of experienced consequences of actions be ever so great, it must be admitted that the Inductions we draw therefrom can, at the utmost, be only provisional, and subject to revision should new facts be brought in to bear in an opposite scale....

“Further, the rules induced by experience must be not only provisional, but partial. The lax term ‘general’ misleads us. A Moral Rule must be either universal and open to no exception, or, properly speaking, no rule at all. Each case of Morals stands alone.

“Thus, the Experimentalist’s conclusion, for example, that ‘Lying does more harm than good,’ may be quite remodelled by the fortunate discovery of so prudent a kind of falsification as shall obviate the mischief and leave the advantage. No doubt can remain on the mind of any student of Paley, that this would have been his own line of argument: ‘If we can only prove that a lie be expedient, then it becomes a duty to lie.’ As he says himself of the rule (which if any rule may do so may surely claim to be general) ‘Do not do evil that good may come,’ that it is ‘salutary, for the most part, the advantage seldom compensating for the violation of the rule.’ So to do evil is sometimes salutary, and does now and then compensate for disregarding even the Eudaimonist’s last resource—a General Rule!

“2nd. Private Eudaimonism. There are several formulas, in which this system, (the lowest, but the most logical, of Moral heresies) is embodied. Rutherford puts it thus: ‘Every man’s Happiness is the ultimate end which Reason teaches him to pursue, and the constant and uniform practice of Virtue towards all mankind becomes our duty, when Revelation has informed us that God will make us finally happy in a life after this.’ Paley (who properly belongs to this school, but endeavours frequently to seat himself on the corners of the stools of Euthumism and Public Eudaimonism), Paley, the standard Moralist of England,[^[11]] defines Virtue thus: ‘Virtue is the doing good to mankind in obedience to the will of God, and for the sake of Everlasting Happiness. According to which definition, the good of mankind is the subject; the will of God the rule; and Everlasting Happiness the motive of Virtue.’

“Yet it seems to me, that if there be any one truth which intuition does teach us more clearly than another, it is precisely this one—that Virtue to be Virtue must be disinterested. The moment we picture any species of reward becoming the bait of our Morality, that moment we see the holy flame of Virtue annihilated in the noxious gas. A man is not Virtuous at all who is honest because it is ‘good policy,’ beneficent from love of approbation, pious for the sake of heaven. All this is prudence not virtue, selfishness not self-sacrifice. If he be honest for sake of policy, would he be dishonest, if it could be proved that it were more politic? If he would not, then he is not really honest from policy but from some deeper principle thrust into the background of his consciousness. If he would, then it is idlest mockery to call that honesty Virtuous which only waits a bribe to become dishonest.