We may, first of all, notice one, which seems to have had some influence in causing the view that good must be defined by some such property, although it does not suggest any particular property as the one required. This reason lies in the supposition that the proposition ‘This is good’ or ‘This would be good, if it existed’ must, in a certain respect, be of the same type as other propositions. The fact is that there is one type of proposition so familiar to everyone, and therefore having such a strong hold upon the imagination, that philosophers have always supposed that all other types must be reducible to it. This type is that of the objects of experience—of all those truths which occupy our minds for the immensely greater part of our waking lives: truths such as that somebody is in the room, that I am writing or eating or talking. All these truths, however much they may differ, have this in common that in them both the grammatical subject and the grammatical predicate stand for something which exists. Immensely the commonest type of truth, then, is one which asserts a relation between two existing things. Ethical truths are immediately felt not to conform to this type, and the naturalistic fallacy arises from the attempt to make out that, in some roundabout way, they do conform to it. It is immediately obvious that when we see a thing to be good, its goodness is not a property which we can take up in our hands, or separate from it even by the most delicate scientific instruments, and transfer to something else. It is not, in fact, like most of the predicates which we ascribe to things, a part of the thing to which we ascribe it. But philosophers suppose that the reason why we cannot take goodness up and move it about, is not that it is a different kind of object from any which can be moved about, but only that it necessarily exists together with anything with which it does exist. They explain the type of ethical truths by supposing it identical with the type of scientific laws. And it is only when they have done this that the naturalistic philosophers proper—those who are empiricists—and those whom I have called ‘metaphysical’ part company. These two classes of philosophers do, indeed, differ with regard to the nature of scientific laws. The former class tend to suppose that when they say ‘This always accompanies that’ they mean only ‘This has accompanied, does now, and will accompany that in these particular instances’: they reduce the scientific law quite simply and directly to the familiar type of proposition which I have pointed out. But this does not satisfy the metaphysicians. They see that when you say ‘This would accompany that, if that existed,’ you don’t mean only that this and that have existed and will exist together so many times. But it is beyond even their powers to believe that what you do mean is merely what you say. They still think you must mean, somehow or other, that something does exist, since that is what you generally mean when you say anything. They are as unable as the empiricists to imagine that you can ever mean that 2 + 2 = 4. The empiricists say this means that so many couples of couples of things have in each case been four things; and hence that 2 and 2 would not make 4, unless precisely those things had existed. The metaphysicians feel that this is wrong; but they themselves have no better account of its meaning to give than either, with Leibniz, that God’s mind is in a certain state, or, with Kant, that your mind is in a certain state, or finally, with Mr Bradley, that something is in a certain state. Here, then, we have the root of the naturalistic fallacy. The metaphysicians have the merit of seeing that when you say ‘This would be good, if it existed,’ you can’t mean merely ‘This has existed and was desired,’ however many times that may have been the case. They will admit that some good things have not existed in this world, and even that some may not have been desired. But what you can mean, except that something exists, they really cannot see. Precisely the same error which leads them to suppose that there must exist a supersensible Reality, leads them to commit the naturalistic fallacy with regard to the meaning of ‘good.’ Every truth, they think, must mean somehow that something exists; and since, unlike the empiricists, they recognise some truths which do not mean that anything exists here and now, these they think must mean that something exists not here and now. On the same principle, since ‘good’ is a predicate which neither does nor can exist, they are bound to suppose either that ‘to be good’ means to be related to some other particular thing which can exist and does exist ‘in reality’; or else that it means merely ‘to belong to the real world’—that goodness is transcended or absorbed in reality.
74. That such a reduction of all propositions to the type of those which assert either that something exists or that something which exists has a certain attribute (which means, that both exist in a certain relation to one another), is erroneous, may easily be seen by reference to the particular class of ethical propositions. For whatever we may have proved to exist, and whatever two existents we may have proved to be necessarily connected with one another, it still remains a distinct and different question whether what thus exists is good; whether either or both of the two existents is so; and whether it is good that they should exist together. To assert the one is plainly and obviously not the same thing as to assert the other. We understand what we mean by asking: Is this, which exists, or necessarily exists, after all, good? and we perceive that we are asking a question which has not been answered. In face of this direct perception that the two questions are distinct, no proof that they must be identical can have the slightest value. That the proposition ‘This is good’ is thus distinct from every other proposition was proved in Chapter I.; and I may now illustrate this fact by pointing out how it is distinguished from two particular propositions with which it has commonly been identified. That so and so ought to be done is commonly called a moral law, and this phrase naturally suggests that this proposition is in some way analogous either to a natural law, or to a law in the legal sense, or to both. All three are, in fact, really analogous in one respect, and in one respect only: that they include a proposition which is universal. A moral law asserts ‘This is good in all cases’; a natural law asserts ‘This happens in all cases’; and a law, in the legal sense, ‘It is commanded that this be done, or be left undone, in all cases.’ But since it is very natural to suppose that the analogy extends further, and that the assertion ‘This is good in all cases’ is equivalent to the assertion ‘This happens in all cases’ or to the assertion ‘It is commanded that this be done in all cases,’ it may be useful briefly to point out that they are not equivalent.
75. The fallacy of supposing moral law to be analogous to natural law in respect of asserting that some action is one which is always necessarily done is contained in one of the most famous doctrines of Kant. Kant identifies what ought to be with the law according to which a Free or Pure Will must act—with the only kind of action which is possible for it. And by this identification he does not mean merely to assert that the Free Will is also under the necessity of doing what it ought; he means that what it ought to do means nothing but its own law—the law according to which it must act. It differs from the human will just in that, what we ought to do, is what it necessarily does. It is ‘autonomous’; and by this is meant (among other things) that there is no separate standard by which it can be judged: that the question ‘Is the law by which this Will acts a good one?’ is, in its case, meaningless. It follows that what is necessarily willed by this Pure Will is good, not because that Will is good, nor for any other reason; but merely because it is what is necessarily willed by a Pure Will.
Kant’s assertion of the ‘Autonomy of the Practical Reason’ thus has the very opposite effect to that which he desired; it makes his Ethics ultimately and hopelessly ‘heteronomous.’ His Moral Law is ‘independent’ of Metaphysics only in the sense that according to him we can know it independently; he holds that we can only infer that there is Freedom, from the fact that the Moral Law is true. And so far as he keeps strictly to this view, he does avoid the error, into which most metaphysical writers fall, of allowing his opinions as to what is real to influence his judgments of what is good. But he fails to see that on his view the Moral Law is dependent upon Freedom in a far more important sense than that in which Freedom depends on the Moral Law. He admits that Freedom is the ratio essendi of the Moral Law, whereas the latter is only ratio cognoscendi of Freedom. And this means that, unless Reality be such as he says, no assertion that ‘This is good’ can possibly be true: it can indeed have no meaning. He has, therefore, furnished his opponents with a conclusive method of attacking the validity of the Moral Law. If they can only shew by some other means (which he denies to be possible but leaves theoretically open) that the nature of Reality is not such as he says, he cannot deny that they will have proved his ethical principle to be false. If that ‘This ought to be done’ means ‘This is willed by a Free Will,’ then, if it can be shewn that there is no Free Will which wills anything, it will follow that nothing ought to be done.
76. And Kant also commits the fallacy of supposing that ‘This ought to be’ means ‘This is commanded.’ He conceives the Moral Law to be an Imperative. And this is a very common mistake. ‘This ought to be,’ it is assumed, must mean ‘This is commanded’; nothing, therefore, would be good unless it were commanded; and since commands in this world are liable to be erroneous, what ought to be in its ultimate sense means ‘what is commanded by some real supersensible authority.’ With regard to this authority it is, then, no longer possible to ask ‘Is it righteous?’ Its commands cannot fail to be right, because to be right means to be what it commands. Here, therefore, law, in the moral sense, is supposed analogous to law, in the legal sense, rather than, as in the last instance, to law in the natural sense. It is supposed that moral obligation is analogous to legal obligation, with this difference only that whereas the source of legal obligation is earthly, that of moral obligation is heavenly. Yet it is obvious that if by a source of obligation is meant only a power which binds you or compels you to do a thing, it is not because it does do this that you ought to obey it. It is only if it be itself so good, that it commands and enforces only what is good, that it can be a source of moral obligation. And in that case what it commands and enforces would be good, whether commanded and enforced or not. Just that which makes an obligation legal, namely the fact that it is commanded by a certain kind of authority, is entirely irrelevant to a moral obligation. However an authority be defined, its commands will be morally binding only if they are—morally binding; only if they tell us what ought to be or what is a means to that which ought to be.
77. In this last error, in the supposition that when I say ‘You ought to do this’ I must mean ‘You are commanded to do this,’ we have one of the reasons which has led to the supposition that the particular supersensible property by reference to which good must be defined is Will. And that ethical conclusions may be obtained by enquiring into the nature of a fundamentally real Will seems to be by far the commonest assumption of Metaphysical Ethics at the present day. But this assumption seems to owe its plausibility, not so much to the supposition that ‘ought’ expresses a ‘command,’ as to a far more fundamental error. This error consists in supposing that to ascribe certain predicates to a thing is the same thing as to say that that thing is the object of a certain kind of psychical state. It is supposed that to say that a thing is real or true is the same thing as to say that it is known in a certain way; and that the difference between the assertion that it is good and the assertion that it is real—between an ethical, therefore, and a metaphysical proposition—consists in the fact that whereas the latter asserts its relation to Cognition the former asserts its relation to Will.
Now that this is an error has been already shewn in Chapter I. That the assertion ‘This is good’ is not identical with the assertion ‘This is willed,’ either by a supersensible will, or otherwise, nor with any other proposition, has been proved; nor can I add anything to that proof. But in face of this proof it may be anticipated that two lines of defence may be taken up. (1) It may be maintained that, nevertheless, they really are identical, and facts may be pointed out which seem to prove that identity. Or else (2) it may be said that an absolute identity is not maintained: that it is only meant to assert that there is some special connection between will and goodness, such as makes an enquiry into the real nature of the former an essential step in the proof of ethical conclusions. In order to meet these two possible objections, I propose first to shew what possible connections there are or may be between goodness and will; and that none of these can justify us in asserting that ‘This is good’ is identical with ‘This is willed.’ On the other hand it will appear that some of them may be easily confused with this assertion of identity; and that therefore the confusion is likely to have been made. This part of my argument will, therefore, already go some way towards meeting the second objection. But what must be conclusive against this is to shew that any possible connection between will and goodness except the absolute identity in question, would not be sufficient to give an enquiry into Will the smallest relevance to the proof of any ethical conclusion.
78. It has been customary, since Kant’s time, to assert that Cognition, Volition, and Feeling are three fundamentally distinct attitudes of the mind towards reality. They are three distinct ways of experiencing, and each of them informs us of a distinct aspect under which reality may be considered. The ‘Epistemological’ method of approaching Metaphysics rests on the assumption that by considering what is ‘implied in’ Cognition—what is its ‘ideal’—we may discover what properties the world must have, if it is to be true. And similarly it is held that by considering what is ‘implied in’ the fact of Willing or Feeling—what is the ‘ideal’ which they presuppose—we may discover what properties the world must have, if it is to be good or beautiful. The orthodox Idealistic Epistemologist differs from the Sensationalist or Empiricist in holding that what we directly cognise is neither all true nor yet the whole truth: in order to reject the false and to discover further truths we must, he says, not take cognition merely as it presents itself, but discover what is implied in it. And similarly the orthodox Metaphysical Ethicist differs from the mere Naturalist, in holding that not everything which we actually will is good, nor, if good, completely good: what is really good is that which is implied in the essential nature of will. Others again think that Feeling, and not Will, is the fundamental datum for Ethics. But, in either case, it is agreed that Ethics has some relation to Will or Feeling which it has not to Cognition, and which other objects of study have to Cognition. Will or Feeling, on the one hand, and Cognition, on the other, are regarded as in some sense coordinate sources of philosophical knowledge—the one of Practical, the other of Theoretical philosophy.
What, that is true, can possibly be meant by this view?
79. First of all, it may be meant that, just as, by reflection on our perceptual and sensory experience, we become aware of the distinction between truth and falsehood, so it is by reflection on our experiences of feeling and willing that we become aware of ethical distinctions. We should not know what was meant by thinking one thing better than another unless the attitude of our will or feeling towards one thing was different from its attitude towards another. All this may be admitted. But so far we have only the psychological fact that it is only because we will or feel things in a certain way, that we ever come to think them good; just as it is only because we have certain perceptual experiences, that we ever come to think things true. Here, then, is a special connection between willing and goodness; but it is only a causal connection—that willing is a necessary condition for the cognition of goodness.