The great moralist of our period was Renouvier. Not only, as we have already seen, did ethical considerations mark and colour his whole thought, but he set forth those considerations themselves with a remarkable power. His treatise in two volumes on The Science of Ethics is one of the most noteworthy contributions to ethical thought which has been made in modern times. Although half a century has elapsed since its publication on the eve of the Franco-Prussian War, its intense pre-occupation with the problems which beset our modern industrial civilisation, its profound judgments and discussions concerning subjects so vital to the world of to-day (such as the relations of the sexes, marriage, sex-ethics, civil liberty, property, communism, state intervention, socialist ideals, nationalism, war, the modern idea of the State, and international law), give to it a value, which very few works upon the subject possess. Long as the work is, it has the merit of thoroughness, and difficulties are not slurred over, but stated frankly, and some endeavours are made to overcome them. Consequently, it is a work which amply repays careful study. It is almost presumption to attempt in a few pages to summarise Renouvier’s important treatise. Some estimate of its significance is, however, vital to our history.
The title itself is noteworthy and must at that date have appeared more striking than it does to us now by its claim that there is a science of ethics.[[5]] We are accustomed to regard physics, mathematics and even logic as entitled to the name Sciences. Can we legitimately speak of a Science of Ethics?
[5] It is interesting for comparative study to note that Leslie Stephen’s Science of Ethics was a much later production than Renouvier’s treatise, appearing thirteen years later.
Renouvier insists that we can. Morality deals with facts, although they are not embraced by the categories of number, extension, duration or becoming (as mathematical and physical data), but rather by those of causality, finality and consciousness. The facts “are not the natural being of things, but the devoir-être of the human will, the devoir-faire of persons, and the devoir-être of things in so far as they depend upon persons.”[[6]] Personal effort, initiative and responsibility lie at the basis of all ethics. Morality is a construction, like every science, partly individual and partly collective; it must lay down postulates, and if it is to justify the claim to be a science, these postulates must be such as to command a consensus gentium. Further, if ethics is to be scientifically based it must be independent. In the past this has unfortunately not been the case, for history shows us ethics bound up with some system of religion or metaphysics. If ethics is to be established as a science, Renouvier points out that it must be free from all hypothesis of an irrelevant character, such as cosmological speculations and theological dogmas. Renouvier’s insistence upon the independence of ethics was followed up in an even clearer and more trenchant manner by Guyau in his famous Esquisse d’une Morale sans Obligation ni Sanction.
[6] Science de la Morale, vol. I, p. 10.
Although, generally, ethics has suffered by reason of its alliance to theological and metaphysical systems, Renouvier affirms that, in this connection, there is one philosophy which is not open to objection—namely, the Critical Philosophy of Kant. This is because it subordinates all the unknown to phenomena, all phenomena to consciousness, and, within the sphere of consciousness itself, subordinates the speculative reason (reinen Vernunft) to the practical reason (praktischen Vernunft). Its chief value, according to Renouvier, lies precisely in this maintenance of the primacy of moral considerations.
Two standpoints or lines of thought which are characteristic of Renouvier, and whose presence we have already noted in our first chapter, operate also in his ethics and govern his whole treatment of the nature of morality and the problems of the moral life. Briefly stated these are, firstly, his regard for the Critical Philosophy of Kant; secondly, his view of man as “an order, a harmony of functions reciprocally conditioned, and, by this fact, inseparable.”[[7]] As in his treatment of Certitude, Renouvier showed this to be a psychological complex into which entered elements not only of cognition, but of feeling and will, the same insistence upon this unity of human nature meets us again in his ethics. “Any ethical doctrine which definitely splits up the elements of human nature is erroneous.”[[8]] Abstraction is necessary and useful for any science, even the science of ethics, but however far we may carry our scientific analysis, we must never lose sight of the fact that we are dealing with abstractions. To lose sight of the relationship of the data under observation or discussion is, indeed, working away from the goal of scientific knowledge.
[7] Science de la Morale (first edition, 1869), vol. I, p. 189.
[8] Ibid.
“Nothing,” remarks Renouvier in this connection, “has done more to hinder the spread of Kant’s doctrines in the world than his assertion that the morally good act must be performed absolutely without feeling.” In view of man as he is, and in so far as we understand human nature at all, it seems a vain and foolish statement. For Kant, Duty was supreme, and the sole criterion of a good act was, for him, its being done from a consciousness of Duty. He himself had to confess that he did not know of any act which quite fulfilled this ideal of moral action. With this view of morality Renouvier so heartily disagrees that he is inclined to think that, so far from a purely rational act (if we suppose such an act possible) being praiseworthy, he would almost give greater moral worth to an act purely emotional, whose “motive” lay, not in the idea of cold and stern Duty, but in the warm impulses of the human heart, springing from emotion or feeling alone. Emotion is a part of our nature—it has its role to play; the rational element enters as a guide or controlling power. It is desirable that all acts should be so guided, but that is far from stating, as does Kant, that they should proceed solely from rational considerations. Ultimately reason and sentiment unite in furthering the same ends. No adequate conception of justice can be arrived at which is not accompanied by, and determined by, correlatively, love of humanity. Kant rigorously excluded from operation even the most noble feelings, whose intrusion should dim the worth and glory of his moral act, devoid of feeling. But “without good-will and mutual sympathy of persons, no society could ever have established itself beyond the family, and scarcely the family itself.”[[9]]