On the other hand, indicating the supremacy of the voluntary attitude over consequences, we have, "What shall a man give in exchange for his soul?" "What shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own life?" "Let us do evil that good may come, whose damnation is just." The deep-seated objection to the maxim that the end justifies the means is hard to account for, except upon the basis that it is possible to attain ends otherwise worthy and desirable at the expense of conduct which is immoral. Again, compare Shakspere's "There's nothing right or wrong, but thinking makes it so" with the Biblical "As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he." And finally we have such sayings as, "Take the will for the deed"; "His heart is in the right place"; Pereat mundus, fiat justitia.
Passing from this popular aspect of the matter, we find the following grounds for the "content" theory:
1. It Makes Morality Really Important.—Would there be any use or sense in moral acts if they did not tend to promote welfare, individual and social? If theft uniformly resulted in great happiness and security of life, if truth-telling introduced confusion and inefficiency into men's relations, would we not consider the first a virtue, and the latter a vice?[118] So far as the identification of goodness with mere motive (apart from results effected by acts) reduces morality to nullity, there seems to be furnished a reductio ad absurdum of the theory that results are not the decisive thing.
(2) It Makes Morality a Definite, Concrete Thing.—Morality is found in consequences; and consequences are definite, observable facts which the individual can be made responsible for noting and for employing in the direction of his further behavior. The theory gives morality an objective, a tangible guarantee and sanction. Moreover, results are something objective, common to different individuals because outside them all. But the doctrine that goodness consists in motives formed by and within the individual without reference to obvious, overt results, makes goodness something vague or else whimsical and arbitrary. The latter view makes virtue either something unattainable, or else attained by merely cultivating certain internal states having no outward results at all, or even results that are socially harmful. It encourages fanaticism, moral crankiness, moral isolation or pride; obstinate persistence in a bad course in spite of its demonstrable evil results. It makes morality non-progressive, since by its assumption no amount of experience of consequences can throw any light upon essential moral elements.
(3) The Content Theory Not Only Puts Morality Itself upon a Basis of Facts, but Also Puts the Theory of Morality upon a Solid Basis.—We know what we mean by goodness and evil when we discuss them in terms of results achieved or missed, and can therefore discuss them intelligibly. We can formulate concrete ends and lay down rules for their attainment. Thus there can be a science of morals just as there can be a science of any body of observable facts having a common principle. But if morality depends upon purely subjective, personal motives, no objective observation and common interpretation are possible. We are thrown back upon the capricious individual ipse dixit, which by this theory is made final. Ethical theory is rendered impossible. Thus Bentham, who brings these charges (and others) against the "virtue" theory of goodness, says at the close of the preface to his Principles of Morals and Legislation (ed. of 1823):
"Truths that form the basis of political and moral science are not to be discovered but by investigations as severe as mathematical ones, and beyond all comparison more intricate and extensive.... They are not to be forced into detached and general propositions, unincumbered with explanations and exceptions. They will not compress themselves into epigrams. They recoil from the tongue and the pen of the declaimer. They flourish not in the same soil with sentiment. They grow among thorns; and are not to be plucked, like daisies, by infants as they run.... There is no King's Road ... to legislative, any more than to mathematical science."[119]
Arguments not unlike, however, may be adduced in favor of the attitude theory.
1. It, and It Alone, Places Morality in the High and Authoritative Place Which by Right Characterizes It.—Morality is not just a means of reaching other ends; it is an end in itself. To reduce virtue to a tool or instrumentality for securing pleasure is to prostitute and destroy it. Unsophisticated common sense is shocked at putting morality upon the same level with prudence, policy, and expediency. Morality is morality, just because it possesses an absolute authoritativeness which they lack.
2. The Morally Good Must be Within the Power of the Individual to Achieve.—The amount of pleasure and pain the individual experiences, his share of satisfaction, depends upon outward circumstances which are beyond his control, and which accordingly have no moral significance. Only the beginning, the willing, of an act lies with the man; its conclusion, its outcome in the way of consequences, lies with the gods. Accident, misfortune, unfavorable circumstance, may shut the individual within a life of sickness, misery, and discomfort. They may deprive him of external goods; but they cannot modify the moral good, for that resides in the attitude with which one faces these conditions and results. Conditions hostile to prosperity may be only the means of calling forth virtues of bravery, patience, and amiability. Only consequences within character itself, the tendency of an act to form a habit or to cultivate a disposition, are really of moral significance.