3. Motives Furnish a Settled and Workable Criterion by Which to Measure the Rightness or Wrongness of Specific Acts.—Consequences are indefinitely varied; they are too much at the mercy of the unforeseen to serve as basis of measurement. One and the same act may turn out in a hundred different ways according to accidental circumstances. If the individual had to calculate consequences before entering upon action, he would engage in trying to solve a problem where each new term introduced more factors. No conclusion would ever be reached; or, if reached, would be so uncertain that the agent would be paralyzed by doubt. But since the motives are within the person's own breast, the problem of knowing the right is comparatively simple: the data for the judgment are always at hand and always accessible to the one who sincerely wishes to know the right.
Conclusion.—The fact that common life recognizes, under certain conditions, both theories as correct, and that substantially the same claims may be made for both, suggests that the controversy depends upon some underlying misapprehension. Their common error, as we shall attempt to show in the sequel, lies in trying to split a voluntary act which is single and entire into two unrelated parts, the one termed "inner," the other, "outer"; the one called "motive," the other, "end." A voluntary act is always a disposition, or habit of the agent passing into an overt act, which, so far as it can, produces certain consequences. A "mere" motive which does not do anything, which makes nothing different, is not a genuine motive at all, and hence is not a voluntary act. On the other hand, consequences which are not intended, which are not personally wanted and chosen and striven for, are no part of a voluntary act. Neither the inner apart from the outer, nor the outer apart from the inner, has any voluntary or moral quality at all. The former is mere passing sentimentality or reverie; the latter is mere accident or luck.
Tendency of Each Theory to Pass into the Other.—Hence each theory, realizing its own onesidedness, tends inevitably to make concessions, and to borrow factors from its competitor, and thus insensibly to bridge the gap between them. Consequences are emphasized, but only foreseen consequences; while to foresee is a mental act whose exercise depends upon character. It is disposition, interest, which leads an agent to estimate the consequences at their true worth; thus an upholder of the "content" theory ends by falling back upon the attitude taken in forecasting and weighing results. In like fashion, the representative of the motive theory dwells upon the tendency of the motive to bring about certain effects. The man with a truly benevolent disposition is not the one who indulges in indiscriminate charity, but the one who considers the effect of his gift upon its recipient and upon society. While lauding the motive as the sole bearer of moral worth, the motive is regarded as a force working towards the production of certain results. When the "content" theory recognizes disposition as an inherent factor in bringing about consequences, and the "attitude" theory views motives as forces tending to effect consequences, an approximation of each to the other has taken place which almost cancels the original opposition. It is realized that a complete view of the place of motive in a voluntary act will conceive motive as a motor force; as inspiring to action which will inevitably produce certain results unless this is prevented by superior external force. It is also realized that only those consequences are any part of voluntary behavior which are so congenial to character as to appeal to it as good and stir it to effort to realize them. We may begin the analysis of a voluntary act at whichever end we please, but we are always carried to the other end in order to complete the analysis. The so-called distinction between the "inner" and "outer" parts of an act is in reality a distinction between the earlier and the later period of its development.
In the following chapter we shall enter upon a direct discussion of the relation of conduct and character to one another; we shall then apply the results of the discussion, in successive chapters, to the problems already raised: The Nature of Good; of Knowledge; of Moral Authority; The Relation of the Self to Others and Society; The Characteristics of the Virtuous Self.
LITERATURE
Many of the references in ch. xi. trench upon this ground. Compare, also, Lecky, History of European Morals, Vol. I., pp. 1-2, and 122-130; Sidgwick, Methods of Ethics, pp. 6-11, 77-88 and 494-507; Wundt, Ethics, Vol. II., ch. iv.; Mackenzie, Manual of Ethics, Book II., ch. ii.; Murray, Introduction to Ethics, p. 143; Paulsen, System of Ethics, Introduction, and Book II., ch. i.
FOOTNOTES:
[110] Spencer, Principles of Ethics, Vol. I., p. 46, and p. 30. (Italics not in original.)
[111] Green, Prolegomena to Ethics, p. 354.
[112] Hegel's Philosophy of Right, translated by Dyde, Part III., 150 (p. 159).