"What constitutes the difficulty for a man laboring under an unwise passion acting as if the passion were unwise?... The difficulty is mental; it is that of getting the idea of the wise action to stay before our mind at all. When any strong emotional state whatever is upon us the tendency is for no images but such as are congruous with it to come up. If others by chance offer themselves, they are instantly smothered and crowded out.... By a sort of self-preserving instinct which our passion has, it feels that these chill objects [the thoughts of what is disagreeable to the passion] if they once but gain a lodgment, will work and work until they have frozen the very vital spark from out of all our mood.... Passion's cue accordingly is always and everywhere to prevent their still small voice from being heard at all."
This quotation refers to a strong passion. It is important to note that every interest, every emotion, of whatever nature or strength, works in precisely the same way. Upon this hangs the entertaining of memories and ideas about things. Hence interest is the central factor in the development of any concrete intention, both as to what it is and as to what it is not—that is, what the aim would have been if the emotional attitude had been different. Given a certain emotional attitude, and the consequences which are pertinent to it are thought of, while other and equally probable consequences are ignored. A man of a truly kindly disposition is sensitive to, aware of, probable results on other people's welfare; a cautious person sees consequences with reference to his own standing; an avaricious man feels results in terms of the probable increase or decrease of his possessions; and so on. The intimate relation of interest and attention forms the inseparable tie of intention, what one will, to motive, why he so wills. When Bentham says that "Motives are the causes of intentions," he states the fact, and also reveals motive as the proper final object of moral judgment.
§ 3. CONDUCT AND CHARACTER
The discussion enables us to place conduct and character in relation to each other. Mill, after the passage already quoted (see above, p. 248), to the effect that motive makes no difference to the morality of the act, says it "makes a great difference in our moral estimation of the agent, especially if it indicates a good or a bad habitual disposition—a bent of character from which useful, or from which hurtful, actions are likely to arise." To like effect Bentham:
"Is there nothing, then," he asks,[126] "about a man which can be termed good or bad, when on such or such an occasion, he suffers himself to be governed by such and such a motive? Yes, certainly, his disposition. Now disposition is a kind of fictitious entity,[127] feigned for the convenience of discourse, in order to express what there is supposed to be permanent in a man's frame of mind, where, on such or such an occasion, he has been influenced by such or such a motive, to engage in an act, which, as it appeared to him, was of such or such a tendency." He then goes on to say that disposition is good or bad according to its effects. "A man is said to be of a mischievous[128] disposition, when by the influence of no matter what motives, he is presumed to be more apt to engage, or form intentions of engaging, in acts which are apparently of a pernicious tendency than in such as are apparently of a beneficial tendency: of a meritorious or beneficent disposition in the opposite case."[129] And again: "It is evident that the nature of a man's disposition must depend upon the nature of the motives he is apt to be influenced by; in other words, upon the degree of his sensibility to the force of such and such motives. For his disposition is, as it were, the sum of his intentions.... Now, intentions, like everything else, are produced by the things that are their causes: and the causes of intentions are motives. If, on any occasion, a man forms either a good or a bad intention, it must be by the influence of some motive."[130]
Rôle of Character.—Here we have an explicit recognition of the fundamental rôle of character in the moral life; and also of why it is important. Character is that body of active tendencies and interests in the individual which make him open, ready, warm to certain aims, and callous, cold, blind to others, and which accordingly habitually tend to make him acutely aware of and favorable to certain sorts of consequences, and ignorant of or hostile to other consequences. A selfish man need not consciously think a great deal of himself, nor need he be one who, after deliberately weighing his own claims and others' claims, consciously and persistently chooses the former. The number of persons who after facing the entire situation, would still be anti-social enough deliberately to sacrifice the welfare of others is probably small. But a man will have a selfish and egoistic character who, irrespective of any such conscious balancing of his own and others' welfare, is habitually more accessible to the thought of those consequences which affect himself than he is to those which bear upon others. It is not so much that after thinking of the effect upon others he declines to give these thoughts any weight, as that he habitually fails to think at all, or to think in a vivid and complete way, of the interests of others. As we say, he does not care; he does not consider, or regard, others.[131]
Partial and Complete Intent.—To Mill's statement that morality depends on intention not upon motive, a critic objected that on this basis a tyrant's act in saving a man from drowning would be good—the intent being rescue of life—although his motive was abominable, namely cruelty, for it was the reservation of the man for death by torture. Mill's reply is significant. Not so, he answered; there is in this case a difference of intention, not merely of motive. The rescue was not the whole act, but "only the necessary first step of an act." This answer will be found to apply to every act in which a superficial analysis would seem to make intent different in its moral significance from motive. Take into account the remote consequences in view as well as the near, and the seeming discrepancy disappears. The intent of rescuing a man and the motive of cruelty are both descriptions of the same act, the same moral reality; the difference lying not in the fact, but in the point of view from which it is named. Now there is in every one a tendency to fix in his mind only a part of the probable consequences of his deed; the part which is most innocent, upon which a favorable construction may most easily be put, or which is temporarily most agreeable to contemplate. Thus the person concentrates his thought, his forecast of consequences upon external and indifferent matters, upon distribution of commodities, increase of money or material resources, and upon positively valuable results, at the expense of other changes——changes for the worse in his disposition and in the well-being and freedom of others. Thus he causes to stand out in strong light all of those consequences of his activity which are beneficial and right, and dismisses those of another nature to the dim recesses of consciousness, so they will not trouble him with scruples about the proper character of his act. Since consequences are usually more or less mixed, such half-conscious, half-unconscious, half-voluntary, half-instinctive selection easily becomes a habit. Then the individual excuses himself with reference to the actual bad results of his behavior on the ground that he "meant well," his "intention was good"! Common sense disposes of this evasion by recognizing the reality of "willing." We say a man is "willing" to have things happen when, in spite of the fact that in and of themselves they are objectionable and hence would not be willed in their isolation, they are consented to, because they are bound up with something else the person wants. And to be "willing" to have the harm follow is really to will it. The agent intends or wills all those consequences which his prevailing motive or character makes him willing under the circumstances to accept or tolerate.
Exactly the same point comes out from the side of motive. Motives are complex and "mixed"; ultimately the motive to an act is that entire character of an agent on account of which one alternative set of possible results appeal to him and stir him. Such motives as pure benevolence, avarice, gratitude, revenge, are abstractions; we name the motive from the general trend of the issue, ignoring contributing and indirect causes. All assigned motives are more or less post-mortem affairs. No actuating motive is ever as simple as reflection afterwards makes it. But the justification of the simplification is that it brings to light some factor which needs further attention. No one can read his own motives, much less those of another, with perfect accuracy;—though the more sincere and transparent the character the more feasible is the reading. Motives which are active in the depths of character present themselves only obscurely and subconsciously. Now if one has been trained to think that motive apart from intention, apart from view of consequences flowing from an act, is the source and justification of its morality, a false and perverse turn is almost sure to be given to his judgment. Such a person fosters and keeps uppermost in the focus of his perceptions certain states of feeling, certain emotions which he has been taught are good; and then excuses his act, in face of bad consequences, on the ground that it sprang from a good motive. Selfish persons are always being "misunderstood." Thus a man of naturally buoyant and amiable disposition may unconsciously learn to cultivate superficially certain emotions of "good-feeling" to others, and yet act in ways which, judged by consequences that the man might have foreseen if he had chosen to, are utterly hostile to the interests of others. Such a man may feel indignant when accused of unjust or ungenerous behavior, and calling others to account for uncharitableness, bear witness in his own behalf that he never entertained any "feelings" of unkindness, or any "feelings" except those of benevolence, towards the individual in question.[132] Only the habit of reading "motives" in the light of persistent, thorough, and minute attention to the consequences which flow from them can save a man from such moral error.