Hume and the Sophists.—Hume accedes to this general view, and carries it out to its legitimate results, making morality a mere relation between our nature and certain objects, and not an independent quality of actions. Virtue and vice, like color and taste, the bright and the dull, the sweet and the bitter, lie merely in our sensations.
These skeptical views had been advanced long previously by the Sophists, who taught that man is the measure of all things, that things are only what they seem to us.
Ambiguity of the term Sense.—It is true, as Stewart has observed, that these views do not necessarily result from Hutcheson's theory, nor were they, probably, held by him; but such is the natural tendency of his doctrine. The term sense, as employed by him, is, in itself, ambiguous, and may be used to denote a mental perception; but when we speak of a sense, we are understood to refer to that part of our constitution which, when affected from without, gives us certain sensations. Thus the sense of hearing, the sense of vision, the sense of taste, of smell, etc. It is in this way that Hutcheson seems to have employed the term, and his illustrations all point in this direction. He was unfortunate, to say the least, in his use of terms, and in his illustrations; unfortunate, also, in having such a disciple as Hume, to push his theory to its legitimate results.
If, by a special sense, he meant only a direct perceptive power of the mind, then, doubtless, Hutcheson is right in recognizing such a faculty, and attributing to it the ideas under consideration. But that is not the proper meaning of the word sense, nor is that the signification attached to it by his followers.
No Evidence of such a Faculty.—But if he means, by sense, what the word itself would indicate, some adaptation of the sensibilities to receive impressions from things without, analogous to that by which we are affected through the organs of sense, then, in the first place, it is not true that we have any such special faculty. There is no evidence of it; nay, facts contradict it. There is no such uniformity of moral impression or sensation as ought to manifest itself on this supposition. Men's eyes and ears are much alike, in their activity, the world over. That which is white, or red, to one, is not black to another, or green to a third; that which is sweet to one, is not sour, or bitter, to another. At least, if such variations occur, they are the result only of some unnatural and unusual condition of the organs. But it is otherwise with the operation of the so-called special sense. While all men have probably, some idea of right and wrong, there is the greatest possible variety in its application to particular instances of conduct. What one approves as a virtue, another condemns as a crime.
No Need of it.—Nor, secondly, have we any need to call in the aid of a special sense to give us ideas of this kind. It is not true, as Locke and Hutcheson believed, that all our ideas, except those of our own mental operations, or consciousness, are derived ultimately from sensation. We have ideas of the true and the beautiful, ideas of cause and effect, of geometrical and arithmetical relations, and various other ideas, which it would be difficult to trace to the senses as their source; and which, equally with the ideas of right and wrong, would require, in that case, a special sense for their production.
4. Association.—Shall we, then, adopt the view of that class of ethical writers who account for the origin of these ideas by the principle of association? Such men as Hartley, Mill, Mackintosh, and others of that stamp, are not lightly to be set aside in the discussion of such a question. Their view is, that the moral perceptions are the result of certain combined antecedent emotions, such as gratitude, pity, resentment, etc., which relate to the dispositions and actions of voluntary agents, and which very easily and naturally come to be transferred, from the agent himself, to the action in itself considered, or to the disposition which prompted it; forming, when thus transferred and associated, what we call the moral feelings and perceptions. Just as avarice arises from the original desire, not of money, but of the things which money can procure—which desire comes, eventually, to be transferred, from the objects themselves, to the means and instrument of procuring them—and, as sympathy arises from the transfer to others of the feelings which, in like circumstances, agitate our own bosoms, so, in like manner, by the principle of association, the feelings which naturally arise in view of the conduct of others, are transferred from the agent to the act, from the enemy or the benefactor, to the injury or the benefaction, which acts stand afterward, by themselves, as objects of approval or condemnation. Hence the disposition to approve all benevolent acts, and to condemn the opposite; which disposition, thus formed and transferred, is a part of conscience. So of other elementary emotions.
Makes Conscience a mere Sentiment.—It will be perceived that this theory, which is indebted chiefly to Mackintosh for its completeness, and scientific form, makes conscience wholly a matter of sentiment and feeling; standing in this respect, on the same ground with the theory of a special sense, and liable, in part, to the same objections. Hence the name sentimental school, often employed to designate, collectively, the adherents of each of these views. While the theory, now proposed, might seem then to offer a plausible account of the manner in which our moral sentiments arise, it does not account for the origin of our ideas and perceptions of moral rectitude. Now the moral faculty is not a mere sentiment. There is an intellectual perception of one thing as right, and another as wrong; and the question now before us is, Whence comes that perception, and the idea on which it is based? To resolve the whole matter into certain transferred and associated emotions, is to give up the inherent distinction of right and wrong as qualities of actions, and make virtue and vice creations of the sensibility, the play and product of the excited feelings. To admit the perception and idea of the right, and ascribe their origin to antecedent emotion, is, moreover, to reverse the natural order and law of psychological operation, which bases emotion on perception, and not perception on emotion. We do not first admire, love, hate, and then perceive, but the reverse.
Further Objections.—The view now under consideration, while it seems to resolve the moral faculty into mere feeling, thus making morality wholly a relative affair, makes conscience, itself, an acquired, rather than a natural faculty, a secondary process, a transformation of emotions, rather than itself an original principle. It does it, moreover, the further injustice of deriving its origin from the purely selfish principles of our nature. I receive a favor, or an injury; hence I regard, with certain feelings of complacency, or the opposite, the man who has thus treated me. These feelings I come gradually to transfer to, and associate with, the act in itself considered, and this with other acts of the same nature; and so, at last, I come to have a moral faculty, and pronounce one thing right, and another wrong.
At Variance with Facts.—This view is quite inadmissible; at variance with facts, and the well-known laws of the human mind. The moral faculty is one of the earliest to develop itself. It appears in childhood, manifesting itself, not as an acquired and secondary principle, the result of a complicated process of associated and transferred emotion, requiring time for its gradual formation and growth, but rather as an original instinctive principle of nature.