Progressive Morality: An Essay in Ethics

by Thomas Fowler

These considerations naturally lead me to notice the two different ways in which the test of conduct may be, and as a fact is, applied. One mode is the conscious and intentional application of it by the reflective man. The other is the semi-conscious and almost instinctive application of it by the community at large. In morals, as in the arts, men, almost without knowing it, are constantly re-adjusting their means to their ends, feeling their way to some tentative solution of a new difficulty or a better solution of an old one, shaping their conduct with reference to the special needs of the situation in which they are placed. It is thus, for the most part, that new circumstances develope new rules, and that the simple maxims of a primitive people are gradually replaced by the multifarious code of law and morals with which we are now familiar. The guiding principle throughout the process is the conception of their own good, comprehending, as it does, not only ease, personal comfort, and gratification of the various appetites and desires, which, in the early stages of society, are the preponderating considerations, but also those higher constituents of welfare, both individual and social, which attain an ever-increasing importance as society advances, such as are the development of the moral, the intellectual, and the aesthetic faculties; the purification of the religious sentiments, the expansion of the sympathetic feelings, the diffusion of liberty and prosperity, the consolidation of national unity, the elevation of human life. This principle works throughout the community, actuating some men in its higher, others in its lower forms; but, except where the force of tradition or prejudice is too strong for it, invariably moulding conduct into accordance with the more complex requirements of advancing civilisation. Its action, of course, is not wholly advantageous. Growing needs and more complicated relations suggest to men fresh devices for compassing their selfish ends, such as the various forms of fraud, forgery, and conspiracy, as well as more enlarged or more effective schemes of beneficence, stricter or more intelligent applications of the principle of justice, and possibilities of higher and freer developments of their faculties. But, on the whole, and setting aside as exceptional certain periods of retrogression, such as the decline of the Roman Empire, the evolution of society seems to be attended by the progress of morality, and specially by the amelioration of social relations, whether between individuals, families, or states. The intelligence that apprehends the greater good re-acts upon the desire to attain it, and the result is the combination of more rational aims with a purer interest in the pursuit of them.

This tendency in society at large to modify and re-adjust its conduct in conformity with fuller and more improved conceptions of well-being, which are themselves suggested by a growing experience, is reinforced, especially in the later stages of civilisation, by the consciously reflective action of philosophers and reformers. It is the function of these classes not only to give expression to the thoughts which are working obscurely in the minds of other men, but also to detect those aspects and bearings of conduct which are not obvious to the general intelligence. This task is effected partly by tracing actions to their indirect and remote results, partly by more distinctly realising their results, whether immediate or remote, direct or indirect, and partly by generalising them, that is to say, by considering what would happen to society if men generally were to act in that manner. Thus, take the case of lying. In primitive states of society, and even in some more advanced nations, no great opprobrium attaches to telling a lie. In ancient Greece, for instance, veracity by no means occupied the same prominent position among the virtues that it does among ourselves, and, even now, Teutonic races are generally credited with a peculiar sensitiveness on the subject of truthfulness. This improved sentiment as regards veracity is, no doubt, partly due to the realisation of its importance and of the inconveniences which result from the breaches of it, especially in commercial affairs, by the members of a community at large; but it must also, to a great extent, have been produced by the definite teaching conveyed in books, and by moral and religious instructors. Follow out a lie to all its consequences, realise the feelings of the person deceived by it, when he has discovered the deception, above all, consider what would be the result if men were commonly to deceive one another, and no man could place any dependence on the information which his neighbour gave him; and then a falsehood excites very different feelings from what it does when regarded simply as an isolated act. Or, again, take the evasion of taxes. There is probably, even yet, no country in which the popular sentiment on this subject is sufficiently enlightened and severe. A man smuggles a box of cigars, or evades paying a tax for his dog, or makes an insufficient return of his income, and few of his neighbours, if the fact come to their knowledge, think the worse of him. The character and consequences of the action are not obvious, and hence they do not perceive what, on reflexion, or, if guided by proper instruction, they could hardly fail to realise, that the act is really a theft, only practised on the community at large instead of on an individual member of it, and that, if every one were to act in the same way, the collection of taxes and, consequently, the administration and defence of the country, the maintenance of its army and navy, its police, its harbours and roads, would become an impossibility, and it would quickly relapse into barbarism. Other familiar instances of the advantage to be derived from the conscious and intentional application of the reasoning powers to matters of conduct may be found in the successive reforms of the penal code of any civilized country, or in the abolition of slavery. Punishment is, in all very early stages of society, capricious, mostly unregulated by any definite customs or enactments, and, consequently, often disproportioned, either in the way of excess or defect, to the character of the offence. As the community advances in complexity and intelligence, successive reformers arise who attempt, by definite enactment, to regulate the amount of punishment due to each description of offence, and, from time to time, to increase or diminish, as occasion seems to require, the severity of the existing code. The considerations by which, at least in our own time, these reforms are determined are such as these: the adequacy or inadequacy of the punishment to deter men from the commission of the offence, the tendency of excessive punishment to produce a reaction of sentiment in favour of the criminal, and a reluctance on the part of the judge or jury to convict, the superfluous suffering inflicted by that part of the punishment which is in excess of the requirements of the case, due publicity and notoriety as a means of warning others, the reform of the criminal himself, and so on. All these considerations, it will be observed, are derived from tracing the effects of the punishment either on the criminal himself, or on persons who are under a similar temptation to commit the crime, or on the sentiment of society at large, or of that portion of society which is connected with the administration of justice, and it is only by the exercise of great circumspection, and of a keen intelligence on the part of the statesman, the jurist, or the moralist, that grave errors can be avoided, and an adequate estimate of the probable results can be formed. The mere instinct of the community, unmodified and uncorrected by the conscious speculations of its more thoughtful members, would be in much danger of either causing a large amount of needless suffering to the criminal, or of seriously diminishing the security of society. It would almost certainly be guilty of grave inequalities in the apportionment of punishment to specific crimes. The history of slavery similarly shews the importance of the functions of the moralist and the reformer. It must have been at the suggestion of some prominent member of a tribe, whose intelligence was in advance of that of his fellows, that men first took to capturing their defeated enemies, with a view to future service, instead of slaughtering them on the field of battle. And we know that, in the time of Plato and Aristotle, there had already arisen a strong sentiment against the enslaving of Greeks by Greeks, originating probably in the instinctive sympathy of race, but quickened and fostered, doubtless, by the superior capacity which men possess of realising suffering and misfortune in those who are constituted and endowed like themselves, by the new conception of a Pan-hellenic unity, and by the vivid sense which, on reflexion, the citizens of each state must have entertained of their own liability to be reduced, in turn, to the same condition. In modern times, the movement which has led to the entire abolition of slavery in civilized countries owes much, undoubtedly, to the softened manners and wider sympathies of a society largely transformed by the combined operation of Christianity and culture, but it has been promoted, to no inconsiderable degree, by conscious reflexion and direct argument. Social and religious reasons, derived from the community of nature and origin in man, reinforced by a vivid realisation of the sufferings of others, and appealing forcibly to the tender and sympathetic feelings, have co-operated with the economical considerations drawn from the wastefulness and comparative inefficiency of slave labour, and with what may be called the self-regarding reason of the hardening and debasing effect of slave-owning on the character of the slave-owner himself.

It will be sufficient, in this connexion, simply to allude to the ideals of mercy, purity, humility, long-suffering, and self-denial, which are pourtrayed in the Christian teaching and have, ever since the early days of Christianity, exercised so vast and powerful an influence on large sections of mankind.

There is, of course, a process of constant Interaction going on between the two elements in the constitution of moral sentiment which I have been attempting to describe. The circumstances, opinions, and feelings of the society of which he is a member, must necessarily contribute to determine the opinions and feelings, the character and aims, of the moralist or the reformer. In turn, the moralist or reformer modifies, corrects, and elevates the current moral sentiment of those who are brought within the influence of his work. And this result is usually a permanent one. When the average moral sentiment on a particular point of conduct has been consciously raised, and the change is fully realised, it seldom happens that it afterwards recedes, though the automatic or semi-conscious adaptations of society to new needs and circumstances, when regarded from a more general point of view, are not infrequently found to be regressive as well as progressive. Thus, though we may imagine the distinctions between the different classes of society becoming more numerous or more accentuated (as I believe to have actually occurred in England during the present century), or the evasion of taxation becoming more general than it at present is, we can hardly conceive a recurrence to slavery, or a needless increase in the severity of punishments, or a revival of the hard-drinking habits of the last century. When society is fully aware of its moral gains, it is not likely knowingly to surrender them. Hence, allowing for occasional oscillations and for possible exceptions in certain departments of conduct, morality, as a whole, almost necessarily advances with the general progress of intelligence.

It is not altogether easy to adjust the respective claims of society at large and of the individual thinker in the constitution of moral theory, or, in other words, to determine the limits within which the speculative moralist may legitimately endeavour to reform the existing moral sentiment. It is plain that it must be open to the moralist, and, in fact, to every intelligent citizen, to criticize the current morality, or else moral progress, even if it took place at all, would, on many points of conduct, be exceedingly slow. But, on the other hand, it is equally plain that a constant discussion of the accepted rules of conduct would weaken the moral sentiment, lessen the sense of obligation, and suggest a general uncertainty as to the validity of the maxims which, in their relations to one another, men usually take for granted. Hence, though it would be almost fatal to moral progress to discourage speculation on moral topics, the moralist must always bear in mind that his task is one which is not lightly to be undertaken, and that, with an exception to be noticed presently, the presumption should always be in favour of existing rules of conduct. If for no other reason, this presumption ought to be made on the practical ground that a disturbance of the moral sentiment on one point is likely to weaken its force generally, and, before we expose men to this danger, we ought to have some adequate justification. But there is also the speculative ground that any given society, and indeed mankind generally, has been engaged for ages in feeling its way, instinctively or semi-consciously, towards a solution of the self-same problems which the philosopher is attempting to solve consciously and of set purpose. That, on the whole, a society has solved these problems in the manner best suited to its existing needs and circumstances may fairly be taken for granted, and, even where the ethical stand-point of the reformer is very superior to the stand-point of the society which he wishes to reform, he will be wise in endeavouring to introduce his reforms gradually, and, if possible, in connexion with principles already acknowledged, rather than in attempting to effect a moral revolution, the ultimate results of which it may be impossible to foresee. The work of the moralist is, therefore, best regarded as corrective of, and supplementary to, the work which mankind is constantly doing for itself, and not as antagonistic to it. The method is the same in both cases: only it is applied semi-consciously, and merely as occasions suggest it, in the one case; consciously and spontaneously in the other. In both cases alike the guiding principle, whether of action or of speculation upon action, is the adaptation of conduct to surrounding circumstances, physical and social, with a view to promote, to the utmost extent possible, the well-being of the individual and of the society of which he is a member. Where the interests of the individual and of the society clash, society, that is to say, a man's fellow-citizens, usually approves, as we saw in the last chapter, of the sacrifice of individual to social interests, a course of conduct which is also, on reflexion, usually stamped by the individual's own approbation, and hence we may say briefly that their tendency to promote or impair the welfare of society is the test by which, in different ways, all actions are estimated alike by the philosopher, in his hours of speculation, and by the community at large, in the practical work of life.

In laying down the principle that the presumption of the moralist should always be in favour of existing rules of conduct, I intimated that there was one exception to this principle. The exception includes all those cases which are legitimate, though not obvious, applications of existing rules, and to which, therefore, the ordinary moral sentiment does not attach in the same way that it does to the plainer and more direct applications. Thus, if it can be shewn, as it undoubtedly can be, that smuggling falls under the head of stealing, and holding out false hopes under that of lying, the moralist need take no account of the lax moral sentiment which exists with regard to these practices, though, of course, in estimating the guilt of the individual as distinct from the character of the act, due allowance must be made for his imperfect appreciation of the moral bearings of his conduct. This exception, as will be found in the next chapter, covers, and therefore at once justifies, a large proportion of the criticisms which, in the present advanced stage of morality, when the more fundamental principles have been already settled, it is still open to us to make.

It remains now to enquire what is the justification of the test propounded in this chapter. I do not found it on any external considerations, whether of Law or Revelation, both of which, I conceive, presuppose morality, but on the very make and constitution of our nature. The justification of the moral test and the source of the moral feeling are alike, I conceive, to be discovered by an examination of human nature, and, so far as that nature has a divine origin, so far is the origin of morality divine. Whatever the ultimate source of morality may be, to us, at all events, it can only be known as revealed or reflected in ourselves. What, then, is it in the constitution of our nature, which leads us to aim at the well-being of ourselves and those around us, and to measure our own conduct and that of others by the extent to which it promotes these ends? In answering this question, I must give a brief account of the ultimate principles of human nature, though this account has been partly anticipated in the last chapter. Human nature, in its last analysis, seems, so far as it is concerned with action, to consist of certain impulses or feelings, and a power of comparing with one another the results which follow from the gratification of these feelings, which power reacts upon the several feelings themselves by way of intensifying, checking, or controlling them. This power we call Reason. The feelings themselves fall into two principal groups, the egoistic or self-regarding feelings, which centre in a man's self, and are developed by his personal needs, and the altruistic or sympathetic feelings, which centre in others and are developed by the social surroundings in which he finds himself placed. These two groups of feelings, I conceive, were independent of one another from the first, or at least as soon as man could be called man, and neither of them admits of being resolved into the other. As the one was developed by and adapted to personal needs, so the other was developed by and adapted to the manifold requirements of family or tribal life, which, from the first, was inseparable from the life of the individual. Intermediate between these two groups of feelings, the purely self-regarding and the purely sympathetic, and derived probably from the interaction of both, is another group, which may be called the semi-social group. This group includes shame, love of reputation, love of notoriety, desire of fame, and the like, but, on analysis, it will be found that all these feelings admit of being referred to two heads, the love of approbation and the fear of disapprobation. Lastly, if any of our desires or feelings are thwarted by the intentional action of other men, the result in our minds is a feeling which we call Resentment, and which, though it regards others, is, unlike the sympathetic feelings, a malevolent and not a benevolent feeling. It is important, in considering the economy of human nature, to notice that Resentment, as is also the case with the love of cruelty, is a secondary not a primary, a derived not an original affection of our minds; for, apart from the desire to gratify some self-regarding or sympathetic feeling, or disappointment when that desire is not gratified, there is, I conceive, no such thing as ill-feeling in one human being towards another. Resentment is properly a reflex form of sympathy or self-regard, arising when our sympathetic feelings are wounded by an injury done to another, or our self-regarding desires are frustrated by an injury done to ourselves; when, in fact, any emotional element in our nature is, by the intentional intervention of another, disappointed of attaining its end. Each of these groups of feelings admits of being studied apart, though in the actual conduct of life they are seldom found to operate alone, and each, under the continued action of reason, assumes a form or forms in which its various elements are brought into harmonious working with each other, so as best to promote the ends which the whole group subserves. These forms, thus rationalised or moralised, if I may be allowed the use of such expressions, are, in the case of the self-regarding feelings, self-respect and rational self-love; in the case of the sympathetic feelings, rational benevolence; in the case of the semi-social feelings, a reasonable regard for the opinion of others; and in the case of the resentful feelings, a sense of justice. These higher forms of the several groups of feelings themselves require to be harmonised, before man can satisfy the needs of his nature as a whole. And, when co-ordinated under the control of reason, they become a rational desire for the combined welfare of the individual and of society, or, if we choose to use different but equivalent expressions, of the individual considered as an unit of society, or of society considered as including the individual. In a settled state of existence, the interests of the individual and of society, even leaving out of account the pleasures and pains of the moral sanction, are, for the most part, identical. If an individual pursues a selfish course of conduct, neglecting the interests and feelings of others, he is almost certain to suffer for it in the long run. And the prosperity and general well-being of the community in which they live is, to citizens, living a normal life and pursuing ordinary avocations, an essential condition of their own prosperity and well-being. On the other hand, it is by each man attending to his own business and directing his efforts to the promotion of his own interests or those of his family, his firm, or whatever may be the smaller social aggregate in which his work chiefly lies, that the interests of the community at large are best secured. Men whose time is mainly taken up with philanthropic enterprises are very likely to neglect the duties which lie immediately before them. 'To learn and labour truly to get mine own living, and to do my duty in that state of life, unto which it shall please God to call me' is a very homely, but it is an essential lesson. That the great mass of the citizens of a country should lay it well to heart, and act habitually on it, is the first condition of national prosperity. Of course, this primary regard to our own interests, or those of the persons with whom we are more immediately connected, must be limited by wider considerations. A man has duties, not only to himself and his own family, but to his neighbours, to the various institutions with which he is connected, to his town, his country, mankind at large, and even the whole sentient creation. How far these should limit each other or a man's individual or family interests is a question by no means easy to answer, and is the main problem which each man has to be perpetually solving for himself, and society at large for us all. There is hardly any waking hour in which we have not to attempt to settle rival claims of this kind, and, according as we settle them to our own satisfaction or not, so have we peace or trouble of mind. No one can reasonably deny that the more immediate interests of the individual and of the various social aggregates, including society at large, are frequently in conflict. It seems to me, I must confess, that it is also futile to deny that there are occasions, though such occasions may be rare, in which even a man's interests in the long run are incompatible with his social duties. To take one or two instances. It may sometimes be for the good of society that a man should speak out his mind freely on some question of private conduct or public policy, though his utterances may be on the unpopular side or offend persons of consideration and influence. The man performs what he conceives to be his duty, but he knows that, in doing so, he is sacrificing his prospects. Or, again, he is invited to join in some popular movement which he believes to be of a questionable or pernicious tendency, and, because he believes that to take part in it would be untrue to his own convictions and possibly harmful to others, he refrains from doing so, at the risk of losing preferment, or custom, or patronage. Then, we are all familiar with the difficulties in which men are often placed, when they have to record a vote; their convictions and the claims of the public service being on one side, and their own interests and prospects on the other. In all these cases it is true that, if their moral nature be in a healthy condition, they approve, on reflexion, of having taken the more generous course, while it is often a matter of life-long regret if they have sacrificed their nobler impulses to their selfish interests. And, taking into account these after-feelings of self-approbation and self-disapprobation, it is often the case, and is always the case where these feelings are very strong, that a man gains more happiness, in the long run, by following the path of duty and obeying his social impulses than by confining himself to the narrow view which would be dictated by a cool calculation of what is most likely to conduce to his own private good. But, where the moral feelings are not strong, and still more where they are almost in abeyance, I fear that the theory that virtue and happiness are invariably coincident will hardly be supported by a candid examination of facts. To some men, I fear it must be acknowledged, present wealth and power and dignity are more than a sufficient recompense for any remorse which they may continue to feel for past greed or lack of candour or truthfulness. These considerations will serve to shew the immense importance of moral education, alike in the family, the school, and the state. If we are to depend on men acting rightly, and with a due regard to wider interests than their own, we must take pains to develope in them moral feelings sufficiently strong and sensitive to make the reflexion on wrong or selfish acts more painful to them than the sacrifice which is needed for dutiful and generous conduct. So far as society, through its various instruments of law and opinion, of education and domestic influences, can effect this object, so far will it promote its own security and advancement.

Our adoption, then, of a tendency to promote social welfare or well-being, as the test of conduct, is justified, I conceive, by an examination of the internal constitution of human nature and of the conditions which are necessary to secure the harmonious working of its various parts. It may be objected that this test is vague in its conception and difficult in its application. Both objections, to a great extent, hold good. If they did not, moral theory and moral practice would be very easy matters, but, as a fact, we know that they are by no means easy. The conception of social well-being must be more or less vague, because we are constantly filling it up by experience; it is not a fixed, but a growing conception, and, though we may be certain of the character and importance of many of the elements which have already been detected in it by the experience of past generations, it seems impossible to fix any limits to its development in the future history of mankind. Man will constantly be discovering new wants, new and more refined susceptibilities of his nature, and with them his conception of human well-being must necessarily grow. But, though not a fixed or final conception, the idea of social well-being is sufficiently definite, in each generation, to act as a guide and incentive to conduct. It is the star, gradually growing brighter and brighter, which lights our path, and, any way, we know that, if it were not above us in the heavens, we should be walking in the darkness.

It must be confessed that the test of social well-being is not always easy of application. Even, when we know what the good of the community consists in, it is not always easy to say what course of action will promote it, or what course of action is likely to retard it. Society arrives, in a comparatively early period of its development, at certain broad rules of conduct, such as those which condemn murder, theft, ingratitude to friends, disobedience to parents. But the more remote applications of these rules, the nicer shades of conduct, such as those relating to social intercourse, the choice between clashing duties, the realisation of our obligations to the community at large, require for their appreciation a large amount of intelligence and an accumulated stock of experience which are not to be found in primitive societies. Hence, the rules of conduct, which at first are few and simple, gradually become more numerous and complex. Nor have we yet arrived at the time, nor do we seem to be within any appreciable distance of it, when the code is complete, or even the parts of it which already exist are altogether free from doubt and discussion. In the simpler relations of life, he that runs may read, but with increasing complications comes increasing uncertainty. To remove, as far as may be, this uncertainty from the domain of conduct is the task of advancing civilisation, and specially of those members of a community who have sufficient leisure, education, and intelligence to review the motives and compare the results of actions. The task has doubtless its special difficulties, and the conclusions of the moralist will by no means always command assent, but that the art of life is an easy one, who is there, at all experienced in affairs or accustomed to reflexion, that will contend?

I may here pause for a moment, in order to emphasise the fact, which is already abundantly apparent from what has preceded, that, with ever widening and deepening conceptions of well-being, man is constantly learning to subordinate his individual interests to those of society at large, or rather to identify his interests with those of the larger organism of which he is a part. It is thus that we may justify the peculiar characteristic of the moral sentiment, indicated in the last chapter, which seems, in all acts of which it approves, to demand an element of sacrifice, whether of the lower to the higher self, or of the individual to his fellows. In order thoroughly to realise ourselves, we must be conscious of our absorption, or at least of our inclusion, in a greater and grander system than that of our individual surroundings; in order to find our lives, we must first discover the art of losing them.