These different methods were attempted by the English moralists—the first, however, to a less extent than the others. But it inspired much of Shaftesbury's work, though it cannot be said to have been consistently developed by him. The conflict of impulses in man was too obvious a fact not to be apparent even in Shaftesbury's roseate view of life. He recognised, indeed, not only private or self-affections, promoting the good of the individual, and "natural" or social affections, which led to the public good, but also "unnatural affections," which tended to no good whatever.[82] The reference to consequences is thus made prominent at once. The last class of affections is condemned outright because of its infelicific results; while an attempt is made to prove from experience that the courses of conduct to which the two former lead coincide. Shaftesbury contended for a real organic union between the individual and society; but, when he came to establish its nature, he made it consist in an asserted harmony of interests, while the obligation to virtue was allowed to rest on its conduciveness to personal pleasure. He sometimes spoke of virtue as identical with the harmonious development of the affections of the individual man;[83] but he expressly defined it as consisting in the individual "having all his inclinations and affections ... agreeing with the good of his kind or of that system in which he is included, and of which he constitutes a part."[84] And the two views can only be connected by proving that the harmonious development of an individual's affections will lead to the good of the species: the proof of this depending on a one-sided summation of consequences. Shaftesbury does, indeed, throw out the idea that both the self-affections and the "natural" or social affections become self-destructive when carried out so as to interfere with one another. But this, again, has only the previous calculus of the results of conduct to support it. He cannot show that the contradiction in the conception of a completely solitary being belongs also to the conception of a judiciously selfish being. The latter being loses the pleasures of virtuous action; but perhaps he may gain greater pleasures in their room. He does not develop his whole nature; but if that nature contains totally infelicific passions, the development of the whole nature is not to be recommended.
Thus Shaftesbury is unable to reach a conception of man's nature as a harmony of impulses just on account of the external point of view which makes him treat it as an aggregate, though he contends that it is an organism. His ingenious and subtle account of the relations between the individual and society does not really go to the root of the matter, because, after all, it remains a calculus of the results of action, not an analysis of its nature. And his view of the affections constituting the individual system leaves them wanting in the unity of organic connection. An effort is made, however, to supply this defect by means of the reflex affections called the "moral sense," to which he ascribes an oversight over the other affections and their resultant actions. In what way, then, must we regard the nature of this faculty and the important functions assigned to it?
(b) A separate faculty. Hutcheson.
It was left to Shaftesbury's disciple, Francis Hutcheson, to elaborate with thoroughness this conception of the moral sense as a separate faculty. Hutcheson did not make any important addition to the ideas of Shaftesbury and Butler. But he worked them out more systematically; and in his last work, the 'System of Moral Philosophy,' the protest against the egoism of Hobbes has found expression in a complete theory of human nature, in which the "moral sense" is supreme, and the ends of conduct independent of self-interest. Hutcheson, too, keeps more closely than either of his immediate predecessors to the way of looking at human nature which is spoken of in this volume as "naturalistic." He rejects even more decidedly than Shaftesbury—much more so than Butler—any creative function of reason in determining the constitution and direction of the moral sense.[85] |Two questions regarding it:| The questions thus arise—(a) What is the moral sense when not regarded as a rational determination of the ends of conduct? and (b) To what determination of ends or other distinction between right and wrong in action does it lead? On both these points there is a difference between his early 'Inquiry into the Original of our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue' (1725), and the more mature 'System,' published in 1755, eight years after his death.
(α) Nature of this faculty: not reason;
Hutcheson is in earnest with the rejection of reason as a creative force. The moral sense is not, he says, a source of new ideas. Its objects are received in the ordinary ways by which, through "sensation and reflection," we come by our knowledge.[86] But just as we have a sense of beauty in the forms of sensible objects, so there is a moral sense given us from which, in the contemplation of our actions, we derive "still nobler pleasures" than those of physical sensation. |at first defined as feeling of pleasure or pain,| This moral sense is "a determination of our minds to receive amiable or disagreeable ideas of actions."[87] So far, therefore, it seems to be simply a pleasure in the contemplation of certain actions which, we say, have "an immediate goodness." "By a superior sense," says Hutcheson, "which I call a moral one, we perceive pleasure in the contemplation of such actions in others, and are determined to love the agent (and much more do we perceive pleasure in being conscious of having done such actions ourselves) without any view of further natural advantage from them."[88] The significance of this position is easily seen. It is not only meant to give a criterion of moral action; it is also a short cut to the conclusion that virtue is for our private interest. The disquieting suspicion that morality may involve a sacrifice of individual happiness "must be entirely removed, if we have a moral sense and public affections, whose gratifications are constituted by nature our most intense and durable pleasures."[89] The elaborate analysis of conduct and enumeration of the pleasures which various affections and actions bring in their train, which Hutcheson gave in his latest work, were thus unnecessary as long as the position was maintained that the moral sense is emphatically a pleasure or pain, and that the pleasures it gives are the most intense and durable we have.
There was only an apparent contradiction in this theory which placed the test of morality in a pleasure consequent upon moral action, and yet held that such actions were not performed from interested motives. In the spirit of Butler's psychology, Hutcheson contends[90] that virtue is pleasant only because we have a natural and immediate tendency towards virtuous action; our true motive is "some determination of our nature to study the good of others;" and this, although not always immediately pleasant in itself, is yet succeeded by the calm satisfaction of the moral sense. The real weakness of Hutcheson's position is the fatal one that he cannot show that it corresponds with facts; that the pleasures incidental to the moral sense outweigh all others. Indeed, he defends his opinion in their favour only, in a way which reminds one of Mill's method in the 'Utilitarianism,' by making every juror stand aside unless he has pledged himself to morality.[91] It is open to any one, however, to hold that the pleasures of benevolent action and the "relish" of the moral sense are not of sufficient hedonistic value to make up for the restraints they put upon conduct and the enjoyments they oblige one to forego. Even if this position be not correct, it is merely a mistake in estimating doubtful quantities. The man who chooses the smaller pleasure will be the loser by his mistake; but we cannot say that the selfish man is to blame for not being benevolent, because the pleasures of benevolence and the moral sense are greatest, any more than we could blame the benevolent man for not being selfish, if selfishness should turn out on the whole to leave a greater hedonistic balance at the individual's credit.
afterwards spoken of as a judgment,