Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics / With Some of Their Applications

by William Thomas Thornton

All this I frankly acknowledge; and I own, too, that, far from deserving to be stigmatised as irreligious, Utilitarianism is literally nothing else than an amplification of one moiety of Christianity; that it not adopts merely, but expands, 'the golden rule of Jesus of Nazareth,' exhorting us to love our neighbour, not simply as well, but better than ourselves; to do for others, not simply what we would have them do for us, but much more than we could have the face to ask them to do; not merely not to pursue our interests at the expense of theirs, but to regard as our own chief interest the promotion of theirs. That on account of these exhortations Utilitarianism is godless can be supposed by those only who suppose that love to one's neighbour is contrary to the will of God. By those who believe that works are the best signs of faith, and that love to God is best evinced by doing good to man, Utilitarianism might rather seem to be but another name for practical religion.

So I say in all sincerity, though not without some misgiving, as while so speaking I involuntarily bethink myself of Balaam, son of Beor, who having been called forth to curse, caught himself blessing altogether. Mine eyes, too, have been opened to the good of that which I was purposed to condemn, and behold I have as yet done nothing but eulogise. No warmest partisan of Utilitarianism, not Mr. Mill himself, ever spoke more highly of it than I have just been doing. What censures, then, can I have in reserve to countervail such praises? What grounds of quarrel can I have with a system of ethics which I have described as ever seeking the noblest ends from the purest motives; whose precepts I own to be as elevating as its aims are exalted? On reflection, I am reassured by recollecting several, which I proceed to bring forward one at a time, beginning with a sin enormous enough to cover any multitude of merits.

My first charge against Utilitarianism is that it is not true. I do not say that there is no truth in it. That I have found much to admire in its premises has been frankly avowed; and in one, at least, of the leading deductions from those premises I partially concur. I admit that acts utterly without utility must likewise be utterly without worth; that conduct which subserves the enjoyment neither of oneself nor of any one else, cannot, except in a very restricted sense, be termed right; that conduct which interferes with the enjoyment both of oneself and of all others, which injuring oneself injures others also, and benefits no one, cannot be otherwise than wrong; that purely objectless asceticism which has not even self-discipline in view, is not virtue, but folly; that misdirected charity which, engendering improvidence, creates more distress than it relieves, is not virtue, but criminal weakness. But though admitting that there can be no virtue without utility, I do not admit either that virtue must be absent unless utility preponderate, or that if utility preponderate virtue must be present. I deny that any amount of utility can of itself constitute virtue. I deny that whatever adds to the general happiness must be right. Equally do I deny that whatever diminishes the general happiness or prevents its increasing must be wrong. An action, be it observed, may be right in three different senses. It may be right as being meritorious, and deserving of commendation. It may be right as being that which one is bound to do, for the doing of which, therefore, one deserves no praise, and for neglecting to do which one would justly incur blame. It may be right simply as not being wrong—as being allowable—something which one has a right to do, though to refrain from doing it might perhaps be praiseworthy. There will be little difficulty in adducing examples of conduct which, though calculated to diminish the sum total of happiness, would be right in the first of these senses. Nothing can be easier than to multiply examples of such conduct that would be right in the third sense. I proceed to cite cases which will answer both these purposes, and likewise the converse one of showing that conduct calculated to increase the general happiness may nevertheless be wrong.

When the Grecian chiefs, assembled at Aulis, were waiting for a fair wind to convey them to Ilium, they were, we are told, warned by what was to them as a voice from heaven, that their enterprise would make no progress unless Agamemnon's daughter were sacrificed to Diana. In order to place the details of the story in a light as little favourable as possible to my argument, we will deviate somewhat from the accepted version, and will suppose that the arrested enterprise was one of even greater pith and moment than tradition ascribes to it. We will suppose that upon its successful prosecution depended the national existence of Greece; that its failure would have involved the extermination of one-half of the people, and the slavery of the other half. We will suppose, too, that of all this Iphigenia was as firmly persuaded as every one else. In these circumstances, had her countrymen a right to insist on her immolation? If so, on what was that right founded? Is it sufficient to say in reply that her death was essential to the national happiness, to the extent even of being indispensable to prevent that happiness from being converted into national woe? Manifestly, according to the hypothesis, it was expedient for all concerned, with the single exception of herself, that she should die; but were the others thereby entitled to take her life? Did the fact of its being for their advantage to do this warrant their doing it? Simply because it was their interest, was it also their right? Right, we must recollect, invariably implies corresponding duty. Right, it is clear, can never be rightfully resisted. If it be the right of certain persons to do a certain thing, it must be the duty of all other persons to let that thing be done. Where there is no such duty, there can be no such right. Wherefore, if the 'stern, black-bearded kings, with wolfish eyes,' who sate 'waiting to see her die,' had a right to kill Iphigenia, it must have been Iphigenia's duty to let herself be killed. Was this then her duty? 'Duty,' as I have elsewhere observed,[3] 'signifies something due, a debt, indebtedness, and a debt cannot have been incurred for nothing, or without some antecedent step on the part either of debtor or creditor.' But it is not pretended that in any way whatever, by any antecedent act of hers or theirs, Iphigenia had incurred or had been subjected to a debt to her countrymen which could be paid off only with her life. It could not, then, be incumbent on her to let her life be taken in payment. If it had been in her power to burst her bonds, and break through the wolves in human shape that girdled her in, she would have been guilty of no wrong by escaping. But if not, then, however meritorious it might have been on her part to consent to die for her countrymen, it was not her duty so to die, nor, consequently, had they a right to put her to death. She would have been at least negatively right in refusing to die, while they were guilty of a very positive and a very grievous wrong in killing her, notwithstanding that both she and they were perfectly agreed that for her to be killed would be for the incalculably greater happiness of a greater number, exceeding the lesser number in the proportion of several hundreds of thousands to one.

It is true that throughout this affair every one concerned was labouring under a gross delusion—that there was no real use in putting Iphigenia to death, and that nothing but superstition made anybody suppose there was. I do not think the case is one less to our purpose on that account, for Utilitarians, like other fallible mortals, are liable to deceive themselves. They never can be quite secure of the genuineness of the utility on which they rely, and in default of positive knowledge they will always be reduced to act, as the Grecian chiefs did, according to the best of their convictions. Nevertheless, for the satisfaction of those who distrust romance and insist upon reality, we will leave fable for fact, and take as our next illustration an incident that may any day occur.

Imagine three shipwrecked mariners to have leapt from their sinking vessel into a cockboat scarce big enough to hold them, and the two slimmer of the three to have presently discovered that there was little or no chance of either of them reaching land unless their over-weighted craft were lightened of their comparatively corpulent companion. Next, imagine yourself in the fat sailor's place, and then consider whether you would feel it incumbent on you to submit quietly to be drowned in order that the residuum of happiness might be greater than if either you all three went to the bottom, or than if you alone were saved. Would you not, far from recognising any such moral obligation, hold yourself morally justified in throwing the other two overboard, if you were strong enough, and if need were, to prevent their similarly ousting you? But if it were not your duty to allow yourself to be cast into the sea, the others could have no right to cast you out; so that, if they did cast you out, they would clearly be doing not right but wrong. And yet, as clearly, their wrong-doing would have conduced to the greater happiness of the greater number, inasmuch as, while only one life could otherwise have been saved, it would save two, and inasmuch as, cœteris paribus, two persons would necessarily derive twice as much enjoyment from continued existence as one would. Moreover, their wrong-doing would be of a kind calculated always to produce similarly useful results. It cannot, I suppose, be denied that a rule to the effect that whenever forfeiture of one life would save two, one life should be sacrificed, would—not exceptionally only, but at large and in the long run—conduce to the saving of life, and therefore to the conservation of happiness connected with life.

The foregoing cases are no doubt both of them extreme, involving exaction of the largest possible private sacrifice for the general good; but in all cases of the kind, whether the exaction be small or great, the same governing principle equally applies. If you, a foot-sore, homeward-bound pedestrian, on a sweltering July day, were to see your next-door neighbour driving in the same direction in solitary state, would you have a right to stop his carriage and force yourself in? Nay, even though you had just before fallen down and broken your leg, would the compassionating by-standers be justified in forcing him to take you in? Or, again, if you were outside a coach during a pelting shower, and saw a fellow-passenger with a spare umbrella between his legs, while an unprotected female close beside was being drenched with the rain, would you have a right to wrest the second umbrella from him, and hold it over her? That, very likely, is what you would do in the circumstances, and few would be disposed greatly to blame the indignant ebullition. Still, unless you are a disciple of Proudhon, you will scarcely pretend that you can have a right to take possession of another's carriage or umbrella against the owner's will. You can scarcely suppose that it is not for him but for you to decide what use shall be made of articles belonging not to you but to him. Yet there can be no doubt that the happiness of society would be vastly promoted if everyone felt himself under an irresistible obligation to assist his neighbour whenever he could do so with little or no inconvenience to himself, or, consequently, if external force were always at hand to constrain anyone so to assist who was unwilling to do so of his own accord.

So much in proof that among things of the highest and most extensive utility there are several which it would be decidedly the reverse of right to do, and several others which it would be perfectly right to leave undone. I proceed to show that there are many other things not simply not of preponderating utility, but calculated, on the contrary, to do more harm than good, to destroy more happiness than they are capable of creating, which, nevertheless, it would be not simply allowable to do, but the doing of which would be highly meritorious, acts possibly of the most exalted virtue.

Let no one distrust the doctrine of development by reason of its supposed extravagance of pretension who has not duly considered to what a sublime of moral beauty the united hideousness and absurdity of Calvinism may give birth. In that Puritan society of New England of which Mrs. Beecher Stowe has given so singularly interesting an account in her 'Minister's Wooing,' and among whose members it was an universal article of belief that the bulk of mankind are created for the express purpose of being consigned to everlasting flames, there are said to have been not a few enthusiasts in whom a self-concentrating creed begat the very quintessence of self-devotion. 'As a gallant soldier renounces life and personal aims in the cause of his king and country, and holds himself ready to be drafted for a forlorn hope, to be shot down, or help to make a bridge of his mangled body, over which the more fortunate shall pass to victory and glory,' so among the early descendants of the Pilgrim Fathers many an one 'regarded himself as devoted to the King Eternal, ready in his hands to be used to illustrate and build up an eternal commonwealth, either by being sacrificed as a lost spirit, or glorified as a redeemed one; ready to throw, not merely his mortal life, but his immortality even, into the forlorn hope, to bridge, with a never-dying soul, the chasm over which white-robed victors should pass to a commonwealth of glory and splendour, whose vastness should dwarf the misery of all the lost to an infinitesimal.' And while by many the idea of suffering everlasting pains for the glory of God, and the good of being in general, was thus contemplated with equanimity, there were some few for whom the idea of so suffering for the good of others dearer than themselves would have been greeted with positive exultation. 'And don't I care for your soul, James?' exclaims Mary Scudder to her lover. 'If I could take my hopes of heaven out of my own heart and give them to you, I would. Dr. H. preached last Sunday on the text, "I could wish myself accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen," and he went on to show how we must be willing to give up even our own salvation, if necessary, for the good of others. People said it was a hard doctrine, but I could feel my way through it. Yes, I would give my soul for yours. I wish I could.' Now we must on no account permit admiration of Miss Scudder's transcendent generosity in desiring to make this exchange blind us to the fatal effect on social happiness which, if such exchange were possible, the prevalence of a disposition to make it could not fail to have. If Calvinism were true instead of blasphemous, if God were really the Moloch it represents Him, and if, moreover, Moloch were indifferent as to which of his offspring were cast into the fire, caring only that the prescribed number of victims should be forthcoming in full tale, nothing can be conceived more likely to prove an encouragement to evil-doers, and a terror to them that did well, than observation that well-doing not infrequently led to eternal misery, and evil-doing to eternal bliss. Again, if in China, where criminals under sentence of death are permitted, if they can, by purchase or otherwise, to procure substitutes to die in their stead, a son were to propose to die for a parent base enough to take advantage of the offer, could any arrangement be more plainly repugnant to the common-weal than that by which society would thus lose one of its noblest, instead of getting rid of one of its vilest members? Or, when in England, a thrifty son, by consenting to cut the entail of an estate to which he is heir-apparent, enables a prodigal father to consume in riotous living substance which would otherwise have eventually become his, is he not clearly taking the worse course for the public by permitting the property to be wasted, instead of causing it to be husbanded?

Beyond all question, American Puritan, Chinese or English devotee to filial affection, would thus, each in her or his degree, have, in the circumstances supposed, acted in a manner opposed to the general interest, and would therefore be condemned by Utilitarianism as having acted immorally. Nor could this verdict be gainsaid if utility and morality were, as Utilitarianism assumes them to be, one and the same thing. Clearly, that the just should suffer for the unjust, the innocent for the guilty, is diametrically opposed to the welfare of society; wherefore, according to utilitarian principles, by consenting so to suffer, the just becomes unjust, the innocent renders himself guilty. But can there be a better proof that utilitarian principles are unsound than that this should be a legitimate deduction from them? Can there be better proof that utility and morality are not identical, but two absolutely distinct things? Plainly, there can be no meritorious or commendable immorality; neither can there be any virtue which is not meritorious and commendable. Is there, then, no merit, nothing commendable, in accepting ruin or in volunteering to die temporarily, or to perish everlastingly, in order to save a fellow-creature from ruin, or death, or perdition? Does not such conduct, considered independently and without reference either to its utility or its hurtfulness, command our instantaneous and enthusiastic admiration? But how, being so admirable, can it be immoral? how other than virtuous? What else is it, indeed, but the very perfection of that purest virtue which, content to be its own reward, deliberately cuts itself off from all other recompense? Without changing the immemorial meaning of the most familiar words, there is no avoiding the obvious answers to these questions. If virtue and morality, right and wrong, are to continue to mean anything like that which, except by Utilitarians, has always been considered to be their only meaning, it is not simply not wrong, it is not simply right, it is among the highest achievements of virtue and morality to sacrifice your own in order to secure another's happiness, and the disinterestedness, and therefore the virtue, is surely the greater, rather than less, if you sacrifice more happiness of your own than you secure to another. So much follows necessarily from what has been said, and something more besides. It follows further that Utilitarianism is not less in error in declaring that actions calculated to diminish the total sum of happiness must necessarily be wrong, cannot possibly be allowable, still less meritorious, than it had previously been shown to be in declaring that actions calculated to augment the sum total of happiness must necessarily be meritorious.