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

by William Thomas Thornton

There is but one way in which Utilitarianism can even temporarily rebut the charge of fallacy, of which otherwise it must here stand convicted, and that is by renouncing all claim to be a new system of ethics, and not pretending to be more than a new system of nomenclature. And even so, it could not help contradicting, and thereby refuting itself. That nothing is right but what is of preponderating utility; that whatever is of preponderating utility is right; these are propositions perfectly intelligible, indeed, but which will be found to be tenable only on condition that the very same things may be both right and wrong. The confusion, thrice confounded, inseparable from the substitution of such novel definitions for those which had previously been universally in vogue, is but the smaller of two evils which must thence arise. It would be bad enough that the word 'right' could not be used without raising doubt whether what people had previously understood by the 'just' or the 'generous,' or only the 'expedient' were meant; but a still worse consequence would be that, even if no doubt of the sort were entertained, and if all men were agreed to take the word in none but its utilitarian sense, the landmarks of right and wrong would thereby be well nigh obliterated. Due credit has already been given to Utilitarianism for its exemplary zeal in inculcating the practice of virtue, but its merit in that respect is more than neutralised by its equally zealous inculcation of principles, according to which it is impossible to decide beforehand whether any particular practice will be virtuous or not.

This is my second charge against Utilitarianism. I maintain it to be a doctrine in most of its essentials erroneous; but I maintain, further, that, even if it were correct, instead of furnishing us with an infallible criterion of right and wrong, it would deprive us of the means of clearly distinguishing between right and wrong at all times at which the power of so distinguishing is of practical value. Bluntly enough, I have pronounced it to be false. With equal bluntness, I now add that, even if it were true, it would, all the same, be practically mischievous, and directly opposed to the very utility from which it takes its name. The argument in support of this charge shall now be stated.

According to utilitarian ethics, the morality of actions depends wholly and solely on their consequences. On this point the language of authority is distinct, emphatic, unanimous, and self-contradictory. 'Utilitarian moralists,' says the chief amongst them, 'have gone beyond all others in affirming that the motive has nothing to do with the morality of an action.... He who saves a fellow-creature from drowning does what is morally right, whether his motive be duty or the hope of being paid for his trouble.' Upon which I would observe, in passing, that to save a fellow-creature from drowning can be deemed to be necessarily right by none but uncompromising opponents of capital punishment. Most others will be disposed to doubt its having been a sufficient reason for commuting the sentence of death passed upon the murderer of Dhuleep Sing's gamekeeper, that, owing to physical malformation, hanging might perhaps have given him more than ordinary pain in the neck, or perhaps have prolonged the pleasure which, according to the select few qualified to speak from experience, is attendant on that mode of strangulation. Neither, without sacrificing his judgment to his feelings, could one of these doubters, if Rutherford had been sentenced to be drowned instead of hanged, have stretched out a hand to save the miscreant from the watery grave he so richly deserved. That there are no actions which by reason of their beneficial consequences are always and invariably moral, might be too much to affirm; but I have no hesitation in saying that there are thousands, the morality or immorality of which—their results remaining the same—depends absolutely on their motives. Thus, if two doctors—of whom, for distinction's sake, we will call one Smethurst and the other Smith—in attendance on patients afflicted with precisely the same disease, were by the administration of overdoses of strychnine each to kill his man, the only difference between them being that whereas one intended and expected to kill, the other hoped to cure—would the act of killing be equally immoral in both cases? Would it not in the one case be murder, in the other mere error of judgment; and would both be equally crimes, or would the latter be in any degree criminal? And if it had been Smethurst instead of Smith who committed the error of judgment—if the overdoses by which he had meant to kill had happened to cure—would his error of judgment have thereby been rendered moral, notwithstanding that his motive was murder?

The same great teacher, who so strenuously insists that the motive has nothing to do with the morality of an action, does indeed go on to say that it has 'much to do with the worth of the agent.' Here, however, I confess myself unable to follow him. That an act may possess morality independent of the agent, may be intelligible on the assumption that morality means simply utility, and nothing more; but how, even then, worth can be evinced by the performance of an immoral action, is beyond my comprehension, except upon the further assumption that there may be worth in immorality.

Waiving, however, these and all other objections, let us for the moment, and for the sake of argument, assume that morality and utility are really one and the same thing, that the right or wrong of an act depends entirely on its results, and then let us observe how utterly without rudder or compass to assist him in steering correctly will be the best-intentioned navigator of the ocean of life.

We can seldom, if ever, be quite sure what will be the result of our conduct. Meaning to cure, we may only too probably kill; meaning to kill, we may not impossibly cure. Until a thing is done, we cannot determine as to its utility; nor, consequently, in an utilitarian sense, as to the morality of doing it. We must trust implicitly to our skill in calculating events, and if that skill happen to fail us, our conduct may become culpable. With the most earnest desire to act righteously, we can only guess beforehand whether what we propose doing will turn out to be righteous, and can never be sure, therefore, that we are not going to do something wicked.

Here I shall, of course, and very properly, be reminded that what Utilitarianism requires to be taken into account, are not merely the probable consequences of some proposed act, but the usual consequences of all acts of the same description; so that its disciples, instead of being left to their conjectures about the future, may be said to have all past experience to refer to. And undeniably Utilitarianism does require this; thereby, however, contradicting itself as, I just now hinted, it would presently be found doing. It does indeed declare those actions only to be moral which in the long run are conducive to, or at least not opposed to, the general happiness; but it also says that the morality of each particular action depends on its own particular consequences. So that the docile disciple who should do something which, though useful in the long run, happened to be otherwise in his particular case—who, for instance, should save the life of a fellow-creature of whom it would have been well for the world to be rid, would, to his disgust and bewilderment, find that while, with no desire but that of acting rightly, he had been obeying one utilitarian law, he had nevertheless been infringing another law of the same code, and thereby acting wrongly.

Overlooking, however, this incongruity of two equally authoritative rules, let us proceed to consider what dangerous latitude of interpretation is allowed to the followers of either of them. Those who believe that the merit or demerit of each separate action depends on that action's separate consequences, need seldom be at a loss for a pretext for committing the most heinous of crimes. A husband who, hating his wife, had his hate returned, and loving another woman, had his love returned, might plausibly reason thus within himself: The prescribed objects of life are the multiplication of happiness and the diminution of misery; here are three of us, all doomed to be miserable as long as we all three live; but the wretchedness of two of us might be at once converted into happiness, if the third were put out of the way. By some such logical process, Queen Mary and Bothwell may have satisfied themselves of the propriety of blowing up Darnley: Mr. and Mrs. Manning, as they sate at meat with their destined victim over his ready-made grave, may have argued themselves into self-approval of the crowning rite with which their hospitalities were to terminate: any scampish apprentice with designs upon his master's till, any burglar plotting an entry into a goldsmith's shop, may become convinced of his rectitude of purpose, and even take credit for public-spirited zeal, in seeking to appropriate to his own use part of another's wealth, which he may fairly suppose would be productive of more enjoyment if divided between two or more than if left in the hands of one, and that one already perhaps the possessor of more than he knows what to do with.

Precisely the same sophistry will not indeed suffice for those disciples who, adopting the alternative law of the utilitarian code, feel bound to attend to the consequences not of individual actions, but of classes of actions. The cleverest self-deceiver can scarcely bring himself to believe that, because it might suit his personal convenience to kill or steal, killing and stealing would not be prejudicial to society if generally practised. Still, it is only necessary to have, or to fancy one has, public instead of private objects in view, in order to be able to look with approbation, from an utilitarian point of view, on any amount of homicide or robbery. It was the very same Robespierre that, while as yet diocesan judge at Arras, felt constrained to abdicate because, 'behold, one day comes a culprit whose crime merits hanging, and strict-minded, strait-laced Max's conscience will not permit the dooming of any son of Adam to die,' who, shortly after, when sufficiently imbued with the utilitarian spirit, was fully prepared to wade through floods of slaughter towards the enthronisation of his principles—one of those principles evidently being that, if the decimation of mankind would conduce to the greater happiness of the residue, adding more to the happiness of the nine-tenths whom it spared than it took from the tenth whom it destroyed, the said decimation would be a duty incumbent on any one possessed of power to perpetrate it.

Nor are principles like these appealed to only by those who have recourse to them for the vindication of their own procedure. At those petits-soupers—bachelors' dinners is their modern English name, noctes cœnæque deûm their ancient classical—for which some of our London clubs are deservedly celebrated, and with which the Garrick in especial is, in my mind, gratefully associated—at those choice gatherings of congenial spirits, conversation, changing from gay to grave, turns not unfrequently, among other lofty topics, on that which we are here discussing. Then, even at such divine symposium, one at least of the guests is pretty sure to take the part of devil's advocate, and to exercise his forensic skill in showing how easily interchangeable are the names of virtue and iniquity, crime and well-doing. September massacres then find, not their apologist, but their eulogist. Noyades of Carrier, fusilades of Collot d'Herbois, are cited as examples very suitable for imitation in adequate emergencies. Prussia's seizure, on behalf of Germany, of Schleswig and Holstein, on pretence of their being not Danish, but German, and her subsequent retention of them for herself on the plea of their having always been not German, but Danish, are applauded as acts perfectly consistent with each other and with the eternal fitness of things. And all this is urged in the best possible faith. Of the recited enormities, were not some, steps to the regeneration of France—others, to the unifaction of Germany? And what are myriads of lives in comparison with a regenerate—what violation of the most solemn engagements in comparison with a united, people? Did not the millions of Frenchmen who survived the Reign of Terror gain more than was lost by the thousands who were guillotined at Paris, or drowned at Nantes, or shot down at Lyons? Is not Germany likely to turn Kiel to far better account than Denmark ever did or could have done? and will not German ascendency be abundant compensation for Danish decadence? How culpably misplaced, then, were conscientious scruples that would have impeded the march of events in such directions! Ends need but to be great enough to justify any means. Let but the good promise to exceed the evil, and there is no evil which ought not to be done in order that good may come of it. Thus slightly qualified, the Satanic adage, 'Evil, be thou my good,' is, without more ado, accepted as the utilitarian watchword.