247. We have now considered in a perfunctory way those rights which
are antecedent to the state, which are not derived from it but may
exist where a state is not, and which it is the office of the state
to maintain. We have inquired what it is in the nature of man that
renders him capable of these rights, what are the moral ends to
which the rights are relative, and in what form the rights should be
realised in order to the attainment of these ends. In order to make
the inquiry into rights complete, we ought to go on to examine in
the same way the rights which arise out of the establishment of a
state, the rights connected with the several functions of government;
how these functions come to be necessary, and how they may best be
fulfilled with a view to those moral ends to which the functions of
the state are ultimately relative. According to my project, I should
then have proceeded to consider the social virtues, and the 'moral
sentiments' which underlie our particular judgments as to what is
good and evil in conduct. All virtues are really social; or, more
properly, the distinction between social and self-regarding virtues
is a false one. Every virtue is self-regarding in the sense that it
is a disposition, or habit of will, directed to an end which the man
presents to himself as his good; every virtue is social in the sense
that unless the good to which the will is directed is one in which
the well-being of society in some form or other is involved, the will
is not virtuous at all.
248. The virtues are dispositions to exercise positively, in some way
contributory to social good, those powers which, because admitting of
being so exercised, society should secure to him; the powers which
a man has a right to possess, which constitute his rights. It is
therefore convenient to arrange the virtues according to the division
of rights. E.g. in regard to the right of all men to free life, the
obligations, strictly so called, correlative to that right having
been considered (obligations which are all of a negative nature,
obligations to forbear from meddling with one's neighbour), we
should proceed to consider the activities by which a society of men
really free is established, or by which some approach is made to its
establishment ('really free,' in the sense of being enabled to make
the most of their capabilities). These activities will take different
forms under different social conditions, but in rough outline they
are those by which men in mutual helpfulness conquer and adapt
nature, and overcome the influences which would make them victims of
chance and accident, of brute force and animal passion. The virtuous
disposition displayed in these activities may have various names
applied to it according to the particular direction in which it is
exerted; 'industry,' 'courage,' 'public spirit.' A particular aspect
of it was brought into relief among the Greeks under the name of
ἀνδρεια. [1] The Greek philosophers already gave an extension to the
meaning of this term beyond that which belonged to it in popular
usage, and we might be tempted further to extend it so as to cover
all the forms in which the habit of will necessary to the maintenance
and furtherance of free society shows itself. The name, however,
does not much matter. It is enough that there are specific modes of
human activity which contribute directly to maintain a shelter for
man's worthier energies against disturbance by natural forces and
by the consequences of human fear and lust. The state of mind which
appears in them may properly be treated as a special kind of virtue.
It is true that the principle and the end of all virtues is the same.
They are all determined by relation to social well-being as their
final cause, and they all rest on a dominant interest in some form
or other of that well-being; but as that interest may take different
directions in different persons, as it cannot be equally developed at
once in everyone, it may be said roughly that a man has one kind of
virtue and not others.
[1] [Greek ἀνδρεια (andreia) = manliness Tr.]
249. As the kind of moral duties (in distinction from those
obligations which are correlative to rights) which relate to the
maintenance of free society and the disposition to fulfil those
duties should form a special object of inquiry, so another special
kind would be those which have to do with the management of property,
with the acquisition and expenditure of wealth. To respect the
rights of property in others, to fulfil the obligations correlative
to those rights, is one thing; to make a good use of property, to
be justly generous and generously just in giving and receiving, is
another, and that may properly be treated as a special kind of virtue
which appears in the duly blended prudence, equity, and generosity
of the ideal man of business. Another special kind will be that
which appears in family relations; where indeed that merely negative
observance of right, which in other relations can be distinguished
from the positive fulfilment of moral duties, becomes unmeaning. As
we have seen, there are certain aggravations and perpetuations of
wrong from which husband or wife or children can be protected by law,
but the fulfilment of the claims which arise out of the marriage-tie
requires a virtuous will in the active and positive sense--a will
governed by unselfish interests--on the part of those concerned.
250. What is called 'moral sentiment' is merely a weaker form of
that interest in social well-being which, when wrought into a man's
habits and strong enough to determine action, we call virtue. So far
as this interest is brought into play on the mere survey of action,
and serves merely to determine an approbation or disapprobation, it
is called moral sentiment. The forms of moral sentiment accordingly
should be classified on some principle as forms of virtue, i.e. with
relation to the social functions to which they correspond.
251. For the convenience of analysis, we may treat the obligations
correlative to rights, obligations which it is the proper office of
law to enforce, apart from moral duties and from the virtues which
are tendencies to fulfil those duties. I am properly _obliged_ to
those actions and forbearances which are necessary to the general
freedom, necessary if each is not to interfere with the realisation
of another's will. My _duty_ is to be interested positively in my
neighbour's well-being. And it is important to understand that,
while the enforcement of obligations is possible, that of moral
duties is impossible. But the establishment of obligations by law or
authoritative custom, and the gradual recognition of moral duties,
have not been separate processes They have gone on together in the
history of man. The growth of the institutions by which more complete
equality of rights is gradually secured to a wider range of persons,
and of those interests in various forms of social well-being by
which the will is moralised, have been related to each other as the
outer and inner side of the same spiritual development, though at a
certain stage of reflection it comes to be discovered that the agency
of force, by which the rights are maintained, is ineffectual for
eliciting the moral interests. The result of the twofold process has
been the creation of the actual content of morality; the articulation
of the indefinite consciousness that there is something that should
be--a true well-being to be aimed at other than any pleasure or
succession of pleasures--into the sentiments and interests which
form an 'enlightened conscience.' It is thus that when the highest
stage of reflective morality is reached, and upon interests in this
or that mode of social good there supervenes an interest in an ideal
of goodness, that ideal has already a definite filling; and the man
who pursues duty for duty's sake, who does good for the sake of being
good or in order to realise an idea of perfection, is at no loss to
say what in particular his duty is, or by what particular methods the
perfection of character is to be approached.