XLII.
Theories Regarding Moral Authority.
The idea of obligation or duty has two sides. There is the idea of law,
of something which controls conduct, and there is the _consciousness_
of the necessity of conforming to this law. There is, of course,
no separation between the two sides, but the consideration of the
latter side--the recognition of obligation--may be best dealt with
in discussing conscience. Here we shall deal simply with the fact
that there is such a thing in conduct as law controlling action, and
constituting obligation. Theories regarding obligation may, for our
purposes, be subdivided into those which make its exercise restraint
or coercion (and which therefore hold that in perfect moral conduct,
duty as such disappears); and those which hold that obligation is a
normal element in conduct as such, and that it is not, essentially, but
only under certain circumstances, coercive. Of the former type, some
theories (mainly the hedonistic) regard the restraint as originally
imposed from without upon the desires of the individual, while others
(as the Kantian) regard it as imposed by man's reason upon his desires
and inclinations.
XLIII.
Bain's Theory of Obligation.
It is obvious that the question of obligation presents considerable
difficulty to the hedonistic school. If the end of conduct is pleasure,
as the satisfaction of desire, why should not each desire be satisfied,
if possible, as it arises, and thus pleasure secured? What meaning
is there in the term 'duty' or 'obligation' if the moral end or good
coincides wholly with the natural end of the inclinations themselves?
It is evident, at all events, that the term can have significance
only if there is some cause preventing the desires as they arise from
natural satisfaction. The problem of obligation in hedonism thus
becomes the problem of discovering that outside force which restrains,
or, at least, constrains, the desire from immediate gratification.
According to Bain, this outside force is social disapprobation
manifested through the form of punishment.
"I consider that the proper meaning, or import of the terms
[duty, obligation] refers to that class of action which is
enforced by the sanction of punishment.... The powers that
impose the obligatory sanction are Law and Society, or the
community acting through the Government by public judicial
acts, and apart from the Government by the unofficial
expressions of disapprobation and the exclusion from social
good offices". Emotions and Will, p. 286. See also pp.
321-323 and p. 527.
Through this 'actual and ideal avoidance of certain acts and dread
of punishment' the individual learns to forego the gratification of
some of his natural impulses, and learns also to cultivate and even to
originate desires not at first spontaneous. "The child is open from the
first to the blame and praise of others, and thus is led to do or avoid
certain acts".
On the model, however, of the action of this external authority
there grows up, in time an internal authority--"an ideal resemblance
of public authority" (p. 287), or "a _fac simile_ of the system of
government around us" (p. 313).
"The sentiment, at first formed and cultivated by the
relations of actual command and obedience, may come at last
to stand upon an independent foundation.... When the young
mind, accustomed at the outset to implicitly obeying any
set of rules is sufficiently advanced to appreciate the
motive--the utilities or the sentiment that led to their
imposition--the character of the conscience is entirely
changed.... Regard is now had to the intent and meaning of
the law, and not to the mere fact of its being prescribed
by some power" (E. and W., p. 318).
But when the sense of obligation becomes entirely detached
from the social sanction, "even then the notion, sentiment
or form of duty is derived from what society imposes,
although the particular matter is quite different. Social
obligation develops in the mind originally the feeling
and habit of obligation, and this remains although the
particular articles are changed" (page 319, note). _Cf._
also Bain, Moral Science, pp. 20-21 and 41-43.
XLIV.
Spencer's Theory of Obligation.
Spencer's theory is, in substance, an enlarged and better analyzed
restatement of Bain's theory. Bain nowhere clearly states in what the
essence of obligation consists, when it becomes independent, when the
internal _fac simile_ is formed. _Why_ should I not gratify my desires
as I please in case social pressure is absent or lets up? Spencer
supplies the missing element. According to him, "the essential trait in
the moral consciousness is the control of some feeling or feelings by
some other feeling or feelings" (Data of Ethics, p. 113). The kind of
feeling which controls is that which is more complex and which relates
to more remote ends; or, we are 'obliged' to give up more immediate,
special and direct pleasures for the sake of securing more general,
remote and indirect ones. Obligation, in its essence, is the surrender
or subordination of present to future satisfaction. This control,
restraint, or suppression may be 'independent' or, self-imposed,
but is not so at first, either in the man or in the child. Prior to
self-restraint are the restraints imposed by the "visible ruler, the
invisible ruler and society at large"--the policeman, the priest and
public opinion. The man is induced to postpone immediate gratification
through his fear of others, especially of the chief, of the dead and
of social displeasure--"legal penalty, supernatural punishment and
social reprobation". Thus there grows up the sense of obligation.
This refers at first only to the above-mentioned extrinsic effects of
action. But finally the mind learns to consider the intrinsic effect
of the action itself--the evil inflicted by the evil deed, and then
the sense of duty, or coercion, evolved through the aforesaid external
agencies, becomes transferred to this new mode of controlling action.
Desires are now controlled through considerations of what their _own_
effects would be, were the desires acted upon.
It follows "that the sense of duty or moral obligation is transitory,
and will diminish as fast as moralization increases" (page 127).
Even when compulsion is self-imposed, there is still compulsion,
coercion, and this must be done away with. It _is_ done away with as
far as an act which is at first done only for the sake of its own
remoter consequences comes to be done for its own sake. And this will
ultimately occur, if the act is continued, since "persistence in
performing a duty ends in making it a pleasure".
See Guyau, La Morale Anglaise Contemporaine, besides the
works of Bain and Spencer. In addition to objections
which will forthwith be made, we may here note a
false abstraction of Spencer's. He makes the act and
its consequences _two_ things, while the act and its
consequences (provided they are known as such) are the
same thing, no matter whether consequences are near or
remote. The only distinction is that consequences once
not known as such at all are seen in time to be really
consequences, and thus to be part of the content of the
act. The transfer from the "external consequences" imposed
by the ruler, priest and public-opinion to the intrinsic
consequences of the act itself, is thus a transfer from an
immoral to a moral basis. This is very different from a
change of the form of obligation itself.
XLV.
Criticism of these Theories.
Putting aside the consideration of the relation of desire to duty, (the
question whether duty is essentially coercive) until after we have
taken up the Kantian idea of obligation, we may note the following
objections to the theories just stated. Their great defect is that
they do not give us any method of differentiating moral coercion (or
obligation) from the action of mere superior physical force. Taking it
(first) upon the side of the individual: Is there any reason _why_ the
individual submits to the external authority of government except that
he _has_ to do so? He may argue that, since others possess superior
force, he will avoid certain pains by conforming to their demands,
but such yielding, whether temporary or permanent, to superior force
is very far from being a recognition that one _ought_ to act as the
superior force dictates. The theories must logically commit us to the
doctrine that 'might makes right' in its baldest form. Every one knows
that, when the individual surrenders the natural gratifications of his
desires to the command of others, if his sole reason is the superior
force of the commanding party, he does not forego in the surrender his
right to such gratification the moment he has the chance to get it.
Actual slavery would be the model school of duties, if these theories
were true.
The facts adduced by Bain and Spencer--the growth of the recognition
of duties in the child through the authority of the parents, and in
the savage through the use of authority by the chief--are real enough,
but what they prove is that obligation may be brought home to one by
force, not that force creates obligation. The child and the man yield
to force in such a way that their sense of duty is developed only in
case they recognize, implicitly, the force or the authority as already
_right_. Let it be recognized that _rightful_ force (as distinct from
mere brute strength) resides in certain social authorities, and these
social authorities may do much, beyond the shadow of doubt, to give
effect to the special deeds and relations which are to be considered
obligatory. These theories, in fine, take the fact of obligation for
granted, and, at most, only show the historical process by which its
fuller recognition is brought about. Force in the service of right is
one thing; force as constituting and creating right is another.
And this is to say (secondly), considering the matter from the side
of society, that the theories of Bain and Spencer do not explain
why or how social authority should exercise coercive force over the
individual. If it is implied that they do so in the moral interests
of the individual or of the community, this takes it for granted
that there already is in existence a moral ideal obligatory upon the
individual. If it is implied that they exercise coercive force in
the interests of their own private pleasure, this might establish a
despotism, or lead to a political revolt, but it is difficult to see
how it could create the fact of duty. When we consider any concrete
case, we see that society, in its compelling of the individual, is
possessed of moral ideals; and that it conceives itself not merely
as having the _power_ to make the individual conform to them, nor as
having the _right_ merely; but as under the bounden _duty_ of bringing
home to the individual _his_ duties. The social authorities do not,
perforce, create morality, but they embody and make effective the
existing morality. It is only just because the actions which they
impose are thought of as _good_, good for others as for themselves,
that this imposition is taken out of the realm of tyranny into that of
duty (see Sec. XXXVIII).
XLVI.
The Kantian Theory of Obligation.
As we have seen, Kant takes the conception of duty as the primary
ethical notion, superior to that of the good, and places it in the
most abrupt opposition to desire. The relation of duty to desire is
not control of some feelings by others, but rather suppression of all
desire (not in itself, but as a _motive_ of action) in favor of the
consciousness of law universal. We have, on one side, according to
Kant, the desire and inclination, which are sensuous and pathological.
These constitute man's 'lower nature'. On the other side there is
Reason, which is essentially universal, above all caprice and all
prostitution to private pleasure. This Reason, or 'higher nature',
imposes a law upon the sentient being of man, a law which takes the
form of a command (the 'Categorical Imperative'). This relation of a
higher rational nature issuing commands to a lower sensuous nature
(both within man himself), is the very essence of duty. If man were
wholly a sentient being, he would have only to follow his natural
impulses, like the animals. If he were only a rational being, he
would necessarily obey his reason, and there would still be no talk
of obligation. But because of the dualism, because of the absolute
opposition between Reason and Desire, man is a being subject to
obligation. Reason says to the desires "Thou shalt" or "Thou shalt
not". Yet this obligation is not externally imposed; the man as
rational imposes it upon himself as sensuous. Thus Kant says that, in
the realm of morality, man is both sovereign and subject.
The reflex influence of Rousseau's social theories upon
Kant's moral doctrines in this respect is worthy of more
attention than it usually receives. Kant's moral theory is
hardly more than a translation of Rousseau's politics into
ethical terms, through its union with Kant's previously
established dualism of reason and sense.
XLVII.
Criticism of the Kantian Theory.
1. No one can deny that a genuine opposition exists between the
'natural' desires and moral activity. The being that satisfies each
desire or appetite as it arises, without reference of it to, or
control of it by, some principle, has not had the horizon of conduct
lift before him. But Kant makes the satisfaction of desire _as such_
(not of this or that desire) antagonistic to action from duty. Kant
was forced into this position by his fundamental division of sense
from reason, but it carries with it its own condemnation and thus
that of the premises from which it is derived. It comes to saying
that the actual desires and appetites are not what they ought to be.
This, in itself, is true enough. But when Kant goes on to say, as he
virtually does, that what ought to be _cannot_ be, that the desires as
such cannot be brought into harmony with principle, he has made the
moral life not only a riddle, but a riddle with no answer. If mankind
were once convinced that the moral ideal were something which ought
to be but which could not be, we may easily imagine how much longer
moral endeavor would continue. The first or immediate stimulus to
moral effort is the conviction that the desires and appetites are not
what they should be; the underlying and continuing stimulus is the
conviction that the expression of desires in harmony with law is the
sole abiding good of man. To reconcile the two is the very meaning
of the moral struggle (see Sec. LXIV). Strictly, according to Kant,
morality would either leave the appetites untouched or would abolish
them--in either case destroying morality.
See Caird, Op. cit., Vol. II, pp. 226-28.
2. Kant again seems to be on the right track in declaring that
obligation is not anything externally imposed, but is the law of man's
being, self-imposed. This principle of 'autonomy' is the only escape
from a theory of obligation which would make obligation external, and
regard for it slavish fear, or servile hope of reward. To regard even
a Divine Being as the author of obligation is to make it a form of
external constraint, appealing only to hope or fear, unless this Divine
Being is shown to be organically connected with self.
But this abstract universal reason which somehow dwells, without
mediation or reason, in each individual, seems to be somewhat
scholastic, a trifle mythological. There is undoubtedly in man's
experience a function which corresponds to what Kant is aiming, thus
mythologically, to describe. But it is one thing to recognize an
opposition of a desire, in its isolation, to desire as organic to the
function of the whole man; it is another to split man into a blank
dualism of an abstract reason, on one side, having no antecedents or
bearings, and of a mess of appetites, having only animal relationship,
on the other. The truth that Kant is aiming to preserve seems to be
fairly stated as two-fold: first, that duty is self-imposed, and
thus the dutiful will autonomous or free; and, second, the presence
of struggle in man between a 'lower' and a 'higher'. The first point
seems to be sufficiently met by the idea already advanced that self,
or individuality, is essentially social, being constituted not by
isolated capacity, but by capacity acting in response to the needs
of an environment--an environment which, when taken in its fullness,
is a community of persons. Any law imposed by such a self would be
'universal', but this universality would not be an isolated possession
of the individual; it would be another name for the concrete social
relationships which make the individual what he is, as a social member
or organ. Furthermore, such a universal law would not be formal, but
would have a content--these same relationships.
The second point seems to be met by recognizing that in the realization
of the law of social function, conflict must occur between the desire
as an immediate and direct expression of the individual--the desire in
its isolation--and desire as an expression of the whole man; desire,
that is, as wholly conformable to the needs of the surroundings. Such
a conflict is real enough, as everyone's experience will testify, but
it is a conflict which may be solved--which must be solved so far as
morality is attained. And since it is a conflict within desire itself,
its solution or morality, does not require any impossible obliteration
of desire, nor any acting from an 'ought' which has no relation to
what 'is'. This, indeed, is _the_ failure of the Kantian Ethics: in
separating what should be from what is, it deprives the latter, the
existing social world as well as the desires of the individual, of all
moral value; while, by the same separation, it condemns that which
should be to a barren abstraction. An 'ought' which does not root in
and flower from the 'is', which is not the fuller realization of the
actual state of social relationships, is a mere pious wish that things
should be better. And morality, that is, right action, is not so feeble
as this would come to.
XLVIII.
The Source and Nature of Obligation.
The basis of a correct theory of obligation lies, as already stated,
in holding fast to its concrete relations to the moral end, or good.
This end consists in an activity in which capacity is exercised in
accordance with surroundings, with the social needs which affect the
individual. It is implied in this very idea, that the end is not
something which the individual may set up at his own arbitrary will.
The social needs give control, law, authority. The individual may not
manifest his capacity, satisfy his desires, apart from their specific
relation to the environment in which they exist. The general fact of
obligation which is constituted through this control of capacity by the
wider function is, of course, differentiated into specific 'laws' or
duties by the various forms which the one function takes, as capacity
and circumstances vary.
In other words, obligation or duty is simply the aspect which the good
or the moral end assumes, as the individual conceives of it. From
the very fact that the end is the good, and yet is not realized by
the individual, it presents itself to him as that which _should be
realized_--as the ideal of action. It requires no further argument
to show that obligation is at once self-imposed, and social in its
content. It is self-imposed because it flows from the good, from the
idea of the full activity of the individual's own will. It is no law
imposed from without; but is his own law, the law of his own function,
of his individuality. Its social content flows from the fact that this
individuality is not mere capacity, but is this capacity _acting_, and
acting so as to comprehend social relationships.
Suppose that man's good and his conviction of duty were divorced
from one another--that man's duty were other than to fulfill his
own specific function. Such a thing would make duty purely formal;
the moral law would have no intrinsic relation to daily conduct, to
the expression of man's powers and wants. There have, indeed, been
moralists who think they do the Lord service, who think they add to
the dignity and sacredness of Duty by making it other than the idea
of the activity of man, regulated indeed, but regulated only by its
own principle of activity. But such moralists in their desire to
consecrate the idea of duty remove from it all content, and leave it
an empty abstraction. On the other hand, their eagerness to give
absoluteness and imperativeness to duty by making it a law other
than that of the normal expression of man, casts discredit upon the
one moral reality--the full, free play of human life. In denying
that duty is simply the _intrinsic_ law, the _self_-manifestation
of this life, they make this life immoral, or at least non-moral.
They degrade it to a bundle of appetites and powers having no moral
value until the outside moral law is applied to them. In reality, the
dignity and imperativeness of duty are simply the manifest dignity and
unconditioned worth of human life as exhibited in its free activity.
The whole idea of the separateness of duty from the concrete flow of
human action is a virulent example of the fallacy mentioned in an early
section--the fallacy that moral action means something more than action
itself (see Sec. II).
The attempt to act upon a theory of the divorce of satisfaction and
duty, to carry it out in practice, means the maiming of desire through
distrust of its moral significance, and thus, by withdrawing the
impetus of action, the reduction of life to mere passivity. So far as
this does not happen, it means the erection of the struggle itself, the
erection of the opposition of law to desire, into the very principle of
the moral life. The essential principle of the moral life, that good
consists in the freeing of impulse, of appetite, of desire, of power,
by enabling them to flow in the channel of a unified and full end is
lost sight of, and the free service of the spirit is reduced to the
slavish fear of a bond-man under a hard taskmaster.
The essential point in the analysis of moral law, or obligation, having
been found, we may briefly discuss some subsidiary points.
1. The relation of duty to a given desire. As any desire arises,
it will be, except so far as character has already been moralized,
a demand for its own satisfaction; the desire, in a word, will be
isolated. In so far, duty will be in a negative attitude towards the
desire; it will insist first upon its limitation, and then upon its
transformation. So far as it is merely limitative, it demands the
denying of the desire, and so far assumes a coercive form. But this
limitation is not for its own sake, but for that of the transformation
of desire into a freer and more adequate form--into a form, that is,
where it will carry with it, when it passes into action, _more of
activity_, than the original desire would have done.
Does duty itself disappear when its constraint disappears? On the
contrary, so far as an act is done unwillingly, under constraint,
so far the act is impure, and _undutiful_. The very fact that there
is need of constraint shows that the self is divided; that there is
a two-fold interest and purpose--one in the law of the activity
according to function, the other in the special end of the particular
desire. Let the act be done _wholly as duty_, and it is done wholly for
its own sake; love, passion take the place of constraint. This suggests:
2. Duty for duty's sake.
It is clear that such an expression states a real moral fact; unless a
duty is done _as_ duty it is not done morally. An act may be outwardly
just what morality demands, and yet if done for the sake of some
private advantage it is not counted moral. As Kant expresses it, an
act must be done not only in accordance with duty, but _from duty_.
This truth, however, is misinterpreted when it is taken to mean that
the act is to be done for the sake of duty, and duty is conceived as
a third thing outside the act itself. Such a theory contradicts the
true sense of the phrase 'duty for duty's sake', for it makes the act
done not for its own sake, but as a mere means to an abstract law
beyond itself. 'Do the right because it is the right' means do the
right _thing_ because it _is_ the right thing; that is, do the act
disinterestedly from interest in the act itself. A duty is always some
act or line of action, not a third thing outside the act to which it
is to conform. In short, duty means _the act which is to be done_, and
'duty for duty's sake' means do the required act as it really is; do
not degrade it into a means for some ulterior end. This is as true
in practice as in theory. A man who does his duty not for the sake of
the acts themselves, but for the sake of some abstract 'ideal' which
he christens duty in general, will have a morality at once hard and
barren, and weak and sentimental.
3. The agency of moral authority in prescribing moral law and
stimulating to moral conduct.
The facts, relied upon by Bain and Spencer, as to the part played
by social influences in imposing duties, are undeniable. The facts,
however, are unaccountable upon the theory of these writers, as that
theory would, as we have seen, explain only the influence of society
in producing acts done from fear or for hope of reward. But if the
individual and others are equally members of one society, if the
performance by each man of his own function constitutes a good common
to all, it is inevitable that social authorities should be an influence
in constituting and teaching duties. The community, in imposing its
own needs and demands upon the individual, is simply arousing him to
a knowledge of his relationships in life, to a knowledge of the moral
environment in which he lives, and of the acts which he must perform if
he is to realize his individuality. The community in awakening moral
consciousness in the morally immature may appeal to motives of hope
and fear. But even this fact does not mean that to the child, duty
is necessarily constituted by fear of punishment or hope of reward.
It means simply that his capacity and his surroundings are both so
undeveloped that the exercise of his function takes mainly the form of
pleasing others. He may still do his duty _as_ his duty, but his duty
now consists in pleasing others.
On Obligation see Green, Op. cit., pp. 352-356; Alexander,
Op. cit., pp. 142-147. For different views, Martineau,
Op. cit., Vol. II, pp. 92-119; Calderwood, Op. cit., pp.
131-138, and see also, Grote, Treatise on Moral Ideals, ch.
VII.