OF THE ULTIMATE SANCTION OF THE PRINCIPLE OF UTILITY.
The question is often asked, and properly so, in regard to any supposed
moral standard--What is its sanction? what are the motives to obey it?
or more specifically, what is the source of its obligation? whence does
it derive its binding force? It is a necessary part of moral philosophy
to provide the answer to this question; which, though frequently
assuming the shape of an objection to the utilitarian morality, as if it
had some special applicability to that above others, really arises in
regard to all standards. It arises, in fact, whenever a person is called
on to adopt a standard or refer morality to any basis on which he has
not been accustomed to rest it. For the customary morality, that which
education and opinion have consecrated, is the only one which presents
itself to the mind with the feeling of being _in itself_ obligatory; and
when a person is asked to believe that this morality _derives_ its
obligation from some general principle round which custom has not thrown
the same halo, the assertion is to him a paradox; the supposed
corollaries seem to have a more binding force than the original theorem;
the superstructure seems to stand better without, than with, what is
represented as its foundation. He says to himself, I feel that I am
bound not to rob or murder, betray or deceive; but why am I bound to
promote the general happiness? If my own happiness lies in something
else, why may I not give that the preference?
If the view adopted by the utilitarian philosophy of the nature of the
moral sense be correct, this difficulty will always present itself,
until the influences which form moral character have taken the same hold
of the principle which they have taken of some of the
consequences--until, by the improvement of education, the feeling of
unity with our fellow creatures shall be (what it cannot be doubted that
Christ intended it to be) as deeply rooted in our character, and to our
own consciousness as completely a part of our nature, as the horror of
crime is in an ordinarily well-brought-up young person. In the mean
time, however, the difficulty has no peculiar application to the
doctrine of utility, but is inherent in every attempt to analyse
morality and reduce it to principles; which, unless the principle is
already in men's minds invested with as much sacredness as any of its
applications, always seems to divest them of a part of their sanctity.
The principle of utility either has, or there is no reason why it might
not have, all the sanctions which belong to any other system of morals.
Those sanctions are either external or internal. Of the external
sanctions it is not necessary to speak at any length. They are, the hope
of favour and the fear of displeasure from our fellow creatures or from
the Ruler of the Universe, along with whatever we may have of sympathy
or affection for them or of love and awe of Him, inclining us to do His
will independently of selfish consequences. There is evidently no
reason why all these motives for observance should not attach themselves
to the utilitarian morality, as completely and as powerfully as to any
other. Indeed, those of them which refer to our fellow creatures are
sure to do so, in proportion to the amount of general intelligence; for
whether there be any other ground of moral obligation than the general
happiness or not, men do desire happiness; and however imperfect may be
their own practice, they desire and commend all conduct in others
towards themselves, by which they think their happiness is promoted.
With regard to the religious motive, if men believe, as most profess to
do, in the goodness of God, those who think that conduciveness to the
general happiness is the essence, or even only the criterion, of good,
must necessarily believe that it is also that which God approves. The
whole force therefore of external reward and punishment, whether
physical or moral, and whether proceeding from God or from our fellow
men, together with all that the capacities of human nature admit, of
disinterested devotion to either, become available to enforce the
utilitarian morality, in proportion as that morality is recognized; and
the more powerfully, the more the appliances of education and general
cultivation are bent to the purpose.
So far as to external sanctions. The internal sanction of duty, whatever
our standard of duty may be, is one and the same--a feeling in our own
mind; a pain, more or less intense, attendant on violation of duty,
which in properly cultivated moral natures rises, in the more serious
cases, into shrinking from it as an impossibility. This feeling, when
disinterested, and connecting itself with the pure idea of duty, and
not with some particular form of it, or with any of the merely accessory
circumstances, is the essence of Conscience; though in that complex
phenomenon as it actually exists, the simple fact is in general all
encrusted over with collateral associations, derived from sympathy, from
love, and still more from fear; from all the forms of religious feeling;
from the recollections of childhood and of all our past life; from
self-esteem, desire of the esteem of others, and occasionally even
self-abasement. This extreme complication is, I apprehend, the origin of
the sort of mystical character which, by a tendency of the human mind of
which there are many other examples, is apt to be attributed to the idea
of moral obligation, and which leads people to believe that the idea
cannot possibly attach itself to any other objects than those which, by
a supposed mysterious law, are found in our present experience to excite
it. Its binding force, however, consists in the existence of a mass of
feeling which must be broken through in order to do what violates our
standard of right, and which, if we do nevertheless violate that
standard, will probably have to be encountered afterwards in the form of
remorse. Whatever theory we have of the nature or origin of conscience,
this is what essentially constitutes it.
The ultimate sanction, therefore, of all morality (external motives
apart) being a subjective feeling in our own minds, I see nothing
embarrassing to those whose standard is utility, in the question, what
is the sanction of that particular standard? We may answer, the same as
of all other moral standards--the conscientious feelings of mankind.
Undoubtedly this sanction has no binding efficacy on those who do not
possess the feelings it appeals to; but neither will these persons be
more obedient to any other moral principle than to the utilitarian one.
On them morality of any kind has no hold but through the external
sanctions. Meanwhile the feelings exist, a feet in human nature, the
reality of which, and the great power with which they are capable of
acting on those in whom they have been duly cultivated, are proved by
experience. No reason has ever been shown why they may not be cultivated
to as great intensity in connection with the utilitarian, as with any
other rule of morals.
There is, I am aware, a disposition to believe that a person who sees in
moral obligation a transcendental fact, an objective reality belonging
to the province of "Things in themselves," is likely to be more obedient
to it than one who believes it to be entirely subjective, having its
seat in human consciousness only. But whatever a person's opinion may be
on this point of Ontology, the force he is really urged by is his own
subjective feeling, and is exactly measured by its strength. No one's
belief that Duty is an objective reality is stronger than the belief
that God is so; yet the belief in God, apart from the expectation of
actual reward and punishment, only operates on conduct through, and in
proportion to, the subjective religious feeling. The sanction, so far as
it is disinterested, is always in the mind itself; and the notion,
therefore, of the transcendental moralists must be, that this sanction
will not exist _in_ the mind unless it is believed to have its root out
of the mind; and that if a person is able to say to himself, That which
is restraining me, and which is called my conscience, is only a feeling
in my own mind, he may possibly draw the conclusion that when the
feeling ceases the obligation ceases, and that if he find the feeling
inconvenient, he may disregard it, and endeavour to get rid of it. But
is this danger confined to the utilitarian morality? Does the belief
that moral obligation has its seat outside the mind make the feeling of
it too strong to be got rid of? The fact is so far otherwise, that all
moralists admit and lament the ease with which, in the generality of
minds, conscience can be silenced or stifled. The question, Need I obey
my conscience? is quite as often put to themselves by persons who never
heard of the principle of utility, as by its adherents. Those whose
conscientious feelings are so weak as to allow of their asking this
question, if they answer it affirmatively, will not do so because they
believe in the transcendental theory, but because of the external
sanctions.
It is not necessary, for the present purpose, to decide whether the
feeling of duty is innate or implanted. Assuming it to be innate, it is
an open question to what objects it naturally attaches itself; for the
philosophic supporters of that theory are now agreed that the intuitive
perception is of principles of morality, and not of the details. If
there be anything innate in the matter, I see no reason why the feeling
which is innate should not be that of regard to the pleasures and pains
of others. If there is any principle of morals which is intuitively
obligatory, I should say it must be that. If so, the intuitive ethics
would coincide with the utilitarian, and there would be no further
quarrel between them. Even as it is, the intuitive moralists, though
they believe that there are other intuitive moral obligations, do
already believe this to be one; for they unanimously hold that a large
portion of morality turns upon the consideration due to the interests of
our fellow creatures. Therefore, if the belief in the transcendental
origin of moral obligation gives any additional efficacy to the internal
sanction, it appears to me that the utilitarian principle has already
the benefit of it.
On the other hand, if, as is my own belief, the moral feelings are not
innate, but acquired, they are not for that reason the less natural. It
is natural to man to speak, to reason, to build cities, to cultivate the
ground, though these are acquired faculties. The moral feelings are not
indeed a part of our nature, in the sense of being in any perceptible
degree present in all of us; but this, unhappily, is a fact admitted by
those who believe the most strenuously in their transcendental origin.
Like the other acquired capacities above referred to, the moral faculty,
if not a part of our nature, is a natural outgrowth from it; capable,
like them, in a certain small degree, of springing up spontaneously; and
susceptible of being brought by cultivation to a high degree of
development. Unhappily it is also susceptible, by a sufficient use of
the external sanctions and of the force of early impressions, of being
cultivated in almost any direction: so that there is hardly anything so
absurd or so mischievous that it may not, by means of these influences,
be made to act on the human mind with all the authority of conscience.
To doubt that the same potency might be given by the same means to the
principle of utility, even if it had no foundation in human nature,
would be flying in the face of all experience.
But moral associations which are wholly of artificial creation, when
intellectual culture goes on, yield by degrees to the dissolving force
of analysis: and if the feeling of duty, when associated with utility,
would appear equally arbitrary; if there were no leading department of
our nature, no powerful class of sentiments, with which that association
would harmonize, which would make us feel it congenial, and incline us
not only to foster it in others (for which we have abundant interested
motives), but also to cherish it in ourselves; if there were not, in
short, a natural basis of sentiment for utilitarian morality, it might
well happen that this association also, even after it had been implanted
by education, might be analysed away.
But there is this basis of powerful natural sentiment; and this it is
which, when once the general happiness is recognized as the ethical
standard, will constitute the strength of the utilitarian morality. This
firm foundation is that of the social feelings of mankind; the desire to
be in unity with our fellow creatures, which is already a powerful
principle in human nature, and happily one of those which tend to become
stronger, even without express inculcation, from the influences of
advancing civilization. The social state is at once so natural, so
necessary, and so habitual to man, that, except in some unusual
circumstances or by an effort of voluntary abstraction, he never
conceives himself otherwise than as a member of a body; and this
association is riveted more and more, as mankind are further removed
from the state of savage independence. Any condition, therefore, which
is essential to a state of society, becomes more and more an inseparable
part of every person's conception of the state of things which he is
born into, and which is the destiny of a human being. Now, society
between human beings, except in the relation of master and slave, is
manifestly impossible on any other footing than that the interests of
all are to be consulted. Society between equals can only exist on the
understanding that the interests of all are to be regarded equally. And
since in all states of civilization, every person, except an absolute
monarch, has equals, every one is obliged to live on these terms with
somebody; and in every age some advance is made towards a state in which
it will be impossible to live permanently on other terms with anybody.
In this way people grow up unable to conceive as possible to them a
state of total disregard of other people's interests. They are under a
necessity of conceiving themselves as at least abstaining from all the
grosser injuries, and (if only for their own protection.) living in a
state of constant protest against them. They are also familiar with the
fact of co-operating with others, and proposing to themselves a
collective, not an individual, interest, as the aim (at least for the
time being) of their actions. So long as they are co-operating, their
ends are identified with those of others; there is at least a temporary
feeling that the interests of others are their own interests. Not only
does all strengthening of social ties, and all healthy growth of
society, give to each individual a stronger personal interest in
practically consulting the welfare of others; it also leads him to
identify his feelings more and more with their good, or at least with
an ever greater degree of practical consideration for it. He comes, as
though instinctively, to be conscious of himself as a being who _of
course_ pays regard to others. The good of others becomes to him a thing
naturally and necessarily to be attended to, like any of the physical
conditions of our existence. Now, whatever amount of this feeling a
person has, he is urged by the strongest motives both of interest and of
sympathy to demonstrate it, and to the utmost of his power encourage it
in others; and even if he has none of it himself, he is as greatly
interested as any one else that others should have it. Consequently, the
smallest germs of the feeling are laid hold of and nourished by the
contagion of sympathy and the influences of education; and a complete
web of corroborative association is woven round it, by the powerful
agency of the external sanctions. This mode of conceiving ourselves and
human life, as civilization goes on, is felt to be more and more
natural. Every step in political improvement renders it more so, by
removing the sources of opposition of interest, and levelling those
inequalities of legal privilege between individuals or classes, owing to
which there are large portions of mankind whose happiness it is still
practicable to disregard. In an improving state of the human mind, the
influences are constantly on the increase, which tend to generate in
each individual a feeling of unity with all the rest; which feeling, if
perfect, would make him never think of, or desire, any beneficial
condition for himself, in the benefits of which they are not included.
If we now suppose this feeling of unity to be taught as a religion, and
the whole force of education, of institutions, and of opinion,
directed, as it once was in the case of religion, to make every person
grow up from infancy surrounded on all sides both by the profession and
by the practice of it, I think that no one, who can realize this
conception, will feel any misgiving about the sufficiency of the
ultimate sanction for the Happiness morality. To any ethical student who
finds the realization difficult, I recommend, as a means of facilitating
it, the second of M. Comte's two principal works, the _Système de
Politique Positive_. I entertain the strongest objections to the system
of politics and morals set forth in that treatise; but I think it has
superabundantly shown the possibility of giving to the service of
humanity, even without the aid of belief in a Providence, both the
physical power and the social efficacy of a religion; making it take
hold of human life, and colour all thought, feeling, and action, in a
manner of which the greatest ascendency ever exercised by any religion
may be but a type and foretaste; and of which the danger is, not that it
should be insufficient, but that it should be so excessive as to
interfere unduly with human freedom and individuality.
Neither is it necessary to the feeling which constitutes the binding
force of the utilitarian morality on those who recognize it, to wait for
those social influences which would make its obligation felt by mankind
at large. In the comparatively early state of human advancement in which
we now live, a person cannot indeed feel that entireness of sympathy
with all others, which would make any real discordance in the general
direction of their conduct in life impossible; but already a person in
whom the social feeling is at all developed, cannot bring himself to
think of the rest of his fellow creatures as struggling rivals with him
for the means of happiness, whom he must desire to see defeated in their
object in order that he may succeed in his. The deeply-rooted conception
which every individual even now has of himself as a social being, tends
to make him feel it one of his natural wants that there should be
harmony between his feelings and aims and those of his fellow creatures.
If differences of opinion and of mental culture make it impossible for
him to share many of their actual feelings-perhaps make him denounce and
defy those feelings-he still needs to be conscious that his real aim and
theirs do not conflict; that he is not opposing himself to what they
really wish for, namely, their own good, but is, on the contrary,
promoting it. This feeling in most individuals is much inferior in
strength to their selfish feelings, and is often wanting altogether. But
to those who have it, it possesses all the characters of a natural
feeling. It does not present itself to their minds as a superstition of
education, or a law despotically imposed by the power of society, but as
an attribute which it would not be well for them to be without. This
conviction is the ultimate sanction of the greatest-happiness morality.
This it is which makes any mind, of well-developed feelings, work with,
and not against, the outward motives to care for others, afforded by
what I have called the external sanctions; and when those sanctions are
wanting, or act in an opposite direction, constitutes in itself a
powerful internal binding force, in proportion to the sensitiveness and
thoughtfulness of the character; since few but those whose mind is a
moral blank, could bear to lay out their course of life on the plan of
paying no regard to others except so far as their own private interest
compels.