ETHICAL APPLICATIONS OF THE LAW OF IDENTITY
It may be remembered that Mr. Podsnap remarked, with sadness tempered by
satisfaction, that he regretted to say that "Foreign nations do as they
do do." Besides aiding the comforting expression of moral disapproval,
the law of identity has yet another useful purpose in practical ethics:
It serves the welcome purpose of providing an excuse for infractions of
the moral law. There was once a man who treated his wife badly, was
unfaithful to her, was dishonest in business, and was not particular in
his use of language; and yet his life on earth was described in the
lines:
This man maintained a wife's a wife,
Men are as they are made,
Business is business, life is life;
And called a spade a spade.
One of the objects of Dr. G. E. Moore's _Principia Ethica_[22] was to
argue that the word "good" means simply good, and not pleasant or
anything else. Appropriately enough, this book bore on its title-page
the quotation from the preface to the _Sermons_, published in 1726, of
Bishop Joseph Butler, the author of the _Analogy_: "Everything is what
it is and not another thing."
But another famous Butler--Samuel Butler, the author of _Hudibras_--went
farther than this, and maintained that identities were the highest
attainment of metaphysics itself. At the beginning of the first Canto of
_Hudibras_, in the description of Hudibras himself, Butler wrote:
He knew what's what, and that's as high
As metaphysic wit can fly.
I once conducted what I imagined to be an aesthetic investigation for the
purpose of discovery, by the continual use of the word "Why?"[23] the
grounds upon which certain people choose to put milk into a tea-cup
before the tea. I was surprised to discover that it was an ethical, and
not an aesthetic problem; for I soon elicited the fact that it was done
because it was "right." A continuance of my patient questioning elicited
further evidence of the fundamental character of the principle of
identity in ethics; for it was right, I learned, because "right is
right."
It appears that some people unconsciously think that the principle of
identity is the foundation, in certain religions, of the reasons which
can be alleged for moral conduct, and are surprised when this fact is
pointed out to them. The late Sir Leslie Stephen, when travelling by
railway, fell into conversation with an officer of the Salvation Army,
who tried hard to convert him. Failing in this laudable endeavour, the
Salvationist at last remarked: "But if you aren't saved, you can't go to
heaven!" "That, my friend," replied Stephen, "is an identical
proposition."
FOOTNOTES:
[22] Cambridge, 1903.
[23] Cf. _P. E._, p. 2.