I should like, if I can, to interest you to-night in one particular
question about Moral Philosophy. It is a question which resembles most
philosophical questions, in respect of the fact that philosophers are
by no means agreed as to what is the right answer to it: some seem to
be very strongly convinced that one answer is correct, while others are
equally strongly convinced of the opposite. For my own part I do feel
some doubt as to which answer is the right one, although, as you will
see, I incline rather strongly to one of the two alternatives. I should
like very much, if I could, to find some considerations which seemed to
me absolutely convincing on the one side or the other; for the question
seems to me in itself to be an exceedingly interesting one.
I have said that the question is a question _about_ Moral Philosophy;
and it seems to me in fact to be a very large and general question
which affects the whole of Moral Philosophy. In asking it, we are doing
no less than asking what it is that people are doing when they study
Moral Philosophy at all: we are asking what sort of questions it is
which it is the business of Moral Philosophy to discuss and try to
find the right answer to. But I intend, for the sake of simplicity,
to confine myself to asking it in two particular instances. Moral
Philosophy has, in fact, to discuss a good many different ideas;
and though I think this same question may be raised with regard to
them all, I intend to pick out two, which seem to me particularly
fundamental, and to ask it with regard to them only.
My first business must be to explain what these two ideas are.
The name Moral Philosophy naturally suggests that what is meant is a
department of philosophy which has something to do with morality. And
we all understand roughly what is meant by morality. We are accustomed
to the distinction between moral good and evil, on the one hand, and
what is sometimes called physical good and evil on the other. We all
make the distinction between a man's moral character, on the one hand,
and his agreeableness or intellectual endowments, on the other. We feel
that to accuse a man of immoral conduct is quite a different thing from
accusing him merely of bad taste or bad manners, or from accusing him
merely of stupidity or ignorance. And no less clearly we distinguish
between the idea of being under a moral obligation to do a thing, and
the idea of being merely under a legal obligation to do it. It is a
commonplace that the sphere of morality is much wider than the sphere
of law: that we are morally bound to do and avoid many things, which
are not enjoined or forbidden by the laws of our country; and it is
also sometimes held that, if a particular law is unjust or immoral, it
may even be a moral duty to disobey it--that is to say that there may
be a positive conflict between moral and legal obligation; and the mere
fact that this is held, whether truly or falsely, shows, at all events,
that the one idea is quite distinct from the other.
The name Moral Philosophy, then, naturally suggests that it is a
department of philosophy concerned with morality in this common sense.
And it is, in fact, true that one large department of Moral Philosophy
is so concerned. But it would be a mistake to think that the whole
subject is _only_ concerned with morality. Another important department
of it is, as I shall try to show, concerned with ideas which are _not_
moral ideas, in this ordinary sense, though, no doubt, they may have
something to do with them. And of the two ideas which I propose to
pick out for discussion, while one of them is a moral idea, the other
belongs to that department of Moral Philosophy, which is not concerned
solely with morality, and is not, I think, properly speaking, a moral
idea at all.
Let us begin with the one of the two, which is a moral idea.
The particular moral idea which I propose to pick out for discussion
is the one which I have called above the idea of moral obligation--the
idea of being morally bound to act in a particular way on a particular
occasion. But what is, so far as I can see, precisely the same idea
is also called by several other names. To say that I am under a moral
obligation to do a certain thing is, I think, clearly to say the same
thing as what we commonly express by saying that I ought to do it,
or that it is my duty to do it. That is to say, the idea of moral
obligation is identical with the idea of the moral "ought" and with the
idea of duty. And it also seems at first sight as if we might make yet
another identification.
The assertion that I ought to do a certain thing seems as if it meant
much the same as the assertion that it would be wrong of me _not_ to do
the thing in question: at all events it is quite clear that, whenever
it is my duty to do anything, it would be wrong of me not to do it,
and that whenever it would be wrong of me to do anything, then it is
my duty to refrain from doing it. In the case of these two ideas, the
idea of what is wrong, and the idea of what is my duty or what I ought
to do, different views may be taken as to whether the one is more
fundamental than the other, or whether both are equally so; and on
the question: _If_ one of the two is more fundamental than the other,
which of the two is so? Thus some people would say, that the idea of
"wrong" is the more fundamental, and that the idea of "duty" is to be
defined in terms of it: that, in fact, the statement "It is my duty to
keep that promise" merely means "It would be wrong of me not to keep
it"; and the statement "It is my duty not to tell a lie" merely means
"It would be wrong of me to tell one." Others again would apparently
say just the opposite: that duty is the more fundamental notion, and
"wrong" is to be defined in terms of it. While others perhaps would
hold that neither is more fundamental than the other; that both are
equally fundamental, and that the statement "it would be wrong to do so
and so" is only equivalent to, not identical in meaning with, "I ought
not to do it." But whichever of these three views be the true one,
there is, I think, no doubt whatever about the equivalence notion of
the two ideas; and no doubt, therefore, that whatever answer be given
to the question I am going to raise about the one, the same answer must
be given to the corresponding question about the other.
The moral idea, then, which I propose to discuss, is the idea of duty
or moral obligation, or, what comes to the same thing, the idea of what
is wrong--morally wrong. Everybody would agree that this idea--or, to
speak more accurately, one or both of these two ideas--is among the
most fundamental of our moral ideas, whether or not they would admit
that all others, for example the ideas of moral goodness, involve a
reference to this one in their definition, or would hold that we have
some others which are independent of it, and equally fundamental with
it.
But there is a good deal of difficulty in getting clear as to what this
idea of moral obligation itself is. Is there in fact only one idea
which we call by this name? Or is it possible that on some occasions
when we say that so and so is a duty, we mean something different by
this expression from what we do on others? And that similarly when
we say that so and so is morally wrong, we sometimes use this name
"morally wrong" for one idea and sometimes for another; so that one
and the same thing may be "morally wrong" in one sense of the word,
and yet _not_ morally wrong in another? I think, in fact, there are
two different senses in which we use these terms; and to point out the
difference between them, will help to bring out clearly more the nature
of each. And I think perhaps the difference can be brought out most
clearly by considering the sort of moral rules with which we are all of
us familiar.
Everybody knows that moral teachers are largely concerned in laying
down moral rules, and in disputing the truth of rules which have been
previously accepted. And moral rules seem to consist, to a very large
extent, in assertions to the effect that it is always wrong to do
certain actions or to refrain from doing certain others; or (what comes
to the same thing) that it is always your duty to refrain from certain
actions, and positively to do certain others. The Ten Commandments for
example, are instances of moral rules; and most of them are examples
of what are called negative rules--that is to say rules which assert
merely that it is wrong to do certain positive actions, and therefore
our duty to refrain from these actions; instead of rules which assert
of certain positive actions, that it is our duty to do them and
therefore wrong to refrain from doing them. The fifth commandment,
which tells us to honour our father and mother, is apparently an
exception; it seems to be a positive rule. It is not, like the others,
expressed in the negative form "Thou shalt _not_ do so and so," and
it is apparently really meant to assert that we ought to do certain
positive actions, not merely that there are some positive action from
which we ought to refrain. The difference between this one and the
rest will thus serve as an example of the difference between positive
and negative moral rules, a difference which is sometimes treated as
if it were of great importance. And I do not wish to deny that there
may be some important difference between seeing only that certain
positive actions are wrong, and seeing also that, in certain cases, to
refrain from doing certain actions is just as wrong as positively to
do certain others. But this distinction between positive and negative
rules is certainly of much less importance than another which is, I
think, liable to be confused with it. So far as this distinction goes
it is only a distinction between an assertion that it is wrong to do a
positive action and an assertion that it is wrong to refrain from doing
one: and each of these assertions is equivalent to one which asserts
a duty--the first with an assertion that it is a duty to refrain, the
second with an assertion that a positive action is a duty. But there is
another distinction between some moral rules and others, which is of
much greater importance than this one, and which does, I think, give a
reason for thinking that the term "moral obligation" is actually used
in different senses on different occasions.
I have said that moral rules seem to consist, _to a large extent_,
in assertions to the effect that it is always wrong to do certain
_actions_ or to refrain from doing certain others, or the equivalent
assertions in terms of duty. But there is a large class of moral
rules, with which we are all of us very familiar, which do not come
under this definition. They are rules which are concerned not with our
_actions_, in the natural sense of the word, but with our feelings,
thoughts and desires. An illustration of this kind of rule can again
be given from the Ten Commandments. Most of the ten, as we all know,
are concerned merely with actions; but the tenth at least is clearly
an exception. The tenth says "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's
house, nor his wife, nor his servant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor
anything that is his," and, unless "covet" is merely a mistranslation
of a word which stands for some kind of action, we plainly have here a
rule which is concerned with our _feelings_ and not with our actions.
And one reason which makes the distinction between rules of this kind
and rules concerned with actions important, is that our feelings are
not, as a rule, directly within the control of our will in the sense in
which many of our actions are. I cannot, for instance, by any single
act of will directly prevent from arising in my mind a desire for
something that belongs to some one else, even if, when once the desire
has arrived, I can by my will prevent its continuance; and even this
last I can hardly do _directly_ but only by forcing myself to attend
to other considerations which may extinguish the desire. But though
I thus cannot prevent myself altogether from coveting my neighbour's
possessions, I can altogether prevent myself from stealing them. The
action of stealing, and the feeling of covetousness, are clearly on a
very different level in this respect. The action is _directly_ within
the control of my will, whereas the feeling is not. _If_ I will not
to take the thing (though of course some people may find a great
difficulty in willing this) it does in general follow directly that I
do not take it; whereas, it I will not to desire it, it emphatically
does not, even in general, follow directly that no desire for it will
be there. This distinction between the way in which our feelings and
our actions are under the control of our wills is, I think, a very
real one indeed; we cannot help constantly recognising that it exists.
And it has an important bearing on the distinction between those moral
rules which deal with actions and those which deal with feelings, for
the following reason. The philosopher Kant laid down a well-known
proposition to the effect that "ought" implies "can": that is to say,
that it cannot be true that you "ought" to do a thing, unless it is
true that you _could_ do it, _if_ you chose. And as regards one of
the senses in which we commonly use the words "ought" and "duty," I
think this rule is plainly true. When we say absolutely of ourselves
or others, "I ought to do so and so" or "you ought to," we imply,
I think, very often that the thing in question is a thing which we
_could_ do, _if_ we chose; though of course it may often be a thing
which it is very difficult to choose to do. Thus it is clear that I
cannot truly say of anyone that he ought to do a certain thing, if it
is a thing which it is physically impossible for him to do, however
desirable it may be that the thing should be done. And in this sense it
is clear that it cannot be truly said of me that I ought not to have a
certain feeling, or that I ought not to have had it, if it is a feeling
which I could not, by any effort of my will, prevent myself from
having. The having or the prevention of a certain feeling is not, of
course, strictly ever a _physical_ impossibility, but it is very often
impossible, in exactly the same sense, in which actions are physically
impossible--that is to say that I could not possibly get it or prevent
it, even if I would. But this being so, it is plain that such a
moral rule as that I ought not to covet my neighbour's possessions
is, if it means to assert that I ought not, in that sense in which
"ought" implies "can," a rule which cannot possibly be true. What it
appears to assert is, absolutely universally, of _every_ feeling of
covetousness, that the feeling in question is one which the person who
felt it _ought_ not to have felt. But in fact a very large proportion
of such feelings (I am inclined to say the vast majority) are feelings
which the person who felt them could not have prevented feeling, if he
would: they were beyond the control of his will. And hence it is quite
emphatically _not_ true that none of these feelings _ought_ to have
been felt, if we are using "ought" in the sense which implies that the
person who felt them _could_ have avoided them. So far from its being
true that absolutely _none_ of them ought to have been felt, this is
only true of those among them, probably a small minority, which the
person who felt them _could_ have avoided feeling. If, therefore, moral
rules with regard to feelings are to have a chance of being _nearly_
true, we must understand the "ought" which occurs in them in some
other sense. But with moral rules that refer to actions the case is
very different. Take stealing for example. Here again what the Eighth
Commandment appears to imply is that absolutely every theft which has
ever occurred was an act which the agent ought not to have done; and,
if the "ought" is the one which implies "can," it implies, therefore,
that every theft was an act which the agent, if he had chosen, could
have avoided. And this statement that every theft which has been
committed was an act which the thief, _if_ he had so willed, could
have avoided, though it may be doubted if it is absolutely universally
true, is not a statement which is clearly absurd, like the statement
that every covetous desire could have been avoided by the will of the
person who felt it. It is probable that the vast majority of acts of
theft have been acts which it was in the power of the thief to avoid,
if he had willed to do so; whereas this is clearly not true of the vast
majority of covetous desires. It is, therefore, quite possible that
those who believe we ought never to steal are using "ought" in a sense
which implies that stealing always _could_ have been avoided; whereas
it is I think quite certain that many of those who believe that we
ought to avoid all covetous desires, do not believe for a moment that
every covetous desire that has ever been felt was a desire which the
person who felt it could have avoided feeling, if he had chosen. And
yet they certainly do believe, in some sense or other, that no covetous
desire _ought_ ever to have been felt. The conclusion is, therefore,
it seems to me, unavoidable that we do use "ought," the moral "ought,"
in two different senses; the one a sense in which to say that I ought
to have done so and so does really imply that I could have done it,
if I had chosen, and the other a sense in which it carries with it no
such implication. I think perhaps the difference between the two can be
expressed in this way. If we express the meaning of the first "ought,"
the one which does imply "can," by saying that "I ought to have done
so and so" means "It actually _was_ my duty to do it"; we can express
the meaning of the second by saying that _e.g._ "I ought not to have
felt so and so" means _not_ "it _was_ my duty to avoid that feeling,"
but "it _would_ have been my duty to avoid it, _if_ I had been able."
And corresponding to these two meanings of "ought" we should, I think,
probably distinguish two different sorts of moral rules, which though
expressed in the same language, do in fact mean very different things.
The one is a set of rules which assert (whether truly or falsely)
that it always actually _is_ a duty to do or to refrain from certain
actions, and assert therefore that it always is in the power of the
agent's will to do or to refrain from them; whereas the other sort only
assert that so and so _would_ be a duty, if it _were_ within our power,
without at all asserting that it always is within our power.
We may, perhaps, give a name to the distinction I mean, by calling the
first kind of rules--those which do assert that something actually is
a duty--"rules of duty," and by calling the second kind--those which
recommend or condemn something not in the control of our wills--"ideal
rules": choosing this latter name because they can be said to inculcate
a moral "ideal"--something the attainment of which is not directly
within the power of our wills. As a further example of the difference
between ideal rules and rules of duty we may take the famous passage
from the New Testament (Luke 6, 27) "Love your enemies, do good to
them that hate you, bless them that curse you, pray for them that
despitefully use you." Of these four rules, the three last may be
rules of duty, because they refer to things which are plainly, as a
rule, at least, in the power of your will; but the first, if "love"
be understood in its natural sense as referring to your feelings, is
plainly only an "ideal" rule, since such feelings are obviously not
directly under our own control, in the same way in which such actions
as doing good to, blessing or praying for a person are so. To love
certain people, or to feel no anger against them, is a thing which
it is quite impossible to attain directly by will, or perhaps ever
to attain completely at all. Whereas your behaviour towards them is
a matter within your own control: even if you hate a person, or feel
angry with him, you can so control yourself as not to do him harm, and
even to confer benefits upon him. To do good to your enemies may, then,
really be your duty; but it cannot, in the strict sense, be your duty
not to have evil feelings towards them: all that can possibly be true
is that it would be your duty if you were able. Yet I think there can
be no doubt that what Christ meant to condemn was the occurrence of
such feelings altogether; and since, if what he meant to assert about
them in condemning them, would have been certainly false, if he had
meant to say that you _could_ avoid ever feeling them, I think it is
clear that what he meant to assert was _not_ this, or not this only,
but something else, which may quite possibly be true. That is to say,
he was asserting an ideal rule, not merely a rule of duty.
It will be seen that this distinction which I am making coincides,
roughly at all events, with the distinction which is often expressed
as the distinction between rules which tell you what you ought to
_be_ and rules which tell you merely what you ought to _do_; or as
the distinction between rules which are concerned with your inner
life--with your thoughts and feelings--and those which are concerned
only with your external actions. The rules which are concerned with
what you ought to _be_ or with your inner life are, for the most part
at all events, "ideal" rules; while those which are concerned with what
you ought to do or your external actions are very often, at least,
rules of duty. And it is often said that one great difference between
the New Testament and the Old is its comparatively greater insistence
on "ideal" rules--upon a change of heart--as opposed to mere rules of
duty. And that there is a comparatively greater insistence on ideal
rules I do not wish to deny. But that there are plenty of ideal rules
in the Old Testament too must not be forgotten. I have already given an
example from the Ten Commandments: namely the rule which says you ought
not to covet anything which belongs to your neighbour. And another
is supplied by the Old Testament commandment, "Love thy neighbour as
thyself," if by "love" is here meant a feeling which is not within our
own control, and not merely that the Jew is to _help_ other Jews by his
external actions. Indeed, however great may be the difference between
the Old Testament and the New in respect of comparative insistence on
ideal rules rather than rules of duty, I am inclined to think that
there is at least as great a difference, illustrated by this very rule,
in another, quite different, respect--namely in the kind of rules,
_both ideal and of duty,_ which are insisted on. For whereas by "thy
neighbour" in the Old Testament there is plainly meant only other Jews,
and it is not conceived either that it is the duty of a Jew to help
foreigners in general, or an ideal for him to love them; in the New
Testament, where the same words are used, "my neighbour" plainly is
meant to include all mankind. And this distinction between the view
that beneficent action and benevolent feelings should be confined to
those of our own nation, and the view that both should be extended
equally to all mankind,--a distinction which has nothing to do with
the distinction between being and doing, between inner and outer, but
affects both equally--is, I am inclined to think, at least as important
a difference between New Testament and Old, as the comparatively
greater insistence on "ideal" rules. However, the point upon which I
want at present to insist is the distinction between ideal rules and
rules of duty. Both kinds are commonly included among moral rules,
and, as my examples have shown, are often mentioned together as if no
great difference were seen between them. What I want to insist on is
that there is a great difference between them: that whereas rules of
duty do directly assert of the idea of duty, in the sense in which to
say that something is your duty implies that you _can_ do it, that
certain things are duties, the "ideal" rules do _not_ assert this, but
something different. Yet the "ideal" rules certainly do, in a sense,
assert a "moral obligation." And hence we have to recognise that the
phrase "moral obligation" is not merely a name for one idea only, but
for two very different ideas; and the same will, of course, be true of
the corresponding phrase "morally wrong."
When, therefore, I say that the idea of "moral obligation" is one of
the fundamental ideas with which Moral Philosophy is concerned, I think
we must admit that this one name really stands for two different ideas.
But it does not matter for my purpose which of the two you take. Each
of them is undoubtedly a moral idea, and whatever answer be given to
the question we are going to raise about the one, will also certainly
apply to the other.
But it is now time to turn to the other idea, with which I said that
Moral Philosophy has been largely concerned, though it is not, strictly
speaking, a moral idea, at all.
And I think, perhaps, a good way of bringing out what this idea is,
is to refer to the Ethics of Aristotle. Everybody would admit that
the fundamental idea, with which Aristotle's Ethics is concerned, is
an idea which it is the business of Moral Philosophy to discuss; and
yet I think it is quite plain that this idea is not a moral idea at
all. Aristotle does not set out from' the idea of moral obligation
or duty (indeed throughout his treatise he only mentions this idea
quite incidentally); nor even from the idea of moral goodness or moral
excellence, though he has a good deal more to say about that; but
from the idea of what he calls "the human good," or "good for man."
He starts by raising the question what the good for man _is,_ and his
whole book is arranged in the form of giving a detailed answer to that
question. And I think we can gather pretty well what the idea is, which
he calls by this name, by considering what he says about it. There
are two points, in particular, which he insists upon from the outset:
first, that nothing can be good, in the sense he means, unless it is
something which is worth having for its own sake, and not merely for
the sake of something else; it must be good _in itself_; it must not,
like wealth (to use one example which he gives) be worth having merely
for the sake of what you can do with it; it must be a thing which is
worth having even if nothing further comes of it. And secondly (what
partly covers the former, but also, I think, says something more) it
must, he says, be something that is "self-sufficient": something which,
even if you had nothing else would make your life worth having. And
further light is thrown upon his meaning when he comes to tell you
what he thinks the good for man is: the good, he says, is "mental,
activity--where such activity is of an excellent kind, or, if there
are several different kinds of excellent mental activity, that which
has the best and most perfect kind of excellence; and also" (he
significantly adds) "mental activity which lasts through a sufficiently
long life." The word which I have here translated "excellence" is what
is commonly translated "virtue"; but it does not mean quite the same
as we mean by "virtue," and that in a very important respect. "Virtue"
has come to mean exclusively _moral_ excellence; and if that were all
Aristotle meant, you might think that what he means by "good" came
very near being a moral idea. But it turns out that he includes among
"excellences," intellectual excellence, and even that he thinks that
the best and most perfect excellence of which he speaks is a particular
kind of intellectual excellence, which no one would think of calling a
moral quality, namely, the sort of excellence which makes a man a good
philosopher. And as for the word which I have translated "activity,"
the meaning of this can be best brought out by mentioning the reason
which Aristotle himself gives for saying that mere excellence itself is
not (as some of the Greeks had said) the good for man. He says, truly
enough, that a man may possess the greatest excellence--he may be a
very excellent man--even when he is asleep, or is doing nothing; and
he points out that the possession of excellence when you are asleep
is not a thing that is desirable _for its own sake_--obviously only
for the sake of the effects it may produce when you wake up. It is not
therefore, he thinks, mere mental excellence, but the _active exercise_
of mental excellence--the state of a man's mind, when he not only
possesses excellent faculties, moral or intellectual, but is actively
engaged in using them, which really constitutes the human good.
Now, when Aristotle talks of "the good for man," there is, I think, as
my quotation is sufficient to show, a certain confusion in his mind
between what is _good_ for man and what is _best_ for man. What he
really holds is that _any_ mental activity which exhibits excellence
and is pleasurable is _a_ good; and when he adds that, if there are
many excellences, _the_ good must be mental activity which exhibits
the _best_ of them, and that it must last through a sufficiently long
life, he only means that this is necessary if a man is to get the
_best_ he can get, not that this is the _only_ good he can get. And
the idea which I wish to insist on is not, therefore, the idea of
"_the_ human good," but the more fundamental idea of "good "; the idea,
with regard to which he holds that the working of our minds in some
excellent fashion is the only good thing that any of us can possess;
and the idea of which "better" is the comparative, when he says that
mental activity which exhibits some sorts of excellence is _better_
than mental activity which exhibits others, though both are good, and
that excellent mental activity continued over a longer time is _better_
than the same continued for a shorter. This idea of what is "good," in
the sense in which Aristotle uses it in these cases, is an idea which
we all of us constantly use, and which is certainly an idea which it
is the business of Moral Philosophy to discuss, though it is not a
moral idea. The main difficulty with regard to it is to distinguish it
clearly from other senses in which we use the same word. For, when we
say that a thing is "good," or one thing "better" than another, we by
no means always mean that it is better in this sense. Often, when we
call a thing good we are not attributing to it any characteristic which
it would possess _if it existed quite alone,_ and if nothing further
were to come of it; but are merely saying of it that it is a sort of
thing from which other good things do in fact come, or which is such
that, when accompanied by other things, the whole thus formed is "good"
in Aristotle's sense, although, by itself, it is not. Thus a man may
be "good," and his character may be "good," and yet neither are "good"
in this fundamental sense, in which goodness is a characteristic which
a thing would possess, if it existed quite alone. For, as Aristotle
says, a good man may exist, and may have a good character, even when
he is fast asleep; and yet if there were nothing in the Universe but
good men, with good characters, all fast asleep, there would be nothing
in it which was "good" in the fundamental sense with which we are
concerned. Thus "moral goodness," in the sense of good character, as
distinguished from the actual working of a good character in various
forms of mental activity, is certainly not "good" in the sense in which
good means "good for its own sake." And even with regard to the actual
exercise of certain forms of moral excellence, it seems to me that in
estimating the value of such exercise relatively to other things, we
are apt to take into account, not merely its intrinsic value--the sort
of value which it would possess, if it existed quite alone--but also
its effects: we rate it higher than we should do if we were considering
only its intrinsic value, because we take into account the other good
things which we know are apt to flow from it. Certain things which
have intrinsic value are distinguished from others, by the fact that
more good consequences are apt to flow from them; and where this is
the case, we are apt, I think, quite unjustly, to think that their
intrinsic value must be higher too. One thing, I think, is clear about
intrinsic value--goodness in Aristotle's sense--namely that it is only
actual occurrences, actual states of things over a certain period of
time--not such things as men, or characters, or material things, that
can have any intrinsic value at all. But even this is not sufficient to
distinguish intrinsic value clearly from other sorts of goodness: since
even in the case of actual occurrences, we often call them good or bad
for the sake of their effects or their promise of effects. Thus we
all hope that the state of things in England, as a whole, will really
be better some day than it has been in the past--that there will be
progress and improvement: we hope, for instance, that, if we consider
the whole of the lives lived in England during some year in the next
century, it may turn out that the state of things, as a whole, during
that year will be really better than it ever has been in any past year.
And when we use "better" in this way--in the sense in which progress
or improvement means a change to a _better_ state of things--we are
certainly thinking partly of a state of things which has a greater
intrinsic value. And we certainly do not mean by improvement merely
_moral_ improvement. An improvement in moral conditions, other things
being equal, may no doubt be a gain in intrinsic value; but we should
certainly hold that, moral conditions being equal, there is yet room
for improvement in other ways--in the diminution of misery and purely
physical evils, for example. But in considering the degree of a real
change for the better in intrinsic value, there is certainly danger of
confusion between the degree in which the actual lives lived are really
intrinsically better, and the degree in which there is improvement
merely in the _means_ for living a good life. If we want to estimate
rightly what would constitute an intrinsic improvement in the state
of things in our imagined year next century, and whether it would on
the whole be really "good" at all, we have to consider what value it
would have if it were to be the last year of life upon this planet;
if the world were going to come to an end, as soon as it was over;
and therefore to discount entirely all the promises it might contain
of future goods. This criterion for distinguishing whether the kind
of goodness which we are attributing to anything is really intrinsic
value or not, the criterion which consists in considering whether it
is a characteristic which the thing would possess, if it were to have
absolutely no further consequences or accompaniments, seems to me to
be one which it is very necessary to apply if we wish to distinguish
clearly between different meanings of the word "good." And it is only
the idea of what is good, where by "good" is meant a characteristic
which has this mark, that I want now to consider.
The two ideas, then, with regard to which I want to raise a question,
are first the moral idea of "moral obligation" or "duty," and secondly
the non-moral idea of "good" in this special sense.
And the question with regard to them, which I want to raise, is this.
With regard to both ideas many philosophers have thought and still
think--not only _think_, but seem to be absolutely convinced, that when
we apply them to anything--when we assert of any action that it ought
not to have been done, or of any state of things that it was or would
be good or better than another, then it _must_ be the case that _all_
that we are asserting of the thing or things in question is simply
and solely that some person or set of persons actually does have, or
has a tendency to have a certain sort of feeling towards the thing or
things in question: that there is absolutely no more in it than this.
While others seem to be convinced, no less strongly, that there _is_
more in it than this: that when we judge that an action is a duty or
is really wrong, we are _not_ merely making a judgment to the effect
that some person or set of persons, have, or tend to have a certain
sort of feeling, when they witness or think of such actions, and that
similarly when we judge that a certain state of things was or would be
better than another, we are _not_ merely making a judgment about the
feelings which some person or set of persons would have, in witnessing
or thinking of the two states of things, or in comparing them together.
The question at issue between these two views is often expressed in
other less clear forms. It is often expressed as the question whether
the ideas of duty and of good or value, are or are not, "objective"
ideas: as the problem as to the "objectivity" of duty and intrinsic
value. The first set of philosophers would maintain that the notion of
the "objectivity" of duty and of value is a mere chimera; while the
second would maintain that these ideas really are "objective." And
others express it as the question whether the ideas of duty and of good
are "absolute" or purely "relative": whether there is any such thing
as an absolute duty or an absolute good, or whether good and duty are
purely relative to human feelings and desires. But both these ways
of expressing it are, I think, apt to lead to confusion. And another
even less clear way in which it is put is by asking the question: Is
the assertion that such and such a thing is a duty, or has intrinsic
value, ever _a dictate of reason?_ But so far as I can gather, the
question really at issue, and expressed in these obscure ways, is the
one which I have tried to state. It is the question whether when we
judge (whether truly or falsely) that an action is a duty or a state
of things good, _all_ that we are thinking about the action or the
state of things in question, is simply and solely that we ourselves
or others have or tend to have a certain feeling towards it when we
contemplate or think of it. And the question seems to me to be of great
interest, because, if this is all, then it is evident that all the
ideas with which Moral Philosophy is concerned are merely psychological
ideas; and all moral rules, and statements as to what is intrinsically
valuable, merely true or false psychological statements; so that
the whole of Moral Philosophy and Ethics will be merely departments
of Psychology. Whereas, if the contrary is the case, then these two
ideas of moral obligation and intrinsic value, will be no more purely
psychological ideas than are the ideas of shape or size or number; and
Moral Philosophy will be concerned with characteristics of actions
and feelings and states of affairs, which these actions and feelings
and states of affairs would or might have possessed, even if human
psychology had been quite different from what it is.
Which, then, of these two views is the true one? Are these two ideas
merely psychological ideas in the sense which I have tried to explain,
or are they not?
As I have said, I feel some doubts myself whether they are or not: it
does not seem to me to be a matter to dogmatize upon. But I am strongly
inclined to think that they are not merely psychological; that Moral
Philosophy and Ethics are not mere departments of Psychology. In favour
of the view that the two ideas in question are merely psychological,
there is, so far as I am aware, nothing whatever to be said, except
that so many philosophers have been absolutely convinced that they are.
None of them seem to me to have succeeded in bringing forward a single
argument in favour of their view. And against the view that they are,
there seem to me to be some quite definite arguments, though I am not
satisfied that any of these arguments are absolutely conclusive. I will
try to state briefly and clearly what seem to me the main arguments
against the view that these are merely psychological ideas; although,
in doing so, I am faced with a certain difficulty. For though, as I
have said, many philosophers are absolutely convinced, that "duty"
and "good" do merely stand for psychological ideas, they are by no
means agreed _what_ the psychological ideas are for which they stand.
Different philosophers have hit on very different ideas as being the
ideas for which they stand; and this very fact that, if they _are_
psychological ideas at all, it is so difficult to agree as to _what_
ideas they are, seems to me in itself to be an argument against the
view that they are so.
Let me take each of the two ideas separately, and try to exhibit the
sort of objection there seems to be to the view that it is merely a
psychological idea.
Take first the idea of moral obligation. What purely psychological
assertion can I be making about an action, when I assert that it was
"wrong," that it ought not to have been done?
In this case, one view, which is in some ways the most plausible that
can be taken, is that in every case I am merely making an assertion
about my own psychology. But what assertion about my own psychology can
I be making? Let us take as an example, the view of Prof. Westermarck,
which is as plausible a view of this type as any that I know of. He
holds that what I am judging when I judge an action to be wrong, is
merely that it is of a sort which _tends_ to excite in me a peculiar
kind of feeling--the feeling of moral indignation or disapproval. He
does not say that what I am judging is that the action in question _is
actually_ exciting this feeling in me. For it is obviously not true
that, when I judge an action to be much more wrong than another, I am
always actually feeling much indignation at the thought of either, or
much more indignation at the thought of the one than at that of the
other; and it is inconceivable that I should constantly be making so
great a mistake as to my own psychology, as to think that I am actually
feeling great indignation when I am not. But he thinks it is plausible
to say that I am making a judgment as to the _tendency_ of such actions
to excite indignation in me; that, for instance, when I judge that one
is much more wrong than the other, I am merely asserting the fact,
taught me by my past experience, that, if I were to witness the two
actions, under similar circumstances, I should feel a much more intense
indignation at the one than at the other.[1]
But there is one very serious objection to such a view, which I think
that those who take it are apt not fully to realise. If this view be
true, then when I judge an action to be wrong, I am merely making a
judgment about my own feelings towards it; and when you judge it to
be wrong, you are merely making a judgment about yours. And hence the
word "wrong" in my mouth, means something entirely different from
what it does in yours; just as the word "I" in my mouth stands for an
entirely different person from what it does in yours--in mine it stands
for me, in yours it stands for you. That is to say when I judge of a
given action that it was wrong, and you perhaps of the very same action
that it was not, we are not in fact differing in opinion about it at
all; any more than we are differing in opinion if I make the judgment
"I came from Cambridge to-day" and you make the judgment "_I_ did not
come from Cambridge to-day." When _I_ say "That was wrong" I am merely
saying "That sort of action excites indignation in me, when I see it";
and when you say "No; it was not wrong" you are merely saying "It
does not excite indignation in _me,_ when _I_ see it." And obviously
both judgments may perfectly well be true together; just as my judgment
that I did come from Cambridge to-day and yours that you did not, may
perfectly well be true together. In other words, and this is what I
want to insist on, if this view be true, then there is absolutely
no such thing as a difference of opinion upon moral questions. If
two persons think they differ in opinion on a moral question (and it
certainly seems as if they sometimes _think_ so), they are always,
on this view, making a mistake, and a mistake so gross that it seems
hardly possible that they should make it: a mistake as gross as that
which would be involved in thinking that when you say "I did not come
from Cambridge to-day" you are denying what I say when I say "I did."
And this seems to me to be a very serious objection to the view.
Don't people, in fact, sometimes really differ in opinion on a moral
question? Certainly all appearances are in favour of the view that they
do: and yet, if they do, that can only be if when I think a thing to
be wrong, and you think it not to be wrong, I mean by "wrong" the very
_same_ characteristic which you mean, and am thinking that the action
possesses this characteristic while you are thinking it does not. It
must be the very _same_ characteristic which we both mean; it cannot
be, as this view says it is, merely that I am thinking that it has to
my feelings the very same relation, which you are thinking that it
has not got to yours; since, if this were all, then there would be no
difference of opinion between us.
And this view that when we talk of wrong or duty, we are not
merely, each of us, making a statement about the relation of the
thing in question to our own feelings, may be reinforced by another
consideration. It is commonly believed that some moral rules exhibit a
_higher_ morality than others: that, for instance a person who believes
that it is our duty to do good to our enemies, has a higher moral
belief, than one who believes that he has no such duty, but only a duty
to do good to his friends or fellow-countrymen. And Westermarck himself
believes that, some moral beliefs, "mark a stage of higher refinement
in the evolution of the moral consciousness."[2] But what, on his view
can be meant by saying that one moral belief is higher than another? If
A believes that it is his duty to do good to his enemies and B believes
that it is not, in what sense can A's belief be higher than B's? Not,
on this view, in the sense that what A believes is true, and what B
believes is not; for what A is believing is merely that the idea of not
doing good to your enemies tends to excite in him a feeling of moral
indignation, and what B believes is merely that it does not tend to
excite this feeling in _him_: and both beliefs may perfectly well be
true; it may really be true that the same actions do excite the feeling
in A, and that they don't in B. What then, could Westermarck mean by
saying that A's morality is higher than B's? So far as I can see, what,
on his own views, he would have to mean is merely that he himself,
Westermarck, shares A's morality and does not share B's: that it is
true of him, as of A, that neglecting to do good to enemies excites
his feelings of moral indignation and not true of him as it is of B,
that it does _not_ excite such feelings in him. In short he would have
to say that what he means by calling A's morality the higher is merely
"A's morality is _my_ morality, and B's is not." But it seems to me
quite clear that when we say one morality is higher than another, we do
not merely mean that it is our own. We are not merely asserting that it
has a certain relation to our own feelings, but are asserting, if I may
say so, that the person who has it has a better moral taste than the
person who has not. And whether or not this means merely, as I think,
that what the one believes is true, and what the other believes is
false, it is at all events inconsistent with the view that in all cases
we are merely making a statement about our own feelings.
For these reasons it seems to me extremely difficult to believe that
when we judge things to be wrong, each of us is merely making a
judgment about _his own_ psychology. But if not about our own, then
about whose? I have already said that the view that, if the judgment
is merely a psychological one at all, it is a judgment about our
own psychology, is in some ways more plausible than any other view.
And I think we can now see that any other view is _not_ plausible.
The alternatives are that I should be making a judgment about the
psychology of all mankind, or about that of some particular section
of it. And that the first alternative is not true, is, I think,
evident from the fact that, when I judge an action to be wrong, I
may emphatically _not_ believe that it is true of all mankind that
they would regard it with feelings of moral disapproval. I may know
perfectly well that some would not. Most philosophers, therefore, have
not ventured to say that this is the judgment I am making; they say,
for instance, that I am making a judgment about the feelings of the
particular society to which I belong--about, for instance, the feelings
of an impartial spectator in that society. But, if this view be taken,
it is open to the same objections as the view that I am merely making a
judgment about my own feelings. If we could say that every man, when he
judges a thing to be wrong, was making a statement about the feelings
of all mankind, then when A says "This is wrong" and B says "No, it
isn't," they would really be differing in opinion, since A would be
saying that all mankind feel in a certain way towards the action, and
B would be saying that they don't. But if A is referring merely to his
society and B to his, and their societies are different, then obviously
they are not differing in opinion at all: it may perfectly well be true
both that an impartial spectator in A's society does have a certain
sort of feeling towards actions of the sort in question, and that an
impartial spectator in B's does not. This view, therefore, implies that
it is impossible for two men belonging to different societies ever to
differ in opinion on a moral question. And this is a view which I find
it almost as hard to accept as the view that _no_ two men ever differ
in opinion on one.
For these reasons I think there are serious objections to the view
that the idea of moral obligation is merely a psychological idea.
But now let us briefly consider the idea of "good," in Aristotle's
sense, or intrinsic value.
As regards this idea, there is again a difference of opinion among
those who hold that it is a psychological idea, as to _what_ idea it
is. The majority seem to hold that it is to be defined, somehow, in
terms of desire; while others have held that what we are judging when
we judge that one state of things is or would be intrinsically better
than another, is rather that the belief that the one was going to be
realized would, under certain circumstances, give more pleasure to some
man or set of men, than the belief that the other was. But the same
objections seem to me to apply whichever of these two views be taken.
Let us take desire. About whose desires am I making a judgment, when I
judge that one state of things would be better than another?
Here again, it may be said, first of all, that I am merely making a
judgment about my own. But in this case the view that my judgment is
merely about my own psychology is, I think, exposed to an obvious
objection to which Westermarck's view that my judgments of moral
obligation are about my own psychology was not exposed. The obvious
objection is that it is evidently not true that I do in fact always
desire more, what I judge to be better: I may judge one state of things
to be better than another, even when I know perfectly well not only
that I don't desire it more, but that I have no tendency to do so. It
is a notorious fact that men's strongest desires are, as a rule, for
things in which they themselves have some personal concern; and yet
the fact that this is so, and that they know it to be so, does not
prevent them from judging that changes, which would not affect them
personally, would constitute a very much greater improvement in the
world's condition, than changes which would. For this reason alone the
view that when I judge one state of things to be better than another I
am merely making a judgment about my own psychology, must, I think, be
given up: it is incredible that we should all be making such mistakes
about our feelings, as, on this view, we should constantly be doing.
And there is, of course, besides, the same objection, as applied in
the case of moral obligation: namely that, if this view were true, no
two men could ever differ in opinion as to which of two states was the
better, whereas it appears that they certainly sometimes do differ in
opinion on such an issue.
My judgment, then, is not merely a judgment about my own psychology:
but, if so, about whose psychology is it a judgment? It cannot be a
judgment that all men desire the one state more than the other; because
that would include the judgment that I myself do so, which, as we have
seen, I often know to be false, even while I judge that the one state
really is better. And it cannot, I think, be a judgment merely about
the feelings or desires of an impartial spectator in my own society;
since that would involve the paradox that men belonging to different
societies could never differ in opinion as to what was better. But we
have here to consider an alternative, which did not arise in the case
of moral obligation. It is a notorious fact that the satisfaction of
some of our desires is incompatible with the satisfaction of others,
and the satisfaction of those of some men with the satisfaction of
those of others. And this fact has suggested to some philosophers that
what we mean by saying that one state of things would be better than
another, is merely that it is a state in which more of the desires, of
those who were in it, would be satisfied at once, than would be the
case with the other. But to this view the fundamental objection seems
to me to be that whether the one state was better than the other would
depend not merely upon the number of desires that were simultaneously
satisfied in it, but upon what the desires were desires for. I can
imagine a state of things in which all desires were satisfied, and yet
can judge of it that it would not be so good as another in which some
were left unsatisfied. And for this reason I cannot assent to the view
that my judgment, that one state of things is better than another is
merely a judgment about the psychology of the people concerned in it.
This is why I find it hard to believe that either the idea of moral
obligation or the idea of intrinsic value is merely a psychological
idea. It seems to me that Moral Philosophy cannot be merely a
department of Psychology. But no doubt there may be arguments on the
other side to which I have not done justice.
[1] E Westermarck, _The Origin and Development of Moral Ideas_, Vol. I,
pp. 4, 13, 17-18, 100-101. On p. 105, however, Westermarck suggests a
view inconsistent with this one; namely that, when I judge an action to
be wrong, I am not _merely_ asserting that it has a tendency to excite
moral indignation in me, but am also asserting that other people _would
be_ convinced that it has a tendency to excite moral indignation in
them, if they "knew the act and all its attendant circumstances as well
as [I do], and if, at the same time their emotions were as refined as
[mine]."
[2] Ibid. p. 89.