MOTIVES OR SPRINGS OF ACTION CONSIDERED AS SUBJECTS OF MORAL JUDGMENT
§ 1. In the first chapter of this third Book I was careful to
point out that motives, as well as intentions, form part of the
subject-matter of our common moral judgments: and indeed in our notion
of ‘conscientiousness’ the habit of reflecting on motives, and judging
them to be good or bad, is a prominent element. It is necessary,
therefore, in order to complete our examination of the Intuitional
Method, to consider this comparison of motives, and ascertain how far
it can be made systematic, and pursued to conclusions of scientific
value. And this seems a convenient place for treating of this part of
the subject: since it has been maintained by an important school of
English moralists that Desires and Affections rather than Acts are
the proper subjects of the ethical judgment: and it is natural to
fall back upon this view when systematic reflection on the morality
of Common Sense has shown us the difficulty of obtaining a precise
and satisfactory determination of rightness and wrongness in external
conduct.
To avoid confusion, it should be observed that the term ‘motive’ is
commonly used in two ways. It is sometimes applied to those among
the foreseen consequences of any act which the agent desired in
willing: and sometimes to the desire, or conscious impulse itself.
The two meanings are in a manner correspondent, as, where impulses
are different, there must always be some sort of difference in their
respective objects. But for our present purpose it is more convenient
to take the latter meaning: as it is our own impulsive nature that we
have practically to deal with, in the way of controlling, resisting,
indulging the different impulses; and therefore it is the ethical
value of these that we are primarily concerned to estimate: and we
often find that two impulses, which would be placed very far apart
in any psychological list, are directed towards an end materially
identical, though regarded from a different point of view in each case.
As (_e.g._) both appetite and Rational self-love may impel a man to
seek a particular sensual gratification; though in the latter case it
is regarded under the general notion of pleasure, and as forming part
of a sum called Happiness. In this chapter, then, I shall use the term
Motive to denote the desires of particular results, believed to be
attainable as consequences of our voluntary acts, by which desires we
are stimulated to will those acts.[271]
The first point to notice in considering the ethical result of a
comprehensive comparison of motives is, that the issue in any internal
conflict is not usually thought to be between positively good and bad,
but between better and less good, more or less estimable or elevated
motives. The only kind of motive which (if any) we commonly judge
to be _intrinsically_ bad, apart from the circumstances under which
it operates, is malevolent affection; that is, the desire, however
aroused, to inflict pain or harm on some other sentient being. And
reflection shows (as we saw in chap. viii. of this Book) that Common
Sense does not pronounce even this kind of impulse absolutely bad:
since we commonly recognise the existence of ‘legitimate resentment’
and ‘righteous indignation’; and though moralists try to distinguish
between anger directed ‘against the act’ and ‘against the agent,’ and
between the impulse to inflict pain and the desire of the antipathetic
pleasure that the agent will reap from this infliction, it may be
fairly doubted whether it is within the capacity of ordinary human
nature to maintain these distinctions in practice. At any rate there
is no other motive except deliberate malevolence which Common Sense
condemns as absolutely bad. The other motives that are commonly
spoken of in ‘dyslogistic’ terms seem to be most properly called (in
Bentham’s language) ‘Seductive’ rather than bad. That is, they prompt
to forbidden conduct with conspicuous force and frequency: but when we
consider them carefully we find that there are certain limits, however
narrow, within which their operation is legitimate.
The question, then, is how far the intuitive knowledge that our common
judgments seem to imply of the relative goodness of different kinds of
motives is found on reflection to satisfy the conditions laid down in
the preceding chapter. I have before[272] argued that it is incorrect
to regard this comparison of _motives_ as the normal form of our common
moral judgments, nor do I see any ground for holding it to be the
original form. I think that in the normal development of man’s moral
consciousness, both in the individual and in the race, moral judgments
are first passed on outward acts, and that motives do not come to
be definitely considered till later; just as external perception of
physical objects precedes introspection. At the same time, in my view,
it does not therefore follow that the comparison of motives is not the
final and most perfect form of the moral judgment. It might approve
itself as such by the systematic clearness and mutual consistency
of the results to which it led, when pursued by different thinkers
independently: and by its freedom from the puzzles and difficulties to
which other developments of the Intuitional Method seem to be exposed.
It appears, however, on examination that, on the one hand, many (if not
all) of the difficulties which have emerged in the preceding discussion
of the commonly received principles of conduct are reproduced in a
different form when we try to arrange Motives in order of excellence:
and on the other hand, such a construction presents difficulties
peculiar to itself, and the attempt to solve these exhibits greater and
more fundamental differences among Intuitive moralists, as regards Rank
of Motive, than we found to exist as regards Rightness of outward acts.
§ 2. In the first place, it has to be decided whether we are to
include in our list of motives the Moral Sentiments, or impulses
towards particular kinds of virtuous conduct as such, _e.g._ Candour,
Veracity, Fortitude. It seems unwarrantable to exclude them, as
such sentiments are observable as distinct and independent impulses
in most well-trained minds, and we sometimes recognise their
existence in considerable intensity, as when we speak of a man being
‘enthusiastically brave,’ or ‘intensely veracious,’ or as ‘having
a passion for justice.’ At the same time their admission places us
in the following dilemma. Either the objects of these impulses are
represented by the very notions that we have been examining--in which
case, after we have decided that any impulse is better than its rival,
all the perplexities set forth in the previous chapters will recur,
before we can act on our decision; for what avails it to recognise
the superiority of the impulse to do justice, if we do not know
what it is just to do?--or if in any case the object which a moral
sentiment prompts us to realise is conceived more simply, without the
qualifications which a complete reflection on Common Sense forced us
to recognise; then, as the previous investigation shows, we shall
certainly not find agreement as to the relation between this and other
impulses. For example, a dispute, whether the impulse to speak the
truth ought or ought not to be followed, will inevitably arise when
Veracity seems opposed either to the general good, or to the interests
of some particular person; that is, when it conflicts with ‘particular’
or ‘universal’ benevolence. Hutcheson expressly places these latter
impulses in a higher rank than “candour, veracity, fortitude”;
reserving the highest moral approbation for “the most extensive
benevolence” or “calm, stable, universal goodwill to all.”[273] But
this view, which coincides practically with Utilitarianism, would
certainly be disputed by most Intuitional moralists. Again, some of
these moralists (as Kant) regard all actions as bad--or not good--which
are not done from pure regard for duty or choice of Right as Right:
while Hutcheson, who represents the opposite pole of Intuitional
Ethics, equally distinguishes the love of Virtue as a separate impulse;
but treats it as at once co-ordinate in rank and coincident in its
effects with universal Benevolence.
So, again, moralists diverge widely in estimating the ethical value of
Self-love. For Butler seems to regard it as one of two superior and
naturally authoritative impulses, the other being Conscience: nay, in a
passage before quoted, he even concedes that it would be reasonable for
Conscience to yield to it, if the two could possibly conflict. Other
moralists (and Butler elsewhere)[274] appear to place Self-love among
virtuous impulses under the name of Prudence: though among these they
often rank it rather low, and would have it yield in case of conflict,
to nobler virtues. Others, again, exclude it from Virtue altogether:
_e.g._ Kant, in one of his treatises,[275] says that the end of
Self-love, one’s own happiness, cannot be an end for the Moral Reason;
that the force of the reasonable will, in which Virtue consists, is
always exhibited in resistance to natural egoistic impulses.
Dr. Martineau, whose system is framed on the basis that I am now
examining, attempts to avoid some of the difficulties just pointed out
by refusing to admit the existence of any virtuous impulses except
the “preference for the superior of the competing springs of action
in each case” of a conflict of motives. “I cannot admit,” he says,
“either the _loves of Virtues_--of candour, veracity, fortitude--or
the virtues themselves, as so many additional impulses over and above
those from the conflict of which they are formed. I do not confess my
fault _in order to be candid_ ... unless I am a prig, I never think of
candour, as predicable, or going to be predicable, of me at all.”[276]
I am not, however, sure whether Dr. Martineau really means to _deny_
the existence of persons who act from a conscious desire to realise an
ideal of Candour or Fortitude, or whether he merely means to express
_disapproval_ of such persons: in the former sense his statement seems
to me a psychological paradox, in conflict with ordinary experience:
in the latter sense it seems an ethical paradox, affording a striking
example of that diversity of judgments as to the rank of motives, to
which I am now drawing attention.
§ 3. But even if we put out of sight the Moral sentiments and
Self-love, it is still scarcely possible to frame a scale of motives
arranged in order of merit, for which we could claim anything like a
clear consent, even of cultivated and thoughtful persons. On one or
two points, indeed, we seem to be generally agreed; _e.g._ that the
bodily appetites are inferior to the benevolent affections and the
intellectual desires; and perhaps that impulses tending primarily to
the well-being of the individual are lower in rank than those which
we class as extra-regarding or disinterested. But beyond a few vague
statements of this kind, it is very difficult to proceed. For example,
when we compare personal affections with the love of knowledge or
of beauty, or the passion for the ideal in any form, much doubt and
divergence of opinion become manifest. Indeed, we should hardly agree
on the relative rank of the benevolent affections taken by themselves;
for some would prefer the more intense, though narrower, while others
would place the calmer and wider feelings in the highest rank. Or
again, since Love, as we saw,[277] is a complex emotion, and commonly
includes, besides the desire of the good or happiness of the beloved,
a desire for union or intimacy of some kind; some would consider
an affection more elevated in proportion as the former element
predominated, while others would regard the latter as at least equally
essential to the highest kind of affection.
Again, we may notice the love of Fame as an important and widely
operative motive, which would be ranked very differently by different
persons: for some would place the former “spur that the clear
spirit doth raise” among the most elevated impulses after the moral
sentiments; while others think it degrading to depend for one’s
happiness on the breath of popular favour.
Further, the more we contemplate the actual promptings that precede any
volition, the more we seem to find complexity of motive the rule rather
than the exception, at least in the case of educated persons: and from
this composition of impulses there results a fundamental perplexity as
to the principles on which our decision is to be made, even supposing
that we have a clear view of the relative worth of the elementary
impulses. For the compound will generally contain nobler and baser
elements, and we can hardly get rid of the latter; since--as I have
before said--though we may frequently suppress and expel a motive by
firmly resisting it, it does not seem possible to exclude it if we do
the act to which it prompts. Suppose, then, that we are impelled in one
direction by a combination of high and low motives, and in another by
an impulse that ranks between the two in the scale, how shall we decide
which course to follow? Such a case is by no means uncommon: _e.g._ an
injured man may be moved by an impulse of pity to spare his injurer,
while a regard for justice and a desire of revenge combined impel him
to inflict punishment. Or, again, a Jew of liberal views might be
restrained from eating pork by a desire not to shock the feelings of
his friends, and might be moved to eat it by the desire to vindicate
true religious liberty combined with a liking for pork. How are we to
deal with such a case as this? For it will hardly be suggested that we
should estimate the relative proportions of the different motives and
decide accordingly;--qualitative analysis of our motives is to some
extent possible to us, but the quantitative analysis that this would
require is not in our power.
But even apart from this difficulty arising from complexity of
motives, I think it impossible to assign a definite and constant
ethical value to each different kind of motive, without reference to
the particular circumstances under which it has arisen, the extent
of indulgence that it demands, and the consequences to which this
indulgence would lead in any particular case. I may conveniently
illustrate this by reference to the table, drawn up by Dr.
Martineau,[278] of springs of action arranged in order of merit.
LOWEST.
1. Secondary Passions:--Censoriousness, Vindictiveness, Suspiciousness.
2. Secondary Organic Propensions:--Love of Ease and Sensual Pleasure.
3. Primary Organic Propensions:--Appetites.
4. Primary Animal Propension:--Spontaneous Activity (unselective).
5. Love of Gain (reflective derivative from Appetite).
6. Secondary Affections (sentimental indulgence of sympathetic
feelings).
7. Primary Passions:--Antipathy, Fear, Resentment.
8. Causal energy:--Love of Power, or Ambition; Love of Liberty.
9. Secondary Sentiments:--Love of Culture.
10. Primary Sentiments of Wonder and Admiration.
11. Primary Affections, Parental and Social; with (approximately)
Generosity and Gratitude.
12. Primary Affection of Compassion.
13. Primary Sentiment of Reverence.
HIGHEST.
This scale seems to me open to much criticism, both from a
psychological and from an ethical point of view:[279] but, granting
that it corresponds broadly to the judgments that men commonly pass
as to the different elevation of different motives, it seems to me
in the highest degree paradoxical to lay down that each class of
motives is always to be preferred to the class below it, without
regard to circumstances and consequences. So far as it is true that
“the conscience says to every one, ‘Do not eat till you are hungry and
stop when you are hungry no more,’” it is not, I venture to think,
because a “regulative right is clearly vested in primary instinctive
needs, relatively to their secondaries,” but because experience has
shown that to seek the gratification of the palate apart from the
satisfaction of hunger is generally dangerous to physical well-being;
and it is in view of this danger that the conscience operates. If
we condemn “a ship captain,” who, “caught in a fog off a lee shore,
neglects, through indolence and love of ease, to slacken speed and
take cautious soundings and open his steam-whistle,” it is not because
we intuitively discern Fear to be a higher motive than Love of Ease,
but because the consequences disregarded are judged to be indefinitely
more important than the gratification obtained: if we took a case in
which fear was not similarly sustained by prudence, our judgment would
certainly be different.
The view of Common Sense appears rather to be that most natural
impulses have their proper spheres, within which they should be
normally operative, and therefore the question whether in any case a
higher motive should yield to a lower one cannot be answered decisively
in the general way in which Dr. Martineau answers it: the answer must
depend on the particular conditions and circumstances of the conflict.
We recognise it as possible that a motive which we commonly rank as
higher may wrongly intrude into the proper sphere of one which we
rank as lower, just as the lower is liable to encroach on the higher;
only since there is very much less danger of the former intrusion,
it naturally falls into the background in ethical discussions and
exhortations that have a practical aim. The matter is complicated
by the further consideration that as the character of a moral agent
becomes better, the motives that we rank as “higher” tend to be
developed, so that their normal sphere of operation is enlarged at
the expense of the lower. Hence there are two distinct aims in moral
regulation and culture, so far as they relate to motives: (1) to keep
the “lower” motive within the limits within which its operation is
considered to be legitimate and good on the whole, so long as we cannot
substitute for it the equally effective operation of a higher motive;
and at the same time (2) to effect this substitution of “higher” for
“lower” gradually, as far as can be done without danger,--up to a limit
which we cannot definitely fix, but which we certainly conceive, for
the most part, as falling short of complete exclusion of the lower
motive.
I may illustrate by reference to the passion of resentment of which
I before spoke. The view of reflective common sense is, I think,
that the malevolent impulse so designated, as long as it is strictly
limited to resentment against wrong and operates in aid of justice,
has a legitimate sphere of action in the social life of human beings
as actually constituted: that, indeed, its suppression would be
gravely mischievous, unless we could at the same time intensify the
ordinary man’s regard for justice or for social well-being so that
the total strength of motives prompting to the punishment of crime
should not be diminished. It is, no doubt, “to be wished,” as Butler
says, that men would repress wrong from these higher motives rather
than from passionate resentment; but we cannot hope to effect this
change in human beings generally except by a slow and gradual process
of elevation of character: therefore supposing a conflict between
“Compassion,” which is highest but one in Dr. Martineau’s scale, and
“Resentment,” which he places about the middle, it is by no means to be
laid down as a general rule that compassion ought to prevail. We ought
rather--with Butler--to regard resentment as a salutary “balance to the
weakness of pity,” which would be liable to prevent the execution of
justice if resentment were excluded.
Or we might similarly take the impulse which comes lowest (among those
not condemned altogether) in Dr. Martineau’s scale--the “Love of Ease
and Sensual Pleasure.” No doubt this impulse, or group of impulses, is
continually leading men to shirk or scamp their strict duty, or to fall
in some less definite way below their own ideal of conduct; hence the
attitude habitually maintained towards it by preachers and practical
moralists is that of repression. Still, common sense surely recognises
that there are cases in which even this impulse ought to prevail over
impulses ranked above it in Dr. Martineau’s scale; we often find
men prompted--say by “love of gain”--to shorten unduly their hours
of recreation; and in the case of a conflict of motives under such
circumstances we should judge it best that victory should remain on the
side of the “love of ease and pleasure,” and that the encroachment of
“love of gain” should be repelled.
I do not, however, think that in either of these instances the
conflict of motives would remain such as I have just described: I think
that though the struggle might begin as a duel between resentment and
compassion, or between love of ease and love of gain, it would not be
fought out in the lists so drawn; since higher motives would inevitably
be called in as the conflict went on, regard for justice and social
well-being on the side of resentment, regard for health and ultimate
efficiency for work on the side of love of ease; and it would be the
intervention of these higher motives that would decide the struggle, so
far as it was decided rightly and as we should approve. This certainly
is what would happen in my own case, if the supposed conflict were at
all serious and its decision deliberate; and this constitutes my final
reason for holding that such a scale as Dr. Martineau has drawn up, of
motives arranged according to their moral rank, can never have more
than a very subordinate ethical importance. I admit that it may serve
to indicate in a rough and general way the kinds of desires which it
is ordinarily best to encourage and indulge, in comparison with other
kinds which are ordinarily likely to compete and collide with them;
and we might thus settle summarily some of the comparatively trifling
conflicts of motive which the varying and complex play of needs,
habits, interests, and their accompanying emotions, continually stirs
in our daily life. But if a serious question of conduct is raised, I
cannot conceive myself deciding it morally by any comparison of motives
below the highest: it seems to me that the question must inevitably be
carried up for decision into the court of whatever motive we regard as
supremely regulative: so that the comparison ultimately decisive would
be not between the lower motives primarily conflicting, but between the
effects of the different lines of conduct to which these lower motives
respectively prompt, considered in relation to whatever we regard as
the ultimate end or ends of reasonable action. And this, I conceive,
will be the course naturally taken by the moral reflection not only of
utilitarians, but of all who follow Butler in regarding our passions
and propensions as forming naturally a “system or constitution,” in
which the ends of lower impulses are subordinate as means to the ends
of certain governing motives, or are comprehended as parts in these
larger ends.
FOOTNOTES:
[271] In Green’s _Prolegomena to Ethics_, Book ii. chaps. i. and ii.
a peculiar view is taken of “motives, of that kind by which it is
the characteristic of moral or human action, to be determined.” Such
motives, it is maintained, must be distinguished from desires in the
sense of “mere solicitations of which a man is conscious”; they are
“constituted by the reaction of the man’s self upon these, and its
identification of itself with one of them.” In fact the “direction of
the self-conscious self to the realisation of an object” which I should
call an act of will, is the phenomenon to which Green would restrict
the term “desire in that sense in which desire is the principle and
notion of an imputable human action.”
The use of terms here suggested appears to me inconvenient, and the
psychological analysis implied in it to a great extent erroneous. I
admit that in certain simple cases of choice, where the alternatives
suggested are each prompted by a single definite desire, there is no
psychological inaccuracy in saying that in willing the act to which he
is stimulated by any such desire the agent “identifies himself with the
desire.” But in more complex cases the phrase appears to me incorrect,
as obliterating important distinctions between the two kinds of
psychical phenomena which are usually and conveniently distinguished as
“desires” and volitions. In the first place, as I have before pointed
out (chap. i. § 2 of this Book), it often happens that certain foreseen
consequences of volition, which as foreseen are undoubtedly _willed_
and--in a sense--_chosen_ by the agents, are not objects of desire
to him at all, but even possibly of aversion--aversion, of course,
overcome by his desire of other consequences of the same act. In the
second place, it is specially important, from an ethical point of view,
to notice that, among the various desires or aversions aroused in us
by the complex foreseen consequences of a contemplated act, there are
often impulses with which we do not identify ourselves, but which we
even try to suppress as far as possible: though as it is not possible
to suppress them completely--especially if we do the act to which they
prompt--we cannot say that they do not operate as motives.
[272] Cf. _ante_, chap. i. § 2 of this Book.
[273] Hutcheson, _System of Moral Philosophy_, Book i. chap. iv. § 10.
[274] See the Dissertation _Of the Nature of Virtue_ appended to the
_Analogy_.
[275] The _Metaphysische Anfangsgründe der Tugendlehre_: but it ought
to be observed that the ethical view briefly expounded in the _Kritik
der reinen Vernunft_ appears to have much more affinity with Butler’s.
[276] _Types of Ethical Theory_, Vol. ii. p. 284, 2nd edition.
[277] Cf. _ante_, chap. iv. § 2 of this Book.
[278] _Types of Ethical Theory_, vol. ii. p. 266. Dr. Martineau
explains that the chief composite springs are inserted in their
approximate place, subject to the variations of which their composition
renders them susceptible.
[279] Thus we might ask why the class of “passions” is so strangely
restricted, why conjugal affection is omitted, whether wonder can
properly be regarded as a definite motive, whether “censoriousness” is
properly ranked with “vindictiveness” as one of the “lowest passions,”
etc.