Moral Science - Alexander Bain (free ereaders .TXT) 📗

stands first in our regard, the author dilates on the virtues of a good citizen. Finally, although our effectual good offices may not extend beyond our country, our good-will may embrace the whole universe. This universal benevolence, however, the author thinks must repose on the belief in a benevolent and all-wise governor of the world, as realized, for example, in the meditations of Marcus Antoninus.

_Section III. Of Self-command_. On this topic the author produces a splendid moral essay, in which he describes the various modes of our self-estimation, and draws a contrast between pride and vanity. In so far as concerns his Ethical theory, he has still the same criterion of the virtue, the degree and mode commended by the impartial spectator.


PART VII. OF SYSTEMS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY.

On this we need only to remark that it is an interesting and valuable contribution to the history and the criticism of the Ethical systems.[23]

The Ethical theory of Adam Smith may be thus summed up:--

I.--The Ethical Standard is the judgment of an impartial spectator or critic; and our own judgments are derived by reference to what this spectator would approve or disapprove.

Probably to no one has this ever appeared a sufficient account of Right and Wrong. It provides against one defect, the self-partiality of the agent; but gives no account whatever of the grounds of the critic's own judgment, and makes no provision against his fallibility. It may be very well on points where men's moral sentiments are tolerably unanimous, but it is valueless in all questions where there are fundamental differences of view.

II.--In the Psychology of Ethics, Smith would consider the moral Faculty as identical with the power of Sympathy, which he treats as the foundation of Benevolence. A man is a moral being in proportion as he can enter into, and realize, the feelings, sentiments, and opinions of others.

Now, as morality would never have existed but for the necessity of protecting one human being against another, the power of the mind that adopts other people's interests and views must always be of vital moment as a spring of moral conduct; and Adam Smith has done great service in developing the workings of the sympathetic impulse.

He does not discuss Free-will. On the question of Disinterested Conduct, he gives no clear opinion. While denying that our sympathetic impulses are a refinement of self-love, he would seem to admit that they bring their own pleasure with them; so that, after all, they do not detract from our happiness. In other places, he recognizes self-sacrifice, but gives no analysis of the motives that lead to it; and seems to think, with many other moralists, that it requires a compensation in the next world.

III.--His theory of the constituents of Happiness is simple, primitive, and crude, but is given with earnest conviction. Ambition he laughs to scorn. 'What, he asks, can be added to the happiness of the man who is in health, out of debt, and has a clear conscience?' Again, 'the chief part of happiness consists in the consciousness of being beloved, hence, sudden changes of fortune seldom contribute to happiness.' But what he dwells upon most persistently, as the prime condition of happiness, is Contentment, and Tranquillity.

IV.--On the Moral Code, he has nothing peculiar. As to the means and inducements to morality, he does not avail himself of the fertility of his own principle of Sympathy. Appeals to sympathy, and the cultivation of the power of entering into the feelings of others, could easily be shown to play a high part in efficacious moral suasion.

V.--He affords little or no grounds for remarking on the connexion of Morality with Politics. Our duties as citizens are a part of Morality, and that is all.

VI.--He gives his views on the alliance of Ethics with Religion. He does not admit that we should refer to the Religious sanction on all occasions. He assumes a benevolent and all-wise Governor of the world, who will ultimately redress all inequalities, and remedy all outstanding injustice. What this Being approves, however, is to be inferred solely from the principles of benevolence. Our regard for him is to be shown, not by frivolous observances, sacrifices, ceremonies, and vain supplications, but by just and beneficent actions. The author studiously ignores a revelation, and constructs for himself a Natural Religion, grounded on a benevolent and just administration of the universe.

In Smith's Essay, the purely scientific enquiry is overlaid by practical and hortatory dissertations, and by eloquent delineations of character and of beau-ideals of virtuous conduct. His style being thus pitched to the popular key, he never pushes home a metaphysical analysis; so that even his favourite theme, Sympathy, is not philosophically sifted to the bottom.


DAVID HARTLEY. [1705-1757.]

The 'Observations on Man' (1749) is the first systematic effort to explain the phenomena of mind by the Law of Association. It contains also a philosophical hypothesis, that mental states are produced by the _vibration_ of infinitesimal particles of the nerves. This analogy, borrowed from the undulations of the hypothetical substance aether, has been censured as crude, and has been entirely superseded. But, although an imperfect analogy, it nevertheless kept constantly before the mind of Hartley the double aspect of all mental phenomena, thus preventing erroneous explanations, and often suggesting correct ones. In this respect, Aristotle and Hobbes are the only persons that can be named as equally fortunate.

The ethical remarks contained in the 'Observations,' relate only to the second head of summary, the Psychology of Ethics. We shall take, first, the account of disinterestedness, and, next, of the moral sense.

1. _Disinterestedness_. Under the name _Sympathy_, Hartley includes four kinds of feelings:--(1) Rejoicing at the happiness of others--Sociality, Good-will, Generosity, Gratitude; (2) Grieving for the misery of others--Compassion, Mercy; (3) Rejoicing at the misery of others--Anger, Jealousy, Cruelty, Malice; and (4) Grieving for the happiness of others--Emulation, Envy. All these feelings may be shown to originate in association. We select as examples of Hartley's method, Benevolence and Compassion. Benevolence is the pleasing affection that prompts us to act for the benefit of others. It is not a primitive feeling; but grows out of such circumstances as the following. Almost all the pleasures, and few, in comparison, of the pains, of children, are caused by others; who are thus, in the course of time, regarded with pleasure, independently of their usefulness to us. Many of our pleasures are enjoyed along with, and are enhanced by, the presence of others. This tends to make us more sociable. Moreover, we are taught and required to put on the appearance of good-will, and to do kindly actions, and this may beget in us the proper feelings. Finally, we must take into account the praise and rewards of benevolence, together with the reciprocity of benefits that we may justly expect. All those elements may be so mixed and blended as to produce a feeling that shall teach us to do good to others without any expectation of reward, even that most refined recompense--the pleasure arising from a beneficent act. Thus Hartley conceives that he both proves the existence of disinterested feeling, and explains the manner of its developement.

His account of _Compassion_ is similar. In the young, the signs and appearances of distress excite a painful feeling, by recalling their own experience of misery. In the old, the connexion between a feeling and its adjuncts has been weakened by experience. Also, when children are brought up together, they are often annoyed by the same things, and this tends powerfully to create a fellow-feeling. Again, when their parents are ill, they are taught to cultivate pity, and are also subjected to unusual restraints. All those things conspire to make children desire to remove the sufferings of others. Various circumstances increase the feeling of pity, as when the sufferers are beloved by us, or are morally good. It is confirmatory of this view, that the most compassionate are those whose nerves are easily irritable, or whose experience of affliction has been considerable.

2.--_The Moral Sense_. Hartley denies the existence of any moral instinct, or any moral judgments, proceeding upon the eternal relations of things. If there be such, let instances of them be produced prior to the influence of associations. Still, our moral approbation or disapprobation is disinterested, and has a factitious independence. (1) Children are taught what is right and wrong, and thus the associations connected with the idea of praise and blame are transferred to the virtues inculcated and the vices condemned. (2) Many vices and virtues, such as sensuality, intemperance, malice, and the opposites, produce _immediate_ consequences of evil and good respectively. (3) The benefits, immediate or (at least) obvious, flowing from the virtues of others, kindle love towards them, and thereafter to the virtues they exhibit. (4) Another consideration is the _loveliness of virtue_, arising from the suitableness of the virtues to each other, and to the beauty, order, and perfection of the world. (5) The hopes and fears connected with a future life, strengthen the feelings connected with virtue. (6) Meditation upon God and prayer have a like effect. 'All the pleasures and pains of sensation, imagination, ambition (pride and vanity), self-interest, sympathy, and theopathy (affection towards God), as far as they are consistent with one another, with the frame of our natures, and with the course of the world, beget in us a moral sense, and lead us to the love and approbation of virtue, and to the fear, hatred, and abhorrence of vice. This moral sense, therefore, carries its own authority with it, inasmuch as it is the sum total of all the rest, and the ultimate result from them; and employs the whole force and authority of the whole nature of man against any particular part of it that rebels against the determinations and commands of the conscience or moral judgment.'

Hartley's analysis of the moral sense is a great advance upon Hobbes and Mandeville, who make self-love the immediate constituent, instead of a remote cause, of conscience. Our moral consciousness may thus be treated as peculiar and distinguishable from other mental states, while at the same time it is denied to be unique and irresolvable.


THOMAS REID.[24] [1710-96.]

Reid's Ethical views are given in his Essays on the Active Powers of the Mind.

ESSAY III., entitled THE PRINCIPLES OF ACTION, contains (Part III.) a disquisition on the _Rational Principles of Action_ as opposed to what Reid calls respectively _Mechanical_ Principles (Instinct, Habit), and _Animal_ Principles (Appetites, Desires, Affections).

The Rational Principles of Action are Prudence, or regard to our own good on the whole, and Duty, which, however, he does not define by the antithetical circumstance--the 'good of others.' The notion of Duty, he says, is too simple for logical definition, and can only be explained by synonymes--_what we ought_ to do; what is fair and honest; what is approvable; the professed rule of men's conduct; what all men praise; the laudable in itself, though no man praise it.

Duty, he says, cannot be resolved into Interest. The language of mankind makes the two distinct. Disregard of our interest is folly; of honour, baseness. Honour is more than mere reputation, for it keeps us right when we are not seen. This principle of Honour (so-called by men of rank) is, in vulgar phrase, honesty, probity, virtue, conscience; in philosophical language, the moral sense, the moral faculty, rectitude.

The principle is universal in men grown up to years of understanding. Such a testimony as Hume's may be held decisive on the reality of moral distinctions. The ancient world recognized it in the leading terms, _honestum_ and _utile_, &c.

The abstract notion of Duty is a relation between the action and the agent. It must be voluntary, and within the