Moral Science, Alexander Bain [top non fiction books of all time TXT] 📗

of any kind? In the case of particular desires, which all necessarily involve an uneasy sensation until they are gratified, it is no proof of their being selfish that their gratification gives the joy of success and stops uneasiness. On the other hand, to desire the welfare of others in the interest of ourselves is not benevolence nor virtue. What we have to seek are benevolent affections terminating ultimately in the good of others, and constituted by nature (either alone, or mayhap corroborated by some views of interest) 'the immediate cause of moral approbation.' Now, anything to be had from men could not raise within us such affections, or make us careful about anything beyond external deportment. Nor could rewards from God, or the wish for self-approbation, create such affections, although, on the supposition of their existence, these may well help to foster them. It is benevolent _dispositions_ that we morally approve; but dispositions are not to be raised by will. Moreover, they are often found where there has been least thought of cultivating them; and, sometimes, in the form of parental affection, gratitude, &c., they are followed so little for the sake of honour and reward, that though their absence is condemned, they are themselves hardly accounted virtuous at all. He then rebuts the idea that generous affections are selfish, because by _sympathy_ we make the pleasures and pains of others our own. Sympathy is a real fact, but has regard only to the distress or suffering beheld or imagined in others, whereas generous affection is varied toward different characters. Sympathy can never explain the immediate ardour of our good-will towards the morally excellent character, or the eagerness of a dying man for the prosperity of his children and friends. Having thus accepted the existence of purely disinterested affections, and divided them as before into calm and turbulent, he puts the question, Whether is the selfish or benevolent principle to yield in case of opposition? And although it appears that, as a fact, the universal happiness is preferred to the individual in the order of the world by the Deity, this is nothing, unless by some determination of the soul we are made to comply with the Divine intentions. If by the desire of reward, it is selfishness still; if by the desire, following upon the sight, of moral excellence, then there must necessarily exist as its object some determination of the will involving supreme moral excellence, otherwise there will be no way of deciding between particular affections. This leads on to the consideration of the Moral Faculty.

But, in the beginning of Chapter IV., he first rejects one by one these various accounts of the reason of our approbation of moral conduct:--pleasure by sympathy; pleasure through the moral sense; notion of advantage to the agent, or to the approver, and this direct or imagined; tendency to procure honour; conformity to law, to truth, fitness, congruity, &c.; also education, association, &c. He then asserts a natural and immediate determination in man to approve certain affections and actions consequent on them; or a natural sense of immediate excellence in them, not referred to any other quality perceivable by our other senses, or by reasoning. It is a sense not dependent on bodily organs, but a settled determination of the soul. It is a sense, in like manner as, with every one of our powers--voice, designing, motion, reasoning, there is bound up a taste, sense, or relish, discerning and recommending their proper exercise; but superior to all these, because the power of moral action is superior. It can be trained like any other sense--hearing, harmony, &c.--so as to be brought to approve finer objects, for instance the general happiness rather than mere motions of pity. That it is meant to control and regulate all the other powers is matter of immediate consciousness; we must ever prefer moral good to the good apprehended by the other perceptive powers. For while every other good is lessened by the sacrifices made to gain it, moral good is thereby increased and relished the more. The _objects_ of moral approbation are primarily affections of the will, but, all experience shows, only such as tend to the happiness of others, and the moral perfection of the mind possessing them. There are, however, many degrees of approbation; and, when we put aside qualities that approve themselves merely to the sense of decency or dignity, and also the calm desire of private good, which is indifferent, being neither virtuous nor vicious, the gradation of qualities morally approved may be given thus: (1) Dignified abilities (pursuit of sciences, &c.), showing a taste above sensuality and selfishness. (2) Qualities immediately connected with virtuous affections--candour, veracity, fortitude, sense of honour. (3) The kind affections themselves, and the more as they are fixed rather than passionate, and extensive rather than narrow; highest of all in the form of universal good-will to all. (4) The disposition to desire and love moral excellence, whether observed in ourselves or others--in short, true piety towards God. He goes on to give a similar scale of moral turpitude. Again, putting aside the indifferent qualities, and also those that merely make people despicable and prove them insensible, he cites--(1) the gratification of a narrow kind of affection when the public good might have been served. (2) Acts detrimental to the public, done under fear of personal ill, or great temptation. (3) Sudden angry passions (especially when grown into habits) causing injury. (4) Injury caused by selfish and sensual passions. (5) Deliberate injury springing from calm selfishness. (6) Impiety towards the Deity, as known to be good. The worst conceivable disposition, a fixed, unprovoked original malice is hardly found among men. In the end of the chapter, he re-asserts the supremacy of the moral faculty, and of the principle of pure benevolence that it involves. The inconsistency of the principles of self-love and benevolence when it arises, is reduced in favour of the second by the intervention of the moral sense, which does not hold out future rewards and pleasures of self-approbation, but decides for the generous part by 'an immediate undefinable perception.' So at least, if human nature were properly cultivated, although it is true that in common life men are wont to follow their particular affections, generous and selfish, without thought of extensive benevolence or calm self-love; and it is found necessary to counterbalance the advantage that the selfish principles gain in early life, by propping up the moral faculty with considerations of the surest mode of attaining the highest private happiness, and with views of the moral administration of the world by the Deity.

But before passing to these subjects, he devotes Chapter V. to the confirmation of the doctrine of the Moral Sense, and first from the Sense of Honour. This, the grateful sensation when we are morally approved and praised, with the reverse when we are censured, he argues in his usual manner, involves no thought of private interest. However the facts may stand, it is always under the impression of actions being moral or immoral, that the sense of honour works. In defence of the doctrine of a moral sense, against the argument from the varying morality of different nations, he says it would only prove the sense not uniform, as the palate is not uniform in all men. But the moral sense is really more uniform. For, in every nation, it is the benevolent actions and affections that are approved, and wherever there is an error of fact, it is the reason, not the moral sense, that is at fault. There are no cases of nations where moral approval is restricted to the pursuit of private interest. The chief causes of variety of moral approbation are three: (1) Different notions of happiness and the means of promoting it, whereby much that is peculiar in national customs, &c., is explained, without reflecting upon the moral sense. (2) The larger or more confined field on which men consider the tendencies of their actions--sect, party, country, &c. (3) Different opinions about the divine commands, which are allowed to over-ride the moral sense. The moral sense does not imply innate complex ideas of the several actions and their tendencies, which must be discovered by observation and reasoning; it is concerned only about inward affections and dispositions, of which the effects may be very various. In closing this part of his subject, he considers that all that is needed for the formation of morals, has been given, because from the moral faculty and benevolent affection all the special laws of nature can be deduced. But because the moral faculty and benevolence have difficulty in making way against the selfish principles so early rooted in man, it is needful to strengthen these foundations of morality by the consideration of the nature of the highest happiness.

With Chapter VI. accordingly he enters on the discussion of Happiness, forming the second half of his first book. The supreme happiness of any being is the full enjoyment of all the gratifications its nature desires or is capable of; but, in case of their being inconsistent, the constant gratification of the higher, intenser, and more durable pleasures is to be preferred.

In Chapter VII., he therefore directly compares the various kinds of enjoyment and misery, in order to know what of the first must be surrendered, and what of the second endured, in aiming at highest attainable happiness. Pleasures the same in kind are preferable, according as they are more intense and enduring; of a different kind, as they are more enduring and dignified, a fact decided at once by our immediate sense of dignity or worth. In the great diversity of tastes regarding pleasures, he supposes the ultimate decision as to the value of pleasures to rest with the possessors of finer perceptive powers, but adds, that good men are the best judges, because possessed of fuller experience than the vicious, whose tastes, senses, and appetites have lost their natural vigour through one-sided indulgence. He then goes through the various pleasures, depreciating the pleasures of the palate on the positive side, and sexual pleasure as transitory and enslaving when pursued for itself; the sensual enjoyments are, notwithstanding, quite proper within due limits, and then, perhaps, are at their highest. The pleasures of the _imagination_, knowledge, &c., differ from the last in not being preceded by an uneasy sensation to be removed, and are clearly more dignified and endurable, being the proper exercise of the soul when it is not moved by the affections of social virtue, or the offices of rational piety. The _sympathetic_ pleasures are very extensive, very intense, and may be of very long duration; they are superior to all the foregoing, if there is a hearty affection, and are at their height along with the feeling of universal good will. _Moral_ Enjoyments, from the consciousness of good affections and actions, when by close reflexion we have attained just notions of virtue and merit, rank highest of all, as well in dignity as in duration. The pleasures of _honour_, when our conduct is approved, are also among the highest, and when, as commonly happens, they are conjoined with the last two classes, it is the height of human bliss. The pleasures of _mirth_, such as they are, fall in best with virtue, and so, too, the pleasures of _wealth_ and _power_, in themselves unsatisfying. Anger, malice, revenge, &c., are not without their uses, and give momentary pleasure as removing an uneasiness from the subject of them; but they are not to be compared with the sympathetic feelings, because their effects cannot long be regarded with satisfaction. His general conclusion is, that as the highest personal satisfaction is had in the most benevolent dispositions, the same course of conduct is recommended alike by the two great determinations of our nature, towards our own good and the good of others. He then compares the several sorts of pain,