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BY THE SAME AUTHOR
THE UNIVERSITIES OF EUROPE IN THE
MIDDLE AGES 1895
DOCTRINE AND DEVELOPMENT 1898
NEW COLLEGE, in 'College Histories' Series
(with R. S. RAIT) 1901
THE ULTIMATE BASIS OF THEISM, in
'Contentio Veritatis, by six Oxford Tutors ' 1902
PERSONALITY HUMAN AND DIVINE, in
'Personal Idealism*; edited by H.C.STURT 1902
CHRISTUS IN ECCLESIA 1904
THE THEORY
OF GOOD AND EVIL
A TREATJSE ON MORAL PHILOSOPHY
BY
HASTINGS RASHDALL
D.UTT. (OXFORD), HON. D.OL. (DURHAM)
FELLOW AND TUTOR OF NEW COLLEGE, OXFORD
VOLUME I
OXFORD
AT THE CLARENDON PRESS
1907
HENRY FROWDE, M.A.
PUBLISHER TO THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
LONDON, EDINBURGH
NEW YORK AND TORONTO
TO THE MCBMpRY
OF
MY TEACHERS
THOMAS HILL GREEN
AND
HENRY SIDGWICK
PREFACE
THE scope of j>he present work is pe&aps made sufficiently
obvious by the tifl^-page. It is an attempt to deal with the
chief topics usually dismissed in books bearing the title ' Moral
Philosophy ' or ' Ethics.' -.It is on a rather larger scale than the
books generally described as * Textbooks/ or { Introductions,* and
is occupied to some extent with difficulties and controversies
which can hardly be called ' elementary.' Still, I have in writ-
ing it had chiefly before my mind the wants of undergraduate
students in Philosophy. I have endeavoured, as far as possible,
to assume no previous acquaintance either with ethical or with
general Philosophy : but it has not, in all parts of the work,
been possible to avoid alluding to the arguments and objections
of writers whose systems cannot be fully explained or examined
in a book like the present. That is especially the case in
Book II, which is largely occupied with replies to objections
and with the criticism of views more or less opposed to my
own. Even there I have endeavoured to make the drift of
my argument intelligible to readers who have not read the
works criticized. But those who want a short and fairly
elemeiitary treatment of the subject might perhaps read Book I
by itself, or pass at once from Book I to Book III. That book
deals in part with metaphysical questions which do not admit of
an altogether ( popular ' treatment ; this section of the work would
no doubt be better understood by a student who has read enough
to know in a a general way the meaning of the metaphysical
prot^em, but I hope it will not be found wholly unintelligible to
those who may make their first acquaintance with it in these
pages. Advanced students are more likely to complain that
I have touched upon many great questions, not specially belong?-
ing to the ethical branch of Philosophy, in a way which must
appear unsatisfying to those who are well versed in
dogmatic to those who do not agree with me. I
vi PREFACE
in reply to such a criticism to plead that the necessity of touch-
ing upon difficult questions without getting to the bottom of
them is to some extent inseparable from any treatment of Ethics
which does not form part of a complete course or system of
Philosophy: and the difficulty is increased when one wishes
to avoid allusiveness and technicality of a kind which would
necessarily render the book 'perplexing' and f uninstructive to
a student beginning the subject, or to the (^efteral reader who
may take some interest in the ethicil and religious aspects
of Philosophy without wishing to embark upon an elaborate
course of Logic, Psychology, and Metaphysic.
The idea prevails among some Philosophers that Moral Philo-
sophy is a particularly ' easy ' branch of Philosophy. I believe
that it is easier than other branches of Philosophy in the sense
that its more elementary problems can be discussed with less
technicality, and can be understood more readily at a first read-
ing by persons of ordinary ability and education. For this
reason it seems to me a peculiarly good subject for the student
pf Philosophy to begin upon, although logically it might well be
considered to come rather at the end than at tne beginning
of a philosophical course. But, though the controversies which
range round the words ' Utilitarianism ' and ' Intuitionism ' can
be understood and discussed almost without reference to meta-
physical problems, the ultimate question of Moral Philosophy
the meaning and nature of the ideas * good/ ' right/ * duty ' is
after all the ultimate question of all Philosophy, and involves all
the others. I am very far from thinking that I have got to the
bottom of all the difficulties involved in that fundamental
problem: upon some of them I am aware that I have hardly
touched in these pages. Nor is there anything very original
in such a solution of them as I have been able to Qffer : and yet
I am not aware that, in English at any rate, there is any syste-
matic treatment of them, written from anything like my own
point of view, to which I could point as altogether meeting the
wants of the class of readers for whom this book is chiefly
intended. Neither of the great writers to whom I feel I owe
rnosT m* the special department of Ethics the late Professor
^Sidgwiqk, and the late Professor T. H. Green whose lectures and
PREFACE vii
private classes I used to attend as an undergraduate can well
be regarded as having said the last word upon the subject Jby
students of a generation later who have profited not merely
by the criticism which each of them supplies upon the other,
but by the general progress of Philosophy since the first appear-
ance of Sidgwick'g Methods of Ethics (18^4) and of Green's
Prolegomena to Ethics (1^83). Since the last-mentioned date
the supposed easiness of this branch of Philosophy, or the
superior attractiveness of Logic and Metaphysic, has led perhaps
to a certain unwillingness to write separate treatises on Ethics,
at least among those who take what one may call a constructive
view of the subject *. But the period almost a quarter of
a century which has elapsed since the death of Green has
been a period of great philosophical activity, and (I venture to
think) of great philosophical progress, and there has been much
incidental treatment of ethical questions in the works both of
English and of foreign Philosophers. There seems therefore
room for a fresh systematic treatment of the main problems
of Moral Philosophy in what I will venture to call (in spite
of great differences both of opinion and of temperament) the
spirit which animated both of them.
Among more recent writers I have learned most perhaps from
those from whom I differ most. I have so frequently criticized
the writings of Mr. F. H. Bradley that I should like to say that,
fundamentally as I dissent from his ultimate position, I believe
that no one has a deeper sense than myself of personal obligation
to his brilliant writings, or a deeper appreciation of the stimulus
which he has given to philosophical progress, not only in his own
1 I should wish to speak with respect of three short English textbooks
Professor Muirheag's Elements of Ethics, Professor Mackenzie's Introduction
to Moryl Philosophy, and Bishop d'Arcy's Short Study of Ethics ; but none of
them can be said to represent exactly my own point of view. I feel more
sympathy on the purely ethical, though not on the metaphysical, side with
a quite recent work Mr. Moore's very powerful essay, Principia Ethica,
which appeared when my own work was practically finished. Professor
Paulsen's System of Ethics is an admirable and very attractive book, which
represents on the whole a point of view not unlike my own, but it J^&ox?
touches upon many difficulties which have attracted muck attention in
England.
PREFACE
University of Oxford, but throughout the English-speaking
WQrld and beyond it. Unfortunately, Ethics seems to me pre-
cisely the side of Philosophy on which his influence has been
least salutary. I trust that, while criticizing him with freedom,
I have not failed in the respect that is due to perhaps the most
original of contemporary thinkers.
With regard to my criticism of te abie work of Professor
A. E. Taylor (The Problem of Conduct), I should wish to explain
that the decent number o the Philosophical Review in which he
withdraws his view about the merely ' apparent ' character of
evil did not come into my hands till the whole of my criticism
was printed and some of it had been finally passed for the press,
though I had not failed to notice the change of tone already
traceable in his Elements of Metaphysics. I can only therefore
express my regret for having devoted so much space to the
criticism of a position which its author has abandoned.
It is useless for an author to offer apologies for the defects of
a book which he is not compelled to write. In explanation
of such deficiencies of the present work as may arise from the
absence of a more exhaustive knowledge of the literature bearing
upon this and cognate subjects, I may, however, be allowed
to plead, for the information of persons unacquainted with our
English system of University teaching, that Oxford College
Tutors are very far from possessing the leisure of a German
or an American Professor, and that they have to choose between
publishing imperfect work and not publishing at all. They may
perhaps console themselves with the reflection that the method
of individual teaching by means of essays and conversation
gives them opportunities of appreciating the real wants of
students which are hardly accessible to teachers who see their
pupils only in the lecture-room. I have a string feeling that
the progress of knowledge, especially in the region of Philosophy,
is often retarded by an excessive shrinking from criticism, and by
an indefinite postponement of publication in the hope of more
completely satisfying an author's ideal.
i^JJhe following articles which have already appeared in various
periodicals have been freely made use of with the kind per
mission of their editors : ' Professor Sidgftoick's Utilitarianism
PREFACE
(Mind, 1885) ; 'Dr. Martineau and the Theory of Vocation 1 (Mind*
1888) ; ' The Theory of Punishment ' (The International Journal
of Ethics, 1891); 'The Limits of Casuistry* (International
Journal of Ethics, 1894); 'Justice* (The Economic Review,
1891, 1893); 'Can there be a Sum of Pleasures?' (Mind, 1899);
4 The Ethics of Forgiveness ' (International Journal of Ethics,
1900); 'The CommeusuraMlity of all Values* (Mind, 1902).
Some of the earlier articles have been largely re- written : others
are reprinted with little change.
Dr. McTaggart of Trinity College, Cambridge, has kindly read
through the whole of my proofs, and I am much indebted to his
criticisms and suggestions. For assistance and advice in dealing
with parts of the work I am similarly indebted to Mr. C. C. J.Webb
of Magdalen College, Oxford, and several other friends, nor must
I omit to mention the help of my wife in the final revision.
H. RASHDALL.
THE THEORY OF GOOD AND EVIL
BOOK I
THE MORAL CRITERION
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTORY
A CLEAR and adequate conception of the scope and object-matter
of a Science and of its relations to other Sciences is usually
arrived at only at a tolerably advanced stage in the development
of the Science itself. It is impossible to start with clear con-
ceptions of such matters as Heat, Light, Electricity, and Mag-
netism ; for the attainment of such conceptions is precisely the
goal of the Sciences which deal with these matters, and is even
yet not fully reached. Science starts with some roughly defined
department of common experience, and works towards clearer
and more adequate conceptions of it. In the course of scientific
progress, it sometimes turns out that a supposed Science deals
with really non-existent objects, or is directed towards aims
impossible of attainment, or that it is really identical with some
Science hitherto supposed to be distinct, or is a branch of
some Science the very possibility of which was previously
unsuspected. Sciences fuse, subdivide, transform themselves,
or disappear altogether; new Sciences make their appearance
and ne^f groupings of old Sciences. Thus the greatest service
which Astrology ever rendered to the world was its own ex-
tinction : while it was only at a tolerably advanced stage of its
development that the Science of Electricity was discovered to be
identical with that of Magnetism, and not identical with the
closely related but still distinguishable Sciences of Heat mid
Light. And, if that is the case even with the various depart-
ments of physical Science, each of which studies some irronp
BASHDJLEJU I fi
a INTRODUCTORY [Book I
or some aspect of tangible and visible things, it is pre-eminently
the case with Philosophy in general and its various branches.
It is only gradually that Philosophy has clearly differentiated
itself from the special Sciences, and particularly from the most
general of those Sciences. The older Metaphysicians were also
Physicists. It is only at t comparatively rjcent date that Meta-
physicians have abandoned the attempt to 'decide by the methods
of Metaphysics what were really questions of empirical Natural
Science, and that Physicists have ceased to dogmatize about
metaphysical questions, if indeed a well-defined conception of
the relation between the two spheres can be said to have been
arrived at even now: while the exact relations between the
various Sciences included in or closely connected with Philosophy,
such as Logic, Metaphysic, and Psychology, are still avowedly
matters of dispute among Philosophers.
To a certain extent every student of a Science has to go through
in the course of his own studies the same process which the
human mind has followed in reaching the present level of
scientific attainment. In the Physical Sciences this necessity
is to some extent avoided by the fact that certain results of
Physical Science rapidly become matters of common knowledge
or social inheritance, and so are accepted unconsciously on
authority even before the age at which formal scientific teaching
begins. Though the results of philosophical enquiry are far
from contributing nothing to the common stock of socially
transmitted ideas, they pass far more slowly and incompletely
into general circulation. A teacher of Astronomy does not find
it necessary to begin by refuting the hypothesis that the motions
of the heavenly bodies exercise a profound influence upon the
life-history of individual men. In the region of Philosophy
ideas of the same order cannot always be assumed to be non-
existent. The very nature and meaning of Philosophy, and still
more the lines of demarcation between its various branches, must
be left slowly to dawn upon the student in the course of his
study of Philosophy itself. Philosophy is like learning to swim.
A jaan does not really discover what it is until he finds himself
already somewhat out of his depth. He must plunge in boidly,
discover what he has been at later on.
Chap, i] PLAN OF WOEK 3
For these reasons I shall make no formal attempt to mark out
beforehand the relation of our subject to Philosophy in general
or to its other branches. I shall begin by assuming only that we
are concerned with the study of human conduct, that we are
investigating the meaning of the ideas c right ' and ' wrong ' with
the object both of arriving at a cleared conception of those ideas
in general, and of detertiinilig in a more precise manner than is
done by ordinary persons in common life what things in particular
are right and what are wrong. How far and in what sense such
an aim is attainable is one of the things which must be left to
appear in the course of our enquiry. And in my treatment
of the subject I shall endeavour to follow wlrat is, not indeed
always but very frequently, the line of development taken by
the mind of students. When first the attempt is made to think
out clearly the unanalysed, more or less confused and incon-
sistent ideas about human conduct with which we all start,
the student is very likely to be caught by a theory of extreme
simplicity and apparently great scientific completeness and
attractiveness a theory which, as a matter of fact, has always
made its appearance at the beginning of every serious historical
effort to grapple with the ethical problem. He is very likely to
be bitten by the theory which traces all human conduct to the
operation of a single motive, the desire of pleasure. If this
theory be true, it follows as a matter of course that the only
meaning which can be given to the term right is 'conducive
to pleasure/ and to the term wrong ' unconducive to pleasure or
productive of its opposite, pain/ The commonly received ideas
about right and wrong, in so far as they are upon such a view
capable of scientific justification at all, have then to be explained
by showing that the acts commonly regarded as right are produc-
tive of pleasure on the whole to the individual, while the actions
commonly accounted wrong are conducive on the whole to pain
or loss of pleasure. To examine this theory, known as psycho-
logical Hedonism, will be the starting-point of our investigation
and will be dealt with in the next chapter. If satisfied that
pleasure is not always the motive of the individual's own action,
the student may still very probably be attracted by other forms of
the theory that pleasure in the last resort, either to the individual
4 INTRODUCTORY [Book I
or to others, is the sole true and ultimate criterion of human
Action. Utilitarianism disconnected from psychological Hedonism
will be the subject of our third chapter. From the Utilitarian
group of ethical theories I shall turn to their extreme opposite,
the theory which asserts in the most uncompromising and un-
analysed way th& authoKty, perhaps eve^ the infallibility, of
the individual Conscience and of the^judgeinents about particular
questions of right and wrong which the ordinary Conscience pro-
nounces the theory commonly known as Intuitionism. I shall
then try to bring together the various elements of truth con-
tained in the conflicting theories, and to arrive at a view which
will embrace and harmonize them, while avoiding the mistakes
and exaggerations which each, taken by itself, can be shown
to involve. I shall then go on to examine more in detail some of
the chief questions of right conduct, the chief commonly recog-
nized virtues and duties or groups of duties, and to show how
they can be explained and co-ordinated, with whatever correction
of popular notions may turn out to be necessary, upon the basis
of the theory which will be adopted.
To arrive at a clearer and more definite conception of the
Moral Criterion a clearer and more definite answer than is
contained in that common moral consciousness from which we
must all start to the question * What ought I to do, and why
ought I to do it ? ' will be the object of our first book. In the
second book I shall enter at greater length into some of the
current controversies connected with our subject, by the exam-
ination of which I shall hope further to elucidate and define
the results arrived at in the first book. Most of these con-
troversies may be said to centre round the question of the
relation of the individual and the individual's good to society
and a wider social good. I have therefore styled the book ' The
Individual and the Society/ In the third book I shall deal with
some of those wider philosophical issues which are ultimately in-
volved in any attempt to think out fully and adequately the
meaning of the words c right and wrong/ ' good and evil ' in
^Jtner words with the relation of Morals and Moral Philosophy
to our theory of the Universe in general, to Metaphysic and
Religion, to the theory of Free-will, to the facts of Evolution
Chap, i] METAPHYSIC AND ETHICS 5
and theories of Evolution, and finally to practical life. The
subject of this section may be described ' generally as 'Man
and the Universe/ In postponing these more general con-
siderations to the end of our enquiry instead of making them
our starting-point, I am once more abandoning what may perhaps
be thought the logical order ; and adopting the order which will,
I hope, be most advantageous for purposes of exposition and
dialectical defence, and which will be n\ost convenient for those
who may read this book with no previous acquaintance with
technical Philosophy or with any of its branches. With regard
to the relations between Metaphysic and Moral Philosophy it
will be enough to premise this much that Metaphysic is an
enquiry into the ultimate nature of Reality and our knowledge
of it ; while Moral Philosophy is an enquiry into a particular,
though very general and important, department of our knowledge,
our ideas of right and wrong ] , that is to say into one particular
though very fundamental aspect of Reality, the aspect which is
expressed by our moral judgements. To attain some clearer con-
ception as to the relation of these ideas to other ideas, of this aspect
of Reality to other aspects, will be one object of our investigation.
But, whatever answer may be given to this last problem, it must
be possible at least to begin the enquiry as to what we mean
by saying that an act is right or wrong, and why we call some
actions right and others wrong, without presupposing any more
than is presupposed in our common unscientific thinking about
the world in general and man's place in it. At a very early stage
of our enquiry it may, indeed, be found that we cannot give
a satisfactory answer to that question without assuming particular
answers to other and more general questions about human know-
ledge and about the ultimate nature of things answers which
from various philosophical points of view have sometimes been
implicitly or explicitly denied. But I shall endeavour, for the
1 The relation of this question to the wider question * What is good ? '
will be dealt with in the sequel ; but in modern times Moral Philosophy has
grown out of an attempt to answer the question * What is right ? ' rather
than the question ' What is good ? ' And this is the essentially ethical ques-
tion, since, by general admission, Ethics starts with the problem of human
conduct, even though it may soon be discovered that that problem invokes
a wider problem about values in general.
6 INTRODUCTORY [Book I
Basons already indicated, to make the first part of our enquiry
as purely ethical as possible. If and in so far as it shall be found
that to take a particular view about the ideal of human conduct,
a view to which we are led purely by the investigation of the
actual contents of^our ethical consciousness, logically involves us
in wider conclusions as to^the nature of tfye' Universe and man's
place in it, that will be the best way o defending those wider
conclusions, and so of exhibiting the true relation between that
ethical Science which is the subject of this book and that wider
Science of Reality which will be dealt with in these pages only
in so far as may be necessary for the purpose of attaining clear
ideas about the meaning and end of human life.
CHAPTER IT
PSYCHOLOGICAL HEDONISM
IN the writings of Bentham 1 and his followers the ethical
doctrine that actions are right or wrong according as they
do or do not tend to produce maximum pleasure is founded
upon the psychological theory that as a matter of fact nothing
is or can be desired except pleasure. The most fundamental
of all distinctions between ethical systems turns upon the
attitude which they adopt towards this theory. It is of course
possible for a Moral Philosopher to reject the hedonistic Psycho-
logy and still to remain a Hedonist. He may hold that it is,
as a matter of psychological fact, possible to desire other things
besides pleasure, but that pleasure is the only proper or rational
object of desire. It is possible to contend that I may, as a matter
of psychological fact, desire other things, but that, if I do so,
I am a fool for my pains. On the other hand it is clear that
if nothing but pleasure can be desired, it is useless, and indeed
meaningless, to maintain that something other than pleasure
ought to be desired. It will be well, therefore, to clear the
ground by facing the psychological problem before we attack
the ethical questions which depend, to a large extent, upon our
answer to that problem.
*
1 And earlier of Hobbes, with this difference that Hobbes defines plea-
sure in terms of desire (* Whatsoever is the object of any man's appetite or
desire, that is it which he for his part calleth good,' Leviathan, ch. vi), and
then proceeds to define pleasure as 'the apparance or sense of good.'
Bentham assumes that we already know what pleasure is, and then proceeds
to argue that we desire that and nothing else. The difference mighVbe
more important than it is if Hobbes had always remembered it himself.
When he identifies the 'iucandum ' with ' good in effect, as the end desired,'
he practically adopts the position of Bentham.
8 PSYCHOLOGICAL HEDONISM [Book I
The plausibility of the doctrine that nothing but pleasure
an be the object of desire depends mainly upon a confusion
between three different senses in which it may be understood.
The proposition that the motive of every action is pleasure
may mean :
r \ t
(1) That I always do that which it gives me most pleasure
at the moment to do ; '
(2) That the motive *>f every action is some future pleasure,
although that future pleasure is not necessarily the most intense
(it being for instance possible to choose the nearer but smaller
pleasure in preference to one greater but more remote) :
(3) That the motive of every act is always to get the greatest
quantum of pleasure upon the whole.
Now the doctrine explicitly maintained by psychological
Hedonists is usually the last of these three positions : while
its plausibility arises chiefly from its confusion with one or
both of the former. The last proposition is, indeed, one of
those which would hardly obtain a moment's acceptance but
for the supposed consequences of denying it. Let us assume
for the moment that nothing ever is desired except pleasure,
and ask whether it is always the prospect of the greatest
pleasure that moves us. That men do not always do that
which will as a matter of fact bring them most pleasure will
readily be admitted : need we hesitate to assert that the world
would be a much better place if they did l ? Nor will it be
denied that people often do actions which, before the time
of acting, they know very well to be contrary to their real
interest, understood in the most purely hedonistic sense. The
drunkard the poor drunkard at all events, who suffers from
his vices in other than purely physiological ways knows very
well in the morning that he gets more pain than pleasure
from his drink: he craves to get rid of the habit, and yet,
as a matter of fact, he drinks on. That will be acknowledged,
*,/ The thing to be lamented is, not that men have BO great regard to their
own good or interest in the present world, for they have not enough ; but
that they have so little to the good of othen.' Bp. Butler, Preface to
Fifteen Sermons.
Chap, ii, f i] PLEASURE AND DESIRE 9
but it may be urged perhaps that at the moment of action
such a man has always persuaded himself that the drink will
produce a balance of pleasure on the whole. Admit, if you
like, that he has. The question remains : how, on the assump-
tions of psychological Hedonism, is it possible to account
for such a persuasion? Granted that at the time he acts he
does not know that the tiling is bad for him, how can a man
who once knew that a thing was bad for himself come, however
momentarily, to believe the contrary? Such conduct as that
of the drunkard will hardly be accounted for by mere intellectual
error, mere involuntary lapse of memory. If a man who in the
morning knew that to drink a whole bottle of gin was not for
his good, comes in the evening to believe the contrary, his
ignorance must be to some extent voluntary: he must, as we
say, have ' persuaded himself ' that it will do him no harm. And
this voluntary ignorance, this bias in his judgement, has to
be accounted for : and on the hedonistic theory (in the form
in which it is now before us), it can be accounted for only
in one way. On that theory there is only one desire or emotion
that can ever affect the will, and so exercise a distorting influence
upon the judgement, viz. desire for one's greatest pleasure on
the whole. In the case supposed then desire for his greatest
pleasure on the whole, steadily operating throughout the day,
must somehow have changed the conviction that the man's
greatest pleasure lies in abstinence or moderation into a conviction
that his greatest pleasure lies in drunkenness. Is this an in-
telligible piece of Psychology ?
Perhaps the matter may be made plainer by a slightly different
illustration. If there is a certain piece of hedonistic calculus in
the world, it is that the pleasure of eating something very bad
for oi^e is not worth the indigestion which it causes. The
pleasure, unlike that of quantitative or qualitative errors in
drinking, is slight and almost momentary: the pain may be
continuous and severe. Ask a man with a delicate digestion
whether the wise dyspeptic Hedonist will eat lobster salad.
Ask him in the morning, ask him the moment before dinner,
ask him while he is actually tasting his soup, and he will say
emphatically ' No. It has almost always disagreed with me ;
io PSYCHOLOGICAL HEDONISM [Book I
it certainly is not worth the risk of temporary indigestion
atid the danger of bringing back that chronic indigestion which
it took me so long to get over a year ago.' Yet it may be that,
as the dinner proceeds and conversation flows and spirits rise,
the lobster salad comes round, and he eats. Now I admit that in
cases like that it*is scarcely possible to account for the man's
action without supposing at least* a momentary intellectual
vacillation. Very likely he does say to himself, ' After all the
consequences are not certain : I have upon occasion taken lobster
salad without suffering much. I am better now than when I ate
it last/ and so on. But the question remains, ' Why should he
seek in this way to deceive himself?' Do not these efforts
at self-deception imply that the man is not, as the theory supposes
him to be, an absolutely impartial judge between the pleasure
of the next moment and the pleasure of the next morning or
the next week ? Were he unbiassed by desire of lobster salad,
or of the pleasure attending its consumption, he would un-
questionably have retained his well-grounded conviction as to
the inadvisability of eating it. Supposing, at the very moment
before he took the fatal resolution, he were to be consulted
by a no less dyspeptic neighbour, he would have no hesitation
whatever about the matter. 'By no means eat lobster salad,'
he would have said. And when in his own case he acts differ-
ently, it is evident that at that moment he cares more for present
pleasure (in so far as his desire is really a desire for pleasure
at all) than for his pleasure on the whole. There is a bias
in his judgement a bias derived from desire which prevents
him from correctly balancing present against future pains. He
has, in short, other desires besides a desire for the greatest
quantum of pleasure, though it may be (for anything we have
seen so far) that he still cares about nothing but pleasure. At
all events, the nearer pleasure exercises more attractive power
than the more remote.
We have seen reason to reject the third interpretation of the
hedonistic formula ; now let us look at the first. It undoubtedly
sounds plausible to say that, if I do a thing, I do it became
it pleases me to do it ; and from this it does not seem a large
steg'to the admission that, if I prefer one alternative to another,
Chap, ii, i] PLEASURE AND DESIRE n
it is because it pleases me more, and from that to the admission that
I always do that which pleases me most. It might be enough
to point out that we are really misled by an ambiguity of
language. ' It pleases me to do it/ ' it is my pleasure (placet)
that it shall be done/ means merely * I will that it should be
done': as to why will it, the phrase tell^us nothing. But
let us admit that we are justified in interpreting this * placet '
by ' It gives me at this moment more pleasure to do this than
to do anything else V The question still remains * Why does this
course of action give me so much momentary pleasure as to
determine my will to adopt it ? ' It certainly cannot always
be the pleasure resulting at the moment of action that moves
me to do it. For the most selfish people clearly do many things
which are painful at the time for the sake of some future end.
Granted that it always gives me most pleasure to do what I have
made up my mind to do, the question remains 'What leads
me to make up my mind ? ' And this certainly cannot be
the mere momentary pleasure involved in the act itself. If
I thought only of my own momentary sensations while preparing
for a bath on a very cold morning, I certainly should not take it.
Still less, should I go to the dentist when my tooth is not
actually aching. If I do these unpleasant things, it must be
for the sake of something a feeling of my own or otherwise
which lies beyond that moment* That brings us to the second
possible sense of the psychological-hedonist doctrine that I
1 This seems to be very much the position of Sigwart : * Each end must, if
I am on the whole to will it and to be able to devote my powers to its attain-
ment, be such a one that the attainment of it promises some kind or other
of satisfaction (Befriedigung] for me, the thought of which so affects my
feeling, that the expectation of its attainment affords me joy, the fear of the
opposite causes me pain ' (Sigwart, Vorfragen der Ethik, p. 5). This state-
ment (Vith others in this remarkably clear and able little work) seems to
me to be not actually erroneous, but to suggest the fallacies of psycho-
logical Hedonism, inasmuch as it is not made clear whether the thought of
the action is now pleasant because it will produce in the agent the greatest
possible maximum of pleasant feeling, or because he desires the end and
consequently will find satisfaction in its future accomplishment and in work-
ing for its accomplishment in the present. The word ' Gefuhl ' seems to be
used by Sigwart sometimesnn the sense of * desire/ sometimes of anticipated
pleasure.
12 PSYCHOLOGICAL HEDONISM [Book I
always act for the sake of some future pleasure l , though not
rtfecessarily for the sake of the greatest quantum of pleasure
on the whole.
Why then should one pleasure or sum of pleasures attract
me more than another, apart from its being greater in amount ?
It may be said thai I am more attracted by the nearer than by
the remoter pleasure. That is intelligible, and it was admitted
by Bentham, who did not see that the admission was fatal to the
doctrine, implied if not expressed in the writings of himself and
his followers, that what is desired is always the greatest pro-
spective sum of pleasures. Of course in so far as remoteness
involves uncertainty, that may logically be taken into account
by the hedonistic calculus. But in so far as a remote pleasure
is practically just as certain as a nearer one, it ought on
Benthamite principles to prove equally attractive. And yet
it is matter of experience that it very often does not. And
this involves the admission that what I desire in such cases
is not pleasure, but immediate pleasure. The pleasure in the
hand is treated as if it were worth two in the bush, even when
the pleasure in the bush is as certain as that in the hand.
This admission by itself makes a very large inroad into
the apparently logical and coherent system of the hedonistic
Psychology. Ethically it is of little importance, so long as
the only characteristic which can give to one foreseen pleasure
an increased attractiveness as compared with some other foreseen
pleasure is supposed to be its greater proximity. But the
admission may perhaps prepare the way for the recognition
of the fact that there are other sources of (so to speak) differ-
ential attractiveness in pleasures besides (i) expected intensity
and (2) proximity. Let us emphasize the admission that has
so far been made. It is admitted, we may assume, that foreseen
greater intensity of pleasure does not always carry with it greater
constraining power over the will. The human mind is not
the mere impartial calculating machine which it is represented
to be by the hedonistic Psychology in its most logical form.
We have in fact recognized the existence of passion in the
1 Not of course excluding the pleasure of the immediate act which in
some f cases is obviously the prominent element.
Chap, ii, i] PASSION 13
human soul, though at present we may be disposed to interpret
passion as a mere liability to be more affected by a nearor
than by a remoter pleasure. But is that a possible explanation
of the extraordinary motive power possessed at certain moments
by one pleasure as compared with another which, upon a calm
review, would be recognized as being of f argreater intensity ?
Take the case of an* angry man. On a calm review of the
pleasure of avenging some trifling or imagined slight (at the
cost perhaps of some serious and clearly foreseen penalty),
the man himself would usually be disposed to admit that
the game was not worth the candle. The pleasure, he would
admit, would not be worth the sacrifice of even a week's freedom
and ordinary enjoyment of life. ' Yes/ it will be said, * but
then the prospect of this pleasure is near, its more clearly
perceived intensity triumphs over a chaos of remote, indefinite,
and indistinctly envisaged enjoyments such as might be pur-
chased by self-restraint/ Well, at that rate, the offer of some
other pleasure more intense and equally near should at once
hold back the uplifted hand, and transform the angry counte-
nance. Once assume that the attraction lies wholly in pleasure-
that the man is indifferent to the kind of pleasure, except so
far as ' kind of pleasure ' implies to him a difference of intensity
and this consequence must follow. But does it? The average
Wife-beating ruffian would probably admit on reflection that the
pleasure of beating his wife on one particular occasion was
not worth a pot of beer. But tender him the pot of beer when
he is angry, and will the uplifted hand inevitably be lowered to
grasp it ? ' No/ it will be said, * this is what he would do if
he calmly reflected ; but at such a moment he does not reflect ;
his mind is so concentrated upon that one imagined pleasure
that the other "fails to obtain an entrance/ But why does
he no't reflect? The determination to reflect or not to reflect
is just as much a voluntary action as the determination to
strike or not to strike. And, if the hedonistic Psychology
is right, this action must be itself determined by a calculation
as to the greater pleasantness of reflection or non-reflection.
If then a man gets angry and so fails to reflect upon the
consequences of what he i doing, that must be, it would oeem,
H PSYCHOLOGICAL HEDONISM [Book I
because he has come to the conclusion that (in this particular
CUse) non-reflection will be the pleasanter course. But what
should lead him to such a conclusion? Experience? Are we
then really prepared to say that a hot-tempered man is one
who has been taught by experience to believe that at certain
moments non-reflection upon the relative , value of pleasures,
necessarily involving the choice of pl<*asure& which calm reflection
would show to be of less intensity, is itself conducive to ob-
taining the greatest amotmt of pleasure or at least of immediate
pleasure ? If any one is really prepared to admit this analysis
of passion, there is no more to be said. If he is not, he must
concede that, even if we allow the object of choice to be always
a pleasure, there is something which causes a man at times
to prefer one pleasure rather than another, irrespective of its
greater nearness or greater intensity. What is this something ?
I know of no better way of expressing it than to say that the
man desires one pleasure (assuming for the moment that it really
is pleasure which is desired) rather than another 1 . It is an
ultimate fact that one desire is stronger than another 2 . The
strength of the desire does not depend wholly upon the intensity
of the imagined pleasure. And in so far as it does not depend
upon such imagined intensity, it is not really a desire for pleasure
qua pleasure. If all that is desired is pleasure as much of it
as possible, and for as long as possible it must be a matter of
indifference to the man in what form (so to speak) his pleasure
is served up to him, so long as he gets enough of it. But the
existence of such passions as we have alluded to is by itself
a sufficient proof that it is not pleasure in general but some
particular kind of pleasure that is desired in such cases. Now
1 In so far, that is, as his impulses are sufficiently reflected upon to become
desires. A large part of our habitual bodily movements are of course due
to impulses which cannot be so described. The actions are voluntary only
because they can be at once inhibited when any conflicting desire presents
itself. Movements which are not voluntary even to this extent are not
acts.
2 Of course the cause may lie in the man's physical constitution or in
external influences ; but, as ex hypothesi we are dealing with voluntary
actions, these causes lying outside consciousness can only influence him by
producing an impulse to act within consciousness, i.e. a desire.
Chap, ii, i] THE GREAT HYSTERON-PRQTERON 15
it seems clear that desire for a particular kind of pleasure is not
really desire for pleasure and nothing else. Even if we supposed
that pleasure was always part of his object, we should have
to admit that the man desires not only pleasure but also a
particular sort of pleasure, not necessarily thought of as more
intense than other pleasures. Desire of pleasure then is not
the only motive which js capable of inspiring action.
And having got so far, we may be prepared to go a step
further and admit that the desire of pleasure need not really be
present at all. At least there need be no desire for anything
which would be a pleasure apart from the fact that it is desired.
The fact that a thing is desired no doubt implies that the
satisfaction of the desire will necessarily bring pleasure. There
is undoubtedly pleasure in the satisfaction of all desire. But
that is a very different thing from asserting that the object is
desired because it is thought of as pleasant, and in proportion
as it is thought of as pleasant. The hedonistic Psychology
involves, according to the stock phrase, a 'hysteron-proteron';
it puts the cart before the horse. In reality, the imagined
pleasantness is created by the desire, not the desire by the
imagined pleasantness.
The truth is that to deny the existence of ' disinterested '
desires, i.e. desires for objects other than greatest anticipated
pleasure 1 , destroys the possibility of accounting for nearly all our
interests* except those of a purely sensual character 2 . It is
admitted on all hands that different people get different amounts
of pleasure from the same external sources. Why so 1 In the
case of mere physical sensation we can account for the difference
between man and man by differences of physical constitution.
Whether a man likes port or champagne depends upon the
*t
1 T,be phrase may also be used to mean desires for objects other than one's
own good, however understood, but I am here arguing with those who would
identify good and pleasure. It will be seen below that I regard the Psy-
chology that is egoistic without being hedonistic as open to the same
objections as the latter.
2 Many even of these, as pointed out below, are not originally desires for
pleasure, but they may be treated as such for ethical purposes in so far
as the impulses or appetites are deliberately acted upon from a conviction
of the pleasantness of indulgence.
16 PSYCHOLOGICAL HEDONISM [Book I
constitution, as modified by education, of his palate and nervous
system. It has nothing to do with the strength of any pre-existing
impulse towards the one or the other. His preference is not, in
any direct and immediate way, determined by his character.
Apart from the anticipated pleasure, he is perfectly impartial or
unbiassed in his decision between the two wines. Nothing but
experience of their comparative pleasantness determines his
judgement as to which of them he will take, so far as no
considerations of health,or economy, or the like may dictate the
choice of one rather than the other 1 . Suppose a glass of
champagne to be administered to a life-long teetotaller and
called a glass of lemonade. He may have been wholly innocent
of a desire for champagne ; he may have habitually denounced
it as liquid poison; all his anticipations may have been
confined to the unexhilarating lemonade. And yet, given the
requisite nervous organization, he will probably exclaim, ' Why,
this is the very best lemonade that I have ever tasted in the
whole course of my life ! ' On the other hand, when we turn to
moral, intellectual, or other ideal pleasures 2 , we find that their
attractiveness depends entirely upon their appealing to some pre-
existing desire, though no doubt some accidental and undesired
experience may sometimes awaken a desire not previously felt.
To the mind that does not desire knowledge, knowledge is not
pleasant ; knowledge compulsorily admitted is often found to be
productive of anything but pleasure. Benevolence does not
give pleasure to people who are not benevolent. The psycho-
logical Hedonist analyses Benevolence into a liking for benevolent
1 Of course he might be moved by curiosity to desire a wine which he
had never tasted ; but the pleasure which he got from gratifying his
curiosity would be distinguishable from the physical pleasure of drinking.
The former would be undiminished should the wine fafl to commend itself
to his palate.
a I am of course far from attempting to draw an absolute line of de-
marcation between the two classes of pleasure. Pursuits involving a high
degree of intellectual activity may often owe some of their pleasantness to
some suggestion of sensuous gratification : the desire for power may become
fused with the desire for the sensual gratifications secured by power, &c., &c.
And on the other hand the sensuous pleasure may be a condition of many
others which are not sensuous. Coleridge, for instance, pronounced tea-
drinking to be the most intellectual of sensual pleasures.
Chap, ii, i] DISINTERESTED DESIRES 17
pleasure. No doubt to the benevolent man Benevolence does
give pleasure, but it gives him pleasure only because he has^
previously desired the good of this or that person, or of mankind
at large. Where there is no such desire, benevolent conduct is
not found to give pleasure. And so with many bad pleasures :
for it is extremely important to insist that disinterested desires
are not necessarily good desiyes l . If I have set my heart upon
the death of an enemy, it will give me pleasure to kill him.
Apart from such a desire, there is nothiag in the mere physical
process which could possibly account for the pleasure. It would
be no pleasure at all to kill some other person by precisely the
same means, unless indeed my desire is not a desire for vengeance
but a disinterested malevolence towards humanity in general 2 .
In all such cases it is a certain idea which is pleasant, the idea of
an object which is or may be something quite different from my
own sensations, whether of a purely physical character or of any
more exalted kind which a hedonistic Psychology may be able
to recognize. It is not the representation of my being pleased
in the future which makes the idea of the sick man relieved or
of the wrong avenged pleasant to me, and so moves my will ;
my desire is that the actual objective result shall be achieved.
Of course if I am to be influenced by such a desire, I must, as
we say, * take an interest ' in the desired object. So far every
desire might no doubt be called an ' interested ' desire. But the
1 The observation of this fact was Bishop Butler's most original contribu-
tion to moral Psychology. Aristotle admits that there are desires for objects
other than pleasure, but he assumes that these objects are always good
objects Knowledge, Beauty, Virtue, and the like, and thus ultimately
admits only two motives, desire of TO KaXoi/ and of r6 f}8v.
2 The pleasure of sheer cruelty is no doubt less purely * ideal ' than that
of vengeance, and ma^ be more correctly represented as a mere desire for a
particular kind of physical excitement, which gives pleasure just like any
other sensation. It may best be treated as a primitive instinct, just
like the impulses commonly described as appetites a survival in human
nature of the brute, in which such an instinct was conducive to survival.
But, like these appetites, cruelty of course becomes something different in
a man who deliberately makes the satisfaction of the impulse his end.
A beast is not capable (strictly speaking) of cruelty any more than it is
capable of licentiousness. When deliberately indulged, the impulse or
appetite becomes a desire.
RABHDALL I
1 8 PSYCHOLOGICAL HEDONISM [Book I
question at issue is just this whether I am capable of taking an
interest in other things besides my own sensations, actual in the
present or imagined as being enjoyed by me in the future. To
deny that I am capable of taking such an interest would make it
scarcely possible to explain how anything could please me except
purely physical sensations, an interest in which is, so to speak,
compulsory. The pleasantness may no (Joubt be stimulated by
an effort of voluntary attention, or diminished by a voluntary
effort of abstraction, -which will usually take the form of
voluntary attention to something else. But it does not rest with
us it does not depend upon our will, or our character, or our
desires whether we shall or shall not feel the sensations and
feel them to be pleasant.
It is extremely important to insist upon the full extent of
ground covered by this class of ' disinterested desires/ A pre-
judice is sometimes created against the doctrine of disinterested
desires just on account of its ethical import. The greater part
of our desires are assumed to be ' interested/ and in asserting
some few of them to be ' disinterested/ we are suspected of
trying to introduce questionable exceptions in the interests of
edification. It is, therefore, desirable to insist that the possi-
bility of being 'interested' in something besides our own
sensations is as distinctly implied by the momentary absorption
in the plot of a novel, or the most evanescent and morally in-
different sympathy with its characters, as by the most sublime
heroism or the most systematic philanthropy. The spectator of a
tragedy who had no * disinterested desires ' would simply exclaim,
' What is Hecuba to me, or I to Hecuba, that I should weep for
her ? Prove to me that my own future pleasures are somehow
involved in the fate of Hecuba, and then I shall begin to be
interested in her story, but not till then/ N& pleasures in short
are explicable on the hypothesis of psychological Hedonism
except those of a purely sensual character, and I may add,
aesthetic pleasures, which after all have a purely sensuous basis,
however many higher intellectual activities and sympathies may
be involved in them. When a beautiful landscape bursts upon
us unexpectedly, the enjoyment of it is not dimmed by the fact
we were not craving for it beforehand. Nor does it appear
Chap, ii, i] AESTHETIC PLEASURES 19
that a craving for beauty in general precedes or is implied in
the first development of the aesthetic faculties ; it is rathef
experience of their pleasantness which begets the love of beauty.
For, although beauty is not merely a particular kind of pleasure,
the pleasure is certainly an inseparable element of the beauty,
and this pleasure d<jes not seem to imply any* previous desire 1 .
But directly Art begifls*to Jtivolve anything more than the con-
templation of immediately beautiful form and colour and sound 2 , it
interests us only by appealing to desires of interests which are not
merely desires for pleasure. A man who cared about nothing but
his own sensations might derive pleasure from a beautiful sunset,
but he could hardly appreciate a beautiful character or a beautiful
plot, and even the appreciation of physical beauty probably has its
roots to some extent in a kind of sympathy, however strongly
we may repudiate Hume's attempt to analyse away our appre-
1 There is much truth in Schopenhauer's doctrine that the satisfaction
afforded by Art is due (I should say, partly due) to the absorption in mere
contemplation which it involves, and so in the temporary suspension of
desires.
2 And even these could not be desired unless they had previously been
experienced. There would indeed be a shorter way with psychological
Hedonism if we could assume with Prof. A. E. Taylor that l an appeal to intro-
spection will show . . . that it is impossible to have a representative image or
idea of pleasure or pain ' (Problem of Conduct, p. 113). So far as I have been
able to ascertain, Prof. Taylor appears to be alone in this peculiar incapacity
for imaging past pleasures and pains. The theory implies so extreme an
abstraction of the content of the pleasant consciousness from its pleasantness
that it hardly requires explicit experience to refute it. If Prof. Taylor cannot
remember what the displeasure was like which it gave him to look upon his
neighbour's ugly wall-paper, how can he remember even what the paper itself
was like ? How can he have an idea of the colour and pattern without an
idea of its ugliness, and what is an idea of ugliness which does not include
unpleasantness ? The reason why the more acute physical pains are (fortu-
nately) less capable <K being represented with distinctness in imagination
seems to be that, though assuredly not without content, they have (so to
speak) very little content. There are comparatively few distinct kinds of
qualities of pain, and still fewer have names ; so that the distinction of
intensity plays the chief part in our idea of them, and intensity is just the
element in which imagination most fails, accurately or fully, to reproduce
past sensations, though it reproduces them quite sufficiently to enable a boy
to pronounce (when the difference was considerable) which of two floggings
hurt most. This is of course quite a different thing from supposing (with
Hume) that an ' idea ' differs ?rom an * impression ' only in liveliness.
C 2 ,
20 PSYCHOLOGICAL HEDONISM [Book I
ciation of the elegance of a sw&n's long neck into sympathy
Vith its utility to the swan. Any further analysis of aesthetic
pleasure would here be out of place. I merely note that the
aesthetic pleasures, or an element in them, seem to be the most
prominent case of pleasure, not in the ordinary sense purely
sensual, which does not necessarily imply r desire for anything
besides the pleasure itself 1 . < f *
II
e
I have so far confined myself to the motives operating upon
the consciousness of adult human beings at an advanced stage of
development. I shall hereafter have to consider how far the
facts of Evolution can throw any light upon our ethical ideas ;
and it is of the last importance to keep questions of psychological
fact distinct from questions of psychological origin. The starting-
point of any enquiry into the origin or history or explanation of
our ideas, desires, motives or any other facts of consciousness
must be a clear comprehension of what these facts are now in
that developed human consciousness which alone is accessible to
direct observation. Into questions of origin and history, there-
fore, I do not propose to enter now in any detail. But it is
hardly possible to deal effectively with the theory of psychological
Hedonism without noticing that its plausibility lies for many
minds in a certain confusion between the question of origin and
the question of actual present fact.
It is constantly assumed as a sort of axiom that 'Altruism'
must have in some way been evolved out of Egoism ; and this
assumption often carries with it the further implication that in
some sense Altruism is thereby shown to be Egoism after all, only
more or less disguised. It is not surprising that pre-evolutionary
individualists like John Stuart Mill should Have supposed that
primitive men and the lower animals were pure Egoists. But it
is amazing to discover the same delusion more or less underlying
the treatment of this subject by the very writer who, whatever
may be thought of his system as a whole, has at least the merit
1 I do not mean to imply that the value of aesthetic pleasures is to be
estimated merely by their intensity, or that the desire for aesthetic pleasures
once aroused) is merely a desire for pleasure as such.
Chap, ii, ii] PRIMITIVE MAN NOT AN EGOIST 21
of having been the first among Darwin's disciples to suspect
that Darwinian ideas might throw important light upon many
psychological and sociological phenomena *. If there is one thing
which the Darwinian doctrine of Evolution has emphasized in
the psychological region, it is the existence in animals and in
primitive men of tendencies, impulses, instincts, of whose self-
preserving or race-pres^vmg efficacy they themselves are quite
unconscious. We have hitherto sought our illustrations of impulses
that are not mere desires of pleasure in desires which might be
considered as, in a sense, above the moral or at least above the
intellectual level of pleasure-seeking. It is quite equally certain
that there are in animals, in primitive men, and in infants at an
advanced stage of social development (to say nothing of adults),
impulses that are below that level 2 . The human or other infant
does not suck because experience has convinced it that sucking
is a source of pleasure. It does not first suck by accident, and
then repeat the action because it has found sucking pleasant,
though this last discovery may no doubt aid in inducing it to
suck in the right place. It sucks simply because it has an impulse
to suck. The Physiologist may know why it sucks ; but the child
does not. The young bird does not tap the inside of its shell
because it has calculated that the breaking of that shell is a con-
dition precedent to the enjoyment of wider pleasures than are
possible to it in the limited sphere of its early experiences; it
taps for no other reason than that it has an impulse to tap. The
beaver that has been in the habit of collecting sticks to build its
habitation will go on collecting sticks when its house is ready
built for it. The young elephant does not attack the aggressor
because experience has convinced it that that is the best way of
avoiding aggression, and the painful consequences of aggression,
in the future ; it attacks because it is angry. No doubt in all
these cases the gratification of the impulse does in fact give
1 The assumption is nowhere distinctly formulated, but it seems to under-
lie the argument of Mr. Herbert Spencer's Psychology, Pt. II, ch. ix, and Data
of Ethics, ch. v sq.
8 For a fuller refutation of the theory that the lower animals or primitive
men or human infants act or behave on egoistic Hedonist principles the
reader may be referred to tha whole later part of Wundt's Ethics and ^;o
Prof. James's chapter on 'Instinct ' \n his Principles of Psychology (ch. xxiv^.
22 PSYCHOLOGICAL HEDONISM [Book I
pleasure, or at least the resistance to the impulse would be found
painful. And the experienced pleasure or relief from pain
undoubtedly stimulates the animal to the continued performance
of the acts. Moreover, in some cases the impulses which are
now blind and unreflecting may have originally in some remote
ancestor been purposeful ; but the fact remains that the actual
stimulus to the present act is not a Aieref anticipation of pleasure:
the pleasure only comes because there is a pre-existing impulse.
Striving of some kind or other is as primitive a factor in all
consciousness as feeling 1 . It is quite true that normally not
only is the satisfaction of the impulse itself a pleasure, but the
instincts of an animal tend for the most part to prompt actions
which are pleasurable on the whole. An instinct which brought
immediate pain would tend to disappear, and an animal whose
instincts on the whole did not bring it pleasure would tend to
disappear also. But these tendencies are by no means always
realized, and require to be stated with many qualifications. The
moth would no doubt find it painful to resist the impulse which
draws it to the candle : but still it is probable that on the whole
it does not find it pleasant to be burned alive. The instinct does
not tend to promote survival, and yet the moth survives.
Many of the instincts or impulses of animals are not self-
preserving but race-preserving, and these are often sources of
immediate pain and danger to the animal itself. The most
obvious instance is the maternal instinct which often leads an
animal to brave obvious pain or danger for the sake of its young.
And among the higher and more gregarious animals there are
often found not merely the blind impulses of anger and aggression
1 Some Psychologists would say more primitive. But I see no advantage
in attempting to identify conscious impulses with unconscious tendencies
towards an end such as may exist in plants, however decidedly these may
differ from merely mechanical processes. Even Mr. Spencer does recog-
nize that race-preserving actions not conducive to the pleasure of the indi-
vidual are as primitive as individual-preserving actions. That admission cuts
away the ground of his assumption that individual-preserving actions are
always prompted by a desire of pleasure. To identify ' cravings ' with ' dis-
comforts * which inspire a desire for their removal (Principles of Psy-
chology, 123) tends to disguise the hystpron-proteron of the Pleasure-
Chap, ii, ii] INSTINCT 33
which do actually preserve individual and race alike, but instincte
which lead them to face easily avoidable perils and pains in
defence of the herd. How far these instincts are due to ' lapsed
intelligence/ how far to natural selection, how far to direct
adaptation, how far they may require the hypothesis of a final
causality which resists further physiological explanation, are
questions with which \te a^re not now concerned. The only
point that has here to be emphasized is that the conscious actions
of infants or animals are as little explicable by the theory of
psychological Hedonism as those of the hero or the saint. TJie
impulses are not desires for a particular imagined pleasure, still
less for a greatest possible quantum of pleasure upon the whole.
This last aim would imply a power of reflection and abstraction
wholly beyond what we have any reason to believe to be possible
in an animal or even a not very primitive man. The theory of
psychological Hedonism is therefore not entitled to any advantage
which it might derive from presenting us with a true account of
the historical origin of our present human experience. Altruism
was not developed out of Egoism ; though, if it were> that would
not disprove the existence of Altruism now. Men and animals
have always had both race-preserving and self -preserving in-
stincts. Altruism in the developed human beings is evolved out
of social and race-preserving instincts : Egoism out of self-pre-
serving instincts. Both in their human form involve an intellectual
development of which the lower animals are incapable.
The question may be raised whether these instincts or impulses
which we have distinguished from ' disinterested desires ' in the
stricter sense do not exist even in developed humanity ? They
certainly exist in the human infant : do they in the adult man ?
The answer seems to be that these impulses do certainly exist.
It is perhaps better not to follow Bishop Butler in classing
hunger with such disinterested desires as Benevolence or even
Vengeance l . Hunger is neither a desire for the pleasure of
eating, nor (in its less acute forms) a desire to avoid the pains of
1 Sidgwick follows him in this view (Methods of Ethics, 6th Ed., p. 45).
Prof. Mackenzie seems to me right in distinguishing appetites from desires
(Manual of Ethics, 4th Ed., p. 46). See also the chapter in James's Psychology
already referred to (above, p. 21, npte).
24 PSYCHOLOGICAL HEDONISM [Book I
inanition : but it is not quite the same thing as a disinterested
desire of food for food's sake. It is simply an impulse to eat.
But then the human being has a power which the animal has not,
or a greater power than the animal possesses, of reflecting on these
impulses of his, and presenting their satisfaction to himself as an
object of thought and of encouraging thsm or resisting them
accordingly. So long as the impulse ifr a physically irresistible
impulse, as when a man closes his eyes or ducks his head to avoid
an unexpected missile, that is mere ' reflex action ' ; that is to say,
the act is not in the moral sense of the word an act at all. The
impulse is not, properly speaking, a ' motive/ But in so far as
the impulse can be inhibited, in so far as the impulse is reflected
on and its object deliberately conceived by the understanding
and adopted by the will, the mere instinct or impulse passes into
what we ordinarily call a desire, and (in so far as the desire is
not merely a desire for the imagined pleasure of satisfaction)
a ' disinterested desire/ And therefore from an ethical point of
view the distinction between appetites and instinctive desires or
' desires of objects ' becomes of comparatively little importance
of comparatively little importance, though it may for some purpose
be important to remember that an .action prompted by impulse
or appetite or instinct, even where not actually involuntary, may
be far less voluntary than one which flows from the conscious
and deliberate desire for an object clearly presented to the mind.
There are no hard and fast lines to be drawn in this matter. In
the developing race and in the growing child reflex action passes
by imperceptible gradations into instinctive action, and instinct
into voluntary action motived by desire. So in the adult human
individual there is every stage between the purely reflex action
and the fully premeditated and deliberate ^ct; but it would
seem that, though there are instincts, there are here no purely
instinctive acts in the strict sense of the word except those which
are wholly involuntary. The instinct which has been reflected
on and has not been inhibited, may be treated as a desire for
pleasure or some other object, as the case may be, and the
resulting act is no longer in the strict sense of the word merely
instinctive.
Chap, ii, iii] DOCTRINE OF MILL 25
III
The course of our argument has already touched upon the
question of differences in quality among pleasures. We have
already seen that, even upon the assumption that what is desired
is always pleasure, it JLS iu many cases clear enaugh that it is not
pleasure in general tha is Desired but some particular kind of
pleasure, and we have already attempted to show that such an
admission really surrenders the whole ^hedonistic doctrine. If
people do as a matter of fact desire pleasures for other reasons
than their greater intensity, it is clearly possible that the superior
ethical quality or rank or dignity of the pleasure may be one of
the. determining factors in their choice. That this is so has often
been admitted by high-minded Hedonists who have not seen how
fatal is the admission to the whole doctrine that what they desire
is always pleasure as such. We may take for instance the well-
known passage of John Stuart Mill :
1 It is quite compatible with the principle of utility to recognise
the fact, that some kinds of pleasure are more desirable and more
valuable than others. It would be absurd that while, in estimating
all other things, quality is to be considered as well as quantity,
the estimation of pleasures should be supposed to depend on
quantity alone.
* If I am asked, what I mean by difference of quality in
pleasures, or what makes one pleasure more valuable than
another, merely as a pleasure, except its being greater in amount
there is but one possible answer. Of two pleasures, if there be
one to which all or almost all who have experience of both give
a decided preference, irrespective of any feeling of moral obliga-
tion to prefer it, that is the more desirable pleasure. If one oi
the two is, by th<sse who are competently acquainted with both
placed so far above the other that they prefer it, even though
knowing it to be attended with a greater amount of discontent
and would not resign it for any amount of the other pleasure
which their nature is capable of, we are justified in ascribing tc
the preferred enjoyment a superiority in quality, so far outweigh-
ing quantity, as to render it, in comparison, of small account V
1 Utilitarianism, pp. II, 12.
26 PSYCHOLOGICAL HEDONISM [Book I
Mill's psychological analysis here leaves little to be desired, but
lie failed to see that a desire for superior quality of pleasure is
not really a desire for pleasure. If I drink a particular wine for
the sake of pleasure, I of course care for the quality of the wine
its taste, bouquet, body, exhilarating properties and the like, in
so far as these conduce to pleasure. But sc* far only. I should
give it up the moment that I found rf pleesltnter wine at the same
price and with equally hygienic properties, except in so far as oc-
casional variety may be^tself a source of pleasure. H^iherefore,
I care about philanthropic pleasure merely as pleasure, I should
necessarily give it up and take to the pleasures of an animal
if I were only satisfied of their superior pleasantness. Thisujs
just what, according to Mill, the wise man will not do : ' few
human creatures would consent to be changed into any of the
lower animals, for a promise of the fullest allowance of a beast's
pleasures V He admits therefore that such a man desires some-
thing other than^leaaure. What makes him think the pleasures of
the intellect superior to those of a beast is not their intensity as
pleasures but their superior nobleness or moral elevation. And
that is a consideration which can only appeal to a man who
cares about nobleness or moral elevation.
Strictly speaking, pleasures do not differ in quality, but only
in quantity. Or, to be entirely accurate, pleasure varies only in
quantity. In ordinary language we mean by a pleasure a total
state of consciousness which is pleasant. But no man's conscious-
ness at any one moment can be full of pleasure and nothing else.
There must be something there a taste or a smell, a perception
or a thought, an emotion or a volition to be pleasant. A man
who should for a single instant have nothing in his mind but
pleasure would be an impossible variety of idiot : for this
would imply that he was pleased at nothing at all. The pleasure
then of this or that moment of consciousness is an abstraction ;
it can never exist by itself so long as pleasure is understood to
mean the mere quality of pleasing. Very different contents of
consciousness the most purely animal sensation or the loftiest
moral purpose may have this common quality of pleasing ; but,
so long as they are compared merely in respect of this one
1 1. c., p. 12.
Chap, ii, iv] AMBIGUITIES 27
characteristic, they can only differ in one way in respect of the
intensity or quantity of this pleasingness ; the pleasure varies in
degree, not in kind. All this tends to show how completely the
admission of qualitative differences in pleasure abandons the
hedonistic point of view. As a popular mode of expression,
the doctrine that pleasures differ in kind is ^ true and useful
formula ; but it shouldf be recognized that this is not Hedonism.
For it means precisely this that we ascribe,yalue or .worth to
states of consciousness for other reasons than their pleasantness,
although a certain measure of pleasantness might be a character-
istic of all states of consciousness which are capable of being
desired.
IV
It should be distinctly understood that the question with
which we are at present concerned is a purely psychological one.
It is a mere question of fact, and can only be answered by each
man for himself after careful observation and analysis of what
goes on in his own mind, aided by observation of what goes on
in other people's minds, in so far as that is revealed by word and
act. All that any writer can do towards helping another person
to perform this process is (a) to state the question clearly and to
warn him against the ambiguities of language which are the
main source of error upon such subjects ; (6) to remind him of
some of the facts which the hedonistic theory has got to explain,
and to ask him whether that explanation is adequate ; and (c) to
state clearly and fully the elements of truth which that theory
holds in solution, and to show that a recognition of such elements
of truth does not carry with it the inferences which the Hedonist
draws from them. I have already attempted to perform the first
of these tasks, and have made some suggestions towards the
second.* But before proceeding to the third, I should like to call
attention to some of the more extreme cases of disinterested
desire which the theory before us has got to explain away,
though I have already tried to show that its failure is quite as
apparent in the case of very ordinary impulses to action which
are of no special significance from an ethical point of view.
The palmary instance of this failure may perhaps be found'jn
*8 PSYCHOLOGICAL HEDONISM [Book I
cases where a man labours to accomplish a result which he knows
leannot be achieved till he is dead and no longer able to enjoy it.
Such instances occur not only in the case of heroic self-sacrifice
for a political or religious faith, or the less heroic but no less
altruistic efforts of parents to provide for their children, but in
the case of man^ desires which in the ordinary, ethical sense of
the word would commonly be descrfbedas selfish enough. How
is the hedonistic Psychologist to explain the vulgarest desire on
the part of some recently ennobled brewer to ' found a family/
or the desire of posthumous fame say for instance, the kind of
literary vanity or ambition which has had so large a share in
inspiring the life-work even of men like Hume and Gibbon?
It will be urged that the man who is influenced by such motives
acts as he does because the thought of being talked about after
his death gives him pleasure now. Exactly so ; the thought of
it gives him pleasure ! But that is just what the hedonistic
Psychology declares to be an impossibility. According to this
system nothing that is present merely in thought can give
pleasure except the thought of a future pleasant state of the
man's own consciousness. B^ingJtalked about after rny death is
noL-aJ utur& state of my own consciousness l ; and therefore the
thought of it can, according to the theory, give me no pleasure
now. Once again we have the old hysteron-proteron the cart
before the horse. The hedonistic Psychology explains the desire
by the pleasure, whereas in fact the pleasure owes its existence
entirely to the desire.
The difficulty reaches its climax in the case of an ^-kfrjatif*
n^artyr, who, with no belief in a future life, dies in furtherance
of an object which cannot be realized till he will (according to
his own view) no longer be able to enjoy it. Or, if we choose
(however illogically 2 ) to explain his conduct by the desire of
enjoying the moments of triumph which may elapse between his
1 In Buch cases we may ignore the belief in Immortality. Even where
such a belief is strong and influential, it probably does not occur to a man
to think of himself as hereafter enjoying the contemplation of his great-
grandchildren seated on the red benches of the House of Lords, or smiling
down upon his own statue in the market-place of his native town.
2 Since this sense of triumph really implies $hat he is capable of looking
with satisfaction to a result othqr than his own pleasure.
Chap.ii, iv] PLEASURES OF MARTYRDOM 29
resolution to die and the execution of his sentence, we may put
a case where this interval is non-existent. Supposing a con-
demned man, disbelieving in a future life, to be told that by
holding up his finger just before the guillotine fell he would
save the life of a dearly loved child or confer some inestimable
benefit on the whole human race. On the hedoristic theory even
such a minimum degret of benevolence would be a psychological
impossibility. For one who knew that the act would be syn-
chronous with the termination of his o^rn consciousness, there
would be no future consciousness the imagined pleasantness of
which could possibly supply a motive for the present act. If it
be contended that the moment of consciousness in which the act
is performed is itself pleasant, the whole point is conceded. For
it is admitted that volitions are rendered pleasant to us in con-
templation, and so are called into actual being, on account of
future effects other than a pleasant state of one's own conscious-
ness. The only way of escape would be to contend that the act
of lifting up a finger would have seemed pleasant to the man
apart from the effects which it was to have after his death. But
in normal circumstances the holding up of a finger would give no
pleasure at all.
One last skulking-place of psychological Hedonism may be
briefly noticed, though this represents a form of the error which
rarely imposes upon any but very young students of Ethics. At
a certain stage of reflection egoistic Hedonism is often made to
present itself in an extremely amiable and even edifying light
by including among the pains and pleasures which determine the
morality of an action the pains and pleasures of Conscience.
Nothing can be more beautiful, it is suggested, than to do my
duty simply because I like it. There can be no more efficient
sanction and guarantee of Morality than the happiness which
experienpe shows invariably to follow in its train. I will not
here examine whether the pains and pleasures of Conscience are
as a matter of psychological fact so intense as Moralists have
sometimes found it convenient to assume. It is probable that,
as regards minor kinds of wrong-doing, in persons of average
conscientiousness, the pains of Conscience have been greatly
exaggerated. If moral obligation were to be based solely upe^i
30 PSYCHOLOGICAL HEDONISM [Book I
this ground, the cynical advice to make one's moral standard as
low as possible in order that one may occasionally enjoy the
luxury of living up to it would have something to be said for it.
But, be this as it may, be the pleasure of right-doing and the
pains of wrong-doing great or small, these pleasures and pains
are only explicable on the assumption of tlje existence now or in
the past, in the man himself or in oWier j, ef desires for something
besides pleasure. When the pleasure arises from the person's
own purely introspective satisfaction in his own morality or
victory over temptation or the like, we have simply another case
of the pleasure attending the satisfaction of all desire. The
attempt to explain this away is another instance of the old
hysteron-proteron. In other cases there may, indeed, be no
desire at least in any conscious and explicit form for the
performance of duty or the happiness of others for its own sake
in the individual himself, and yet the doing of the right act may
be a source of pleasure or more probably the doing of the wrong
one a source of pain. The pleasure in the act, or the pain in its
omission, may be due to a habit formed under the influence of
other motives. Or pleasure may have come to be associated
with the act, and pain with its omission, through the influence
of a public opinion which is itself based upon an approval or
disapproval not arising from any hedonistic calculus, and which
influences the individual quite apart from any anticipated con-
sequences of the public feeling. To attempt to justify (on
hedonistic principles) the performance of certain acts commonly
called moral by their pleasantness, and then to explain their
pleasantness by assuming that they are m'oral and so sources of
conscientious pleasure or means of avoiding conscientious pain, is
to argue in a circle. The pleasantness of the act is explained by
its morality, and its morality is explained Vy its pleasantness.
It is admitted that the act is often such as could not produce the
attainable maximum of pleasure apart from its being regarded
as moral ; but, according to the hedonistic Psychology, it could
never have come to be regarded as moral except through an
experience which showed that apart from the opinion of its
morality it was already the way to obtain the greatest maximum
jf pleasure. The consciousness which* can take pleasure in an
Chap, ii, v] ELEMENTS OF TRUTH 31
action because it is right is not a consciousness that cares about
nothing but pleasure. If it has not risen to the level of a dis-
interested love of duty, or of tribe or family or individual person,
it must at least be capable of being affected by a desire of social
approbation, or other social impulses and interests, which are just
as difficult to account for on the hypothesis of egoistic Hedonism
as the love of duty for its ov r n sake, and which generally imply
more definitely 'disinterested* desires on the part of the com-
munity by which the opinion that the act is right has been
created. Even if the community is supposed to approve or
disapprove merely from self-interest, the community's disappro-
bation would bring no loss of pleasure to a consciousness that
cared not for disapprobation l . Moralists like Mandeville, and in
a more refined way Hume, have a tendency to reduce the motive
of moral conduct to a kind of vanity. But vanity is as good an
instance as could be found of a disinterested desire, when it
rises above the level of that gregarious instinct which is shared
by the lower animals, and which after all is equally proof against
the hedonistic analysis.
I shall now attempt, even at the risk of some repetition, to
state what appear to me the elements of truth contained in the
theory of psychological Hedonism, and to guard against some of
the exaggerations on the other side which have sometimes helped
to secure acceptance for that position.
(i) The gratification of every desire necessarily gives pleasure
injaciual fact, aad is consequently conceived of as pleasant in
idea before the desire is accomplished. That is the truth which
lies at the bottom of all the exaggerations and misrepresentations
of the hedonistic Psychology. The psychological Hedonist ex-
plains the martyr's death by a taste for the pleasures of martyr-
dom. Undoubtedly a martyr must derive pleasure from the
thought of dying for a holy cause, and even in the midst of the
flames the thought that he is doing something for that cause
1 Of course, when any ulterior consequence of social approbation is to be
feared, we should not speak of the person as acting from purely conscien-
tious motives at all.
3* PSYCHOLOGICAL HEDONISM [Book I
must, presumably, so long as it actually remains in his conscious-
ness, give him some pleasure. 5ut you cannot account for his
action by that pleasure (waiving for the moment our objection
to the hysteron-proteron), unless you contend that the pleasure
involved in the gratification of the desire is greater in amount
than the pains involved, and foreseen to be involved, in the
process of achieving that gratification. * The thought of the
purpose accomplished or the cause assisted may no doubt, even
in the moment of martyrdom, when abstracted from everything
else in the man's consciousness, be pleasant ; but that is a very
different thing from saying that the process of being burned
alive, taken as a whole, is a pleasant one, and that the man
suffers martyrdom because, upon a calm and impartial review,
he thinks that the pleasure will predominate over the pain. His
conduct implies that the thought of serving his cause must have
had some peculiar attraction for him over and above the pleasant-
ness which it shared with the rejected attractions of a happy
and tranquil existence. Had it ever occurred to him to make
the calculation, a man totally indifferent to the source or moral
character of his pleasures would surely have found that the
pleasures of living were greater than those of martyrdom 1 .
Aristotle saw this with peculiar clearness. The brave man, he
tells us, finds pleasure in the exercise of courage ; yet the
pleasure is so small in amount, when compared with the attendant
pains, that the popular mind hardly notices that there is any
pleasure at all in the dying warrior's last moments. On the
whole, such a death seems painful, like the experience of the
athlete fighting in the arena, though there too the contemplation
of the prize and the glory to be achieved are no doubt sources
of pleasure 2 .
1 We may here ignore the question of the nearness of the pleasure : for
experience seems to show that, even if we grant the delightfulness of looking
forward to being burned alive, the prospect does not at all gain in attractive-
ness when one comes closer to it.
2 Ethic. Nicomach. III. ix. 3 (p. 1117) Ov pr)v aXXa 8oeii/ fiv tlvat ro KCLT&
rfjv dvbptiav reXos qdv, viro rStv KVK\<J> 6* a<f>avi(ccrdai, olov K.CLV rols yvfjivutole
dyaxri ytVcrai* rotf yap irvKrais r& pcv T\of rjbv, o$ CVCKQ, 6 (rrtyavos Kal at
, TO df rvnrccrQai d\yew6v, wrcp <rdpKivoi 9 Kal \VTTTJ p6v t Kal na? 6 TTOI/OS* Bia
TroXXa ravr etvai, pucpov bv TO ov cvexa ovdcV rjdv <mWrai %\*w. This side
Chap, ii, v] PLEASURE STRENGTHENS DESIRE 33
(2) It may be further admitted that this pictured pleasantness of
the gratification of a desire, though it will not explain the desire,
does greatly add to its strength. The pleasure of getting know-
ledge cannot be explained without assuming a 'disinterested*
love of knowledge. But when, impelled by this desire or assisted
by the co-operation <j other motives, we do actually acquire
some knowledge and fic^ the* process more and more delightful,
the desire unquestionably becomes stronger ; just as, when the
anticipated pleasure turns out to be less* than was expected, it
may be progressively diminished. It would be difficult to say
in the former case to what extent the mere love of the experienced
pleasure of learning may take the place, as a motive, of all
genuine desire for knowledge itself ; but certainly it may do so
to some extent. The scholar may degenerate into the mere
bookworm. And so, on the other hand, the young boy usually
begins life with some curiosity to know, but may find his love
of knowledge vanish with growing experience of the painfulness
of the road to it, or of the greater pleasantness of the athletics
and the athletic fame which his schoolfellows, and very probably
his schoolmasters, have taught him, by precept and example, to
regard as the chief business of life. Here again we have
a truth, ignored if not denied by modern Anti-hedonists, which
was quite clearly recognized by Aristotle. It is not true, he
tells us, as the Platonists maintained, that pleasure * impedes the
activities/ An alien pleasure the pleasure connected with
some other and inconsistent activity will no doubt do that :
the pleasure of eating, for instance, interferes with intellectual
activity, and therefore it is when the acting is bad that the
eating of sweetmeats goes on most briskly in the auditorium ;
when the spectators get interested in the play, they stop eating.
' But their own pr&per pleasure stimulates our activities and
makes them better and more sustained 1 / Therefore, as he
points out elsewhere, we do best what we do with pleasure.
(3) Still more must this principle be remembered when the
of Aristotle's doctrine is constantly overlooked in stating his view that the
virtuous man necessarily acts with pleasure.
1 fj fiev oiKfia Tjdovr) tgaKpifioi raf tvtpytiaf KOI \povLa>ripa<: /em jScXrt'ouf TTOIC t.
at 8' aXXoTpim \vpaivorrai. Eth\C. Nicomach. X. v. 5 (p. II75&)*
BA8HDAL.L I D_
3 4 PSYCHOLOGICAL HEDONISM [Book I
doctrine of disinterested desires comes to be applied, as it was
-applied for the first time by Butler, to bad and indifferent as
well as to good desires. Between the desire of an object and the
desire of the pleasure arising from that object it is not possible
to draw an absolutely sharp line of demarcation ; the one is
ever passing into and colouring the other. ( From the pure desire
of an object for which we should be prepared to sacrifice every-
thing, while feeling all the time that with the personal pleasure
derived from it we could dispense well enough, the mind may
pass by imperceptible transitions to nuch a desire for the pleasure
as will keep alive an interest in the object entirely for its own
satisfaction a state of mind well illustrated by the familiar
process of 'riding a hobby/ Although, as we have seen, the
worst passions of human nature (equally with the best) are
properly speaking ' disinterested/ it may be admitted that their
disinterestedness is seldom as pure as that of the highest desires.
For the greatest height of disinterestedness implies that the
desire persists in spite of clear and calm conviction that it is not,
in the hedonistic sense of the word, to one's interest, and this will
seldom be the case with the worst desires. The mere victim of
passion will usually (not perhaps always) ' persuade himself '
that its gratification is hedonistically worth the cost. Moreover,
although the man who indulges to his own loss in what we
commonly call a bad passion does not act merely with a view to
his own pleasure, he does act simply for the gratification of his
own impulses. The outside object the death of an enemy or
the like is no doubt desired as an end, but it is merely his own
private and personal desire for it that makes it an end to him ;
and no doubt that desire though not the result of a comparison
between possible pleasures is often explicable by association
with other desires and impulses of a more obviously self-regarding,
or a more obviously animal, character the remembrance of an
injury, instinctive jealousy, or the like. On the other hand, the
self-sacrifice of the good man for the welfare of a stranger or the
triumph of a cause may be produced by purely objective or
rational considerations. The object appeals to or 'interests'
him as a rational and reflecting intelligence, not simply as an
individual being with private passions and impulses which
Chap, ii, v] DEGREES OF DISINTERESTEDNESS 35
demand their own gratification. The bad man may be betrayed
by passion into a f orgetf ulness of his true ' interest on the whole ' ;
but he never wholly forgets himself and his impulses, still less
does he * lose himself ' in universal or ideal interests. There is,
therefore, an important psychological as well as an ethical
difference between the ' disinterested ' impulses t>f the bad man
and the purely * self-forgetf uf ' Benevolence of the best ; and
between these two extremes there are of course very many
degrees of * disinterestedness V If by a disinterested desire we
mean the desire of an object not merely as an end which
we desire, but as an end in itself which on purely objective
1 Simmel has devoted much space (Einleitung in die Moralivissenschaft,
1892, I, Kap. ii) to showing how impossible it is to form any clear concep-
tion of pure Egoism or of pure Altruism : he shows how the instincts, desires,
and emotions with the satisfaction of which a man identifies his own good
or interest or pleasure, always include some which are of social origin and
involve a moral element ; whilst the most altruistic man is, after all, grati-
fying impulses in which he finds his own satisfaction. It seems to me true
and important to say that altruistic and egoistic impulses fuse inextricably.
Few desires and impulses are wholly altruistic or wholly egoistic : we can
only speak of a more or less altruistic or egoistic character in them. The
motives which prompt the average man to devote himself heartily to
his profession can as little be represented as pure desire for the public good
as they can be represented as merely a desire for his own enjoyment or
advancement. His profession has become to him an end-in-itself, but it has
become so because he has both interests which are mainly egoistic and
impulses which are mainly altruistic. At the same time, I do not think we
can deny the psychological possibility of the pure Egoist who deliberately
gratifies his impulses just so far as he thinks they will yield him pleasure
on the whole ; this possibility is not affected by the social origin or the
social tendency of some of those impulses. The pure Altruist who subordinates
his own interest entirely to that of others is more difficult to conceive, because
the man's very Altruism must produce such an identification of his own
interest with that of others that they can hardly be kept absolutely apart
in consciousness, except in those cases where there is some absolute and
palpable contradiction between the interest of others and what would, but
for his Altruism, be conceived of as his own interest. But where the sacrifice
of life, or of all that makes life worth living, is deliberately made, the fact
that on reflection the man may Tie&tfgajae the sacrifice as a good for him does
not make it impossible to desogfbe the desire as such as altruistic, so long as
the object is not desired merely as a means to his own good, whether con-
ceived of as pleasure or something else. What is true in Simmel's conten-
tion is that the normal motive^ of most men are neither purely altruistic
nor purely egoistic.
D 2*
35 PSYCHOLOGICAL HEDONISM [Book I
grounds we conceive off as good, then we must pronounce that
such a disinterested desire is possible only in the case of good
desires. Bad desires and inclinations may be ' disinterested '
in the merely negative sense that they are not desires for
pLeaui0. a& such. Desires for the good of another person or
persons are more ' disinterested ' in a stricter sense and a higher
degree: while the highest degrefe of <* disinterestedness isLpnly
reached when a moral or universal element enters into the desired
object, when the individual desires the object not merely as
a particular individual who chances to have such and such an
impulse, but as a reasonable being who aims at what his Reason
tells him to be not merely his good, but part of the good.
(4) It has been implied in what has been said already that
pleasure, though not the only object of desire, is nevertheless
one possible object of desire, and that desire of pleasure, though
incompetent by itself to explain the most ordinary springs of
action, is widely operative in human life. If this is not often
explicitly denied, there are many Moralists who in their zeal
against pleasure seem disposed to ignore or gloss it over. Butler,
for instance, appears to ignore entirely the existence of any
general desire for pleasure as distinct from (a) particular ' pro-
pensions/ or affections, or disinterested desires for objects,
and (b) the desire for one's ' interest ' on the whole. Whether
or not he is right in holding that hunger is a disinterested
desire for food, hunger is clearly distinguishable from the
desire for gastronomic pleasure. When a City Alderman after
satisfying his hunger goes on grossly to over-feed himself, he is
surely impelled by a love of pleasure which is as distinct from the
passion of hunger as it is from a rational affection towards his
own interest on the whole. Indeed, the calculating desire for
one's interest on the whole, if * interest ' be understood in the
hedonistic sense, is only explicable as the result, in the developed
and reflective consciousness, of the desire for present and
immediate pleasure. The idea of pleasure on the whole is
got by abstraction from a number of particular pleasures each
of which the man desires, but which experience shows him cannot
be enjoyed all at once.
(5) If modern Anti-hedonist? have not explicitly explained
Chap, ii, v] THE SUM OF PLEASURES 37
away all desire for pleasure, some of them have categorically
and in terms denied the possibility of desiring a ' greatest quantum
of pleasure ' or a ' sum of pleasures '. The possibility of desiring
a sum of pleasures was denied by the late Prof. T. H. Green,
but it is difficult to see on what grounds except the obvious but
irrelevant fact that pleasures cannot be enjojfed as a sum *.
Such arguments are sutoiy based upon a mere verbal quibble.
You might as well deny that I can desire music because I cannot
take in a whole symphony simultaneous!^, while each separate
note, taken by itself, would not be music at all. When I say
that I desire a sum of pleasures, I mean of course that I desire to
get as much pleasure as possible, i. e. to enjoy pleasure as intensd
and as lasting as possible. Such an aim seems to me perfectly
intelligible and rational as far as it goes. How far such a
formulation of the ethical criterion falls short of the real demands
of the moral consciousness, we shall have to consider hereafter.
It is enough here to say that it is not in my view possible to
oppose a hedonistic Ethic on the ground that its end is an
impossible or unattainable one, or the hedonistic Psychology
on the ground that the motive which it represents as the sole
motive of human conduct is an impossible or non-existent
motive. The question is, however, of so much importance that
I reserve a more full discussion of it for a separate chapter 2 .
(6) And here perhaps it may be well to meet an objection
which turns upon what is often called the ' paradox of Hedonism/
If you aim at pleasure you will not get it/ it is said. * To get
pleasure forget it/ Within certain limits, I quite admit the
truth of the experience alleged. It is no doubt a serious argu-
ment against the adoption of the hedonistic calculus as our sole
guide in personal conduct. But to a certain extent it is possible
to allo^f for this fact of experience even in the hedonistic calculus
itself. I do not find that I fail to enjoy a holiday because I have
carefully considered which of various tours, equally expensive
or inexpensive and equally recuperative 3 , I should enjoy most.
1 Cf. Sidgwick, Methods of Ethics, 6th ed., p. 134. 2 Book II, ch. i.
8 Even this could not be decided without taking into consideration the
pleasure I should get. The ^edonistic calculus is as necessary for duty as
for pleasure. If the doctrine that pleasure cannot be obtained by contrivance"
38 PSYCHOLOGICAL HEDONISM [Book I
I should no doubt begin to lose pleasure, if I were always calcu-
lating whether the enjoyment had realized my expectations.
But, subject to this consideration, I do not believe that in small
matters supposing the pursuit of pleasure to be strictly limited
by considerations of duty, so that no latent uneasiness of con-
science cleaves to our enjoyment the alleged paradox holds
good at all. It is not a matter 6f experience that pleasure is
diminished by being provided and contrived for beforehand l .
I do not find that the dinner which I have ordered myself
always gives me less pleasure than the dinner which has been
ordered by somebody else. In certain circumstances the previous
contrivance may even become a positive enhancement of the
delight; as when Charles Lamb complained that in his days
of comparative affluence he could not get the pleasure out of his
theatre-goings and occasional holiday-makings which he did
when they had to be anxiously planned and contrived for weeks
beforehand 2 .
VI
Before leaving the subject of pleasure I think it desirable
to add a /urther explanation. It is possible to reject the hedon-
istic Psychology without admitting the existence of disinterested
desires in the strictest sense of the word. Until recently the
existence pf disinterested desires was usually denied (among
modern Philosophers) only by Hedonists. The late Professor
Green agreed with Professor Sidgwick in accepting unreservedly
were true, a Physician would have carefully to conceal from his overworked
or overworried patient the fact that the tonic he was recommending was
simply a dose of pleasure. This may possibly at times be desirable, but not
in the case of persons who have no rooted antipathy to pleasure.
1 Not only does not the calculation always diminish the pleasure, but a
further pleasure may arise from the satisfaction of the desire for pleasurable
life in general, as has been well pointed out by von Hartmann, who is
assuredly no Hedonist (* eine zweite reflektierte Lust aus der Befriedigung
des eudamonistischen Wollens,' Ethische Studien, p. 137). At the same time
he seems to me mistaken, if not inconsistent, in maintaining that all
pleasure arises from the satisfaction of some desire (* dass es keine Lust
giebt, die nicht an die Befriedigung eines Begehrens gekniipft ware,' 1. c.,
p. 143), though he admits that the desire may sometimes be set up by the
mere presence of the means to its satisfaction,.
2 * Old China ' in The Last Essays of.Elia.
Chap, ii, vi] EGOISM WITHOUT HEDONISM 39
Butler's quite explicit doctrine on this head. At the same time
we find in Professor Green's writings, side by side with this
view, another which seems to be scarcely consistent with it,
He commits himself at times to the doctrine that in every action
' self-satisfaction is sought V His theory of the * timeless self '
no doubt makes it difficult to say in what relatfon this doctrine
of self-satisfaction is j&yposSd to stand to the belief in 'dis-
interested desires/ Desires are certainly in time, and the object
of desire must be conceived of as futurS. It is, therefore, not
easy to see how the satisfaction of a self which is not in time
can be made into a motive for conduct, or how we can at a definite
moment of time introduce a change into that which is timeless.
Here (as so often with theories of this kind) it is difficult not to
suspect some confusion between the permanent and the timeless.
But, waiving that difficulty, I can only understand the idea
of ' aiming at self-satisfaction ' to mean that my motive is a cer-
tain future state of my own consciousness. If I am always
aiming at a future state of my own consciousness, I cannot
be ' disinterestedly ' pursuing the advancement of learning or the
good of my neighbour. In that case I should care about my
neighbour's good merely as a means to my own ' satisfaction.'
The two doctrines are antagonistic and inconsistent. Recent
writers of Professor Green's School appear to have recognized
the fact, and have explicitly adopted the doctrind of ' self-
satisfaction/ They are Egoists without being Hedonists. They
admit that every action is properly speaking ' interested,' though
my interest is not equivalent to my maximum pleasure. Such a
doctrine seems to be no less false psychologically, and ethically
scarcely less objectionable, than the hedonistic Psychology itself 2 .
Of course there is a sense in which every action is * interested/
I cannpt care for anything my neighbour's good, the cause
1 Prolegomena to Ethics, Book II, ch. ii, and Book III, ch. i.
2 ' The same analysis which shows me that I do not always aim at my own
pleasure, shows me equally that I do not always aim at my own satisfaction.
I reject, in the one case as in the other, the conscious egoism of the form in
which human choice is conceived except in the insignificant sense that I am
conscious that what I desire and aim at is desired and aimed at by me
a tautological proposition 1 (S^dgwick, Ethics of T. H. Green, Mr. Herbert
Spencer, and J. Martineau, p. 103).
40 PSYCHOLOGICAL HEDONISM [Book I
of 'learning* or of 'sport* or whatever it may be unless it
interests me. But this has, I suppose, never been denied. It
simply amounts to saying that a desire which is to move me
must be my desire. The question, as I conceive it, is whether
the motive of every action is some future state of my own
consciousness, or whether it may be some* state of some other's
consciousness, or some event in th^ ob/jc'tive world 1 . To assert
the former view would amount, as it appears to me, to saying
that a man cannot be benevolent simply because he cares about
his neighbour for that neighbour's sake, but only because he
wants to be a person conscious of his own benevolence. His
neighbour's good is regarded not as an end but only as a means
a means to some state of his own soul, however ' spiritual '
or exalted that state may be supposed to be. Now such a
doctrine seems to be simply a recrudescence of the old ' soul-
saving * view of life, which may so easily degenerate into some-
thing considerably more nauseous and offensive than an honest
egoistic Hedonism which is naked and not ashamed. But the
question with which we are now concerned is whether the doc-
trine is psychologically true. To my own mind it seems open to
precisely the same line of objection which its supporters raise in
arguing against Hedonism. It involves the same hysteron-
proteron. It makes the anticipated ' satisfaction * the condition
of the desire, whereas the desire is really the condition of the
satisfaction. If I cannot by any possibility be moved by my
neighbour's calamity until I have satisfied myself that I shall
get myself into a state of desirable moral exaltation by doing so,
you cut away all possibility of explaining why such a state
should be looked at as desirable or morally exalted. Ualfias
I looked upon my neighbour's good as a thing for which I cared,
or which possessed intrinsic value apart from any effect upon me,
I should not think it a good state of mind for me to contribute
or to have contributed to that good. It is precisely the unselfisli-
1 Of course, if such an event is to have real value, it must ultimately have
some effect on some consciousness or other, but this need not be distinctly
contemplated by the agent. A Samson might well desire the destruction of
his enemies and their temple, even at the CQst of his own life, without dis-
tinctly thinking of the satisfaction to be given to his surviving countrymen.
Chap.ii,vi] REAL DISINTERESTEDNESS
f the action which I find good. If I cared for my neigh-
bour's welfare merely as a means to my own edification, I should
not be unselfish. In many cases I cannot doubt that such
acts are done entirely without the thought of self, or even of
abstract duty : the desire of the other man's good acts as directly
and immediately upc*i the will as the desire of tme's own : while,
so far as a reflective Idea cJf goodness or duty enters into the
motive, the very essence of that ideal of moral goodness or duty
for its own sake is precisely this that the thing should be done
simply because Reason approves it, and without calculation as. to
how it will affect our own future consciousness.
The immediacy with which the conception that a thing is
rational acts on the will is best seen perhaps in cases where
no very important moral interest is at stake. A man with
a taste for 'Bradshaw' sees that certain trains are arranged
badly and stupidly. He feels a disinterested aversion to such
an irrational arrangement. He proceeds anonymously to write
to the papers or to the Company's Traffic Manager. No reputa-
tion is to be got by the step, and he never expects to travel that
way again. As little is he thinking of any future glow of self-
satisfaction or of the improvement of his own character. The
mere fact of the thing being irrational and as it should not
be is a sufficient reason, to a rational being for wanting to
put it right. If you say he is ' uneasy ' at the thing being
wrong and it is the uneasiness that moves him, you are of course
falling once again into the hysteron-proteron in the form in
which it got hold of Locke l . You are explaining the desire
(and consequent action) by the uneasiness, whereas it is really
the desire that explains and occasions the uneasiness.
No doubt it may be freely admitted that when once an object
is looked upon as'good, as a thing that interests us, the desire to
1 Essay, Book II, ch. xxi, 40. In so far as Locke actually identifies (as he
shows a tendency to do) the * desire ' and the * uneasiness ' he is not open
to this criticism, and in fact no one shows more convincingly that it is not
* the greater good, though apprehended to be so ' (ib., 35), which always de-
termines the will ; but in so far as he makes the motive to be * the removing
of pain ... as the first and necessary step towards happiness f * that happi-
ness which we all aim at in all our actions ' (ib., 36) he is virtually under
the influence of the hedonistic Psychology.
4* PSYCHOLOGICAL HEDONISM [Book I
attain for ourselves the moral good implied in the promotion of that
object supplements, and fuses itself with, the desire that the object
should be attained. Just as experience of the pleasure of satis-
fying a desire reacts upon and reinforces the desire itself, so with
those highest desires which consist in devotion to some ideal aim or
some form of otlfer people's good the aspiration after goodness
for ourselve3 mingles with and reinforces* the desire that others
should be benefited or the ideal aim promoted : the desire to be
good and the desire to do good blend into oije. The proportion
in which the desire for persona} holiness on the one hand, and the
desire for the promotion of objective interests qn the other, enter
into the motives of the best lives probably varies enormously even
in the noblest characters. And from a practical ppint of view it
is probably desirable that both elements should be present. The
man who is only interested in people and causes is apt to be
ijidifferent to aspects and departments of Morality which are
really pf great social importance ; while the man who thinks
only of his own spiritual condition is apt to become unhealthily
introspective, if not anti-social. Both types of character are
one-sided ; but, if we had to choose between the two, it is hardly
to the man who most consciously and deliberately regards his
family and his ueighbours, the poor and the unfortunate, as the
means to his own spiritual advancement, or as supplying occasions
for the acquisition of ' merit/ that we should accord the prefer-
ence. Soijie of the ethical questions on which we have here
touched will demand our attention again. Meanwhile, I content
myself with repeating that, as .a pure matter of Psychology, the
theory that every desire is a desire ' for some form of personal
good l ' is open to every objection which its exponents have so
1 A few expressions of the doctrine here criticized may be given. Mr.
Fairbrother is quite justified in making Green bold (Tfie Philosophy of T. H.
Green, p. 67) that the end * is always a " personal good*' in some form. . . . Man
always is actuated by this conception of himself as satisfied ' ; but he ignores
all the passages that have an opposite tendency. The Bishop of Clogher (Dr.
d'Arcyj introduces another feature into the doctrine that ' the end of a desire
is not an external thing, but the corresponding activity ' (Short Study of Ethics,
2nd ed., p. 158). Somewhat similar, though more vague, is Mr. Bradley 's
earlier doctrine that * nothing is desired except that which is identified with
ourselves, and we can aim at nothing, except in so far as we aim at ourselves
it ' (Ethical Studies, p. 62). Professor Muirnead likewise contends that
Chap, ii, vi] HYSTERON-PROTERON OF EGOISM 43
convincingly urged against the hedonistic Psychology. The
satisfaction of altruistic and other higher desires only conies
tojb regarded as ' our good ' because we care for a good which
originally presents itself as a good which is not ours.
' It is only as involved in one's own that one can desire one's neighbour's
good : it is only as his g$od enters into my conception <?f my good that I can
make it an object of dts^re ad of volition ' (The Elements of Ethics,
p. 154). And again, * The essential point to note is that all desire, and there-
fore all will (inasmuch as will depends upon ^desire), carry with them a
reference to self. Their object is a form of self-satisfaction ' (ib., p. 50).
'Reference to self 1 is vague, but appears to be explained by the previous
sentence : * They [the objects of desire] are related to the self, in that it is
the realization of them for a self that is desired.' Still there is a vagueness
which I should like to see cleared up. Does * for a self mean (i) that the
desire is mine, or (2) that it is my interest in some future state of myself that
makes me care to pull my neighbour's child out of the fire ? The first doc-
trine seems to be as unquestionable as it is unquestioned ; the latter false.
On p. 47 we seem to get an explicit statement that it is always a future state
of the self that is desired in the words : * Desire is a state of tension created
by the contrast between the present state of the self and the idea of a future
state not yet realised/ Is not this ' tension ' very much like Locke's * greatest
present uneasiness,' with the disadvantage of introducing a not very intelli-
gible physical metaphor ? I should say that in the case of the anonymoua
railway reformer contemplated in the text the tension is caused solely by
the contrast between the present state of the time-table and the ideal which
his reason unfolds to him. If so, the object of his desire, the object for
which he cares, is not ' self-satisfaction. 1 Whatever be the meaning of his
earlier and vaguer utterances, I rejoice to find that Mr. Bradley does now
repudiate the doctrine which I am attacking. ' It is not true that in volition
the idea is always the idea that I am about to do something. I cannot
admit that the qualification of the change as my act must always in volition
form a part of the idea's original content ' (Mind, N. S., No. 44, 1902, p. 456),
It is true that Mr. Bradley is speaking of Will, and in his view ' desire is
most certainly not necessary for will ' (ib., p. 457), but he elsewhere declares
still more clearly that we can desire 'an event outside and quite apart
from our psychical existence ' (Mind, N. S., No. 41, 1902, p. 18). That is
exactly the point on which I wish to insist, but it seems to me quite incon<
sistent with Mr. Bradley's doctrine that the bad man acting (as ordinary
people would put it) against knowledge * is pursuing still and he alwaya
must pursue his own good ' (Mind, N. S., No. 43, 1902, p. 307), and with the
whole tendency of that article. Surely ' my good' is not ' an event outside
and quite apart from our psychical existence.' Mr. Bradley might reply
that to * desire ' and to ' will ' are not the same thing, but if a desire (not
opposed by some other desire of sufficient strength) does not pass into
action, have we not the ' freak of unmotived willing ' against which Mr,
Bradley very properly protests ?
CHAPTER III
RATIONALISTIC UTILITARIANISM
I.
IN the last chapter an attempt was made to show that as
a matter of psychological fact human nature is capable of
desiring other things besides pleasure. To show that something
besides pleasure is capable of being desired does not, however,
prove that anything besides pleasure is ultimately desirable.
Jt is still quite possible to maintain that pleasure is the only
true or rational object of desire. The question remains whether
this is actually the case. There are undoubtedly people who
on reflection are prepared to declare that they can attach no
ultimate value to anything besides pleasure. They may recognize
the existence of ' disinterested desires ' for knowledge or for
power, for wealth or for vengeance, but on reflection it appears
to them rational to gratify these desires only in so far as they
tend to swell the sum of pleasure which means, as we have
seen, to get as much pleasure as they can for as long as they
can. The wise man (it is suggested) will treat the attainment
of all other objects as means, not as ends. Other desires will
be, so far as possible, gratified or repressed, stimulated or dis-
couraged or transformed in whatever way experience shows
to be on the whole conducive to getting as much pleasure out
of life as possible.
Now so long as the egoistic Hedonist confines himself to
asserting ' I care nothing about anything but my own pleasure,
and I propose to gratify my other impulses only in so far as
(in the long run) I think it tends to procure for me a maximum
yield of pleasure on the whole/ he is inaccessible to logical attack.
But very often he does not stop at that. He declares not merely
that pleasure is his object, but that pl^asureifiLlkaonly reasonable
f deaire, that every reasonable man must agree with him
Chap. iii,i] EGOISTIC HEDONISM 45
in thinking that his own pleasure is to each man the only proper
object of pursuit, that any oa& who. pursues ~any .other aiia.is
unreasonable, and makes a mistake. And when that attitude
is adopted, it becomes possible to urge that he is implicitly
appealing to a universal standard which must be the same
for all men. He admits that Reason can pronounce upon the
value of ends, and th&tn it does so, not from any merely private
point of view, but from an objective or universal standpoint.
The pursuit of pleasure is approved not iherely because it chances
to be the end that he prefers, but because in some sense it is the true
end, the end that ought to be pursued. The champion of pleasure
may, indeed, contend that the universal rule which Reason
approves, is not that pleasure in general ought to be pursued,
but that each man should pursue his own pleasure. But an
egoistic Hedonist of this type is liable to be asked on what
grounds an impartial or impersonal Reason should take up
this position. He may be asked whether, when he condemns
the pursuit of ends other than pleasure, he does not imply
that the claims of this end are dependent, not upon the in-
dividual's chance likings, but upon something in pleasure itself,
something which Reason discerns in it, and which every Reason
that really is Reason must likewise discern in it. And if that
is so, he may further be asked why Reason should attach more
importance to one man's pleasure than to another's. If _ot~.is
pleasure that is the end, it cannot matter, it may be urged, whose
pleasure it is that is promoted. The greater pleasure must always
be preferable to the less pleasure, even though the promotion
of the greatest pleasure on the whole should demand that this
or that individual should sacrifice some of his private pleasure.*
From this point of view it will seem impossible that Reason
shoul|i approve the universal rule that each should pursue
his private pleasure with the result of losing pleasure on the
whole. The rational rule of conduct will appear to be thati
each individual should aim at the greatest pleasure on the whole,
and th$t when a greater pleasure for the whole can be procured
by the sacrifice of an individual's private pleasure, the sacrifice
shoulsUbe-made. The Egoist's appeal to Reason, the setting
up of Egoism as an objectively rational rule of conduct, t^e|
46 RATIONALISTIC UTILITARIANISM [Book I
condemnation as irrational of those who pursue any other
end, seems therefore to react against his own position. The
logic of the egoistic Hedonist's position carries him away
from egoistic Hedonism and forces him into the adoption of
a universalistic Hedonism.
Whatever majf be thought of the line of Argument which thus
attempts to cross the gulf betweeti egpJ&tic and universalistic
Hedonism, it is at all events one which has been actually
followed more or less ccftisciously and explicitly by many minds.
There are many persons who remain Hedonists, who are prepared
to declare that all other objects except pleasure should be
pursued only in so far as they yield pleasure on the whole,
but who are not prepared to say that it is only their private
pleasure which should be pursued. Among these desires for
objects other than pleasure of which they are conscious, there
is one which does present itself to them in a different light
from those other impulses which they are prepared to subordinate
entirely to the pursuit of private pleasure, and that is the desire
for other people's pleasure. For the very principle upon which
their own preference of pleasure to all other objects of desire
rests, seems to put them under the necessity of approving a
similar end for other people. How then can they condemn
in themselves an impulse which tends towards the realization
of that end for others? To do so would seem to involve
inconsistency or self-contradiction. There is of course no
contradiction in the mere existence of inconsistent desires in
different persons. There is no contradiction in admitting, as a
fact, that I may want what my neighbour wants too, and we cannot
both enjoy. But it is otherwise when it is a question of approving
inconsistent desires. Reason cannot give different answers to
the same question. It may of course appear to do so : we may
all make mistakes, but when we do so, we acknowledge that
it is not really Reason which pronounces. If the Reason of
two men tells them opposite things, we necessarily conclude
that one of them at least must be wrong. Hence when occasions
arise, on which what increases pleasure for me diminishes it
for some one else, it is impossible that each can be right in
his own pleasure to be the moVe important. By such
Chap, iii, i] FROM EGOISM TO ALTRUISM 47
a line of thought, the Hedonist who bases his position upon
Reason is driven to recognize that the greatest pleasure on
the whole is from the point of view of Reason the most impQrtant
end, nq .matter whether it is I or some other ' I ' that is to enjoy
thaJL.pl$&Sure. No doubt this bare intellectual recognition of
its reasonableness dees not by itself lead to altruistic conduct
except where thejeJ^L^ther (i) a disinterested desire of other
people's well-being (whether of certain definite individuals or
of humanity at large) or (2) what Professor Sidgwick has called
a ' desire to do what is right and reasonable as such.' In the
first case, Reason will prevent a man, so to speak, inhibiting
his spontaneous benevolent impulses, as he (more or less fre-
quently) inhibits other impulses when they are shown not
to be conducive to his own interest on the whole ; in the second
case, the reasonableness of the conduct will actually become
the motive for its being done, even though (apart from the
verdict of Reason) there should be no spontaneous inclination
towards the conduct which it prescribes. In this way it is
possible for a mind which starts with a conviction of the
intrinsic reasonableness of the pursuit of pleasure to feel itself
compelled to admit, not only the abstract reasonableness of
unselfish conduct, but also the existence of something within
us which sanctions, prescribes, dictates, a certain course of
conduct quite irrespectively of the individual's interest in
other words to admit the existence, and the authority of what
is popularly called Conscience, or the ' duty ' which Conscience
prescribes of what in more technical language is styled the
Practical Reason or of the categorical imperative which that
Reason enacts.
Or if to some minds this language about Reason and im-
peratives carries with it associations which seem to lead them
beyonci the point which they have really conceded, we may
put the matter in a slightly different way. Every one who
ever thinks about conduct at all, who regards the choice of
end as a matter upon which thinking has got anything to say,
every one who attempts to represent his conduct as capable
of rational justification, gives judgements of value. The egoistic
Hedonist who says not merely * I like pleasure and therefor*
48 RATIONALISTIC UTILITARIANISM [Book I
I intend to pursue it/ but 'the wise man is he who pursues
pleasure/ shows that he has this ultimate and unanalysable idea
of good or value in his mind as much as the idealizing moralist
who says ' Virtue is the true end of human pursuit/ Even
though 'that which has value' may be to him coextensive
with pleasure, the term ' value ' or * good ' ^oes not mean merely
the same as pleasure. The propoiitiop ' my pleasure is good J
is not to him a mere tautology. It does,, not mean merely
' pleasure is pleasant/* Still" more obviously is this the case
when such a Hedonist recognizes, as I have contended that he is
logically bound to recognize, that it is not only his pleasure
which has value but all pleasure; and that therefore it is
rational for him to pursue his neighbour's pleasure as well
as his own, and to prefer the larger amount of pleasure to
the smaller, even though the larger pleasure be the pleasure
of others, and the smaller his own.
After such an admission has been made, the enquirer may
still take a utilitarian view of the moral criterion: he may
still hold that we find out what it is reasonable to do by
asking experience to decide what promotes the greatest happiness
on the whole or (less logically) the 'greatest happiness of the
greatest number ' : but he is no longer a Utilitarian in his view
of the ultimate reason for doing what is thus ascertained to
be right. In admitting that one course of conduct is rational,
another irrational, irrespectively of the individual's 'interest/
he has admitted in effect that one thing is right, another wrong ;
he has admitted that the difference between right and wrong
is perceived (in a sense) a priori l , and not by experience ; he
has admitted the existence of an 'ought' and an 'ought not/
however much he must still protest against what he may be
disposed to regard as the mystical character with which the
idea of ' ought ' or ' duty ' or ' moral obligation ' has been
invested by the traditional schools of anti-utilitarian or 'in-
tuitional ' or ' transcendental ' Ethics.
1 This assertion will subsequently be explained and qualified (see below,
p. 112, 148, et passim).
Chap, iii, iij DOCTRINE OF SIDGWICK 49
II
Of the writers who have been led by some such line of
thought to attempt the combination of a rationalistic view
of the ultimate basis of Ethics with a purely hedonistic criterion
of conduct, by far the irost iirportant and the most distinguished
is the late Profesapr Henry Sidgwick. To examine the system
of * rationalistic Utilitarianism ' with which his writings present
us, will be perhaps the best way at once of exhibiting in further
detail the argument which has been outlined, and of criticizing
the attempt to stop exactly at this point in the dialectic
which leads away from Utilitarianism towards what I may be
excused for calling by anticipation a higher and deeper Moral
Philosophy.
Professor Sidgwick's position in the development of English
Utilitarianism may be indicated by saying that he takes up
the controversy at the point at which it had been left by Mill.
Of John Stuart Mill's attempt to reconcile a theoretical accept-
ance of the hedonistic Psychology with the practical recognition
of an enthusiastic * Altruism/ and even of a ' disinterested love
of Virtue/ almost enough has been said in the last chapter. His
expedient is to introduce into the hedonistic calculus differences
of kind irresolvable into differences of degree. We have already
seen that the desire of a higher pleasure is not really a desire
of pleasure: what makes one pleasure 'higher' than another
must be something other than its pleasingness. Moreover, when
Mill recognizes the possibility of desire for pleasure passing
by association into a 'disinterested love of Virtue for its own
sake/ even were we to accept the paradoxical allegation that
Virtue and pleasure have been invariably associated in our
experience, we should still be confronted with the admission
that as .an actual fact it is possible for me now to desire
something besides my OWB pleasure, however I may have come
to desire it. Mill's own non-recognition of this consequence was
due no doubt to the well-known fallacy of 'mental chemistry '
of supposing that mental states contain within them unaltered
the states out of which they may have grown, as a chemical
RASH D ALL I
50 RATIONALISTIC UTILITARIANISM [Book I
compound still continues to have in it its component elements 1 .
But, even were his account of disinterested love of Virtue
psychologically tenable, it might still be pointed out that the
tendency of Mill's theory is to place the Saint's love of Virtue
precisely on a level with the miser's love of money 2 . Granted
that both may* be accounted for by association, the discovery
of the association tends to its own disposition. When the miser
discovers that money is a means and not an end, he will, if
he is sensible, cease to love money for its own sake. When
the Saint, instructed by the Philosopher, discovers that pleasure
is the end and Virtue only the means, he must, one would
suppose, cease to desire Virtue for its own sake and cultivate
pleasure instead. The more rational he is, the more irrational
will he deem it to confuse means with ends. Association of
ideas is after all, in such a connexion, only another name for
confusion of thought. An ethical system which is based upon
confusion of thought surely rests upon a precarious foundation.
Professor Sidgwick 3 completely reverses the mode of expanding
in an altruistic direction the Benthamite Hedonism adopted
by Mill. It is because he does so that his Utilitarianism is,
from an intellectual point of view, so great an advance upon
Mill's : though the change of front involves some sacrifice
of the peculiar unction which makes Mill's Utilitarianism BO
persuasive a book to young students of Philosophy. Professor
Sidgwick sees that the admission of difference in kind among
1 In what sense this assumption of Chemistry is actually true, it is un-
necessary here to enquire.
2 * To illustrate this farther, we may remember that virtue is not the only
thing, originally a means, and which if it were not a means to anything else,
would be and remain indifferent, but which by association with what it is a
means to, comes to be desired for itself, and that toe with the utmost inten-
sity. What, for example, shall we say of the love of money ? There is
nothing originally more desirable about money than about any heap of
glittering pebbles. Its worth is solely that of the things which it will buy ;
the desire for other things than itself, which it is a means of gratifying.
Yet the love of money is not only one of the strongest moving forces of
human life, but money is, in many cases, desired in and for itself. . . .
Virtue, according to the utilitarian conception, is a good of this description '
(Utilitarianism, pp. 55, 56).
9 The Methods of Ethics, ist ed., 1874 ; 6th ed., 1901.
Chap.iii,ii] AGREEMENT WITH BUTLER AND KANT 51
pleasures is utterly irreconcilable, not only with the hedonistic
Psychology which he abandons, but with the hedonistic con-
ception of ultimate good which he retains ; while, on the other
hand, the ' greatest-happiness principle ' defined as ' the creed
which holds that actions are right in proportion as they tend
to promote happiness, twrong as they tend to produce the reverse
of happiness/ is not prtin&faSie bound up with the doctrine that
all desires are desires of pleasure.
Professor Sidgwick fully admits as a psychological fact the
existence of ' disinterested affections/ Benevolence among the'
number. He rightly, however, distinguishes (with Butler, but in
opposition to Shaftesbury and others) between the possibility
of action motived by desire for the happiness of others and the
reasonableness or obligation of gratifying such a desire in
opposition to private interest. In point of disinterestedness
Benevolence is on a level with Malevolence. But besides these
' particular affections ' (to use Butler's expression) or desires for
particular objects, Professor Sidgwick recognizes also the
possibility of a ' desire to do what is right and reasonable as such/
And he does not in any way shrink from the admission that
such a desire amounts to what Butler would call a desire to do
what Conscience prescribes, or what Kant would call a * respect '
for the Moral Law l . When a man contemplates himself in his
relations to his fellow men and asks what it is reasonable for him
to do, he cannot but recognize that he seems ' made/ as Butler
would put it, to promote public good. A reasonable man
contemplating the world as an impartial spectator, uninfluenced
by private desires or passions, would necessarily recognize
Benevolence as that affection in the ' oeconomy and constitution
of human nature ' which ought to be gratified in preference to
merely self -regarding desires. To the disinterested spectator
more good must appear preferable to less good, irrespective
of the question whether it is A or B who is benefited, while the
same disinterested Reason will prescribe an equal distribution
of good among beings capable of enjoying it. The right course
of action is that which would appear reasonable to such a dis-
1 Yon Hartmann uses the expressive term ' Vernunfttrieb ' (Das sittliche
Btunisstsein, pp. 264, 270).
E to
5* RATIONALISTIC UTILITARIANISM [Book I
interested spectator, and to the agent himself in so far as his
judgement as a rational being is unbiassed by private desires ;
it is the course of action which, if he had to legislate for others
unbiassed by such desires, he would prescribe to all, the course
which as a rational being he recognizes as ' fit to be made law
universal/ In his view of Duty as thfe reasonable course of
action, and in holding that disinlere^cecl love of the reasonable
may be a motive of action, Sidgwick follows Butler and Kant,
who are so far in entire agreement. But Sidgwick (here
identifying himself with Butler more closely than with Kant)
also recognizes that to the rational being placed in the position
of an impartial spectator, it must appear in itself equally
reasonable that each man should pursue his own greatest
happiness. When a man's own greatest happiness would have
to be purchased by the sacrifice of greater happiness on the part
of others, the reasonable course may still seem to be the pro-
motion of the happiness of others at the expense of one's own,
so long as he looks upon the matter from the point of view of
universal Reason ; and an impulse more or less strongly
impelling to such a sacrifice is actually felt, at least at times,
by all rational beings. But, all the same, it remains something
apparently unreasonable something contrary to that order of
things which a perfectly rational being endowed with unlimited
power might be expected to appoint that the happiness of one
should involve a voluntary deduction by another from his own
in itself no less important happiness. Man is made to promote
public good, but no less evidently is he made to promote private
good. Hence Sidgwick abandons the attempt to find in cases
of collision between the requirements of universalistic and of
egoistic Hedonism any course of action which is completely
reasonable reasonable from every point of view without the
admission of theological postulates. Entirely apart from such
postulates, altruistic conduct can be shown to be reasonable : it
is the course which will be chosen, as the more reasonable of the
two alternatives, even in opposition to interest, by the man in
whom the desire to do ' what is right and reasonable as such ' is
predominant ; but such a course can be shown to be the one and
only reasonable course, and the contrary to be completely and
Chap, iii, ii] DUTY AND GOOD 53
wholly unreasonable, only by the aid of a ' hypothesis unverifiablc
by experience reconciling the individual with the universal
Reason 1 / that the Universe is constructed upon a reasonable
basis. And this assumption is one which on the whole the writer
seems disposed himself to concede, though, at least in his latex
editions, he makes no positive assertion to that effect.
The great modern champion of rationalistic or universalistic
Hedonism certainly cannot be charged with any desire to conceal
the extent of his approximation to the position of Butler and
Kant. He is at one with them in the point of view from which
he regards the whole subject. He does not look upon the
Science of Morals as a branch of Natural History. He gives up
altogether the attempt to find the ultimate end of action by
' induction ' : he sees that no accumulation of observed sequences,
no experience of what is, no predictions of what will be, can
possibly prove what ought to le. He neither dismisses the
'ought 7 as a figment (with Bentham), nor involves the whole
discussion in inextricable confusion (with J. S. Mill) by failing
to distinguish between the desirable and the desired, and calling
a desire for the happiness of others a 'desire for happiness/
a mode of speaking which would allow us to define the passion
of revenge as a ' desire for pain, injury, or death/ In one word,
Professor Sidgwick shares with the father of Idealism the
supreme conviction that vovs Kparet iravra. He recognizes that
Morality is based upon rational and a priori judgements o*
value. In so far as the motive of moral action in the individual
is concerned, Professor Sidgwick is in fact an ' Intuitionist ' or
1 Rationalist/ He is a Hedonist only in his view of the nature
of ultimate or universal Good, and consequently in his view of
the moral criterion. The fundamental question raised by
Professor SidgwidkTs position is the logical compatibility of
a rationalistic theory of duty with a hedonistic conception of
1 This phrase is taken from the ist edition (p. 473), but Prof. Sidgwick's
statement of the absolute necessity of such a harmony to the construction of
a logically coherent Science of Ethics is rather strengthened than weakened
in the subsequent editions : though he seems, rather from a desire not to go
beyond the province of pure Ethics than from any change of personal
opinion, to assert less strongly, or not to assert at all, that the intuitions of
Moral Philosophy actually do tfupply a basis for Theology.
54 RATIONALISTIC UTILITARIANISM [Book I
the true good or rc'Aos of man. Before discussing this question,
it will be well to re-state Professor Sidgwick's position in a some-
what more concise form.
Looking upon human nature in Butlerian phrase as ' a system '
or ' constitution/ Professor Sidgwick may be said to find in it
three distinct 'groups of 'affections' or* ' propensions/ viz. (i)
the desire for happiness or private ^<fod, or ' self-love ' ; (2)
various disinterested desires for objects, i. e. passions such as
Benevolence, hunger* anger, &c. ; (3) the desire to do what
is right and reasonable as such. In the * calm moment ' when
a man, under the influence of this last desire, sits down to ask
what it is reasonable for him to do, reflection convinces him,
according to Professor Sidgwick : (a) that for himself (assuming
certain postulates which upon the whole he is justified in
assuming) it is reasonable to gratify, in cases of collision,
Benevolence in preference to self-love, but to make the gratifica-
tion of all other passions subordinate and instrumental to the
promotion of his own interest on the whole ; (b) that in acting for
the good of others, it is reasonable to gratify their other desires
or passions only in so far as these can be made subservient to
the satisfaction of their desire for happiness. In short, in
himself he is to recognize Benevolence as having a prerogative
over self-love, though both desires are rational ; while in others
he is to treat self-love as alone among these desires or propensions
entitled to gratification. It is a duty to promote universal good,
but universal good is merely pleasure. It is right to promote
pleasure, but it is not the individual's own good to do so.
Such a position seems open to the following objections : (i) If
we look not so much to the speculative as to the practical side
of Sidgwick's Utilitarianism, and put aside certain admissions as
to the logical incompleteness of his position, we may say that his
attitude towards duty was the attitude oi* Butler or Kant, while
his attitude towards the idea of good was that of the Hedonist
pure and simple. He tells the individual to promote other
people's good, but he tells them also that other people's good is
pleasure. Reason bids him make duty rather than private
pleasure his own end, but in thinking what is the end that he is
to promote for other people, it pronounces that end to be pleasure.
Chap, iii, ii] EGOISM ILLOGICAL 55
He thus assigns a different end to the individual and to the race.
Professor Sidgwick in fact proves unfaithful to the principle
which he professes to accept from Kant not, indeed, as an
adequate definition, but as a fundamental characteristic of the
Moral Law that it shall be ' capable of serving for law universal/
tt-i-preBounced right and reasonable for A ta'maka sacrifices
of his own happiness tcf tke gflod of B ; yet, in considering what
is B'_$ good, he is to treat him a& a being for whom it is right
$nd reasonable to live solely for his own 'happiness, to have no
desire gratified but his desire for pleasure. It is a condition
of the Moral Law, Professor Sidgwick tells us, that it shall be, in
Kantian phrase, ' capable of serving for law universal ' ; yet that
law requires each individual to act upon the hypothesis that he
is the only member of the human race subject to it. Reason, we
are told, requires us to act at times in a way contrary to our
interest from love of the ' right and reasonable as such ' ; yet we
are to treat all other human beings but ourselves as incapable of
rational desires, as beings for whom it is reasonable to desire
nothing but pleasure. Moral action is rational action ; and
rational action consists in the gratifying of desires which, it
is admitted, become irrational and immoral as soon as they
collide with the general interest. Such a consequence can only
be avoided by the admission that other people's happiness
is only a rational object of pursuit, for them as for me, in
so far as it is not inconsistent with their promotion of the
general pleasure. The nature of our universal end will then be
profoundly modified. The end becomes not mere happiness but
a social or moral happiness a happiness which is consistent
with a disposition on the part of each member of the society to
promote the happiness of every other in so far as he can do
so without sacrificing a greater amount of his own. Morality or
Goodness would thus seem to have entered into our practical
conception of the end which we are to regard as desirable for
human society.
(2) Sidgwick would no doubt have replied to the above objec-
tion by frankly admitting the ' dualism of the Practical Reason/
A man may recognize, he wrote in his third edition, that * There
is something that it is reasonable for him to desire, when he
56 RATIONALISTIC UTILITARIANISM [Book I
considers himself as an independent unit, and something again
which he must recognize as reasonably to be desired, when he
takes the point of view of a larger whole ; the former of these
objects I call his own Ultimate " Good," and the latter Ultimate
Good taken universally ; while to the sacrifice of the part to the
whole, which is from the point of view ofr the whole reasonable,
I apply the different term " right "*to avoid confusion V It is no
doubt quite intelligible that one thing should appear reasonably
to be desired from a rfian's own point of view, and another thing
when he takes the point of view of a larger whole. But can
both of these points of view be equally reasonable?
can it be reasonable to take tha point of view of the
when once the man knows the existence of the whole and .admits
that the whole is more important than the part I Must not the
point of the view of the whole be the one and only reasonable
point of view ? From the point of view of the whole, the worker
for the good of the whole can alone seem reasonable. The only
reasonable point of view surely must be the one which recognizes
all the facts. From that point of view the promotion of the good
can alone be the reasonable course of action. Tll&^easqnable
course is to projnote the general good, for the general _gppd
is greater than the good of the individual. There is surely no
logical contradiction involved in holding that it is intrin-
sically right and reasonable to promote the good, though such
a course will not always be consistent with the individual's own
good ; for Reason bids us promote not merely what is good, but
the greatest good, and to promote one's own lesser good, just
because it is one's own, will be completely and entirely un-
reasonable.
(3) If the Egoist is pronounced reasonable when he says
' my pleasure is good/ and the., umv^rsalistic Hedonist equally
reasonable when he says * the general pleasure is good/ does
not that show that the terms ' reasonable ' and ' good ' are
really used in different senses? What is there in common
(between the ' good for me ' and ' objective good taken universally J ?
The objective universal point of view really implied (by Professor
Sidgwick's own admission) in the terms ' reasonable ' and ' good/
1 Methods of Ethics, 3rd ed., p. 402.
Chap. Hi, ii] WHY BE REASONABLE? 57
seems to be forgotten when it is contended that the promotion of
the individual's good, even when inconsistent with the general
good, is nevertheless a reasonable object of pursuit. The writer
seems to be relapsing into that meaning of the term ' reasonable '
which has generally found favour with Hedonists who do not
profess to be ' rationalistic ' that is to say, ^internally self-
consistent ' or * conducive* as tt means to the end which any one
happens actually to desire/
(4) The difficulties which have been pointed out might possibly
be evaded by ajnew mode of statement 1 . But if this were done if
it were frankly admitted that the Egoist's conduct is not really
reasonable at all even so the attitude of mind which universal-)
istic Hedonism ascribes to the good man is one which, when
fully realized is, I believe, practically, at least to the great mass
of men, an impossible one. There is no logical contradiction!
in telling me to promote other people's good at the expense
of my own, because it is intrinsically and objectively reasonable
so to do. But for me to act on this rational principle therej
must be a subjective reason, or motive. Granted that it is'
reasonable for me so to act, the question still remains 'Why
should I be reasonable ? ' The Sidgwickian Moralist might tell
me that I have a desire to act reasonably. I reply : ' Yes, I have
such a tendency, but it is, taken by itself, not a very strong one,
and it is in my power to encourage it or to suppress it. I want
you to give me some reason why, since you say my own true
good is nothing but pleasure, I should pursue an end which
is not my good. An abstract or objective Reason may indeed
condemn me if I do not, but I cannot from my own point of view
condemn myself when I pursue what, as you say, Reason itself tells
me is my own true good, and decline (so far as I can help it) to
trouble myself about an end which is not my good. The whole
force of the subjective hold which the precept " be reasonable "
has exercised over me, so long as I was unacquainted with the
1 The passage just quoted has disappeared from the fourth and subsequent
editions of Sidgwick's great work, and with it some other concessions to the
rationality of Egoism, but not all : see for instance the note on p. 200 of the
4th edition (which has since disappeared), and the concluding paragraph of
the final edition.
58 EATIONALISTIC UTILITARIANISM [Book I
teachings of rational Utilitarianism, has lain in its inseparable
connexion with another conviction that it was intrinsically noble
for me to act in this way, and that to act in accordance with the
reasonable wae a good to me, a greater good than I could obtain
by pursuing the pleasure which you tell me is the only true
good. Destroy \hat conviction, and I hava no motive for trying
bo cultivate the love of rational action 01* that love of my neigh-
bour which Reason pronounces to be reasonable. You have con-
vinced me that there? is nothing intrinsically good and noble
about the promotion of other people's happiness. It is a very
nice thing for other people no doubt, but it is not nice for me.
It is in vain that you tell me such conduct is selfish and irrational,
for you tell me also that selfishness and irrationality are not bad
in themselves, however inconvenient they may be for other
people/
Another way of stating this last difficulty of Sidgwick's position
is to say that the internal contradiction which it involves is at
bottom not so much formal as material. It may possibly be
stated in a form which escapes formal contradiction, though
Sidgwick himself does not always succeed in so stating it,
but the internal or psychological contradiction remains. The
acceptance of rationalistic Hedonism kills and eradicates all
those impulses upon which it has to depend for the practical
fulfilment of its own precepts, by pronouncing that they have no
true worth or value no less so than Mill's Associationist ex-
planation of the love of Virtue as due to a psychological confusion
and muddle-headedness comparable to that of the miser. It
tends to reduce the j.dea of reasonable conduct to the idea of con-
duct which escapes intellectual contradiction and incompleteness ;
but the desire to escape such contradiction or one-sidedness is
not by itself a very powerful motive of conduct when it is pro-
nounced to have no intrinsic value. For the contradiction, be it
observed, involved in bad conduct .arises, on the hedonistic view
of good, merely when I attempt to justify my conduct. If I say
' it is reasonable of me to be an Egoist/ I can be convicted of
self-contradiction. But if I candidly admit ' I know that it is
unreasonable to be an Egoist, but I intend to be unreasonable/
the contradiction disappears. When ths prohibition of Reason is
Chap, iii, ii] BENEVOLENCE HAS VALUE 59
held to include a specifically moral condemnation, the idea of
* unreasonable ' carries with it the idea that conduct condemned
is lacking in absolute or intrinsic worth. That idea is lost or
pronounced illusive when to act reasonably is denied to be
good. The whole force which makes Reason appeal to men
as deserving of respact it derives from that conviction of the
intrinsic value or goodrtess 6f rational conduct which Reason,
as interpreted by Sidgwiek, pronounces to be an illusion. We
are hardly perhaps entitled to say a pribri 1 that Reason could
not deliver itself of two dogmas, which, though involving no
formal contradiction, tend in their practical effect upon human
life to neutralize one another the dogma ' it is reasonable to
be altruistic ' and the dogma ' to be reasonable is not a good
to him who is reasonable or even intrinsically a good at
all ' : but it would be strange that that moral consciousness,
which by the rationalistic Hedonist's admission proclaims its
right to govern and control human life, should be so consti-
tuted that, in so far as men listen to its voice, its own purposes
are defeated. There is in the last resort no way of refuting the
Sidgwickian or any other Moralist but by showing that he
actually misrepresents the content of the moral consciousness.
And this, I have tried to show, the Sidgwickian Moralist
conspicuously does. He abstracts one half of the moral con-
sciousness as it actually exists, and attempts by the aid of it
to silence and confound the other half. He accepts from the
moral consciousness the abstract idea of value, of intrinsic and
objective worth, and at the same time divorces it from that idea
of the intrinsic worth of promoting what has worth, which is
de facto found in inseparable conjunction with it. The only way
in which this internal inconsistency or discord in the SidgwickianJ
system can be curecl is by admitting that to act rightly or reason-
ably possesses value, that to promote the good is a good not
merely to others, but to the individual himself.
(5) But after all, Professor Sidgwick fully admits that he can-
not make Reason consistent with itself without the admission of
1 Without assuming the rationality of the Universe. Upon that assump-
tion, which Sidgwick was practically prepared to make, the position to me
becomes unthinkable, as contended in the next paragraph.
5o RATIONALISTIC UTILITARIANISM [Book I
theological postulates. ' The negation of the connexion between
Virtue and Self-interest/ he tells us, 'must force us to admit
an ultimate and fundamental contradiction in our apparent
intuitions of what is Reasonable in conduct ; and from this
admission it would seem to follow that the apparently intuitive
operation of thB Practical Reason, manifested in these contra-
dictory judgements, is after all illtasory V We must, therefore,
go on to ask whether, upon Professor Sidgwick's premisses, these
theological postulates* are admissible, and whether (even if
admitted) they will suffice to restore the internal self-consistency
of the Practical Reason.
The difficulties which the great sum of human and animal
suffering presents to the belief in a ' benevolent Author of
Nature* ought not to be dissembled by those who believe
that Reason warrants the ' venture of faith * and who hold
(with Plato) that ' the risk is a noble one V But, on the hedon-
istic view of the true end of human life, does not the demand
made upon faith become absolutely overwhelming ? Can a Uni-
verse have a rational purpose or constitution in which the end is
only pleasure and yet in which Reason daily prompts to the
sacrifice of pleasure ? Surely the assumption of a * harmony
between the Universal and the Particular Reason ' must be
pushed a step further. The faith that c Reason is for us King of
Heaven and Earth : V never found a more eloquent or a more
sober exponent than Professor Sidgwick. But in what sense
can it be said that Reason rules in a Universe in which the
accomplishment of its true purpose depends upon a systematic
concealment of that purpose ? It is the sole end or TC'AOS of man
to get as much pleasure as possible : yet in order that he may do
so, he is throughout his earthly existence, by way of preparation
or discipline for the realization of his true eifd in another state,
to forget that end and live for a totally different one.
So completely does Professor Sidgwick reverse in dealing with
the ultimate ground of morality the Aristotelian maxim ' that
we must look to the end/ upon which he lays so much stress in
connexion with the moral criterion. We must believe in a future
1 Methods of Ethics, 6th ed., p. 506.
8 NoCs c'ori /3a<rtAu$ fifilv ovpavov TC cat frjs (Philebus, p. 28 c).
Chap, iii, ii] HEDONISTIC THEOLOGY 61
life, Professor Sidgwick tells us, because we must believe that the
constitution of things is rational. And yet, according to Professor
Sidgwick, the Universe is so constituted that the man who most
completely succeeds in concealing from himself the true end
of his being or haply in never finding it out will ultimately
realize that end most thoroughly. That the Universe might be
so constituted is a proposition which does not involve a logical
contradiction, and which is incapable of empirical* disproof ; but
where is the rationality of such a Universe ? If we are to make
assumptions, let them be su^h as will satisfy the logical demand
on which they are founded. If we are to assume a rational
order in the Universe, surely the end prescribed to a man by his
Reason must be his highest end. Man is so far a rational being
that he is capable of preferring the rational to the pleasant.
Surely, then, the reasonableness of such a preference cannot
be dependent on its ultimately turning out that he has after all
preferred the very thing which his love of the reasonable led
him to reject. It may be the case that what was rejected had
a certain value and would under other circumstances have been
good ; it may be that it is reasonable to expect the preference of
the higher good to be rewarded by the bestowal of the lower also.
But surely in a rational Universe that which man, when he
is most completely rational, desires most cannot be good merely
as a means to what he desires less in other words, it must have
an intrinsic value. Bain's remark that ' " I am to be miserable "
cannot be an inference from " I am to be happy," ' is a perfectly
fair comment or criticism 1 upon a Theology which is founded
upon a purely hedonistic conception of the good. If, however, the 1
end of man be goodness or a happiness of which Virtue is an
essential element, then it is not unreasonable that he should
be required to undergo sufferings which may be necessary
conditions of attaining that end for himself and others. If
happiness be the true end, a constitution of things by which the
neglect of happiness should be rewarded with happiness and
devotion to happiness punished by the loss of it, would
be a purely arbitrary, supremely irrational constitution. But if
goodness be the end without which the highest happiness is
1 Mind, vol. i, p. 195.
6a RATIONALISTIC UTILITARIANISM [Book I
incomplete, if goodness be of the essence of the highest happiness,
then it is not inconceivable that the voluntary neglect of a lower
good in the pursuit of a higher may be intrinsically necessary
to the attainment of that completed state of being, of a life which
shall embrace both these concepts of goodness and happiness
which Modern ^Philosophy has been accustomed to separate the
' Well-being ' or wbaipovta of ancient Ethics* If Love be indeed
the one element of earthly happiness which is to be permanent,
then it is intelligible enough that Self-sacrifice should be
a discipline necessary to fit men for its enjoyment.
I will add only one further remark at present on this supreme
problem upon which the course of Professor Sidgwick's argument
has compelled me to touch. Sidgwick claims Bishop Butler as
his predecessor in the doctrine of an ' ultimate dualism ' of the
Practical Reason. It is true that when Bishop Butler, the thinker
who has so profoundly modified Professor Sidgwick's hedonistic
tendencies, was engaged in writing Moral Philosophy, as the
champion of the ' disinterestedness ' of virtue against the Hobbist,
when he touched upon theological problems only as accessory to
moral, he was satisfied with a position very much resembling
that of his disciple. Conscience or a ' principle of reflection '
prescribed certain conduct as rational irrespectively of the
interest of the individual; his highest end was duty. The
existence of Conscience was to Butler the basis of Theology, not
Theology the basis of Morality. Yet when he wrote the Sermons,
he still regarded the happiness of the whole as the only con-
ceivable end of the Creator as well as of altruistic conduct in the
individual *. When he came seriously to face the question of
the 'moral government of the world/ the difficulties of such
a position were forced upon his notice. The result of the ten
years' thought which intervened between thk Sermons and the
Analogy were embodied in those chapters of the latter work on
human life as * a state of discipline/ which may still be regarded
as (in spite of their rather old-world form and tone) the classical
exposition of that one glimpse of a clue to the problem of the
origin of evil which is open to those who refuse to be led by
a desire for ' reconciliation ' or * unity ' and a philosophical horror
i J See the second paragraph of Sermon Jtll and Sermon XIIL
Chap, iii, iii] IS. CHARACTER A GOOD ? 63
of 'dualism' into some form or other of the denial that evil
is evil.
The substance then of my contention is that Professor Sidg-
"wick's attempt to reconcile a hedonistic conception of the * good/
and consequently a hedonistic criterion of Morality, with an
* intuitional ' or rational basis or ultimate ground of Morality
breaks down. The ' dr-alism '? of Practical Reason is not bridged
over, and cannot be bridged over without the admission of Virtue
or character at least the Virtue or character which consists
in the promotion of general pleasure as an element and the
highest element of the * good ' which it is right to promote for
the whole human race.
Ill
At this point it may be well briefly to notice Professor Sidg-
wick's criticism on the doctrine that character is an end*in-itself.
In reference to this view Professor Sidgwick remarks :
' From a practical point of view, indeed, I fully recognise the
importance of urging that men should aim at an ideal of
character, and consider action in its effects on character. But
I cannot infer from this that character and its elements
faculties, habits, or dispositions of any kind are the constituents
of Ultimate Good. It seems to me that the opposite is implied
in the very conception of a faculty or disposition ; it can only
be defined as a tendency to act or feel in a certain way under
certain conditions ; and such a tendency is clearly not -valuable
in itself but for the acts and feelings in which it takes effect,
or for the ulterior consequences of these, which consequences,
again, cannot be regarded as Ultimate Good, so long as they
are merely conceived as modifications of faculties, dispositions/
&C. 1
Professor Sidgw : ck here admits the possibility that the ' acts '
in which character or disposition takes effect might conceivably
have value. He has got nothing to say against such a sup-
position except that it does not appear to have any to him.
But surely, when it is held that character has value, such ' acts '
are included in the idea. And yet the value of the acts cannot
be estimated in entire isolation or abstraction from the man's
1 Methods of Ethics, 6th ed., p. 393.
64 RATIONALISTIC UTILITARIANISM [Book I
whole inner life. Character does not consist either of mere
isolated ' acts ' still less of mere abstract ' tendencies ' or ' dis-
positions/ Not only are the actual volitions involved in the
performance of particular good acts parts of consciousness, and
not mere possibilities of consequences in the external world,
but there is volitional element runnyig through our con-
sciousness at other times than tt^ pq^ticular moment at which
we are definitely resisting temptation or making definite acts
of moral choice. Attention is an act of the will; even desire
involves conation. Emotion, again, is at once a source of action,
an accompaniment of moral action, and a consequence and index
of the habitual direction of the will. And all these desire,
attention, emotion are actual elements of consciousness, not
mere potentialities which may manifest themselves in future
conscious acts. All these are included in what we mean by
character. Sometimes no doubt we should further include in
the ideal character the intellectual side of the moral life the
ideal that a man sets before himself, the judgements of value
which he pronounces, his intellectual interest in the moral life.
Professor Sidgwick would hardly have contended that the content
of the good man's consciousness does not differ from that of the
bad man except at the particular moments in which the former
is engaged in performing good actions and the latter bad ones.
Character includes, as I have suggested, not merely the actual
state of the will, but other elements of consciousness connected
therewith. And even if we limit the idea of character to
actual volition, volition is an element in the continuous stream
of consciousness at all times. Sidgwick himself has told us
for instance that ' the adoption of an end as paramount ' is
'to be classed among volitions/ A volitional element forms
an element of consciousness during the whole or, to avoid
cavil, let me say nearly the whole of his waking life. And
it is upon the nature of this volitional element, upon the
nature of the objects to which it is directed, upon the habitual
direction of his will, that character primarily depends. It is
this that is pronounced to have value when we say that
Virtue is a good or end in itself. No doubt we cannot form
any conception of character without, thinking also of the in-
Chap, iii, iii] GOODNESS OF VIRTUE 65
tellectual and 'emotional accompaniments of the volition ; and it
makes little difference whether we do or do not think of these
accompaniments as included in the conception of character. For
these too have a value which is not to be measured by the amount
or intensity of the pleasure which undoubtedly forms an element
in them. The important point to insist on is that, when we
pronounce character to hs^e \mlue, we are just as emphatically
as the Hedonist pronouncing that it is in actual consciousness
that value resides, and in nothing else l . 'It is the actual con-
sciousness of a man who loves and wills the truly or essentially
good and not mere capacities or potentialities of pleasure-pro-
duction such as might be supposed to reside in a bottle of old
port, which constitutes the ' goodness ' or ' virtue ' which is
regarded as a 'good' or 'end in itself by the school which
Professor Sidgwick is criticizing, A ' virtue ' or ' faculty ' is, of
course (as Professor Sidgwick urges), a mere abstraction, but
only in the sense in which pleasure is an abstraction also. A
man's consciousness cannot at any one moment be full of nothing
but Virtue any more than it can be full of nothing but pleasure.
The will must will something if it is to be pronounced virtuous,
just as there must be feelings, thoughts, and volitions in a man's
consciousness before he can be pleased with them. But for the
difficulty which Sidgwick seems to make of the matter, it would
have seemed unnecessary to point out that those who make
' virtue ' an end mean by virtue ' virtuous consciousness,' just
as those who make 'pleasure' an end mean thereby 'pleasant
consciousness.' And the virtuous consciousness means a con-
sciousness whose volitions and whose desires are controlled by
a rational ideal of life together with the feelings and emotions
inseparably accompanying such volitions and desires 2 .
1 We Anight also criticize Prof. Sidgwick's tendency to ignore the unity
and the continuity of the self. No doubt the self cannot be regarded as
having value when abstracted from the successive conscious states in which
it manifests itself, but it is equally impossible to estimate the value of the
conscious states in entire abstraction from the permanent self which is
present in all of them.
2 Modern Psychology is emphatic in rejecting the old sensationalistic
view of the content of consciousness as mere feeling, no* less than the oppo-
site assumption of the possibility of thought without volition. ' Whenever
RASED ALL, I
66 KATIONALISTIC UTILITARIANISM [Book I
It may perhaps be suggested that, when a good state of will
is pronounced desirable, or more desirable than a pleasant state
of consciousness, the real object of preference is a specific pleasure
invariably accompanying volition of a virtuous kind. It is
difficult to see what is gained by such a mode of statement for
any one who* has once parted company with the hedonistic
Psychology : but, since some plenum must undoubtedly accom-
pany consciousness to which the person himself attaches value,
no great harm will' be done either to ethical theory or to
practical Morality by such a way of putting the matter so long
as it is clearly understood (i) that the desirability of this
specific pleasure does not depend upon any variable susceptibility
to it on the part of those for whom it is judged desirable;
(2) that the pleasure is not necessarily to those who actually
desire it greater in amount or intensity than other pleasures
which they forego for the sake of obtaining it. Yet when these
admissions are made, it is clear that we_iio,lQnger really prefer
the virtuous direction of the will simply as a source of pleasure,
ihe point of view of pleasure there seems no reason why
ixigle kind of pleasure should be given so extraordinary
a preference. It is one which does not seem to be warranted
either by its duration or its intensity. As a matter of experience
we are awake, we are judging ; whenever we are awake we are willing '
(Bosanquet, Essentials of Logic, p. 40). Mr. Bradley has, indeed, maintained
the possibility of thought without f active attention ' and so without will
(article on * Active Attention' in Mind, N. S., No. 41, 1902), though he
admits that it may be that even in the theoretical development of an idea
' the foregoing idea of that development has itself been the cause of its own
existence,' and so ' it may indeed be contended that all thinking does in the
end imply will in this sense '(p. 7). The question is an important one from
other points of view, but all that I am protesting against here is the
assumption that in estimating the value of conscJDusness we must neces-
sarily attend merely to the feeling side, and not also to the thinking and
willing side of consciousness. That will be equally unreasonable in what-
ever sense it may be true that we are not always willing. I should myself
be disposed to contend that the active attention which is implied in definite
efforts to think out a problem differs only in degree from the attention which
is implied when ' I passively, as we say, accept the current and course of my
thoughts * (ib., p. 6). This very * passivity ' involves a distinct attitude of the
will sometimes a very difficult one, as a man discovers when with a view to
going to sleep he tries to think about nothing in particular.
Chap, iii, iii] GOODNESS OF TRUTH AND BEAUTY 67
it is found that the pleasures of a good Conscience are not
always highly exhilarating : while the pains of a bad one,
regarded merely as pains, would in many cases be found tolerable
enough. The pain of a small wrong-doing is probably to most
men less exquisite than the pain of having made a fool of one-
self or committed a gross social blunder. If we regarded the
pains of a bad Conscienfceas Aiercly on a level with the pains
of a gaucherie, we should try to live down the former as we do
the latter. The importance that we attribute to a * good Con-
science ' (quite apart from its social effects) cannot possibly be
explained on merely hedonistic grounds ; the value we attribute
to it is not merely the value which it possesses as a source of
pleasure, and the pleasures of Conscience themselves spring from
and presuppose tho{ consciousness of a value) in conscientious
conduct which is not measured by its pleasantness.
Sidgwick's arguments against the possibility of regarding
truth, beauty, and the like as ends-in-themselves may, as it
seems to me, be met in much the same way. He always seems
to assume that to assign value to such ends irrespective of their
pleasantness l is to assign value to them as things existing out-
side consciousness altogether. It does not seem to make much
practical difference whether we say that there are elements in
consciousness ' higher ' than pleasure, or whether we say that
some pleasures are ' higher ' than others, so long as no attempt
is made to smuggle back the hedonistic Psychology under cover
of the latter form of expression. And yet it ought distinctly to
be recognized that such preference of higher pleasures as higher
is^xeally only a popular way of saying that the true ethical end
contains elements other than pleasure. All that is gained by
the former way of putting the matter is that it suggests that
pleasure is an elemetit of any state of mind which can be re-
garded ks possessing any ultimate value. And this need not be
denied, so long as it is recognized that its value is not due solely
to the amount or intensity of the pleasure^ and that, though
such a state may contain some pleasure, it may contain a great
deal more pain and so be on the whole painful rather than
pleasurable.
1 But see below, pp. 75-78.
68 RATIONALISTIC UTILITARIANISM [Book I
One more difficulty of Professor Sidgwick may be briefly
considered. To the contention that we sometimes prefer what
are commonly called higher pleasures to lower ones without
necessarily thinking the former more intense than the latter,
Sidgwick replies that ' what in such cases we really prefer is not
the present consciousness itself, but e&ther effects on future
consciousness more or less distinctly* foreseen, or else something
in the objective relations of the conscious being, not strictly
included in his present consciousness V No doubt the pleasure
is preferred on account of the person's objective relations : the
pleasure abstracted from all knowledge of such objective rela-
tions would be pleasure abstracted from most of those character-
istics which could make it higher pleasure, from most of the
features which could commend it to the Practical Reason as
more worthy of a rational being's enjoyment than the lower
pleasure. It is just because some knowledge of the ' objective
relations ' of his pleasures and of himself as enjoying them always
does enter into the consciousness of a rational being enjoying
pleasure, that it is impossible for him, desiring as he does other
things besides pleasure and recognizing it as ' right ' or ' reason-
able ' for him to desire such other objects, to leave them out of
account in considering the intrinsic desirability of different kinds
of consciousness for himself and other rational beings. For such
a being the pleasure itself becomes different in consequence of
this knowledge of his own objective relations different in value
even when it is not altered in quantity. The pleasure which
a man might take in a cruel entertainment might be harmless
enough, if abstracted from his knowledge that the pleasure was
won by the sufferings of a fellow creature. The pleasures of
sense could not be condemned or disparaged in comparison with
more social or more intellectual pleasures, But for the knowledge
that the person enjoying them is a member of a society and
capable of intellectual activities. The value which a man
attaches to his love for wife and children or to the resulting
pleasures could not be explained apart from knowledge of the
' objective relations ' implied in marriage or paternity. To ask
what is the ultimate good of man apart from his knowledge of
1 Methods of Ethics, 6th ed., p. 399.
Chap, iii, iii] INCONSISTENCIES OF HEDONISM 6c
the 'objective relations' in which he stands to the world and
to his fellow men is really to ask what would be the good foi
man if he were a mere animal.
Sidgwick's unwillingness to recognize Virtue as an end in
itself, in spite of his admission that it is reasonable to prefer
it^to private pleasure, appears to arise largely from an unavowed
assumption that there are no other elements in consciousness
besides feeling, or at least that no such elements can possibly
possess ultimate value. It is impossible to prove that this last
is not the case ; we can only ask, ' Is this really what the
analysis of the moral consciousness reveals to us; or, if we
are disposed to say that it is always the feeling that is
ultimately valuable, are not the feelings to which we ascribe
such value feelings of a kind which are inseparable from certain
volitions and certain thoughts ? And do we not assign a higher
value to a rightly directed will, or to the emotions accompanying
such a will, than to mere pleasant feeling considered merely as
so much pleasant feeling ? '
When all has been done that can be done in the way of
developing the difficulties of a Utilitarianism which is at once
rationalistic and hedonistic, it must be admitted that it is
impossible to convict such a position of formal inconsistency,
when once it is modified by the admission that Egoism is
unreasonable, though there is nothing (on hedonistic grounds)
to be said against a man who likes to be unreasonable. It
is not the theory that is inconsistent; it is the procedure of
Reason which according to the theory is essentially arbitrary and
unintelligible. The attitude of Sidgwick's good man, at least
when enlightened by Philosophy, may be said to be just this :
'I see that it is reasonable for me to prefer my neighbour's
good, Iput this preference has in it nothing intrinsically
desirable or beautiful or noble or worth having for its own
sake. Duty is duty, but it is not good. Duty is reason-
able, but pleasure is better ; what the irrational man secures
to himself by selfishness is intrinsically better than what
the good man gets by obeying the voice of Reason within
him/ And the position of the Sidgwickian Reason does not
become more intelligible when we attempt to bridge over the
70 RATIONALISTIC UTILITARIANISM [Book I
collision between duty and interest by theological assumptions.
[f Reason, expressing itself in the constitution of the Universe,
really 'does say to the bad man, <I am sorry that I cannot
reward this consistent selfishness of yours as I should like to
io; but I am compelled to think of other people besides you,
and in their interests I am compelled to 'punish a course of life
md a direction of will which in a better constituted world it
would give me the greatest satisfaction to reward/ there is no
more to be said. But does a Universe constructed on such
i principle really strike us as a particularly reasonable one ?
In the last resort the only way of showing that pleasure is
lot the true end of life is by an appeal to one's own moral
consciousness and that of others so far as it is revealed by word
uid deed. Professor Sidgwick, after admitting that a consistent
system might be worked out upon the basis of a composite end,
(. e. on including both Virtue and happiness, adds : ' I can give
i decisive reason for not accepting it myself : viz., that when
Virtue and Happiness are hypothctically presented as alterna-
tives, from a universal point of view, I have no doubt that
[ morally prefer the latter ; I should not think it right to aim
it making my fellow-creatures more moral, if I distinctly foresaw
that as a consequence of this they would become less happy.
[ should even make a similar choice as regards my own future
virtue, supposing it presented as an alternative to results more
conducive to the General Happiness V All that the critic of such
a statement can do is to invite the reader to say whether he can
eiccept it as a correct representation of his own moral conscious-
ness or of Henry Sidgwick 'a.
With the question whether the Virtue either of individuals or
of society can ever be antagonistic to the general happiness we
sire not yet concerned. My contention so far has been merely
this that as a matter of fact the judgement ' It is right for me
to make others happy ' is practically inseparable from the judge-
1 M ind, No. xiv, 1889, p. 487. It is observable that Sidgwick shrinks from
saying that he would sacrifice his Virtue to his own pleasure if he could do
30 without loss of pleasure to others. Whether the sacrifice of happiness to
Virtue could ever actually be required by Benevolence I have considered in
Book II, chap. ii t 2.
Chap, iii, iv] VIRTUE AND HAPPINESS 71
merit ' It is better for me to do that than to be happy myself
at their expense/ Admitting the bare logical possibility of
accepting the former judgement while denying the latter,
I believe that such a bare speculative admission of the reason-
ableness of Altruism would have little or no practical effect
upon the majority of* minds but for that recognition of its
intrinsic goodness by f \\ftiich f it is practically accompanied.
Reason is reluctant to admit that rationality can ever bo
a bad thing or even a matter of indifference. No considera-
tion of posthumous compensation will ever reconcile Reason to
a constitution of things in which it is compelled to pronounce
bad, on account of their effects, kinds of conduct which in them-
selves it cannot but find very good. The emotions with which
we actually contemplate good or bad conduct would droop and
wither were we ever once fully persuaded that there is no differ-
ence between a good and a bad man except what is constituted
by some accidental want of ' adjustment ' between the interests
of an individual and that of his fellows. Once persuade men
that Thrasymachus was right in making Virtue essentially and
fundamentally only another man's good, and you will have
persuaded them also that it exists by convention and nofc by
nature (vo^a, ov <t5<r) that it is in short a delusion, not
a reality ; and with that belief in the intrinsic value of goodness
will go the theological beliefs that were based upon it.
IV
Let us see then exactly to what point the course of our
argument has carried us. We have felt compelled by the
very considerations that led us to regard the preference of
other people's well-being to our own as rational, to treat such
a preference on our part as intrinsically better even for our-
selves. We have in fact (with Kant) recognized the existence
of two prima facie rational ends Virtue .and Happiness, the
latter being treated as part of the true well-being of man only
in so far as is consistent with the predominance of Virtue.
It has been objected, indeed, to such a position, both by
Professor Sidgwick himself and by others, that such a position
involves the admission of *two heterogeneous and ' incommensur-
72 RATIONALISTIC UTILITARIANISM [Book I
able ' ends Virtue and happiness. To this we may reply that
the very ground on which we have felt bound to recognize
Virtue as an and in itself compels us to regard it as an end
superior in value to pleasure. Reason pronounces that there is
an end which f all human acts should aim at promoting, i.e. the
general good, and that no state of a rational will can be regarded
by Reason as good which is not dfirectfecf towards that end ; and
a will which did not regard the choice of the right as of superior
value to pleasure would not be a will directed to that supreme
end. The man who acted upon the hypothesis that his own
virtue and his own pleasure possessed equal intrinsic value
would not really be virtuous at all. The hypothesis is there-
fore one which contradicts itself. And the principle that the
will directed towards the good must be regarded as of more
value than the agent's pleasure will equally compel us to regard
the pleasure of others as an intrinsically valuable end only in
so far as it is consistent with the like preference of the good
to the pleasant in those others. In other words, pleasure can
only be regarded as intrinsically valuable in so far as it is
consistent with Morality. No doubt the ' dualism/ the absolute
antagonism between the two ends, the impossibility of fusing
them into a harmonious whole in which the sharp contrast
between them is lost (so long as all pleasure is put on the
same level and is regarded as something which Virtue must
simply limit from the outside without modifying and transform-
ing), may be a reason for suspecting that we have not yet
reached an adequate and complete view of the elements con-
tained in ' the good/ But there is no absolute logical contra-
diction involved in such a position ; it is not open to the charge
that the two ends or elements of the end are ' incommensurable/
Now, practically, the introduction of this principle the
principle that ViriufejDa.ust be regarded as an element, and as
tl^dio&i^ntjdQ)^^ good will by itself do much to
bring our view of the ethical criterion into harmony with
ordinarily accepted moral ideas, and to remove some of the
more glaring of the difficulties of Utilitarianism as commonly
understood. For (i) the most glaring of all the inconsistencies
Utilitarianism and the deliverances of the ordinary,
Chap, iii, iv] QUALITY OF PLEASURE 73
unsophisticated moral consciousness, lies precisely in its refusal
tojrecognize the intrinsic goociness of Virtue. (2) The inclusion
of Virtue (which for the present we take to mean rational
Benevolence l ) in our conception of the end allows us to exclude
from it excessive indulgence in the pleasures whi<jh we recognize
as good in themselves, and also all pleasures which are incon-
sistent with the predontiiltace 1 of Benevolence, e. g. the pleasures
of cruelty. We shall not merely disallow them on account of
their ' infelicific ' effects, but we shall regard them as intrinsically
worthless or bad, because they imply an indifference to the good :
we shall condemn the man who voluntarily indulges his taste
for them, even though accidentally (as in an arena, for instance,
in which the combatants were condemned criminals) he might
be able to indulge them in a way not immediately inconsistent
with the public interest. (3) We shall attach a high intrinsic
value to such pleasures as actually include a benevolent element,
and a lower degree of intrinsic superiority to such pleasures
as are actually conducive to the public good, though the public
good may be no part of the motive of the person indulging
in them. Under the first head we should include the actual
pleasures of Benevolence or personal affection, and even to some
small extent the pleasures of sociability and friendship in so far
as these imply some degree of unselfish good-will to others.
Under the second we should include the pleasures of ambition
or emulation and the whole range of aesthetic and intellectual
pleasures.
In this way it would probably be possible to justify, on the
whole, that preference for what are commonly called higher
pleasures which is so clear an element of the ordinary moral
consciousness; since it will be generally admitted that in the
long ,run indulgence in social and intellectual pleasures is more
beneficial in its indirect social effects than indulgence in mere
sensual gratification or unintellectual amusement. But so. far
we have interpreted Virtue as including nothing but Benevolence,
or rather Benevolence and (in due subordination thereto) Pru-
dence ; we have admitted no ground for ascribing superior moral
1 In the sense of ' desire to promote pleasure on the whole, not excluding
one's own pleasure in due proportion.'
74 RATIONALISTIC UTILITARIANISM [Book I
value to one pleasure over another except its direct or indirect
influence on the pleasure of others. It is now time to ask
whether this limitation really corresponds to the deliverances
of the moral consciousness. Is there no element in conscious-
ness to which jve should upon reflection ascribe intrinsic value
except (i) Virtue in the sense of simple Benevolence and (2)
Pleasure with a preference for social useful pleasures 1 Is our
conception of the summum bonum for a rational being limited
to these two elements ? If his will invariably prefers (in case
of collision) other people's pleasure to his own and if he enjoys
as much pleasure as possible, should we say that a human being
has all that it is reasonable for him to want ? Would a com-
munity of simple people enjoying material plenty arid inno-
cent amusements in the utmost degree that is consistent with
the predominance of the most intense and most universal love
the life for instance of some rude Moravian Mission Settlement
beautiful and noble as such a life might be, realize to the full
our highest ideal of human life ? Would a community devoid
of Letters, of Art, of Learning, of any intellectual cultivation
beyond that low elementary school standard which might be
regarded as absolutely necessary to Virtue and the enjoyable
filling up of leisure would such a state of society realize our
ideal ? If it were certain (a by no means extreme supposition)
that the communities which have approximated most nearly
to this pattern have actually realized a higher average of enjoy-
ment than has ever been attained in more ambitious societies,
should we thereupon think it right to adopt an obscurantist
policy, to burn down libraries and museums and picture galleries,
and to repress all desires for knowledge and beauty which should
soar above the standard indicated ? Do we not rather judge
that such desires ought to be gratified, that in their gratification
nay, in the effort to satisfy desires which grow stronger with
every partial satisfaction lies one large element of true human
good, one large source of its nobleness and its value ? And can
such a conviction be based upon the extremely dubious calcula-
tion that the pleasures resulting from such pursuits or produced
by them in others are invariably intenser, when due allowance
is made for the increasing susceptibility to pain which they
Chap, iii, iv] GOODS OF THOUGHT AND. WILL 75
bring with them, than those attainable by the healthy and
moderate pursuit of more animal satisfactions in due subordina-
tion to the activities of social Morality ? Should we really be
prepared to condemn any study, say that of pure Mathematics,
which could be shown to be less ' f elicific \ than Sciences
and Arts of more Immediate and obvious * utility ' ? To all
these questions I can only answer for myself, ' No/ Argument
on questions of ultimate ends is impossible. All that I can
do is to trace the further modifications which this admission
of other ends besides Virtue and happiness will compel us to
make in the system of rationalistic Utilitarianism, from which
we have already diverged by making Virtue as well as happi-
ness into an element, and the more important element, in our con-
ception of the ultimate end. The view to which we have been
led may be briefly expressed as follows. Thfl_J}ijflflfl,n 80.1^. is
a^innity. Consciousness includes three elements or aspects or
distinguishable activities Thought, Feeling, and Volition or (to
use a more general term) Conation, each of which is unintel-
ligible in entire abstraction or separation from the rest. There
is a good state and a bad state of intellect, of feeling, and of
will. The good consists in a certain state of all three of them.
It may be true in a certain rough and popular sense that in
thought and perhaps even in the good will, taken in absolute
abstraction from the two others, we could discover no value
at all, while in pleasure we could find such a value 1 . That
is the assumption upon which all Hedonism is based; and the
assumption might perhaps be admitted, though we might refuse
to admit the inferences based upon it, if we could attach any
meaning to pleasure taken absolutely by itself. But it is often
forgotten that there is no such thing as pleasure without
a content, and this content, which makes the state of conscious-
ness pleasant or unpleasant, is, at least in rational beings,
dependent upon the other two aspects of consciousness. It is
no doubt possible by an effort of abstraction to think only of
the intensity of our pleasurable feelings without thinking of
their cpntent, and to make their value depend upon that
intensity, but there is no ground whatever for assuming that
1 Cf. fcelow, pp. 78, 153.
76 RATIONALISTIC UTILITARIANISM [Book I
we actually do so or ought to do so. In judging of the ultimate
value of any state of consciousness we think of its content of
the state of desire and of will on the one hand and of intellect on
the other, as well as of feeling, and of the content of feeling as
well as of its intensity. Sometimes we pronounce a less pleasant
state of consciousness to be more valuable than a more pleasant
one because it involves an activity of <he higher intellectual
faculties, or because it represents the direction of the will to
a higher good. Sometimes, no doubt, the different parts of our
nature represented by the trinity of thought, feeling, and will
cannot all obtain equal satisfaction by the same course of action,
and then we have to choose between a course which will satisfy
one part of our nature and that which will satisfy the other ;
but the ideal good of men would include all three. It would
include truth and activity of thought, pleasantness of feeling,
and goodness of will. In what relation the goods predominantly
connected with each of these elements of our nature stand to
each other, we shall in some general way consider hereafter l .
It will be enough to say here that we have already recognized
the supreme value of the good will, i. e. of the devotion of the
will towards that which the moral consciousness recognizes as
the good for humanity at large, that in the abstract we recognize
the superior value of intellectual activities to mere pleasant
feeling, while the superiority of certain states of pleasant feeling
to others is largely due to their arising to a greater extent than
others from the activity of the two higher elements in our
nature, the activity of the good will or of the intellect, or both.
If we were to enter at greater length into the relation between
the different parts or elements or activities of our nature, with
which we have just been dealing, we should find ourselves
involved in many difficult and important matters of psychological
1 It will be fully recognized that no one of them can actually exist in entire
abstraction from the other. The good will, for instance, must include some
pleasant feeling and some knowledge.
Chap. iii,v] PSYCHOLOGY OF ETHICS 77
controversy. Such psychological problems I wish in the present
work to avoid in so far as their solution is not directly and
immediately necessary for the purpose of Ethics. But by way
of explaining my use of them, a few remarks may be added.
I do not adopt the usage of those Psychologists who make
feeling equivalent merely to pleasure and pain. Such a usage
seems to imply an abstraction of the pleasure from its content,
which is not what we really mean when we talk about feeling,
and which tends to encourage the idea that we are interested in
nothing but the hedonistic intensity of our consciousness apart
from its content. By Thought or Reason I do not mean merely
discursive thought to the exclusion of immediate perception, but
the whole intellectual side of our consciousness ; I include in it
every kind of awareness. Desire I regard as belonging to the
conative or striving side of our nature, though it implies also,
and cannot exist apart from, both the intellectual and the feeling
side of it : we must know in some measure what we desire, and
the desire is itself a state of feeling, though it is more. An
emotion is simply a name for a kind of feeling, but the term is
usually and properly reserved for those states of feeling which
are not, and do not immediately arise from, physical sensations,
but imply the existence of ideas and of those higher desires which
are directed towards ideal objects. It is obvious that in these
distinctions we are concerned with aspects of consciousness
rather than with distinct and separable things or facts or
'states/ In some cases the distinction between them is clear
and capable by an easy abstraction of a pretty sharp differentia-
tion in our thought: in other cases they are simply the same
thing looked at from a slightly different point of view. We
have no difficulty for instance in distinguishing processes of
mathematical calculation from the pleasant feeling by which they
are accompanied in the mathematical mind, or the unpleasant
feeling which those processes create in the unmathematical. On
the other hand a simple perception of colour must be treated as
an intellectual activity when we think of the recognized relation
between the person or subject and his object, as a state of
feeling when we think of it merely as a state of the subject
and from the point of vdew of his interest in it. Similarly one
78 RATIONALISTIC UTILITARIANISM [Book I
and the same desire may be looked upon simply as a particular
state of the subject and so as feeling, or as involving the intel-
lectual idea of an end, or again as a conative activity tending
to realize that end. Further to illustrate both the distinctions
between, and the inter-dependence of, these fundamental aspects
of consciousness does not seem necessary t$ enable us to proceed
with our ethical enquiry. All thai nead vhere be emphasized is
that the value which we recognize in consciousness is not depen-
dent upon any one of these aspects taken in absolute abstraction
from another. The extremest Hedonist will find it impossible to
attach a clear meaning to the idea of pleasure taken apart from
all awareness that one is pleased, or of what one is pleased at ;
the extremest Rigorist would find it difficult to say what would
be the value of a good will which did not know what it willed
and did not care whether it willed it or not. And the moral
consciousness does not encourage us to approximate to any such
feats of abstraction, even in so far as this may be possible. It
pronounces its judgement upon the value of consciousness as
a whole. For the purpose of weighing one good against another
and choosing between them in cases of collision, it may often
have to attempt a relatively complete abstraction of one aspect
from another; but it does not pronounce that any aspect has
exclusive value, or that the value of one aspect is to be estimated
entirely without reference to the others, or that the good can be
conceived of under any one of them. The man is Reason,
Feeling^ Will ; and the ideal state for man is an ideal state of
all three elements in his nature in their ideal relation to one
another.
At this point it is probable that the reader who is inclined to
utilitarian ways of thinking will be disposed to ask ' How do you
know that knowledge is good, or (if you like so*to express it) that
the pleasures attending its pursuit and attainment are intrinsically
superior to those of eating and drinking ? ' The answer must be,
' I do as a matter of fact so judge : I judge it immediately, and,
so far, a priori : my Reason so pronounces : judgements of value
are ultimate, and no ethical position, utilitarian or other, can
rest on anything but judgements of value/ What is this, the
reader is likely to exclaim, but sheer Intuitionism ? How far
Chap, iii, v] IS EGOISM RATIONAL? 79
I am prepared to accept this identification will appear from the
next chapter 1 .
1 The logical contradiction involved in Egoism has been powerfully
argued by von Hartmann in his criticism of Nietzsche and Max Stirner
(Eihische Studien, pp. 33-90). More recently Mr. Moore has incisively
expressed the difficulty ar follows : ' What Egoism holds, therefore, is that
each man's happiness is the^sol^ goc i that a number of different things are
each of them the only good thing there is an absolute contradiction ! No
more complete and thorough refutation of any theory could be desired. Yet
Professor Sidgwick holds that Egoism is rational, 1 a conclusion which he
proceeds to characterize as ' absurd * (Prindpia Ethica, 1903, p. 99). I should
agree with him that the position is self-contradictory in a sense in which
universalistic Hedonism is not, and that with all his subtlety Sidgwick failed
altogether to escape what was really an inconsistency in thought, even if he
escaped an actual or formal contradiction. But to point out this logical
contradiction does not seem to me quite so easy and final a way of refuting
Sidgwick's position as it does to Mr. Moore for these reasons : (i) The Egoist
with whom Professor Sidgwick is arguing would probably not accept
Mr. Moore's (and my own) conception of an absolute objective good, though
I should admit and have contended in this chapter that if he fully thought
out what is implied in his own contention that his conduct is ' reasonable '
he would be led to that conception. (2) Sidgwick only admitted that the
Egoist was reasonable from one point of view reasonable as far as he goes,
i. e. when he refuses to ask whether his judgements are consistent with
what he cannot help recognizing as the rational judgements of other men,
and limits himself to asking whether he can make his own judgements
consistent with themselves from his own point of view. No doubt Sidgwick
ought to have gone on to admit that this imperfectly reasonable point of
view was not really reasonable at all, and to some extent he has done this
in his last Edition. And (3) after all, even if we admit that the Egoist is
unreasonable, there remains the question 'Why should he care to be
reasonable?' It was largely the difficulty of answering this question
on universalistic Hedonist principle which drove Professor Sidgwick to
admit a * dualism of the Practical Reason,' and I am not sure that the
question has been very satisfactorily answered by Mr. Moore who, though
he is no Hedonist, appears to be unwilling to give the good will the highest
place in his scale of gtiods.
CHAPTER IV
BY Intuitionism is usually understood the theory that actions
are pronounced right or wrong a priori without reference to
their consequences. According to one view it is supposed that
Conscience, or whatever else the moral faculty may be called,
pronounces on the morality of particular courses of conduct
at the moment- of action. This form of the doctrine has been
styled by Professor Sidgwick unphilosophical Intuitionism,
while he gives the name philosophical Intuitionism to the
doctrine that what is intuitively judged to be right or wrong
is always some general rule of conduct, from which the morality
or immorality of this or that particular course of action
must be deduced. According to the first view, Conscience is
an ever-present dictator issuing detailed injunctions to meet
particular cases as they arise : according to the second, Con-
science is a legislator, whose enactments have to be applied
to particular cases by the same intellectual process as is employed
by a judge in administering an act of Parliament 1 . Intuitionists
1 It is probable that many * Intuitionists ' would hold a position mid-
way between these extreme views. They would hold that some rules are
intuitively discerned to be of absolute obligation, while in other cases the
decision must be left to the intuitive judgement of tfce moment. It may be
asked where we are to find examples of the Intuitionist presupposed by the
Utilitarian polemics. To a large extent no doubt he is a man of straw set
up to be knocked down again. It will generally be found that most of the
writers usually associated with the name make larger admissions than the
popular exponents or assailants of this view recognize as to the necessity of
considering consequences and the paramount duty of promoting the general
good properly understood. But it cannot be denied that Bishop Butler
(especially in the Dissertation of Virtue) and Eeid have approximated to this
position. The writer who seems specially to ha. ve introduced the term * intui-
Chap.iv, i] UNPHILOSOPHICAL INTUITIONISM 81
may further be divided into two classes according to the view
which they take as to the nature of the faculty by which these
a priori judgements are pronounced. By some Intuitionists
this faculty is suppose^ to be Reason, by others a 'J
But the nature of the faculty involved in our moral judgements
is one which can best fee discussed when we have answered the
easier preliminary queti6n *Do we in practice, or can we
reasonably, pronounce actions to be right or wrong without
regard to their consequences, in so far as such consequences
can be foreseen 1 '
The belief described as unphilosophical Intuitionism in its
wildest form is one which can hardly claim serious refutation.
If it is supposed that the injunctions of the moral faculty are
so wholly arbitrary that they proceed upon no general or
rational principle whatever, if it is supposed that I may to-day
in one set of circumstances feel bound by an inexplicable impulse
within rne to act in one way, while to-morrow I may be directed
or direct myself to act differently under circumstances in no way
distinguishable from the former, then moral judgements are
reduced to an arbitrary caprice which is scarcely compatible
with the belief in any objective standard of duty ; for it will
hardly be denied that, if right and wrong are not the same
for the same individual on different but precisely similar
occasions, they can still less be the same for different
persons, and all jdea of an objective moral law disappears.
It may of course be alleged that the circumstances of no two
acts are precisely alike, but they may certainly be alike in
all relevant respects. If it be said that Conscience will vary
its judgement in accordance with the circumstances of the case,
and that other men's Consciences in proportion to their en-
lightenment will always pronounce the same judgements under
tion ' as the note of a School is Richard Price, but that writer's admissions
are so ample that he ends by virtually resolving all duties into Benevolence,
understood in a non-hedonistic sense, and Justice. His Review of the princi-
pal Questions and Difficulties in Morals (1769) I regard as the best work
published on Ethics till quite recent times. It contains the gist of the
Kantian doctrine without Kant's confusions. In this chapter it must be
understood that I am criticizing a type of opinion and not any particular
writer.
K ASH D ALL, I
8 a INTUITIONISM [Book I
similar circumstances, there must be some rule or principle by
which it must be possible to distinguish between circumstances
which do and circumstances which do not alter our duty, however
little this rule or principle may be present in an abstract form
to the moral consciousness of the individual. Granted, therefore,
that the moral judgements may as a matter of psychological
fact reveal themselves first and moso 6learly in particular cases
(just as we pronounce judgements about particular spaces and
distances long before we have consciously put geometrical prin-
ciples into the form of general axioms), it must still, it would
seem, be possible by analysis of our particular moral judgements
to discover the general principles upon which they proceed.
Analytical thought and philosophical language may be inade-
quate for the accurate expression of the delicate shades and
gradations of circumstance upon which, in complicated cases,
our moral judgements actually depend ; but some approximation
to this, some rough rules or principles of ethical judgement,
ought, one would think, to be capable of being elicited from
a wide comparative survey of one's own and other people's
actual judgements. If this be denied, moral instruction must
be treated as absolutely impossible. Now it may be quite
true that in many ways ' example is better than precept/ not
only on account of its emotional effect but even on account
of the intellectual illumination supplied by a good man's conduct
in presence of varying practical difficulties. It is true that
the contemplation in actual fact or in recorded history of a
good life may suggest ideals which no mere system of precepts,
abstracted from particular applications, can adequately embody.
A general rule is often best embodied in a concrete, typical case.
The parable of the Good Samaritan has taught the true meaning
of Charity more clearly as well as more persuasively than any
direct precept that could be culled from the writings of Seneca
or even from the Sermon on the Mount. But still there is
a consensus among reasonable men that moral instruction of
some kind however vague, general, and inadequate to the
complexities of actual life is possible, desirable, and necessary.
We do not say to a child who asks whether he may pick a
flower in somebody else's garden, ' My good child, that depends
Chap, iv, i] CONSIDERATION OF CONSEQUENCES 83
entirely upon the circumstances of the particular case : to lay
down any general rule on the subject would be a piece of
unwarrantable dogmatism on my part : consult your own Con-
science, as each case. arises, and all will be well/ On the
contrary, we say at once : ' You must not picl^ the flower :
because that would be Stealing, and stealing is wrong/ Make
any reserves you please* Ob to f the inadequacy of the rule, its
want of definiteness, its inability to meet many problems of
life, the necessity for exceptions and the like ; yet it must be
admitted that if there be any one point about Morality as to
which there is a consensus alike among all plain men and
nearly all Philosophers l it is surely this that general rules
of conduct do exist. Morality cannot be reduced to copy-book
headings, but copy-book headings we do and must have. Now, in
proportion as all this is admitted, unphilosophical Intuitionism
tends to pass into the philosophical variety of the Intuitionist
creed and may be subjected to the same criticism.
The strongest part of Sidgwick's great work consists in its
analysis of common-sense Morality. The loose statements of
Intuitionists as to the clearness, certainty, adequacy, and self-
evidence of the ordinarily received rules of conduct have never
been subjected to so searching, so exhaustive, and so illuminating
an examination. That task has been done once for all, and need
not in detail be done over again. It will be enough in this
place to exhibit in the barest outline the difficulties which
this mode of ethical thought has to confront :
| (i) Granted the existence of intuitive tendencies to approve
action of particular kinds, we may still ask why we should
trust to blind unreasoning impulses which refuse to give any
rational account of themselves. Granted the existence of such
judgements as a matter of psychological fact, whence comes
their validity ? If it be said ' they are deliverances of moral
Reason/ we may ask whether it can g be really rational to act
without some consideration of consequences ? What does rational
conduct mean but acting with a clear conception of our ultimate
1 Some of Mr. Bradley's utterances in Ethical Studies and elsewhere seem
to constitute the only exception known to me. This position will be further
discussed in the last chapter of this work.
a 2
84 INTUITIONISM [Book I
purpose or aim, and taking the means which seem best adapted
to attain that end? 'Look before you leap' seems to be one
of the clearest of all practical axioms : to act in obedience to
every subjective impulse, even if it be prima facie an impulse
arising from* the higher part of our nature, would seem very
like adopting as our maxim ' Leap before you look/ Of course
there may be circumstances in which' we have to leap after
a very hurried and imperfect survey of the situation under
penalty of being too late to leap at all, but some looking
before leaping is as necessary in the most unexpected and
agonizing crisis of the battle-field or the hunting field as in
the leisured pomp and circumstance of formal athletic sports.
(ii) The moral notions which have seemed equally innate,
self-evident, and authoritative to those who held them have
varied enormously with different races, different ages, different
individuals even with the same individuals at different periods
of life. It will be unnecessary to illustrate at length the varia-
tions of moral sentiment which have formed the main stock-in-
trade of utilitarian writers from the days of John Locke to those
of Herbert Spencer. We have been taught to honour our
fathers and mothers : there have been races which deemed it
sacred duty to eat them. Average Greek public opinion looked
with favour, or at least indulgence, upon acts which are crimes in
most civilized modern communities. Pious and educated Puritans
could see no harm in kidnapping negroes or shooting Irishmen*
The eminent evangelical clergyman John Newton pronounced
the hours which he passed in the captain's cabin of a slaver,
separated by a plank or two from a squalid mass of human
misery of which he was the cause, to have been sweeter
hours of divine communion than he had ever elsewhere known.
Some virtues seem to be of very late development even among
civilised races religious toleration, for instance, and humanity
towards animals. And so on, and so on.
To beginners in Moral Philosophy these objections to In-
tuitionisin will usually present themselves as the strongest and
most unanswerable. In truth perhaps they are the weakest.
Neither the slow development of the moral faculty nor its
unequal development in different individuals at the same level
Chap. iv,i] OBJECTIONS TO 1NTUITIONISM 8j
of social culture forms any objection to the a priori character
of moral judgements. We do not doubt either the axioms of
Mathematics or the rules of reasoning, becatise some savages
cannot count more th^n five 1 , or because some highly educated
classical scholars are incapable of understanding the fifth propo-
sition of Euclid's first t>ook. Some of us will even refuse to
allow our belief in the % oBjectivity of aesthetic judgements to
be shaken because a Zulu will hold a picture upside down,
because an uneducated bargee will often prefer some gaudy
sign-board to an old Master, because the taste which pronounced
Queen's College the only really satisfactory piece of Oxford
architecture does not commend itself to that of the twentieth
century, or because even among the most cultivated art critics
of the present day there exist considerable differences of opinion.
Intuitionists have no doubt shown a tendency to claim infalli-
bility as well as authority for the moral judgements of the
individual : but such a claim is by no means necessary to the
extremest view of the arbitrary, unconsequential, isolated
character of moral judgements. We may admit the validity
of the principles of reasoning and of the axioms of Mathe-
matics, although many men reason badly, and some cannot
even count. Men's moral judgements may be intuitive, but
they need not be infallible. Self-evident truths are not truths
which are evident to everybody. There are degrees of moral
illumination just as there are degrees of musical sensibility or
of mathematical acuteness. Taken by themselves, the variations
of moral judgement form a less serious objection to the intuitional
mode of thought than those which follow, although it may be
certainly contended that Intuitionism of the cruder kind cannot
adequately account for these variations.
(iii) Even when a certain intuition is actually found in
all or mbst men of a certain race and age, the moral rule which
it enjoins usually turns out upon examination to be incapable
of exact definition. All, or nearly all, detailed moral rules have
some exceptions, except indeed when the rule laid down tacitly
excludes such exceptional cases. The rule 'Thou shalt do no
1 Assuming such to be the fact, as is sometimes alleged, though the truth
may be that they have no wordrfor^other signs for higher numbers.
86 INTUITIONISM [Book I
murder ' presents itself no doubt at first sight as a moral rule
admitting of no exception ; but that is only because murder
means 'killing except under those exceptional circumstances
under which it is right to kill/ Now, even where there seems
to be the fvjlest agreement, at least among men of developed
moral nature, as to the main rules, it* is frequently found to
disappear as soon as we come to dfecuss the exceptions ; while
even the same individual will often find that at this point
his intuitions become indistinct or fail him altogether. And
in practice it will nearly always turn out that the exception
has been introduced from some consideration of consequences.
Those who are most positive in maintaining a particular moral
rule to be of self-evident and universal obligation independently
of consequences, will generally shrink from applying it in certain
extreme cases. Set forth to the Intuitionist in sufficient detail
the appalling consequences of applying his rule, pile up the
agony sufficiently, and there will almost always come a point
at which he begins to be doubtful as to whether the rule applies,
and a further point at which he is certain that it does not.
' Thou shalt do no murder ' ; but most men will admit that
there are exceptional cases in which killing is no murder,
and perhaps a very large majority would be got to declare
that their intuitions were clear in excepting self-defence, war
or at least lawful war, and judicial execution. But ask at
what point killing in self-defence becomes lawful, what consti-
tutes war or what constitutes lawful war, for what offences
we may lawfully inflict death, at what point it becomes the
duty of the individual to refuse to take part in an unrighteous
campaign or to carry out an iniquitous sentence and we find
ourselves once again in a chaos of uncertainties. And observe
exactly the point of the uncertainty: the uncertainty lies
exactly in this that no clear intuitions are forthcoming as
to the exact moment at which it begins to be legitimate to
take account of consequences. 'Thou shalt not kill except
in self-defence, or by judicial sentence/ So much may perhaps
be pronounced to be self-evident without reference to conse-
quences. But if the established government absolutely refuses
to protect person, property, or Morality, shall we never reach
Chap, iv, i] CONSEQUENCES 87
a state of anarchy such as will warrant the intervention of
an extra-legal committee of public safety or vigilance association,
and the summary execution of its sentences? If only the
foreseen consequences^ are bad enough, no one but an advocate
of absolute non-resistance will fail to relax his severity, and the
advocate of unlimited con-resistance is certainly not in a position
to claim any general cAnsensils in his favour. Now, if there 1
be any point at which an apparent intuition has to give way'
before clearly foreseen ill consequences, how can we logically
say that it can ever be right to exclude consideration of conse-
quences ? We must at least examine the probable consequences
of an act sufficiently to feel reasonably sure that it will have
none of those extreme results which, it is admitted, would
have the effect of suspending the moral rule upon which it
is proposed to act. The only people who have really carried
out the doctrine that apparently self-evident moral rules cannot
be modified by the consequences, however socially disastrous,
of disobeying them to anything like its logical results, are those
who (like Count Leo Tolstoi) preach the doctrine of unlimited
submission to force, unlimited giving to mendicants and the
like. And here common-sense Intuitionism decidedly declines to
follow.
(iv) The above considerations may probably lead on to
the reflection that after all some reference to consequences is
really included in every moral rule. Indeed, you cannot really
distinguish an act from its present or foreseeable consequences.
The consequences, in so far as they can be foreseen, are actually
part of the act. You cannot carry out any rule whatever
i without some consideration of consequences. You cannot obey
the rule of Benevolence without asking whether giving money
in the street realty is Benevolence ; and that depends upon
whethfer it will actually have the effect of doing ultimate good
to those to whom you give and others who may be affected
by the expectation of similar assistance which your act creates.
You cannot obey the command ( Thou shalt not kill ' without
considering whether the trigger that you pull will actually
discharge a bullet, how far the bullet is likely to travel, what
it will meet with on the way, and (if it is likely to hit any one)
88 INTUITIONISM [Book I
whether that person is on the point of shooting somebody else,
or is a peaceable and inoffensive fellow-citizen. What would \
be the meaning of asking whether drunkenness would be wrong '
if it did not make a man incoherent in r his talk, irrational in
his judgements, unsteady in his gait, and irresponsible in his
behaviour ? Drunkenness taken apart from all its consequences
would not be drunkenness. Onc& adriiii! that consequences must
be considered at all, and it is arbitrary to stop at any particular
point in the calculus of social effects. You are not really in
a position to pronounce upon the morality of the act until
you have the completest view that circumstances enable you
to take of the whole train of events which will be started by
your contemplated volition. Until you have formed that
estimate of consequences, you do not really know what you
are doing: at any point in the vast orbit of changes which
spreads from every human action, like the widening ripple
that radiates from a stone dropped into smooth water, it is
always theoretically possible that some circumstance may be
discovered which may remove the case from the category to
which your moral rule refers.
No doubt in practice it is often imperative that we should act
without this elaborate investigation : but the very enquiry * how
long ought I to deliberate before I act ? ' is precisely one of those
questions upon which it is impossible to discover any intuitive
rule containing no reference to the probable consequences the
consequences, that is to say, on the one hand of deliberating
too much, and on the other of not deliberating enough. If there
are cases in which our moral consciousness clearly bids us do
something or other at once without thinking of consequences,
it will be found that these cases are precisely those in which
excessive deliberation would be likely to lead to harmful results*
To stay and reflect upon all the consequences which might be
expected to flow from obeying or resisting the impulse to plunge
into the water after a drowning man would very rapidly place
the former alternative out of the question ; to encourage the
habit of prolonged deliberation in such cases would be to make
gallant attempts at rescues few, and successful rescues fewer.
It is therefore considered enough to 'justify the attempt that
Chap, iv, i] INCONSISTENT INTUITIONS 89
a man knows he is a good swimmer, that the sea is not ex-
ceptionally rough, and that it is not certain that the attempt
frill fail. There are, of course, scores of cases in which it is
Hght to act on short Deliberation : but it will probably be found,
on analysis, that it is some consequence of alloying people to
deliberate upon which *the judgement is ultimately based. It is
a commonplace of utilftafian fethics that many things must be
avoided altogether which might in exceptional cases have good
effects just because exceptions, if admitted at all, would have
a tendency to become too numerous l .
(v) Still more obviously does the existence of
compel an appeal to consequences. When the
duty of Benevolence collides with the duty of Veracity, or the
claim of one individual to immediate relief with the duty of
doing what is best for society on the whole, how shall we
determine which rule is to take precedence ? It is no use to say
with Dr. Martineau ' Act in obedience to the highest motive 2 ' ;
for it is impossible to pronounce one motive higher than another
in the abstract, without reference to circumstances. If I were
1 It is therefore quite reasonable to hold that some acts may properly be
forbidden by Morality, just as others are forbidden by law, because (though
often harmless) there is a probable balance of harm in allowing the practice
at all. Law forbids my crossing the line except by the bridge (although the
practice is quite safe for an able-bodied man in full possession of all his
faculties) because my indulging in it has a tendency to encourage imitation
in the feeble, the elderly, and the deaf, who are likely to be run over. It is
quite reasonable to urge that even moderate gambling ought to be forbidden
by public opinion on much the same grounds. Until public opinion has
forbidden it, I am not, indeed, at liberty to treat the man who plays whist
for sixpences as a moral offender. But, if I think that society would do well
to adopt as its rule the total condemnation of gambling, it is my duty under
ordinary circumstances to abstain from it myself, and to do what in me lies
(short of censoriously Condemning individuals who differ from me) to bring
about the adoption of this rule. Those who will not under any possible circum-
stances admit that ' abusus tollit usum ' would find it difficult to justify a
whole host of accepted moral rules which rest on this principle. The whole
social code which restricts the time, place, and circumstances of social inter-
course between the sexes is based on this principle. Acts in themselves
harmless are forbidden altogether because experience shows that they are
liable to lead to bad consequences in some cases.
2 This doctrine is developed in the first part of the second volume of Types
of Ethical Theory.
90 INTUITIONISM [Book I
to pronounce Veracity invariably a higher motive than Bene-
volence, I could never tell a lie or employ a detective to tell one
for me, to avoid the extremest social disaster. If, on the other
hand, I pronounce Benevolence higher th^n Veracity and every
other possible % motive, I have practically adopted the utilitarian
principle, and Veracity would have always to give way to
Benevolence, wherever there was *the Slightest collision between
them. But neither solution of the problem seems to satisfy the
demands of our moral consciousness. The first view strikes us
as too rigorous, the last as too lax. What our actual moral
judgement seems to say is, that in such collisions it is the
amount of the unveracity or the amount of the inhumanity that
will have to determine which rule is to give way. And this
cannot be ascertained without a calculation of consequences. If
once it be admitted that under any possible combination of
circumstances I may tell a lie (however strongly one may feel
the practical inexpediency of entering upon such a calculation in
all ordinary cases), I must still feel bound to examine the cir-
cumstances sufficiently to be pretty sure that there is no proba-
bility of this turning out to be one of those extreme or exceptional
cases in which the lie would be warranted. In general, of course,
this hasty survey of the consequences is so instantaneously
performed as to escape notice altogether. A truthful man
acts at once on the general rule unless he detects something
in the circumstances which seems to call for further con-
sideration.
(vi) While the foregoing objections may be urged against
many of the alleged intuitions to which intuitional Moralists
appeal, there are some which do submit to the tests which
have been found fatal to the claim for absolute and final
validity on the part of the rest. The axioms of prudence,
Rational *Benevolence, and Equity do possess the cleaRv and
definiteness and freedom from self-contradiction which other
alleged intuitions so conspicuously lack. It does on reflection
strike us as self-evident that I ought to promote my own good
on the whole (where no one else's good is affected), that I ought
to regard a larger good for society in general as of more intrinsic
value than a smaller good, and that ene man's good is (other
Chap.iv, ii] INTUITIONS RELATE TO ENDS 91
things being equal) of as much intrinsic value as any other
man's. But these axioms, so far from throwing any doubt upon
the truth of Utilitarianism, are precisely the maxims upon
which Utilitarianism, itself is founded for those who attempt to
base the duty of promoting pleasure upon its intrinsic Tightness
or reasonableness. In*the acceptance of those maxims as genuine
moral axioms, SidgwiJk* hasf as we have seen, laid the foun-
dations for a reconciliation between Intuitionism and Utili-
tarianism. But the acceptance of these axioms does not make in
favour of the kind of Intuitionism which it is the object of this
chapter to examine; for these are precisely the axioms upon
which Utilitarianism itself is based. Such intuitions do not
forbid us on the contrary they expressly require and compel
us to attend to the consequences of actions, and to make our
judgement about them depend upon their tendency to promote
a universal good.
II
It is perhaps unnecessary to multiply objections to that sort
of Intuitionism which declares that cexteia.xules of action, are
tp, be followed irrespectively of consequences. It JA iriutionaLto
judge of the morality of an action without tracing its bearing
upon human Well-being as a whole. We are compelled to accept {
thejiilijUri^^ in so far as it asserts that cond.uctJs
good or bad only in proportion as it tends to promote, tha Well-
being of human society on the whole. But we have already
seen reasons for rejecting the utilitarian- identification of
greatest good with greatest pleasure; and we have seen that
in the judgements as to the value of different kinds of good we j
encounter a priori or immediate deliverances of the moral con-
sciousness of precisely that kind to which the term Intuition is
commonly applied. What then is the difference between the
intuitions which we have rejected and the intuitions which we
have felt ourselves compelled to accept ? The intuitions of the
Intuitionist are supposed to lay down invariable rules of conduct;
the a priori or immediate judgements which we have admitted
relate to ends, to the relative value of different elements in
human Well-being or evatji,ovla. In other words the intuitions
9 2 INTUITIONISM [Book I
of the Intuitionist disregard consequences ; ours relate precisely
to the value of different kinds of consequence. The Intuitionist
pronounces intuitive judgement upon acts ; our intuitions relate
to ends ; his take the form ' this is right/ qurs always the form
* this is good/ %
A few illustrations will make the contrast plain. The old
intuitive rule of Veracity is supposed to *say, ' Do not lie under
any circumstances whatever ' : our judgement of value gives us
only ' Truth-speaking is good ; lying is bad/ And the moment
the intuitive or a priori truth is put in this new form, the
irrationality and unworkableness of the old intuitional system
disappears. We are not forbidden to calculate consequences.
Certainly we must trace the bearing of an act upon universal
Well-being ; but in our cvbaipovla truth-speaking, or rather the
truth-speaking and truth-loving character, finds a place. Suppos-
ing the speaking of the truth will in this particular case involve
such and such evils, the question is ' Which is the worse these
evils or the evil involved in the lie ; so much suffering, and suffer-
ing caused by my voluntary act, or so much untruthfulness?'
It is impossible, of course, to set forth in detail all the circum-
stances upon which a right decision of such cases may depend.
But it would be generally agreed that to tell a lie to save some-
body from hearing an unpleasant remark, or to save him from
some trifling injury to his pride or self-esteem, would be to choose
the greater of two evils instead of the less. On the other hand,
to save a friend's life at the cost of concealing bad news by a lie
would be a less evil than the voluntary causing of his death by
speaking the truth. Of course, if any one disputes such a view
of "the case, we have nothing to say. As in all questions of
ultimate ends, argument is impossible : but so in this particular
case the vast majority of conscientious people judge and act.
And be it observed that on this principle our moral judgements
can never contradict one another. It remains true that truth is
good, and speaking an untruth an evil; but like other goods,
truth may have to give way to greater goods ; lying is always
an evil, but it may be the less of two evils. It is evil even
iwhen the justification for the lie is palpable and incontestable.
'Where the circumstances are such that the isolated act does not
Chap, iv, ii] EXCEPTIONS 93
evidence or encourage an untruthful habit or character, the evil
may be very small ; but we cannot always secure that the evil
shall be a small one. Lying in detectives is necessary and right,
but, like some other,, professional duties, it may not always be
good for the character of the person who practises it. It is
often necessary to do :> things which are right for us, but which
are liable to be imitateS By tliose for whom it is wrong. If the
evil of the anticipated imitation be great enough, this may no
doubt be a sufficient reason for abstinence, but no sensible man
would forbid a father to srnoke because the example may fire
his youthful son with the ambition to do likewise.
The general result then of our discussion, taken in connexion
with preceding chapters, is that the true criterion of Morality
is the tendency of an act to promote a Well-being or cvbainovta
which includes many other good things besides pleasure, among
which Virtue is the greatest. The value of these elements in
human life is determined by the Practical Reason intuitively,
immediately, or (if we like to say so) a priori l . All moral
judgements are ultimately judgements as to the intrinsic worth
or value of some element in consciousness or life.
And we may go one step further than this in recognition of
the partial truth of Intuitionism. The ^reat, objection in many
minds to the utiiitanati.viaw of Ethics is the element of calculation
whjx^iiJuivolves. When this objection is made into a plea for
acting without regard to consequences, it is (as I have en-
deavoured to show) completely irrational. But all the same the
directness and immediacy which appear to characterize our
clearest moral perceptions do seem at first sight an objection to the
doctrine that I cannot decide whether a thing is right or wrong
until I have worked out all its probable consequences upon so
remote and intangible a thing as universal Well-being. And the
t
1 I wish for the present to avoid as far as possible metaphysical discussion,
and therefore content myself with saying that by a priori I mean merely that
the judgement is immediate not obtained by inference or deduction from
something else in the way in which the Utilitarian supposes his judgements
to be deductions from rules got by generalization from experience (though,
aa I have explained, he always assumes the ultimate major premiss ' Pleasure
is good '). That in another sense judgements of value are not independent
of experience, I shall hereafter strongly insist, especially in the next chapter.
94 INTUITIONISM [Book I
difficulty is not fully met by insisting on the fact that on most
of the ethical difficulties of common life the moral consciousness
of the community has already laid down rules which the in-
dividual has only to apply to the matter f in hand. For there
are no moral judgements which probably strike those who make
them as more authoritative and self-evideAt than those by which
a certain act is judged to be wrong in*spite of an overwhelming
weight of custom and tradition. Such a judgement was pronounced,
for instance, when a solitary monk declared that the gladiatorial
combat was a barbarous brutality, though the tradition of ages
and a whole circus-full of professedly Christian spectators pro-
nounced it right, and by a public protest, which cost him his life,
sealed the doom of the whole institution. And there is no reason
why we should not fully recognize the validity of such judgements
without any surrender of the principles which we have adopted.
For this indefinable Well-being or evbaiiJiovCa, which our moral
Reason pronounces to be the ultimate end of all human conduct,
is itself made up of elements of consciousness feelings, volitions,
emotions, thoughts, activities each of which is itself an object
of moral valuation. If these elements we're not each of them by
itself 1 the object of a judgement of value, there could be- no
judgement of value upon the whole. Every one would recognize
this as regards acts which cause immediate pleasure or pain.
Nobody supposes that, when I see a man sticking a knife into
another, it is necessary for me to calculate the effect of the act
upon the lives of all human beings, present and future, before
I condemn the proceeding. I say at once, ' This pain is bad :
therefore the infliction of it is wrong ' ; and, if I am not a
Hedonist, I may add, 'the character or disposition which this
act shows is worse than the pain which it causes.' And it is
equally so in many cases where the act has no such immediate
and obvious bearing upon the welfare of human society. That
a rational being should use his intellect to make things appear
to his brother man otherwise than as they are strikes me at once
1 I speak of course in a rough and relative sense. We could form no
judgement upon the worth of an act or a state of mind without some general
knowledge of its relation to life as a whole. The illustrations will, I trust,
sufficiently explain my meaning.
Chap.iv,ii] THE RIGHT AND THE GOOD 95
as irrational and evil. I do not want to trace out all the effects of
lying upon human society before I say, ' this is a lie and there-
fore bad/ It is not the existence or even the relative and partial
validity of such judgements that is disputed, so much as their
finality. In many cases it is practically apparent at the first
glance that no possibls circumstances could make this act the
cutting or the lying Jesuit m an overplus of good to human
society. In many more cases there is a great improbability that
any circumstance at present unknown to me will disclose)
a prospect of beneficial consequences which would reverse myj
prima facie judgement. But, unless I know all the circum-
stances, it is always possible that further knowledge might reveal
such a tendency. The man sticking a knife into his fellow with
apparently heartless brutality may turn out to be a surgeon per-
forming a salutary operation. The lie which I put down to
mere indifference to truth may turn out to be part of a detective's
scheme for the capture of a murderer or the protection of an
innocent man. It is not always practically necessary to look to
the ultimate end before we judge, and act upon our judge-
ment: but, until we have done so, we are never sure that
we have reached one of those ultimate moral judgements
which represent an immediate deliverance of Reason, and which
no further knowledge of facts and no demonstration of con-
sequences can possibly shake. There would be little objection
to the claims which the Intuitionist makes for his intuitions,
if only he would admit that they are subject to appeal, though
it is only an appeal to the same tribunal which pronounced the
original judgements an appeal (to borrow an old legal phrase)
a conscientia male informata ad conscientiam melius in-
formandam. So long as the intuitive judgement runs in the
form, ' This is right/ it is always liable to be reversed on a wider
survey of consequences. If it be turned into the form, * This is
good/ it cannot possibly be reversed (supposing that the man's
ethical ideal be a true one), though the resulting duty may
appear different when this isolated judgement is brought into
comparison with other moral judgements affirming the superior
goodness of some other end ] . In Morality, as in other matters,
1 This point has been well gut by Dr. MeTaggart. 'But is a moral
96 INTUITIONISM [Book I
our judgements require to be correlated and corrected by reference
to one another. Orb; the judgements that are based upon
complete knowledge are final The ideal moral judgement implies
a conception- of the iaeal good for society as a whole, but we could
have no idea^of what is good for society as a whole unless we
had a power of pronouncing that this or ilnat particular moment
of conscious life is good or bad.* Oilr tonception of the moral
ideal as a whole is built up out of particular judgements of
value, though particular judgements of value have to be pro-
gressively corrected by our growing conception of the moral
ideal as a whole, just as our conception of the laws of nature
is built up out of particular perceptions, though when that
knowledge is once attained it reacts upon and alters the per-
ceptions themselves.
And by expressing the moral judgement as a judgement of
value we get this further advantage. We emphasize the fact
which eudaemonistic systems of Ethics are apt to overlook that
acts are the objects of moral judgements as well as consequences.
Because no act can be good or bad without reference to con-
sequences, it does not follow that its morality depends wholly
upon those consequences. To the Hedonist, of course, such a dis-
tinction would be meaningless. For him nothing about an act is
of any value or importance besides the consequences. Whether
a poor family economize by infanticide or by curtailing their
expenditure is simply a question of profit and loss. If the sum
criterion,* he asks, 'wanted at all? It might be maintained that it was not.
It would only be wanted, it might be said, if we decided our actions by
general rules, which we do not. Our moral action depends on particular
judgements that A is better than B, which we recognize with comparative
immediacy, in the same way that we recognize that one plate is hotter
than another, or one picture more beautiful than aifother. It is on these
particular intuitive judgements of value, and not on general rules, that
our moral action is based.
' This seems to me a dangerous exaggeration of an important truth. It is
quite true that, if we did not begin with such judgements, we should have
neither morality nor ethics. But it is equally true that we should have neither
morality nor ethics if we stopped, where we must begin, with these judge-
ments, and treated them as decisive and closing discussion. For our moral
judgements are hopelessly contradictory of one another. 1 (Studies in Hegelian
Cosmology, p. 97.)
Chap, iv, ii] ACT AND CONSEQUENCES 97
of pleasure would be equal in the two cases, it would be a matter
of perfect indifference by which machine T the requisite cor-
respondence between food and eaters e, ill be effected. The
inhumanity of the act, f the want of self -com ol which it implies,
the temper or character which it expresses aiu tosters are matters
of no importance except in so far as tl / may result upon the
whole in an actual diminution o? pleasure or increase of suffering,
But, when once it is admitted that the end includes a certain
ideal of human character, then the deliberate extinction of
children deliberately brought into the world with the intention
of so disposing of them will seem a vastly greater evil, to the
individuals concerned and to the society which tolerates their
conduct, than much poverty with all its physical hardships and
privations.
From this non-hedonistic point of view we can no longer
recognize an absolute distinction between means and ends.
Some means may no doubt have no value beyond that of
conducing to a further end ; but many, nay most, of the acts
which do conduce to further ends have a value (positive or
negative) of their own; and this value must be taken into account
in estimating the Tightness or wrongness of the acts.
It is on this principle that we must deal with most of the prima
facie collisions between our ordinary moral judgements and the
results of eudaemonistic calculation. Nothing but consciousness
has value, but volitions and desires, emotions and aspirations
and imaginations, are elements in all our consciousness as well
as mere pleasures and pains. There are acts so intrinsically re-
pulsive that it strikes us as, on the face of it, impossible that any
pleasure which they might yield could be worth the evil which
they involve. In this way most people would condemn without
further examination 1 proposals for the abolition of marriage
or the permission of promiscuous infanticide. But still even
in such cases it is not speculatively admissible to say, ' we will
not look at the consequences/ Practically, of course, it may
often be right to refuse to argue some proposed moral innovation:
that must depend upon circumstances. But, if we do argue,
if we do want speculatively to get to the bottom of an ethical
question, we are bound to look at all the consequences, and
RASH D ALL I
98 INTUITIONISM [Book I
pronounce whether, given such and such probable results, they
are worth the evil involved in the means taken to gain them.
In many cases where the consequence on the strength of which
it is proposed to do some questionable act is not some remote
effect but so^ne immediate pleasure it is convenient to discuss
the question as one of higher versus loVer pleasure, though in
strictness this means, according to our view, that the getting
pleasure from one source is better than getting it from another,
that one kind of pleasant consciousness is intrinsically better
than another, though not more pleasant. And, if we treat one
pleasure as intrinsically better than another, there is no logical
objection to our regarding some pleasures (i.e. the getting
pleasure from some things) as intrinsically bad.
It is clear to my mind that there do exist pleasures which are
intrinsically bad. On strictly hedonistic principles I fail to
understand why we should object to the Spanish or Southern-
French bull-fight, to the German students' face-slashing duels,
to the coursing and pigeon-shooting which the higher public
opinion is beginning to condemn among ourselves, to the wild-
beast fights of the Roman amphitheatre, or perhaps even to the
gladiatorial combats themselves, at least if the gladiators were
justly condemned criminals. Hedonism is not bound to object to
all infliction of pain, but only to insist that the pain inflicted shall
yield a sufficient overplus of pleasure on the whole. There is no
more difficult ethical question than the question of the negative
value to be attributed to pain as compared with the positive
value to be attributed to pleasure. There is no question
assuredly upon which people's actual judgements would differ
more. Which would you rather have some particularly longed
for treat, the holiday or the travel that you have set your heart
upon -f a painful operation without chloroform, or no treat and no
operation? Different men would answer such questions very
differently \ But, to return to our bull-fight, upon any rational
1 It is an extremely difficult question to say how far in such matters
Hedonism would be bound to accept the verdict of the persons themselves.
For we often deceive ourselves as to the pleasurableness of pleasures not
immediately present, even when we have some experience to go upon, and
jet such false estimates are causes of further pleasures and pains pleasures
Chap, iv, ii] BAD PLEASURES 99
or intelligible view of the comparative values of pleasure and
pain, the intense pleasure which such spectacles give to thousands
of beholders must surely outweigh the pain inflicted on a few
dozen animals or even p, few dozen criminals. If ten thousand
spectators would not be sufficient to readjust the balance, suppose
them multiplied tenfola f or one-hundredfold. A humane man
would condemn the spectacle all the same. He will pronounce
such pleasures of inhumanity bad, quite apart from the some-
what dubious calculation that the encouragement of inhumanity
in one direction tends to callousness in another. Experience
does not seem to show that persons habituated to the infliction
of pain in one direction sanctioned by custom are less humane
than other men in other directions. It is possible to question
the morality of many forms of sport without accusing the
average country gentleman of exceptional inhumanity, or doubt-
ing the sincerity of the indignation with which he sends a
labourer's boy to prison for setting his dog at the domestic cat.
Another good instance of intrinsically bad pleasures is supplied
by drunkenness. The pleasures of drunkenness strike the
healthily constituted mind as intrinsically degrading and dis-
gusting, though it is probable that occasional acts of drunkenness
are physically less injurious than a course of ordinary dinner-
parties ; and we should think the man's conduct in getting
drunk worse instead of better if he had carefully taken pre-
cautions which would prevent the possibility of his doing
mischief or causing annoyance to others while under the influence
of his premeditated debauch. Of course in all such cases, where we
pronounce a particular kind of pleasure bad, we- must remember
what was said in dealing with the distinction between higher
and lower pleasures. The pleasure taken by itself in abstraction
from the total content of the consciousness enjoying it cannot
possibly have anything bad about it. In the night all cows are
black ; when we have made abstraction of all that differentiates
one pleasure from another, the abstract remainder must obviously
be identical from a moral as from every other point of view.
It is really the getting pleasure from such and such things that
or pains of expectation, imagir^"n, or retrospect which must themselves
come into the calculus.
H 2
ioo INTUITIONISM [Book I
is pronounced bad in such cases. It is good to be pleased,
but not at everything, or under air circumstances, or at all
costs.
in '
Our examination of the traditional Intuitionism has thus
* -. .'
brought us round to the same position which we arrived at
by a criticism of the traditional hedonistic Utilitarianism. We
found that the Utilitarians were right in saying that actions
are right or wrong according as they tend to promote or to
diminish universal Well-being, but we found that they were
wrong in thinking that the Well-being of a rational creature
consists simply in pleasure, and pleasure measured quantitatively.
We saw reason to believe that the very choice of the right and
rational course for its own sake was itself a good and the greatest
of all goods, and that it is impossible logically to establish the
duty of preferring the general pleasure to our own without
recognizing the intrinsic value of such a preference of universal
good both for ourselves and for others. We saw further that
besides this preference of the truly good in conduct or character
there were many other elements in the ideal state of a human
soul besides the Altruism of its volitions and the pleasantness of its
sensations ; and when we faced the question, how we know these
things to be good in various degrees, we were obliged to answer
' We know it intuitively or immediately ; we can give no reason
why it should be so except that we see it so to be. 1 So far we were
obliged to admit that the Intuitionists were right. We found,
however, that the Intuitionists were mistaken in supposing that
the moral Reason on which they rightly base our ethical judge-
ments either lays down fixed and exceptionless laws of conduct, or
issues isolated, arbitrary, disconnected decrees pro re nata without
reference to probable results. We saw that fundamentally these
moral judgements were judgements of value : they decide what
is good, not immediately and directly what is right. Since
'prima facie it is always right to follow the good, these judge-
ments may often in practice condemn this or that kind of conduct
so emphatically that we feel sure that no calculation of con-
sequences is likely to prevent our turning the judgement ' this is
Chap, iv, iii] THE MORAL CRITERION 101
good ' into a judgement ' this is right ' : but we saw that theo-
retically no single judgement of value can form the basis of
a rule of conduct which admits of no exceptions. For moral
Reason bids us not only seek to realize the good but to realize as
much good as possible, and (if I may anticipate 9 -point which
we have not yet established) to distribute that good justly or
impartially between the various persons who may be affected by
our actions. We have seen reason, while accepting the intuitional
view of the imperativeness of duty and the supreme value of
moral goodness, to hold that the law of duty itself requires us to
consider the consequences of our actions and to seek to promote
for all mankind a, cy8awovta__or Well-being which shall include
in itself all the various elements to which moral Reason ascribes
value ; and include them in such wise that each is accorded
its due value and no more than that value. So far we have
decided nothing as to what these elements are except that Virtue
is the most important of them, that culture or knowledge is
another, and that pleasure has a place among them, although
some pleasures are bad and the relative value of others has to be
determined by a non-hedonistic standard.
We have begun our study of Ethics with the question of the
moral criterion. Logically it might seem that we should have
discussed the theory of duty in general before attacking the
question how we find out what particular acts or classes of acts
are duties. I have adopted the former course because it seemed
the best way of showing how impossible it is for the most
thorough-going Utilitarian to avoid admitting that this simple,
unanalysable notion of duty or the reasonable in conduct does
exist, and of illustrating the impossibility of constructing a
logically coherent system of Ethics without the assumption that
the reasonableness of an act is a sufficient ground for its being
done. Before we go further, however, it may be well to dwell
at some greater length upon the nature of this fundamental
idea ; and the best way of doing so will be by a brief examina-
tion of the classical exposition of it contained in the system of
Immanuel Kant.
CHAPTER V
THE CATEGORICAL IMPERATIVE
WE have seen that there is implied in every ethical judgement
the idea that there . j$ something which is intrinsicalljLj^d,
which it is reasonable to do, which is right, which ought to
be done. These different modes of expression I regard as alter-
native ways of expressing the same unanalysable idea which
is involved in all ethical judgements as much in the Utilitarian's
judgement that he ought to promote the greatest happiness
of the greatest number as in the Idealist's judgement * I ought to
aim at the greatest Virtue or Perfection for myself or for others/
If any one questions the existence of this idea of rightness, no
argument can do more than remove some of the misconceptions
which may prevent his explicitly recognizing what is really
implied in the workings of his own mind. To attempt this task
will be the object of the present chapter. If any one denies the
authority or validity (as distinct from the existence) of this idea
of duty, such a vindication of its validity as it is possible to give
belongs to Metaphysic. The relation of Morals to Metaphysic is
a subject on which something must be said hereafter : and yet all
that even Metaphysic can do in this connexion is to develope the
extravagant consequences in which a man becomes involved if
he denies the validity of his own thought. 'To deny the deliver-
ances of our own Reason is to deprive ourselves of any ground
for believing in anything whatever. To admit that our Reason
assures us that there are some things which it is right to do, and
yet to. ask why we should believe that those things ought to be
ione, is to ask why we should believe what we see to be true.
Sidgwiek's account of this idea of duty is so clear and so
entirely dissociated from any metaphysical assumptions which
Chap.v,i] THE IDEA OF DUTY 103
to some minds might seem difficult or questionable, that I cannot
do better than quote him at length :
< It seems then that the notion of " ought " or " moral obligation "
as used in our common moral judgements, does not merely
import (i) that there exists in the mind of the person judging
a specific emotion (wht ther complicated or not by sympathetic
representation of similai emotions in other minds) ; nor (2) that
certain rules of conduct are supported by penalties which will
follow on their violation (whether such penalties result from the
general liking or aversion felt for the conduct prescribed or
forbidden, or from some other source). What then, it may be
asked, does it import ? What definition can we give of " ought,"
" right," and other terms expressing the same fundamental notion ?
To this I should answer that the notion which these terms have
in common is too elementary to admit of any formal definition. . . .
The notion we have been examining, as it now exists l in our
thought, cannot be resolved into any more simple notions : it can
only be made clearer by determining as precisely as possible its
relation to other notions with which it is connected in ordinary
thought, especially to those with which it is liable to be confounded.
'In performing this process it is important to note and dis-
tinguish two different implications with which the word " ought "
is used ; in the narrowest ethical sense what we judge " ought to
be" done, is always thought capable of being brought about
by the volition of any individual to whom the judgement
applies. I cannot conceive that I " ought " to do anything which
at the same time I judge that I cannot do. In a wider sense,
however, which cannot conveniently be discarded I sometimes
judge that I " ought " to know what a wiser man would know, or
feel as a better man would feel, in my place, though I may know
that I could not directly produce in myself such knowledge
or feeling by any effort of will. In this case the word merely
implies an ideal or pattern which I "ought" in the stricter
sense to seek to imitate as far as possible. And this wider
sense seems to be that in which the word is normally used in the
precepts of Art generally, and in political judgements: when
1 In the sentences omitted the writer explains that he does not exclude
the possibility that the notion has been gradually developed.
104 THE CATEGORICAL IMPERATIVE [Book I
I judge that the laws and constitution of my country " ought
bo be " other than they are, I do not of course imply that my own
or any other individual's single volition can directly bring about
the change. In either case, however, I imply that what ought
bo be is a possible object of knowledge : i. e. that what I judge
ought to be must, unless I am in error, 'be similarly judged by
all rational beings who judge truiy of tHe matter 1 .
' In referring such judgements to the " Reason," I do not mean
to prejudge the question whether valid moral judgements are
normally attained by a process of reasoning from universal prin-
ciples or axioms, or by direct intuition of the particular duties
of individuals. It is not uncommonly held that the moral faculty
deals primarily with individual cases as they arise, applying
directly to each case the general notion of duty, and deciding in-
tuitively what ought to be done by this person in these particular
circumstances. And I admit that on this view the apprehension
of moral truth is more analogous to Sense-perception than to
Rational Intuition (as commonly understood) : and hence the
term Moral Sense might seem more appropriate. But the term
Sense suggests a capacity for feelings which may vary from
A and B without either being in error, rather than a faculty of
cognition: and it appears to me fundamentally important to
avoid this suggestion. I have therefore thought it better to use
the term Reason with the explanation above given, to denote
the faculty of moral cognition V
In claiming for the idea of duty not merely existence but
authority, we have implied that the recognition that some-
thing is our duty supplies us with what we recognize upon
reflection as a sufficient motive for doing it, a motive on which
it is psychologically possible to act. The recognition of - the
thing as right is capable of producing an impulse to the doing
i of it. This impulse need not be strong enough to override other
motives, nor need we enter here upon the question in what sense
(if any) the choice between this motive of duty and other desires
1 As a representation of the present writer's views this statement of the
unanalysable character of the right must be taken to be qualified by what
follows (below, pp. 137, 138) as to the relation between this notion and the
wider concept of * good.'
2 Methods of Ethics, 6th ed., pp. 31-34.
Chap, v, i] DICTATES OF REASON 105
or impulses must be held to depend upon the undetermined choice
of the individual at the moment of action. It is enough for our
present purpose that on reflection we recognize that the seeing
a thing to be right js a reason for doing it, and that in some
men at some momem^p the desire to do what is'*reasonable or
right as such causes th'(^ actions to be done.
Once again I may quote Sidgwick :
* Further, when I speak of the cognition or judgement that 1
" X ought to be done " in the stricter ethical sense of the term
ought as a " dictate " or " precept " of reason to the persons to
whom it relates; I imply that in rational beings as such this
cognition gives an impulse or motive to action : though in human
beings, of course, this is only one motive among others which are
liable to conflict with it, and is not always perhaps not usually
a predominant motive. In fact, this possible conflict of motives
seems to be connoted by the term " di^iaia^Qr^"iinp^zative" ;
which describes the relation of Reason to mere inclinations or
nqn : ra^tioiial impulses by comparing it to the relation between
the will of a superior and the wills of his subordinates. Xbi*
conflict seems also to be implied in the terms " ought," " duty,"
" moral obligation/' as used in ordinary moral discourse : and
hence these terms cannot be applied to the. actions of rational
beings to whom we cannot attribute impulses conflicting with
re$pn. We may, however, say of such beings that their actions
are "reasonable," or (in an absolute sense) "right."
* I am aware that some persons will be disposed to answer all
the preceding argument by a simple denial that they can find in
their consciousness any such unconditional or categorical impera-
tive as I have been trying to exhibit. If this is really the
final result of self-examination in any case, there is no more to
be saiji I, at least, cfo not know how to impart the notion of moral
obligation to any one who is entirely devoid of it. I think, how-
ever, that many of those who give this denial only mean to deny
that they have any consciousness of moral obligation to actions
without reference to their consequences ; and would not really
deny that they recognise some universal end or ends whether it
be the general happiness, or well-being otherwise understood as
that at which it is ultimately reasonable to aim. . . . But in this
Io6 THE CATEGORICAL IMPERATIVE [Book I
view, as I have before said, the unconditional imperative plainly
qc%es in as regards the end, which is explicitly or implicitly
recognised as an end at which all men " ought " to aim ; and it
can hardly be denied that the recognition qf an end as ultimately
reasonable involves the recognition of an obligation to do such
acts as most conduce to the end V
These two positions (i) that the Tightness of actions is per-
ceived immediately by the Reason, (2) that this tightness ought
to be and is capable of becoming a motive to the Will, are
embodied by Kant in the two famous phrases, the categorical
imperative and the autonomy of the will. Duty is a categorical
imperative because when a thing is seen to be right, we feel
commanded to do it categorically, absolutely, as a means to no
end beyond itself. ILduty meant merely ' Do this if you want
to be happy, or to be perfect, or to go to heaven/ it would be
merely a hypothetical imperative: its obligation would depend
on our happening to desire the end to which we saw the action
in question to be a means. As it is, we feel that the rightness
of doing what we see to be our duty is in no way dependent on
the presence or absence of any desire or inclination towards what
is commanded. It is true that the action cannot be done unless
there is an impulse to do what is right or reasonable on our part,
but such a desire may be created by the Reason which recognizes
the rightness : we desire to do the act commanded (in so far as
we do desire it) because it is commanded ; we do not judge that
we are commanded to do the act simply because we chance to
desire it 2 . When then we do a thing because it is right, the will
1 Methods of Ethics, 6th ed., pp. 34-5.
2 It was partly to avoid this implication that Kant refused to speak of a desire
to do one's duty, and partly because, as pointed out below, he erroneously
assumed that every desire was a desire for pleasure. He therefore spoke
of the ' interest ' of Reason in the Moral Law or ' respect ' for the Moral Law
as the subjective motive of right conduct. But in his eagerness to assert
that Reason immediately moves the will, he has at times the appearance of
forgetting (what Aristotle urges against Plato) that bare thought does not
initiate action (btdvoia alrrj ovbcv*$vfa:_ that moral choice (Trpoaipe&is) involves
a desire (3/* is ) for th encT as well as the intellsetuarperception ttiat an act
will promote the end. As von Hartmann puts it, ' Das Pflichtgeftihl ist selbst
eine Neigung ' (Das sittL Bewusstsein, p. 254). Moreover, this habit of speak-
ing as if Reason stepped in (so to speak) and worked the human body without
Chap, v, i] MORALITY A GOOD 107
is autonomous: it is a 'Jaw to itself/ Though the man feels
commanded to do the act whether he likes it or not, it is never-
theless the man himself hia own Reason, the highest part o Jiia
nature which issues the command or makes the law. Hencejn
the highest sense he ik most free when most completely the slave
oiLduty 1 .
The two positions in which we have taken Sidgwick as
a peculiarly lucid exponent of Kant are in the Philosopher's
own writings associated with a third in which his utilitarian
disciple does not follow him. To Kant the performance of duty
is not merely * right'; it is the highest 'good' of the agent
Here we have already found reason to believe that Kant is right,
and can only refer the sceptic to the testimony of his own con-
sciousness. If he denies that he finds in his own consciousness
the judgement 'goodness of conduct possesses a higher worth
than anything else in the world,' the only way to argue with
him would be to try to show that his own actions, or at least
his judgements of himself and other men, really imply that he
thinks so ; that his approval of himself when he does right and
disapproval when he does wrong are quite inexplicable upon the
assumption that bad conduct is merely conduct which is irrational
from the point of view of Society though wholly rational from
his own private point of view. For the man who believes it, the
judgement ' Morality is good and the greatest of goods ' or ' the
good will is the most important element in the good ' is as much
a simple and ultimate deliverance of the moral consciousness as
the judgement ' It is right to promote the general good.'
the intervention of any subjective motive, involved him in much unneces-
sarily mysterious language about the Autonomy of the Will. When Kant
said that the will is a 'law to itself he meant that in right action Reason
is a law to the will ; ill fact, according to Kant, the will is Reason, at least
when the will is rightly directed. Wrong acts, it would appear, can only be
said to be willed, and so to be free, according to Kant, in so far as Reason
might have intervened to stop them and did not. But the Psychology of
wrong action is one on which Kant is as vague as he is unsatisfactory.
1 No doubt in Kant's own view this use of the term * free ' (in which it can
only be applied to right acts) implies also the opposite of * determined ' or
' necessitated ' (see below, Book III, ch. iii, i). The double sense in
which Kant used the term ' free ' is very clearly pointed out by Prof. Sidgwick,
Methods of Ethics, Book I, ch. v $nd Appendix.
io8 THE CATEGORICAL IMPERATIVE [Book I
II
So far we may regard Kant as having laid down in the most
impressive way the principles which must fy)rm the basis of every
constructive fthical system 1 . But in Kent's own view these
positions are associated with two, other .doctrines which require
further examination. ' In the first place he assumed that out of
this bare idea of a categorical imperative, without any appeal to
experience, he could extract a moral criterion, i.e. that he could
ascertain what is the actual content of the Moral Law, what in
detail it is right to do. J? .Secondly, he assumed that, so far as an
act is not determined by pure respect for the Moral Law, it
possesses no moral value whatever. Let us examine each of
these positions in turn.
The value of Kant's work consisted very largely in supplying
a metaphysical basis for Ethics. So long as it is assumed that
all our ordinary knowledge of matters of fact comes from experi-
ence of an ' external world/ there is always a sort of suspicion
that any kind of knowledge which cannot point to such an origin
must be in some sense unsubstantial or delusive. The Critique
of Pure Reason demonstrates that in all our knowledge there is
an element which is not derived from experience : all knowledge
implies ' fojrmg of perception ' and 'forms of understanding' which
are a priori, part of the constitution of the mind itself, not
supplied to it from without. The matter of sensation is from
without, but sense by itself is not thought. I cannot judge of
the size and distance of particular objects without a matter
supplied by sensible perception : but I could not build up these
data into the conception of a square table of a certain size unless
I had already notions of space, of spacial and causal relations, of
1 Kant was no doubt wrong in supposing that all other systems but his own
were based upon ' heteronomy of the Will. 1 This is not true of Plato and
Aristotle (to say nothing of other ancient writers) whom Kant's education
had not qualified him to understand, nor of the Cambridge Platonists and
other English Rationalists of whom he appears to have known little or
nothing. It was not true of them unless the doctrine of the categorical
imperative is distorted into the precept * Do your duty without considering
whether what you are doing is good for any one or not/ and in that sense the
idea of Autonomy is, as contended below, indefensible and absurd
Chap, v, ii] KANT'S MORAL CRITERION 109
substance and accident and the like which do not come from
experience l . Jn all actual knowledge there must be a matter
supplied by experience and a formal element which is a priori.
[But in Morality in .the idea of duty we are presented with
& form which needs no ^filling up from experience, af orm which is
(so to speak) its own content, since it is a matter of immediate con-
sciousness that this a priori concept of duty can supply a motive
to the will. Now in this position a very important truth is (as
is almost universally admitted by the most Kantian of modern
[Moralists) confused with a very serious error. That no experience
'can prove an act to be right, that no accumulation of knowledge
as to what is can possibly give us an ought, is a truth which can
only be denied by asserting that there is no meaning in duty or
in Morality. Experience of the past may tell us what has been
or. what will be : it cannot possibly tell us what ought to be.
That which ought to be is ex vi termini something which as yet
is not and which may conceivably never Jbe. In that sense our
moral judgements are undoubtedly a priori or independent of
experience. But that without any appeal to experience we can
get at the content as well as the form of the moral law, can
easily be shown to be a pure delusion. Let us see how Kant
made the attempt.
The rules of action which the categorical imperative is sup-
posed to give us are the following :
(i) ' So act as if the law of thine action were to become by thy
will law universal/
(3) * Regard humanity whether in thine own person or in that
of any one else always as an end and never as a means only.'
(3) ' Act as a member of a kingdom of ends V
1 Ttyis is a very inadequate and popular statement, nor do I mean to assent
to Kant's idea of a form derived from the mind and a matter derived from
gome source outside the mind. I have merely endeavoured to explain for
the benefit of any one to whom it is unfamiliar Kant's use of the terms
* form * and ' matter ' so far as is necessary for the comprehension of his
ethical position.
a Kant nowhere explains the relation in which the three rules are sup.
posed to stand towards one another, nor does he ever bring them into close
contact with one another ; but in different parts of his ethical writings each
one of them is treated as the funiamental principle of Morality. In practice
no THE CATEGORICAL IMPERATIVE [Book I
Let us examine the first of these rules * Act as if the law of
</hy action were to become by thy will law universal/ Now it
is quite true that it does follow from the very idea of there being
something which it is right to do irrespectively of inclination
that this course must, in the same circumstances, be binding
upon every one else. And therefore in a^sense it is true that no
action can be really a moral rule the principle of which could not
be universalized. It is good practical advice to urge that when
we have to pronounce upon the morality of a proposed act we
should ask ourselves whether it represents a principle which
we should think it rational to will as a universal rule of conduct.
B.ut~lhis is by itself a merely negative test. It gives us no
definite information until we have made up our minds as to what
it is which makes conduct rational or irrational. We can, indeed,
With a little ingenuity extract from it the all-important axioms
<*>f Benevolence and Equity : for, if there is something which it is
intrinsically right to do, what is right for me would be right for
any one else in the same circumstances * : hence it must be right
for me to treat every other man as it would be right for him to
treat me under similar circumstances. If my good is recognized
as something which it is intrinsically right for others to promote,
the good of each other individual must also be treated as an end
the promotion of which I must look upon as incumbent upon me:
hence I am bound to promote the greatest good of humanity
collectively (the maxim of rational Benevolence), and to treat
each individual's good as of equal value with the good of every
other (the maxim of Equity). But these rules by themselves
will give us no practical guidance till we know what that good
is which ought to be promoted by every rational being for every'
other.
j The Kantian maxim, properly interpreted, thus occupies in
he uses one or the other of them just as may be most convenient for the pur-
pose of proving the particular duty with which he is dealing.
1 This principle seems to me to require some qualification (see below,
p. 116 note) ; and it is obvious that we have not really got this rule out of the
Form, for without knowing what sort of being the * other ' is, and what ' good '
lie is capable of, we cannot say what that good is worth unless, indeed, we
make it mean simply an individual's good must be of as much value as the
like aood of any other individual.
Chap. v,ii] INADEQUACY OF KANT'S RULE in
Ethics the same position which the law of contradiction holds in
Logic l . The law of contradiction is a negative test of truth : it
tells us that two judgements which contradict one another cannot
both be true, but as to which judgements in particular are true, it
will give us no informa ion : only, when I know thaf judgement A
is true, it will tell me that judgement B, being inconsistent there-
with, cannot also be true. In the same way the Kantian rule
tells us that a genuine ultimate rule of conduct must not only be
logically consistent with itself, but also be such as that all its
prescriptions shall be consistent with all other ethical rules. The
supreme ethical precept must consist of an harmonious and self-
consistent system of precepts. It need hardly be said that this
by itself is a most important negative test of ethical truth. It
gives us the principle upon which alone inference or reasoning
(as distinct from immediate judgements of Reason) is possible in
Ethics. The fact that something is a part of the true ethical
rule supplies, if we assume this principle to be self-evident,
a demonstrative proof that some precept inconsistent with it
cannot be a part of it 2 . But as to what rule of action in
particular is reasonable, it gives us no information whatever.
If we interpret the rule of acting on a principle fit for law
universal as equivalent to Sidgwick's three ethical axioms of
1 This interpretation of Kant is well insisted on by Sigwart (Logic, E. T.,
li. p. 543 seq.). Sigwart would call the principle in question a postulate :
I should venture to regard it as both a postulate and an axiom. It ought
not to be denied by any one who is not prepared to question the validity of
all thinking. Mr, Bradley is so far consistent that he accuses thought as
well as Morality of internal inconsistency. Some of his followers (in Ethics)
have been less logical. Mr. Bradley is only following out his own principle
to its logical conclusion when, in his frequent polemics against Casuistry,
he denies apparently the possibility of any inference whatever in the ethical
sphere ^see below, Bk. IH, ch. vi). It is enough for our present purpose to
insist that the self-evident axioms of Ethics and the inferences based upon
them have as much validity as any other parts of our thinking.
2 It will be observed that I am speaking of elements in the supreme
ethical rule, not elements of the end. The end itself must not contain
intrinsically incompatible elements, but in particular circumstances ele-
ments of the end are often incompatible : but the ethical rule says ' in
that case promote the good which is of most intrinsic value. 1 Even the good
may, and obviously does, contain elements which cannot all be enjoyed by
the same persons.
THE CATEGORICAL IMPERATIVE [Book I
Benevolence, Equity and Erudence we shall get rules for the
promotion and distribution of the good or ultimate end, but no
information as to what particular things are good : and, until we
know that, we cannot get any principles from which we can
deduce the right course of conduct in aij^ one single case. If
with Sidgwick (who could quote much in Kant himself to
support this interpretation) we made ' good ' in this connexion
equivalent to ' pleasure/ and interpreted our rule to mean ' pro-
mote universal pleasure and distribute it equally/ we should
obviously have gone beyond the mere a priori formal rule.
We should have appealed to experience an appeal which our
categorical imperative was intended by Kant to exclude. The
judgement 'Happiness ought to be promoted' is no doubt in
a sense a priori, but not in the sense that no information derived
from experience is necessary to its being made. Kant himself
admits that the concept of happiness is of empirical origin l .
Experience must tell us what happiness is before we can judge
happiness to be good. Still more obviously experience is wanted
to tell us what particular goods constitute happiness, or what are
the means to procure those goods. It might be thought that
Kant could get a content for the Moral Law by holding
that the true good of man is simply Morality, a concept which
might be said to be of purely a priori origin, and that we should
find out what particular actions are right by considering what
actions would promote universal Morality. But here again, if the
concept of the end is in a sense purely a priori, experience is
needed to tell us the means ; and Kant has incapacitated himself
from adopting this solution of the problem by the exaggerated
Libertarianism which made him pronounce an action due to
another's influence to be not truly * free/ and therefore without
moral value 2 . Consequently, he pronounced that it was im-
1 * All the elements which belong to the notion of happiness are altogether
empirical, i.e. they must be borrowed from experience' (Grundlegung zur
Met. d* Sitten, 2, translated by Abbot in Kant's Theory of Ethics, 4th ed.,
1889, p. 35).
2 Metaph. AnfangsgtHnde d. Tugendlehre, Einleitung, iv seq. (Abbot, p. 296).
But this is qualified (hardly consistently) by the admission of a negative duty
towards the moral well-being of others, i. e. not to create temptations (Abbot,
p. 304).
Chap.v, ii] FITNESS FOR LAW UNIVERSAL 113
possible for one man to make another's moral good his end.
Hence if Virtue is by itself to constitute the end, it must be
the man's own virtue that he must treat as his end. To tell
a man to make his own virtue an end will not tell him what
to do until he knows ^hat acts it is virtuous to perform, and as
to this the formula that what is right for him is right for others
will give him no information* whatever. How then did Kant
attempt to extract out of the bare form of the Moral Law
a knowledge of the particular actions which are right or wrong?
It is impossible to maintain that Kant gives a clear and con-
sistent meaning to his own dictum. Sometimes the irrationality
of willing the universal adoption of the immoral course appears
to turn simply upon the fact that the social consequences to
which the adoption of such a will would lead are consequences
which no rational man could regard as good. We cannot will
universal promise-breaking because in that case no promises
would be made, and at times the irrationality of willing such
a consequence seems to turn upon its injurious social effects.
Still more clearly when Kant pronounces that we cannot
rationally will the non-development of our faculties, the irra-
tionality of such a course is made to depend simply upon the
fact that the rational man actually regards this non-development
as bad and their development as good l . IJete .the appeal to
1 ' A third ' [the first two cases are suicide and breach of promise] * finds
in himself a talent which with the help of some culture might make him a
useful man in many respects. But he finds himself in comfortable circum
stances, and prefers to indulge in pleasure rather than to take pains in
enlarging and improving his happy natural capacities. He asks, however,
whether his maxim of neglect of his natural gifts, besides agreeing with
his inclination to indulgence, agrees also with what is called duty. He sees
then that a system of nature could indeed subsist with such a universal law
although men (like the* South Sea islanders) should let their talents rust,
and resolve to devote their lives merely to idleness, amusement, and
propagation of their species in a woid, to enjoyment ; but he cannol
possibly will that this should be a universal law of nature, or be implanted
in us as such by a natural instinct. For, as a rational being, he necessarily
wills that his faculties be developed, since they serve him, and have beer
given him, for all sorts of possible purposes ' (Grundlegung, 4 : Abbot, p. 40)
I pass over the objections (i) that elsewhere the development of faculties if
not regarded by Kant as an ultimate good, the only ultimate goods being
Virtue and Happiness ; (2) that JKant relies upon teleological assumption!
RASH BALL I
ii4 THE CATEGORICAL IMPERATIVE [Book I
on ty bfc known by
: the a priori judgement relates simply toiho^Qdness
or badaess .of ,the exxd. But Kant was able to conceal from him-
self the necessity of this appeal to experience, because in certain
carefully selected instances he was able ^o point to the appear-
ance of internal contradiction in the reverse of the accepted
rule 1 . We cannot rationally will that men shall break their
promises, because in that case no promises would be made ; and
we cannot rationally will something to be done which will make
it impossible to observe the very rule which we will. In a society
in which there were no promises, it would no longer be possible
to observe our proposed rule of universal promise-breaking; if
no promises are made, none can be broken. Now even here it is
evident that Kant falls back upon his experience of human
nature to tell him what will be the consequences of his act:
but still he might maintain that, given this much experience, the
contradiction is self-evident. Yet it is easy to show that absence
of contradiction, in this sense, would be a very irrational test of
conduct. Kant himself appears to concede that there would be
no* internal contradiction in, willing that all men should leave
their faculties undeveloped. Nor would there be any internal
contradiction in adopting as our rule of action the promotion of
universal misery, or at least of the maximum of misery which
should be consistent with the continued survival of the human
race. That is, indeed, according to some Pessimists, precisely the
end which is actually realized in the world as we know it.
And, just as we hold many acts to be wrong which involve no
Internal contradiction, so there are many things which we pro-
nounce right in spite of such contradiction. Kant tells us that
we cannot rationally will universal promise -breaking, because the
universal adoption of such a rule would lead to a state of things
in which the rule 'Break your promises' could no longer be
observed. fWe must not commit suicide, because if every
to which he was not entitled : he had no right (from his point of view) to
issume that our faculties were ' given ' us for any reason whatever.
1 It is true that even in the selected cases the contradiction is not really
internal. It is the actual structure of human society which makes the
suggested rule unworkable.
Chap. v,ii] TEST OF NON-CONTRADICTION 115
one did so, ther$ would soon be nobody left to practise the
virtue of suicide. Then are we, it may be asked, to deny that
Philanthropy is a duty because the universal practice of
a reasonable Philanthropy would lead to a state of things in
which there would be ro poor upon whom to practise that virtue?
Shall we refuse to bless the peacemaker, because if every one
shared his disposition, there would be no quarrels to adjust?
And then, again, how unreasonable is the alternative with which
we are presented either to will universal suicide and universal
lying, or to forbid each of these practices in any circumstances
whatever ! As reasonably might we pronounce Kant's own
celibacy a crime because universal celibacy would rapidly
extinguish the human race and (consequently) the practice of
celibacy.
It is true that the emergence of an internal contradiction (in
Kant's sense) in any suggested moral rule does show that we
have not reached an ultimate principle of conduct. We can,
indeed, put such rules as ' Give to the poor ' into a universal
form by making them hypothetical : ' So long as there are any
poor, relieve them ; ' but so might we say, * So long as there are
any human beings alive, let them commit suicide/ Still, the
fact that the rule is only applicable to a particular set of cir-
cumstances does show that we have not reached an ultimate
principle. The rule, ' Be charitably disposed/ may, indeed, be
universally willed : but then Kant's object in applying his test
of fitness for law universal is to supply a guide for the details
of outward conduct, not for mere dispositions and intentions,
and this purpose is not served by such generalities as these.
And even in this case there is really a reference to the physical
constitution of human beings which is known to us only from
expedience. We might interpret charity to mean ' a disposition
to promote good/ but the absence of internal contradiction will
not tell us what good is. Moreover, as has already been pointed
out, although an ultimate moral principle must be free from
internal contradiction, it is impossible to deny that many im-
moral principles might very well be universalized without leading
to any such contradiction. The structure of the Universe and of
human nature is quite as consistent with the non-development
I 2
n6 THE CATEGORICAL IMPERATIVE [Book I
aa_ with the development of human faculties. And if the
criterion is not of universal application, how are we to know
when to apply it, and when not ?
The fact is that Kant appears to have, confused two distinct
senses of the" term 'categorical/ Whence sets forth that it is
of the essence of every moral la,w to fye categorical, he means
that it must admit of no exception due to the subjective dis-
inclination of the individual for the course of action which it
prescribes. We must not say, ' I admit Temperance or Veracity
to be right in a general way : only I personally happen to have
such a rooted antipathy to Temperance or Veracity, or whatever
it be, that I must regard myself as an exception to the general
rule/ To talk in that way no doubt destroys the very nature of
a Moral Law. It is an essential characteristic of the Moral Law
that whatever is right for me must be right for every man in
precisely the same circumstances 1 . But when Kant tries to
make out this mere unconditionality of a rule an absolute test
of its reasonableness, he has to assume that the categorical
character of an imperative excludes the possibility of an ex-
ception based not on the mere subjective disinclination of the
individual, but on the nature of the case. He does not see that
the rule * Do this except in such and such circumstances ' is just
as ' categorical ' and just as little ' hypothetical ' as the rule
' Do this under all circumstances whatever/ so long as the
exceptions are recognized as no less universal in their applica-
tion, no less based upon the reason and nature of things, than
the original rule. Kant in fact^cojofuaes .tke ,inclusion- of an
exception in a moral rule with the admission of .an exception to
a moal rule*. He does not recognize that the difference between
a rule with an exception and a grammatically categorical rule is
often a purely verbal one. The precept ' Do no murder ' admits
of no exceptions, because ' murder ' means ' killing except in such
and such circumstances/ The rule 'Thou shalt not kill' has
exceptions. So the rule ' Lie not ' could be represented as equally
1 That we can only hold this principle by including in the ' circumstances '
the man's own character and disposition (other than an indisposition to
perform what has once been proved to be his duty), I have contended below
in the chapter on * Vocation ' (vol. ii, ch. iv).
Chap, v, ii] QUESTION OF EXCEPTIONS 117
4 categorical ' if there were as clear a usage in favour of the
proposition that a legitimate untruth is no lie, as there is in
favour of the proposition that in certain circumstances killing
is no murder. We are obliged sometimes to express a moral rule
in the form of a gei^ral command with an exctption simply
because the enumeration of the circumstances to which the rule
is inapplicable is shorter and more convenient than an exhaustive
enumeration of all the cases to which it is applicable. And it
is clear that every rule, however general, implies some set of
circumstances in which alone it is capable of being applied.
The duty of not committing adultery is only applicable to the
relations between two persons of whom one at least has a lawful
spouse, and it is obvious that this term l lawful ' postulates
a larger number of highly complicated social arrangements,
about which there is by no means a universal consensus, and
which the most enthusiastic Kantian could hardly attempt to
determine on any a priori principle. (Either, then, we must say
that every possible rule really involves a hypothesis under which
alone it is applicable; or we may say that every moral law
excludes all exception if only you put it into a sufficiently general,
and a sufficiently internal, form. 'Kill not* has exceptions:
* Thou shaltlove thy neighbour as thyself ' (properly understood),
has none ] . But, in whichever way it is put, it is plain that we
can get no criterion of Morality out of the presence or absence
of exceptions. ' Kill not ' has exceptions, and yet (subject to thq
exceptions) is accounted a good moral principle. On the othei?
hand, ' Thou shalt love thy friend and hate thine enerny ' does not
appeal to us as the highest morality, in spite of its being quite!
as categorical as the Christian precept.
Kant's attempt to extract an ethical criterion out of the bare
form of the Moral Law is the more remarkable, because he did not
hold* (as he is sometimes supposed to do) that there is no other
rational end of action except the bare performance of duty.
1 ' The Moral Law, we may Bay, has to be expressed in the form, " Be this,*'
not in the form, " Do this.'* The possibility of expressing any rule in this
form may be regarded as deciding whether it can or cannot have a dis-
tinctively moral character. Christianity gave prominence to the doctrine
that the true moral law says "hate not/' instead of "kill not'" (Leslie
Stephen, Science of Ethics, 1882, #. 155).
ii8 THE CATEGORICAL IMPERATIVE [Book I
Had he held that view, it would have become fairly impossible
for him even to have persuaded himself that he had discovered
in the bare form of the law any content for the idea of duty l .
If a man is to perform his duty, he must know what that duty
is ; and the mere knowledge that, when jf.e has discovered what
his duty is, it is a thing categorically commanded does not help
to find out what it is. It is impossible, in short, to show the
(rationality of one course of action rather than another until we
have admitted that something else besides the performance of
jduty some objective good other than the state of the will
is a rational end of action or possesses value 2 , And Kant did
admit that there is such another rational end of action which
1 Dr. Lipps (Die ethischen Grwndfragen, 1899, P- I 5^ seq.) has attempted to
clear Kant of the imputation that his categorical imperative has no content
by suggesting that the content is supplied by all our natural desires and in-
clinations : the moral law simply prescribes the way and extent to which they
should be indulged. I believe that this is very largely the explanation of
Kant's own view of the matter, but it is open to the objection that it allows
all actual tendencies of human nature ('aller mSglichen menschlichen
Zwecke ') to be indulged in proportion to their actual strength, except in so
far as their indulgence interferes with the indulgence of other such ten-
dencies in ourselves and in other individuals. It is obvious that we should
have to appeal to experience to know what is the relative strength of these
tendencies; and, after all, it supplies us with a very unsatisfactory test of
their relative value. If only the tendency to opium-smoking were sufficiently
strong in a whole community, the Kantian principle (as interpreted by
Dr. Lipps) would make universal opium-smoking a categorical imperative.
2 Lotze, the last man in the world to sanction vulgar Hedonism, has said :
' There is nothing at all in the world, which would have any value until it
has produced some pleasure in some being or other capable of enjoyment.
Everything antecedent to this is naught but an indifferent kind of fact, to
which a value of its own can be ascribed only in an anticipatory way, and
with reference to some pleasure that is to originate from it' (Practical
Philosophy, Eng. Trans, by Ladd, p. 19). I believe this statement might
be defended, since (a) pleasure is an element in all ultimate good, (b) Lotze
has not said that the value lies exclusively in the pleasure abstracted from
the other elements of consciousness, or that it is to be measured by the
amount of that pleasure. But his statement seems to me liable to mis-
understanding. On the other hand, it is surprising to find Lotze admitting
that ' the effort to hold fast pleasure, or to regain it, and to avoid pain, are
the only springs of all practical activity ' (Microcosmus, E. T., i. p. 688), but
here again the taint of Hedonism is removed by a recognition of differences
in the quality of the pleasure.
Chap.v,iii] DUTY FOR DUTY'S SAKE 119
possesses worth, not indeed ' absolutely and unconditionally/ but
on one condition that it does not interfere with Virtue. And
that other end is Happiness. From this position it would seem
logically to follow that the true criterion would be the tendency,
of an action to promote for all mankind Happiness in so far as!
is compatible with Virtue. This would supply us with a quite!
intelligible and workable view of the moral criterion, and it
would correspond roughly with the actual deliverances of the
moral consciousness. That it is an inadequate view of the
ultimate end of human life, I have already attempted to show ;
and its deficiencies will be further illustrated when we pass on
to the other mistaken assumption, from which I am anxious to
dissociate Kant's fundamental doctrine of a categorical im-
perative.
Ill
That duty should be done for duty's sake we have seen to be
really implied in the very notion of there being such a thing as
duty. But it does not follow that the desire to do one's duty
must always be the sole and exclusive motive of right conduct,
or that conduct not consciously inspired by respect for the Moral
Law as such must possess no moral value at all. Yet such was
the assumption of Kant himself. To Kant the most unselfish 1
devotion to wife or child, the most ardent patriotism, the most
comprehensive philanthropy, possessed no more moral value than
the purest avarice or the most unmitigated selfishness. Unless
the man loves, or rather behaves as though he loved (since love,
he holds, cannot be commanded) wife, or country, or humanity
simply from an actual, conscious respect for the Moral Law, his
couijuct is worthless not necessarily wrong (for it is not a crime
to promote one's own happiness when duty does not forbid) v but
entii$ly without moral value. The will that wills from pure
love of the brethren is morally on a level with the will that
wills from pure love of self. It is of no more value than the
1 I speak popularly: to Kant there could be no such thing as an
* unselfish ' love of anything except duty, and even that could only be
1 respected,' not ' loved/ To Kant (in his stricter moments), as to Bentham,
Benevolence not inspired by pure sense of duty was merely a love of
benevolent pleasure.
i ao THE CATEGORICAL IMPERATIVE [Book I
behaviour of an animal. Such is the revolting and inhuman
Stoicism to which Kant's ideal logically leads. It is, as Schopen-
hauer puts it, the ' apotheosis of lovelessness, the exact opposite,
as it is, of the Christian doctrine of Morals V In well-known
lines the poefc Schiller makes the disciple (A Kant complain :
Gladly, I serve my friends, but alas I do it with pleasure.
Hence I am plagued with the doubt that I am not a virtuous person :
in reply to which the answer given is :
Sure, your only resource is to try to despise them entirely,
And then with aversion to do what your duty enjoins you 2 .
Nor can it be alleged that Kant has any desire to conceal this
result. He holds ex professo that ^jl jfeaire, _m_ Jbfld. 'The in-
clinations themselves being sources of want, are so far from
baving an absolute worth for which they should be desired, that
Qn the contrary it must be" the universal wish of every rational
being to be wholly free from them V We might ask in what,
according to Kant, happiness is to consist ? Happiness, as we
know it, arises entirely from the satisfaction of desires 4 , and
happiness is admitted to be a rational end of action ; how then
can the desires be consistently treated as a mere encumbrance
which the rational man would fain be without? But it is
enough to point out the utter discrepancy between the Kantian
dogma and the strongest moral convictions of mankind. The
* common-sense ' philosophy of Bishop Butler is here a far better
exponent of the moral consciousness. Insisting as strongly as
Kant upon the claims of Conscience, he yet recognizes that
Conscience does not prescribe this total suppression of all other
' passions, propensions, or affections/ It rather pronounces that
some of the desires ought to be encouraged, some suppressed,
others moderated or controlled, and all subordinated to Benevo-
lence and self-love the two great rational impulses which
make for the good of ourselves and our fellow men 6 . And in
1 Ueber die Grundlage der Moral, 6 (The Basis of Morality, trans, by
A. B. Bullock, 1903, p. 49). He goes on to call it a piece of 'stupid moral
pedantry ' (tdktlosen moralischen Pedantismus).
2 From Die Philosophen. s Grundlegung, 2 (Abbot, p. 46).
4 Including the desire of pleasure.
8 I do not mean to accept this as a fully adequate account of the matter,
Chap, v, iii] THE MOKAL MOTIVE 121
this teaching Butler was only developing the principles of
Aristotle who (amid many retrogressions) advanced beyond
just by his recognition of the fact that
. ^element, of.. human nature aa Reason;
jnaterial (so to speak) of the sublimest virtues and of the
Coarsest vices is the same, that natural impulses are good or .
jjust according as they are or are not controlled by the i
which Reason sets up L . Granted fully that an act may be done/
from the bare sense of duty, from a desire which is created)
solely by our conviction that a certain course is intrinsically*
right or reasonable, this is not in most cases an adequate
analysis of a good man's motives. In most of his acts the good
man is doing something towards which he has some inclination
apart from the consideration that it is his duty. He works for
wife^anrl children because he loves them : he speaks the trutfcj
because he feels an instinctive repulsion for a lie : he relieved
suffering because ' he cannot bear ' to see another man in pair*.
It is rather in the selection of the right one from among the
many impulses by which his will is from time to time solicited,
and in the reinforcement of it when it is absolutely or relatively
too weak, that the ' sense of duty ' need come into play 2 . It is
only perhaps at rare crises in the moral life, when duty calls
for some great sacrifice or commands resistance to some great
temptation, that the ' sense of duty ' becomes the one all-
sufficient motive present to the consciousness. It is no doubt
eminently desirable that the sense of duty should be alwayvS
present in the background or, as the Psychologists have called
it, the l fringe ' of consciousness 3 ; that Reason should be (so to
speak) a consenting party to all our actions, however strongly
prompted by natural impulses, and be ready to inhibit even the
noblest and most generous of them when it threatens to oppose
unless the idea of Benevolence and that of self-love have been understood
in a non-hedonistic sense.
1 Cf. below, p. 153 sq.
2 Dr. Martineau's Ethics have the merit of developing this idea : but he
exaggerates when he denies that the love of duty or desire ' to do what is
right and reasonable as such,' can ever be a * spring of action ' at all (Types
of Ethical Theory, 3rd ed., ii. p. 279 sq.).
8 Cf. James, Psychology, i. 25&s<j., 471 sq., &c.
122 THE CATEGORICAL IMPERATIVE [Book I
itself to duty's call. But, even when this is not the case, even
when in a particular act or in the general tenour of a man's
life conscious and deliberate respect for the Moral Law as such
cannot be said to occupy this paramount and predominant
position, we do not in fact regard the at or the character of
such a man as entirely destitute of moral value. We may regard
his defective sense of duty as a moral defect or shortcoming,
but we do not regard him as on a level with the selfish
pleasure-seeker. It would be a violent perversion of psycho-
logical fact to represent that every man who works hard and
resists temptations to self-indulgence from love for his wife and
children, or from a zeal for his profession, is inspired by pure
respect for the abstract Moral Law; it would be a perversion of
moral fact (attested in the only way in which moral fact can be
attested, by the evidence of consciousness) to say that such
conduct is morally worthless 1 . To do so would involve the
denial of moral value not only to much of the normally good
conduct of average civilized men, and to all the more elementary
morality of children or savages (to whom the idea of a Moral
Law or an abstract ' duty ' can hardly be said to have occurred),
but also to some of the very noblest acts of generous but one-
sided and imperfect characters.
The source of Iao's ethical mistake must be sought in his
defective Psychology. He asgjuued, as completely as Hobbes or
Locke, that the motive of every action is pleasure except in one
Qfl3&- Reason had, he thought, the power of arbitrarily inter-
posing, and acting directly upon the man's will, by laying upon
him a categorical command to do this or abstain from that :
but, except when and in so far as the man was influenced by
pure respect for such injunctions, his will was always under the
influence of pleasure and pain. Apart from the power of inter-
position accorded to this deus ex machina, the categorical
1 It would perhaps be consistent with Kantian principles to say that the
act possesses some moral value because there is some respect for the moral
law ; but this explanation does not really express the facts. The man is
possibly not thinking of the Moral Law as such at all (I have explained below
that he may nevertheless recognize that there is something intrinsically
good in his love for wife and children), and yet we do recognize that the
disinterested affection by itself gives the act moral value.
Chap.v, iii] KANT'S PSYCHOLOGY 123
imperative, Kant was a psychological Hedonist. Moreover, he
assumed that an action determined by self-interest was com-
pletely 'natural/ that the motives of the calculating pleasure-
seeker were the same in kind as the mere animal impulses of the
savage or even the beast. He would probably hrtve explained
the behaviour of animals as due to the pursuit of pleasure. He
did not recognize the high degree of abstraction, the high intel-
lectual and moral development, which is implied in the deliberate
pursuit of so ideal an object as c maximum pleasure ' or ' happi-
ness ' in general. Regarding all desire as desire for pleasure,
and the desire of pleasure as merely ' natural/ he was obviously
unable to recognize any difference in moral value between one
kind of desire and another. Benevolence and malevolence
were simply different forms of pleasure-seeking. From the point
of view which we have adopted we are able to recognize that the
value of the desire depends upon the nature of the objects desired.
We can pronounce, and as a matter of fact the moral conscious-
ness does pronounce, that devotion to the family or the tribe
is a higher and nobler motive of action than devotion to one's
own good, love of knowledge better than love of sensual indul-
gence, indignation against cruelty or injustice better than resent-
ment provoked by jealousy. We may, therefore, ascribe moral
value to a man's acts in proportion as they are inspired by a
desire of objects which Reason pronounces intrinsically good,
although the man may not pursue them consciously because
Reason pronounces those objects to be good still less because
Reason pronounces the acts to be right apart from their tendency
to gratify a desire for the objects. In proportion as the moral
consciousness is developed, or at all events in proportion as the
man's intellectual development allows his morality to become
self-conscious and reflective, the intrinsic value of the objects which
he piirsues is recognized with increasing distinctness and abstract-
ness ; and this recognition brings with it reinforcement of the
higher impulse as against the competing desires which might
otherwise take its place. Some degree of this consciousness
of value is no doubt necessary to make it a motive which can
fairly be described as a higher desire at all. The most rudimen-
tary family affection imp^es a certain consciousness (wholly
THE CATEGORICAL IMPERATIVE [Book I
unanalysed no doubt) of the claims or rights or intrinsic worth
of other persons, and of the consequent superiority of such an
impulse to mere sensual desire a consciousness which is not
present in the maternal impulses of the lower animals, in which
naturalistic \friters have seen realized thefr highest ideal of con-
duct. But even in highly developed moral natures, and in some
of the highest actions of such natures, it is often impossible
to discover the conscious presence in any high degree of respect
for the abstract idea of duty or the Moral Law as such. The
philanthropist is carried away by an enthusiasm of humanity
which does not stop to ask whether to relieve suffering or to fight
against oppression is or is not contained in the categorical
imperative of Reason. And such zeal for the things contained
in the law we certainly pronounce morally good, however little
conscious reference there may be to the law which contains
them.
IV
And from this point of view the thought may occur to us :
' if good conduct implies only desire for objects which Reason
can recognize as good, why do we need the " sense of duty "
or the categorical imperative at all?' May we not say with
Aristotle that a man is not really good unless he likes the things
that another may recognize as constituting his duty, or even go
beyond Aristotle (who did insist that in developed Morality there
should be a conscious recognition that the things desired were
good), and say ' It is nobler to be so fired by the thought of
tyranny and injustice and suffering, so to feel others' wrongs
as though they were one's own, that the question never arises at
all whether it is a duty to fight against them, or even whether it
be Ka\bv to do so ? Would it not show a positive defect in the
man's character if he should decline to make a sacrifice which
the good of his family demanded till he had calmly reflected that
it was a dutiful or a beautiful thing for him to do ? Is it not
better to be socially useful because one loves one's neighbours as
oneself than to regard them with indifference, and yet to feed
or serve them only because it is one's duty ? '
We are here in the presence of something like an antinomy.
Chap.v,iv] THE MORAL MOTIVE 125
On the one hand, it does seem nobler to love the things contained
in the law than to do good things unwillingly because we feel
bound to obey the law as such. On the other hand, it seems
difficult to admit that there can be any nobler motive than
devotion to duty as such, or that there can be a perfect character,
or even a perfect act, in the inspiration of which such devotion
has no place.
The solution of our difficulty seems to lie in a consideration
which we have hitherto neglected. It is quite true that an
action may be good which is done from the love of some good
object. The poor man who shares his scanty dinner with a still
poorer friend has certainly done an act possessing moral worth.
The scholar who ' scorns delights, and lives laborious days ' from
sheer love of Learning is not to be treated as on a level with the
mere sensualist because he is not habitually inspired by reflection
on the duty of research, or even because he may be seriously
wanting in devotion to many kinds of social good. But love
of any particular good object is always liable to interfere with
the promotion of some other, and, it may be, more important
good. Love of Learning is good, but the scholar in whom that
passion extinguishes all others may become selfish and inhuman,
if all social impulses are stifled in its pursuit. Nero's love of Art
was a redeeming feature in his character, but the fact (if it
be a fact) that he ' fiddled while Rome was burning ' was rather an
aggravation than an extenuation of his callous indifference to
human suffering. Enthusiasm for some particular cause is good,
if the cause be a righteous one ; but the root of all fanaticism
lies in a devotion to some single good which extinguishes all
scruple or respect for rules no less essential to human Well-being
than Temperance or the influence of the Church or even the con-
version of sinners. Unselfish affection or loyalty to particular
persons or societies is good ; but the morality of the man who
surrenders himself to it without restraint may degenerate into
mere honour among thieves. Family affection may steel the
heart against the claims of a wider humanity. Even a genuine
Patriotism may produce absolute blindness to the plainest dic-
tates of Humanity or international Justice. And so on. Now
duty means, as we have se^n, precisely devotion to the various
THE CATEGORICAL IMPERATIVE [Book I
kinds of good in proportion to their relative value and impor-
tance. No one then can be trusted at all times and in all
circumstances to attribute to each good precisely its proper
degree of worth in whom there is not strong devotion to that
supreme godQ in which all others are summed up. It is not
necessary that a man should make the sense of duty the sole
motive of all his conduct, provided it is always ready to inhibit
an action the moment he sees any reason for believing that it is
contrary to his duty. The conscientious man will not seek
actually to substitute the sense of duty for other motives of con-
duct, because he will recognize that many of the commonplace
actions of life are better performed from some other impulse,
and that the cultivation of altruistic or ideal impulses is actually
a part of that ideal of human character which duty bids him
promote in himself as in others. He will eat his breakfast from
force of habit or because he is hungry ; the sense of duty will
only be ready, in the background of consciousness, so to speak J ,
to stimulate him when appetite fails or to inhibit him when some
call of duty demands the suspension or omission of that meal on
a particular morning. He will select things to eat and drink
because he likes them, provided that he is always ready to
modify his choice when there is reason to believe that what
he likes is unwholesome or too expensive. He will labour for
the good of his family because he cares about it as much or more
than he does for his own good, but the sense of duty will always
be ready to remind him of the claims of the workmen or the
1 There is considerable ethical importance in the modern Psychologist's
recognition that we do not think of one thing or 4 idea * at a time, but that
while the centre of consciousness may be occupied by some idea, there is
a ' fringe ' of other ideas present with various degrees of clearness and dis-
tinctness (like the object lying on the outside of the fringe of vision, e. g.
persons of whose presence we are conscious without actually looking at
them sufficiently to know who they are). An idea present in the * fringe '
of consciousness can always become the central object of the mental vision
,when occasion arises for it. The good man will always have the sense of duty
somewhere in the fringe of his consciousness. This view is not inconsistent
with the doctrine strongly insisted on by many Psychologists that we can only
attend to one * object ' at a time ; but at all events such an ' object ' may in-
clude many * ideas ' (in James's sense) which may be the object of different
degrees and kinds of attention, '
Chap, v, iv] THE MORAL MOTIVE 127
customers whom his methods of business may prejudice. He
will throw himself into the work of a profession, because he
likes it, because he is ambitious of success, recognition, oppor-
tunities of more interesting or more important work and the
like ; but he will be ready to listen to the faintest whisper
of a suspicion arising in his mind that the path of ambition and
the path of real social duty have begun to diverge. The Priest
will devote himself heart and soul to the good of his parish
simply because he wants to see his flock happier and better. He
will do his work all the more effectively the more completely
he identifies their well-being with his own, the more he takes
delight in his occupation ; but the sense of duty will always
be ready to press upon his attention the more disagreeable or the
more unpopular duty, to suggest the claims of study to the un-
studious, the claims of his poor to the man whose heart is in
books, the claims of rest or reflection or devotion when absorp-
tion in work threatens to dry up the foundations of thought
and of feeling. In proportion as a man's habitual desires or
'interests' are identified with some wider form or element of
human good, the danger of collisions between various forms
of good the difference, so to speak, between devotion to a par-
ticular end and devotion to the good in general may tend to
disappear. The sense of duty may be less needed as check or as
spur to the man of ardent temperament, absorbed in self-denying
philanthropy, than it is to the average man whose habitual
energies are divided by a remunerative profession and an
affectionate family. But it is unnecessary to illustrate the
possibilities of moral aberration which attend upon devotion
to every form of good less than the whole.
And where there is devotion to the whole of human good,
to the ' matter ' of the Moral Law, to every kind of good object
in due proportion to its intrinsic worth, need there then be any
thought of the ' form ' at all ? Is the idea of ' duty for duty's
sake ' part of the highest ideal of character or is it always a note
of imperfection? The question is not an easy one, for every
term that we use in speaking of such matters is a more or less
ambiguous one : but I would suggest the following outline
of an answer:
128 THE CATEGORICAL IMPERATIVE [Book I
(1) Goodness in the narrower moral sense the right direction
of, the will ia. itself the greatest of goods, and must always
be paramount in the ideal man; but the ideal man will care
about many other things besides the right direction of his own
and other pbple's wills knowledge, beauty, particular persons,
social intercourse, various pleasures in proportion to their intrinsic
value. It is scarcely possible that he should acquire this habitual
right direction of the will without more or less consciously
thinking of it ; but, iujso far as he does come to love the things
prescribed by Reason, re&pect for duty as such will tend to pass
into a sense of the relative value of the goods which he loves, and
to lose that abstractness, and also that sense of constraint and
obligation, which are elements in the sense of duty as understood
by Kant and his followers. At bottom the sense of duty is the
due appreciation of the proportionate objective value of ends.
In this sense alone is the ' feeling of obligation ' an ultimate and
indispensable element of the moral consciousness *.
(2) Since the various ends the promotion of which constitutes
the content of the Moral Law are all resolvable into some state of
conscious beings, it may be said that an ideal love oL mankind
would supersede all sense of duty as such, provided that this love
of persons be taken to include a desire of various goods for them
in proportion to their relative value, and in particular a pre-
dominant desire for their moral Well-being. Jn this sense it may
be said that ' perfect love caste th out fear ' : even of the Moral
Law and constitutes by itself, in the strictest possible sense,
1 the fulfilment of the law/ At its highest the sense of duty
is identical with the rational love of persons (including in due
measure self-love), and the things which constitute their true
good.
(3) For a mind which believes in the existence of a Person
whose will is absolutely directed towards the true good, the love
of such a Person, the conscious direction of the will towards the
end which He wills, absorbs into itself the sense of duty. The
love of God is the love of duty with the added intensity both of
intellectual clearness and of emotional strength which arises from
1 * Une conscience morale n'aboutit pas a la formule : je dois faire ceci,
mais a la formule : ceci eat & faire ' (Rauh^L' Experience morale, p. 32).
Chap, v, v] SCHOPENHAUER'S CRITICISM
the conviction that an ideal is also already real. How far and
in what sense the belief in such a Person must be considered as
involved or implied in the idea of an objective Morality, is
a question which must be considered hereafter. Meanwhile
I notice merely as a psychological fact that in the religious
consciousness the idea of Duty may lose those aspects and
associations which often cause a revolt against the idea of
a categorical imperative.
Kant's categorical imperative has been justly (in some of
its aspects) ridiculed by Schopenhauer as a mere survival from
the lowest form of the ' servile ' theological Morality which
he professed to have abandoned. ' Whether he calls his fetich
categorical imperative or Fitziputzli/ makes no difference 1 .
It was the survival of the drill-sergeant Theology of eighteenth-
century Prussia with the drill-sergeant turned into an abstraction.
In depersonalizing his imperative and cutting it adrift from its
connexion with the real world as a whole, life as a whole, good
as a whole, he reduced it to something arbitrary, abstract, almost
inhuman. Repersonalize it, regard it as the reflex in the human
soul of the Will which wills the supreme good of humanity, and
the categorical imperative loses all those features which tend to
present it as an emotion incompatible with and inferior to the
other impulses or emotions which may inspire men to right con-
duct. To the Christian or the Theist with a worthy idea of
God the love of goodness is no longer distinguishable from the
love of the concrete good which forms the content of the divine
Will as of all good human wills.
How far the love of goodness, whether or not embodied in
a Person, can supersede in the actual conditions of human life
the sense of effort, of struggle, of sacrifice commonly associated
with the aspect of Morality embodied in the term Duty, is
another question to which we must return hereafter. If the
sense of duty be really the sense of the relative value of ends,
it is obvious that some sense of constraint or ' obligation ' must
always be connected with the idea of duty, so long as any of
1 Grundlage der Moral, 6 (E.T., p. 50).
KASHDALL I K
1 3 o THE CATEGORICAL IMPERATIVE [Book I
the ends which we rationally desire are incompatible with the
attainment of any other such ends which we either desire or
feel that we ought to desire. Meanwhile, I may notice the close
connexion between the two great, defects in the Kantian ethical
system which have been pointed out the harsh ' dualism ' of his
view of human good and his erroneous doctrine as to the motives
of moral conduct. The ethical criterion to which the Kantian
system logically points, and which Kant at moments seems on
the verge of deliberately adopting, is the tendency of actions to
promote a Well-being or tvbaijjiovia in which there are two
elements, (i) Virtue or the performance of duty, (3) Happiness
conceived of as mere pleasure. This view has been criticized as
inadequate, and it might be possible to enlarge upon the harsh
psychological dualism which it involves. It cuts human nature
into two halves which have no connexion with, or relation to, or
influence on one another. Between these two elements in the
ideal human life there seems to be nothing in common : nay,
there is at least the appearance of actual irreconcilability between
them. In so far as a man succeeds in finding happiness in his
work, his Virtue, it might seem, must suffer (' but alas ! with
pleasure I do it ') ; in so far as he lives for duty, considered as
something opposed to his inclinations, he will tend to be unhappy *.
Happiness, according to Kant, has value, but no moral value :
the work of Virtue on the other hand seems to consist precisely
in its tendency to thwart those natural impulses in the satisfaction
of which ordinary happiness consists. Now the moment it is
recognized that other desires exist besides the respect for the
Moral Law on the one hand and pleasure on the other, that
these desires may have very various degrees of moral value, that
Reason does not condemn or supersede but only regulates desire,
that pleasure is good or bad according to the nature of the desire
from the gratification of which it springs, both the inadequacy
and the dualism disappear. Virtue no longer seems to consist in
thwarting all the other impulses of our nature: happiness is
no longer destitute of moral value when it arises from the
satisfaction in due degree of all the desires which possess an
intrinsic worth of their own, a value which may often be superior
/
1 No doubt Kant often repudiates this deduction from his principles.
Chap, v, vi] USE HUMANITY AS AN END 131
to the value which they possess as mere sources of pleasure. The
conditions of human life may prevent the actual attainment
of this ideal reconciliation, but there is no necessary or invariable
antagonism between the two ends ; they tend to pass into a single,
internally harmonious and self-consistent, ideal of life.
VI
It may be desirable to add a word about the second of the
three moral criteria put forward by Kant the rule 'Use
humanity whether in thine own person or in that of any other
always as an end, never as a means only.' It is the principle
less frequently insisted on in Kant's own writings, and its
relation to the other is not very precisely determined. He uses
it chiefly to prove the immorality of suicide and of sexual
transgression. There can be no question of the deep moral
significance of the principle, but it is too vague to be really
s of any use as a moral criterion without knowledge of a kind
which cannot be extracted out of the formula itself, ^[ejnust
know what is the true end of human life before we can tell
whether a certain course of conduct does or does not involve
treating humanity only as a means. Now Kant (as we havdj
seen) only recognizes two ends in human life one primary, i. e.j
Morality, the other secondary, i. e. happiness. On Kant's view!
of Free-will it is impossible to make another man immoral or less
moral. Hence it would seem that he has no right to condemn
conduct towards another for any other reason than its interference
with his other end happiness. And this is clearly not always
done by the kind of conduct which he has in mind. Nor, even
if this consideration be waived, can he show that the conduct
which he condemns* involves using the body of another, or one's
own, 'as a means, any more than much conduct which no one
could describe as immoral. I am using a porter's body as a
means when I employ him to carry trunks for me, and there
is nothing immoral in my doing so. I am not using him only as
a means, if I pay him for his work and treat him as a moral
being no less entitled to a share in all the true goods of life than
myself. Kant never said anything so absurd (though he is
constantly cited as doing so) as that we should never use
K 2
THE CATEGOEICAL IMPERATIVE [Book I
humanity as a means, but only that we should never use it as a
means without using it also as an end, and it is impossible (apart
from some conception of a concrete end or good of human life) to
show that sexual immorality might not be equally compatible
with a like recognition of others' claims. We should only have
bo insist on just and considerate treatment of those who have
been called the 'priestesses of humanity 1 / The one kind of
exchange of services is, on Kant's premisses, exactly on a level
with the other. Kant's real feeling was no doubt that the
conduct in question was inconsistent with a true ideal of the
relations between man and woman, but it was impossible for
him to prove that inconsistency so long as he narrowed his
conception of the ideal human life down to the performance of
social duty on the one hand and the indiscriminate enjoyment
of pleasure on the other. It is not the treating of humanity
as a means that strikes us as wrong (for that might quite well
be compatible with recognizing it also as an end), but the
treating of humanity as a means in this particular way, as
a means to such and such a kind of sensual pleasure, to such and
such an end in which Reason can find no value. It is only
because we have judged already that such treatment is a degrada-
tion of humanity that we pronounce it to be using humanity
' only as a means/
Once again, we see the impossibility of reducing moral
judgements to a merely intellectual, non-moral principle; of
getting a criterion out of mere formal conceptions, which take
no account of the content or intended consequences on which
depends all the morality or the immorality of our actions. Mere
universality or freedom of contradiction is no test of goodness or
badness. The judgement of value cannot be reduced to any
other sort of judgement a judgement of formal consistency or
a judgement as to the relation between ends and means,
which takes no account of the character of those ends. It
1 Kant has specially in mind the case of certain other kinds of sexual vice,
and there his contention would be still more hopeless, if we assume that
happiness (= pleasure) is the only end except duty considered simply as
the promotion of pleasure for others (fugendlehre, Th. I. 7, Semple's
Translation, 3rd ed., 1871, p. 240).
Chap, v, vii] THE KINGDOM OF ENDS 133
,is only in estimating the value of an end that the moral Reason
really comes into play. Abstract the form of the law from the
matter of it, and there is nothing left on which a judgement of
value can be passed. A rule of action is not moral because it is
consistent, unless it consistently conduces to an end in which
Reason can recognize value ; neither is the making of humanity
a means immoral unless the end to which it is a means be one
which Reason refuses to recognize as part of the true end for
man. The non-recognition of this principle involved Kant in
the absurdity of gravely questioning whether it was lawful to
cut one's hair, and of solemnly pronouncing the conduct of
a woman who cuts off her hair to sell it irrespectively of the
motives for which she wants money not ' altogether devoid of
blame V Such a verdict will probably fail to commend itself to
readers of Mr. Marion Crawford's touching 'Cigarette-maker's
Romance/
VII
It has generally been recognized that the best expression
of Kant's fundamental ethical principle is to be found in his
third rule 'Act as a member of a kingdom , of ^ejqda' : that is to
say 'Act in such a way as to treat thyself and every other
human being as of equal intrinsic value ; behave as a member of
a society in which each regards the good of each other as of
equal value with its own, and is so treated by the rest/ in which
each is both end and means, in which each realizes his own good
in promoting that of others. That such an ideal of human
.Society must, as far as it goes, be approved by the moral con-
sciousness, follows from what has been already said : hut,
considered as a guide to the details of conduct, it suffers from
the same fatal ambiguity as the preceding formulae. There
is no sufficient definition or explanation of this good of others
which we are to promote. We have still got nothing but a ' form
without any content. If we fill up the deficiency from other parts
of Kant's system, and interpret each man's end as ' goodness -f
happiness/ that (as has been explained) gives us an intelligible,
but a rough and inadequate, criterion of Morality : and on that
1 Tugendlehre, Th? I. 6 (Semple, p. 239 sq.).
134 THE CATEGORICAL IMPERATIVE [Book I
interpretation, which in many passages would appear to be
Kant's own 1 , we must cast to the winds the whole of his
elaborate attempt to get at the details of conduct without
appeal to experience or calculation of consequences, and to ex-
hibit that go6d will as actuated by the mere form of a universal
law without any regard to the content or matter of it.
In truth there run through the whole of Kant's ethical teach-
ing two inconsistent and irreconcilable lines of thought one
of which is the basis (though only the basis) of all sound
ethical theory while the other has proved the fruitful parent
of every extravagance, superstition, and absurdity by which
the scientific study of Ethics has been, and still is, impeded.
Every formula of Kant's may be interpreted, and at times
appears to be interpreted by himself, in each of these opposite
ways. 'Duty is a categorical imperative/ That may mean
1 there is a right course of action which is intrinsically right
and reasonable for every man whether he likes it or not/ and
that is simply an analysis of what duty means to any one to
whom it means anything at all. Or it may mean 'there are
certain acts which we recognize as being right to do without
thinking of the ends (social or otherwise) which they will tend
to realize/ than which no better definition could be given of
the irrational in conduct. ' Duty for duty's sake ' may mean
that ' we should pursue the good or intrinsically valuable end
just because it is good/ or it may mean that we should act
without reference to an end at all. 'Act on a principle fit
for law universal ' may mean ' Pursue the ends which Reason
1 * The realization of the summum bonum in the world is the necessary
object of a will determinable by the Moral Law 1 (Kritik d. praktischen
Vernunft, Dialektik, Pt. II, 4, p. 262, and Abbot, p. 218). ' Now inasmuch
as virtue and happiness together constitute the possession of the summum
bonum in a person, and the distribution of happiness in exact proportion to
morality . . . constitutes the summum bonum of a possible world ; hence
this summum bonum expresses the whole, the perfect good' (Dialektik,
Pt. II, Abbot, p. 206). Of course, in so far as Kant did not recognize that
the goodwill means the will that wills the promotion and just distribution
of happiness, he was still liable to the criticism that he has provided
no means of determining what will is moral : but on the whole it would
seem that in such passages as the above he meant to define virtue as the
willing of acts tending to promote happiness and the just distribution of it.
Chap, v, viii] GOOD AND RIGHT 135
pronounces to be intrinsically valuable for others no less than
for thyself/ or it may mean ' Make the avoidance of internal
inconsistency the criterion of thy conduct/ ' Treat humanity as
an end and never merely as means ' may mean ' Regard the true
Well-being of every man as possessing an intrinsic worth/ or
it may mean ' Regard it as beneath thy dignity to be of use
to the society in which thou livest, and indulge in phantastic
scruples about things which do no real harm to thyself or
anybody else.' The ' kingdom of ends ' represents simply a com-
bination of the two last maxims, and is liable to the same charge
of ambiguity ; though of all the formulae employed by Kant it
is the one which lends itself most readily to the more rational
interpretation.
VIII
One more way of expressing our criticism upon the Kantian
system shall be attempted, because it will supply a convenient
opportunity of giving a definite answer to an ethical question
of fundamental importance the question which is the logically
prior conception, the idea of ' good ' or the idea of ' right/ Kant
never thoroughly made up his mind about this question. He
always started with the idea of ' right ' ; and all his difficulties
arose from the attempt to give a meaning to, and to find
a content for, this idea of 'right' without appealing to the
idea of ' good.' In our view the idea of ' good ' or * value ' is
logically the primary conception, though psychologically the
idea of * right ' may often in modern men be the more early
developed. That action is right which tends to bring about the
good. There is no attempt here to get rid of the ultimate
unanalysable 'ought.' The good is that which 'ought' to be 1 .
t
1 Such a statement is in no way inconsistent with the doctrine which
I fully accept, that the word * good ' is indefinable : we can only bring out
the real meaning of the idea by the use of words which equally imply the
notion. * Good,' ' Ought ' (when applied to ends), * Value, 1 * the End * I regard
as synonymous terms. Mr. Moore, in his recent Principia Ethica, has done
well to emphasize in a very striking manner that 'good is indefinable ' ; but
when he goes on to say (p. 17) * and yet, so far as I know, there is only one
ethical writer, Prof. Henry Sidgwick, who has clearly recognized and stated
this fact,' I cannot admit the historical accuracy of his statement. To say
136 THE CATEGORICAL IMPERATIVE [Book I
The. difference between the two terms is this: Jhat the term
' right ' is applicable only to voluntary actions ; the term ' good '
is applicable to many things besides acts. Entirely apart from
the question, ' who caused such things ? ' I judge that pain or
discordant music or ugly pictures (i. e. of course the enduring
of pain by conscious beings, the listening to discords or the
contemplation of bad pictures by conscious beings) are bad
things. They seem to me bad whether they arise from chance
or necessity or voluntary action. Only because I have so judged
is there any ground for the judgement ' it is right, in so far as
it is possible to get rid of these things ' , but, whether they can ^
be got rid of or not, they are equally bad *. The will that
nothing of writers who (like Mr. Moore and myself) learned the doctrine
largely from Sidgwick, I should contend that it was taught with sufficient
distinctness by Plato (whatever may be thought of his further attempt to
show that only the good has real existence), Aristotle, and a host of modern
writers who have studied in their school by no one more emphatically than
by Cudworth. The only criticism which I should make upon Mr. Moore's
exposition of it is that he ignores the other ways in which the same notion
may be expressed, and in particular the correlative notion of ' right 1 or
1 ought.' He is so possessed with this idea that the ' good ' is indefinable that
he will not even trouble to expound and illustrate it in such ways as are
possible in the case of ultimate ideas.
1 The non-recognition of this principle (so fully admitted, as we have
seen, by Lotze) is to my mind the leading defect in the Bishop of Clogher's in
many respects admirable Short Study of Ethics (2nd ed., 1901). Bishop d'Arcy
fully appreciates the defects of Kant's * formalism,' and of the attempt to
pronounce acts right or wrong without regard to consequences known to us
from experience : yet we find him asserting ' the end, or good, of man is man
doing, the concretion of man and the world. This concrete activity is the
only thing which can be called (jood in itself* (pp. 168-9), and 'the only
true good is to be good in the sense of performing the good act ' (p. 277).
Such statements seem to me to imply a reversion to Kant's attempt to say
that to cause toothache is wrong without having first decided whether tooth-
ache (however caused) is or is not a bad thing. And it goes beyond Kant in
pronouncing that nothing but a moral act is good at all. Wundt seeins to
me equally open to criticism, when lie talks about happiness as being ' not
an end in itself, but a by-product of moral effort ' (Ethics, Eng. Trans., iii.
p. 90), or about an * objectively worthless sum of individual happinesses '
(ib., p. 83). It is curious that so modern and ' scientific ' a Moralist as
Wundt should be almost the only living thinker of high eminence who out-
kants Kant in his view of the exclusive value of a moral end, which, how-
ever, is to him not so much the perfection of individual wills as a vague and
impersonal ' progress of humanity.'
Chap, v, viii] THE IDEA OF VALUE 137
deliberately causes or refuses to fight against such things may
be, and I believe is, a worse evil than the pain or the bad music
or the ugly pictures. But unless these things were evils, the
will that refused to remove them would not be eyl either; its
acts would not be acts of a wrongly directed will. Kant generally
ends by coining round to this view tj^at the right or rational act
igLthe act which wills the good. Unfortunately he did not see
that with that admission his attempt to avoid the appeal to
experience completely breaks down. It is possible, though it
is irrational, to will particular acts without attending to the
consequences which experience shows likely to result from
them l ; it is impossible to pronounce that something is good
until one knows what it is. No experience will tell us what
is good unless we include in our idea of ' experience ' an un-
avowed judgement of value , but without experience of what
a thing is it is impossible to say whether it is good or not. It
is obvious that this necessity of experience for sound ethical
judgements goes a long way to explain the actual divergences
of moral codes. When the Caliph Omar (if the story be not
a myth) ordered the Alexandrian library to be burned, it is
probable that he knew very imperfectly what the Alexandrian
library or any other library really was. 1 do not deny that
there might be fanatics who knowing a good deal about the
contents of these books would still have ordered them to be
burnt ; but it is probable that a more extensive acquaintance
with their contents would have modified the Caliph's judgement.
The consistent Kantian, i. e. a disciple of Kant in his most
logical but least rational movements, ought to be able to say
whether they should be burned without knowing what sort of
books they were or even that they were books at all.
Oiir moral judgements are ultimately judgements of Value.
The fundamental idea in Morality is the idea of Value, in which
the idea of ( ought ' is implicitly contained. The advantage in-
volved in the use of the term * value ' lies in its freedom from
1 Strictly no doubt there must be some feature in the act known to us to
account for our choosing it, but the motive might be the simple desire to act
without further reflection the 'pure cussedness' from which, indeed, it is
so hard to distinguish the motiVe of the ideal Kantian, when Kantism is
understood on its irrational side.
138 THE CATEGORICAL IMPERATIVE [Book I
many of the exaggerations and mystifications which have some-
times created a prejudice against the term ' ought,' even in
minds which have no prejudice against the reality which it
signifies. Tlje idea of ' good ' and the idea of ' right ' are, as
it seems to me, correlative terms. It is implied in the idea of
' good ' that it ought to be promoted ; the idea of ' right ' is
meaningless apart from a ' good ' which right actions tend to
promote. If, finally, we ask what is the relation of the idea
of value to the idea of ' moral ' value, I should answer that all
that has value has moral value, in the sense that it must be moral,
in due proportion to the amount of that value, to promote it ; but
by moral value we generally mean the particular kind of value
which we assign to a good character. That value is, as I believe,
the greatest of all values. Pleasure is a good, and it is right for
a man to promote it in himself as in others. We assign value
to the pleasure, but we do not assign any particular value to
the acts or to the characters from which it springs, since this
promotion of private pleasure does not necessarily indicate
a good character, and even the promotion of the highest ends
may have no moral value when the promotion of such ends
forms no part of the man's motive; only when we recognize
a man's conduct as exhibiting the preference of the good because
it is the good or the preference of some higher to some lower
good for its own sake do we assign to it the peculiar kind arid
degree of value which we usually term moral value l .
1 I have in this chapter for the most part avoided all criticism of sides of
the Kantian Ethics which could not be discussed without reference to the
defects of the metaphysical system with which they are so closely con-
nected. Even Kant's purely ethical position I have only examined so far as
seemed desirable as a means of helping forward my own argument.
CHAPTER VI
REASON AND FEELING
IN the preceding chapters I have assumed that Kant is right
in making Morality to be essentially rational, in holding that
moral approval is a judgement of the Intellect, not a feeling
or an emotion. This position seems now to require some further
justification than it has yet received, and this justification may
perhaps best take the form of a reply to the objections which
are commonly made to it. The reply will be one which may
be thought to involve considerable qualifications of the creed
known as ethical Rationalism as represented by such men as
Clarke in the seventeenth century and by Kant and other
modern Idealists.
The most obvious form which objections are likely to take
will be something of this kind: Does not common opinion
recognize that Morality is an affair, not of the head, but of the
heart? Are not our moral perceptions attended with a glow
and warmth of feeling which is entirely absent from our
perception (say) of a mathematical truth l ? Are not good
men very often stupid and bad men often intellectual ? If we
admit that there is an intellectual element in what is commonly
called Conscience, must we not- at least say with Bishop Butler
that ^Conscience is neither merely * a sentiment of the under-
standing ' nor * a perception of the heart/ but ' partakes of the
nature of both 2 ' ?
1 Cf. the passage quoted from Martineau, Types of Ethical Theory, below,
p. 165.
8 Dissertation of Virtue. This change from the more rationalistic position
of the Sermons was perhaps due to the influence of Hutcheaon. He now
uses the term * moral sense ' as a^ynonym for Conscience.
REASON AND FEELING [Book I
The common objections seem to imply several misconceptions
misconceptions, however, for which the exaggerations of Kant
and other ethical Rationalists are, it must be admitted, largely
responsible. In the first place, when it is held that moral
judgements are given by Reason, we do not imply that their
rationality is the sole reason for the acts being done. Un-
doubtedly it is possible to see that an act is right with absolute
clearness and not to do it nay, to feel practically little or
no disposition to do it. Even when an act is done out of
pure ' respect ' for a recognized duty, there must at least be
present a ' desire for what is right and reasonable as such '
(to use Professor Sidgwick's phrase) or the duty will not be
dglie. And we have seen reason to hold that Kant was wrong
in insisting that this rational desire is or ought to be the sole
motive which impels us to the performance of good actions.
It has been admitted that normally the ends prescribed by
the Practical Reason are objects of desire for their own sake,
that actions directed towards such ends may possess moral
value even when the thought of an abstract law does not
enter into the agent's consciousness at all ; and that even
the best actions of the best men are commonly influenced
by other desires besides bare respect for duty. Now when
Conscience presents itself as partly an ' emotion of the heart/
the term is probably used to include not merely the perception
of what is right but also the impulses which cause what is
right to be done to include at least the ' respect ' or love for
the good and perhaps also the whole of those benevolent or
other higher affections and emotions which are approved by
the moral Reason as motives to action * ; while the question
at issue between ethical Rationalists and their opponents is
simply the question ' by what faculty or part of our nature
do we discover that an act ought to be done ? '
It may further be admitted that the judgements of Practical
1 ' The single act of conscience may be a feeling, an emotion, an impulse
or a judgment ' (Wundt, Ethics, Eng. Trans., vol. iii, p. 60). Wundt is
surely wrong in making Conscience orjjyvtdijcrig mean originally a ' knowing
with God, 5 instead of an ' inner ' or ' self-knowledge.' The word, it is signifi-
cant to observe, is first found in the generation immediately after Aristotle
a period of great progress both in ethical fueling and ethical theory.
Chap, vi, i] THE MORAL FACULTY 141
Reason normally create a more or less powerful impulse towards
the performance of what they enjoin; and, in those who are
powerfully influenced by such judgements, they are undoubtedly
accompanied by an emotion of a kind which is wholly absent
from mere mathematical judgements. Still, it i possible to
distinguish between the judgement that the act is right and
the emotions by which that judgement is accompanied. It
will perhaps be contended that in some persons who would
commonly be described as very good men emotion of one
kind or another is so obviously the main inspirer of their
conduct that it is difficult to detect any intellectual judgement
at all. And it may be admitted that as a matter of psychological
fact the process by which many people come to attach the idea
of rightness to particular kinds of conduct is almost entirely
an emotional one : but still I should contend that, in so far
as the idea of goodness or Tightness forms the object of that
emotion, the intellectual judgement must necessarily be there.
This liability to be influenced or even wholly determined by
emotional causes is no peculiarity of ethical judgements. All
sorts of psychological causes may be at work in inducing a man
to accept a particular theory as to the causes of the French
Revolution; but the most prejudiced and passionate view of
ih& matter and the most calm and scientific would be alike
impossible to a man whose consciousness did not contain
the intellectual concept or category of Causality. Nobody
would ever dream of describing such a historical judgement as
itself a mere emotion. Just in the same way, emotion may inspire
particular judgements of right and wrong, but it could not
create the idea of ' right ' or of ' good/ Even in those cases'
where the actual motive is most clearly emotional, some per-
ception of the goodness of the act may be said to enter into
the exciting cause of the emotion, or the emotion may be said
to be accompanied by a judgement of its own value. A man
may devote himself enthusiastically to some philanthropic object,
from a passion excited by the abstract idea of Justice, or he may
be moved by a pure love of humanity which is nevertheless
accompanied by the judgement that it is good to feel such a love.
In some cases one, in others the other may seem to be the more
I 4 3 REASON AND FEELING [Book I
appropriate mode of statement, but the two kinds of judgement
the judgement which ascribes value to the emotion and the
judgement which ascribes value to an object and by so doing
excites the emotion which leads to action run into one another.
All that is hecessary to contend for at present is that judge-
ment and emotion are logically distinguishable, and that the
judgement of value does more than merely record the fact of
the emotion being felt.
II
When the popular unwillingness to recognize the rational
character of our moral perceptions assumes the form of a philo-
sophical theory, it tends to pass either into the theory of a
'moral sense' or into the theory of a moral 'faculty called
Conscience ' which is represented as wholly sui generis distinct
alike from intellectual judgement and from any kind of feeling
or emotion. Let us briefly examine each of these views.
In the writings of John Locke the Rationalism of Cumberland
and the Cambridge Platonists had degenerated into mere theo-
logical Utilitarianism. Locke continued to use the old language
about Morality being rational; but in him that language had
come to mean almost the opposite of what it was originally
intended to mean. The appeal to Reason was intended as an
answer to Hobbes, and now Reason was used in a sense in
which Hobbes himself would have had no objection to base
Morality upon it. By Reason was no longer meant a faculty
which originates the idea of something intrinsically good in
itself, and which pronounces what things are intrinsically
good, but merely the faculty which connects ends and means 1 ,
1 Exception may be taken in some quarters to the use of the word
' faculty ' at all in this connexion. The word has fallen into disfavour
partly because by a certain school it has been used to suggest the idea of
a definite number of mental activities sharply distinguishable from and
independent of each other planted, as Plato would have said, as it were
* in a wooden horse/ to the ignoring of the unity of self-consciousness, and
partly because the invention of a specific faculty has often: taken the place
of logical or psychological analysis of complicated mental processes. I hope
I have sufficiently guarded myself against these mistakes. But to prescribe
altogether the use of the word * faculty ' is to fall into the very superstition
which the denouncers of it have in view. *Whatever we do, there must be
Chap.vi, ii] THE MORAL SENSE THEORY 143
To Locke Virtue was rational because it could be demonstrated
that without it a man will infallibly go to Hell. Hence in
men like Shaftesbury and Hutcheson we find a recoil from
a way of thinking which seemed to make Morality a mere
matter of selfish calculation. It was thought tliat Morality
would be all the safer if it were removed altogether from the
jurisdiction of the intellect, and placed under the control of
'the heart/ Moreover, these men shared, or at least had in-
completely shaken off, the metaphysical presuppositions of the
Master against whose Ethics they had revolted. Experience,
l^whick-waa practically meant sensation, was regarded as the
SQlfijaQiircax)^kowledge. If, therefore, Morality was to be shown
to be something real, it must, it seemed, be revealed to us by
some kind of feeling or sensation. Yet to base Morality upon
the deliverances of the ordinary sensibility, upon the pleasures
and pains of the bodily senses, meant of course Hedonism
pure and simple. To avoid this consequence they invented
a special sense which was to be the source of our moral know-
ledge, just as sight is the source of our colour-perceptions and
hearing of our sound-perceptions. Morality was made to rest
(like all our knowledge) upon a kind of feeling; only it was
a specific feeling. Moral approbation was a .feeling wholly
sui generis, arising from the contemplation of good acts ; dis-
approbation a feeling similarly arising from the contemplation
of bad acts. Not to insist on the complete want of analogy
between the bodily senses and this organless sense of Morality,
all such schemes are open to one insuperable objection. If
moral approbation is a mere feeling, how can it claim any
superiority over other feelings? Granted that it gives me a
pleasant feeling to do a kind action, and that it causes me
a particular kind of discomfort to tell a lie, that may be
a very good reason under normal circumstances for my doing
the one and avoiding the other. But supposing I do not happen
to be sensitive to this particular kind of feeling, or supposing
I am so constituted that a violation of some social conventionality
a faculty or capacity (8w>a/Lu?X.Qf doing it. In asking what is the moral
faculty, I mean only to asElTy which of the distinguishable activities of the
single self-conscious self our ideas of right and wrong are to be referred.
144 EEASON AND FEELING [Book I
ejhocks me more than a moral offence 1 , why should I attach
any paramount importance to this particular feeling of moral
disapprobation ? I may have a certain capacity for the pleasures
of whist, but I do not feel bound to play it if I like reading
a novel better. If we grant that immorality does normally
cause me mental or emotional distress and discomfort of a
particular kind ; still under particular circumstances Morality
may cause me more pain and discomfort of another kind. I
may dislike the pains of Conscience much, but I may dislike
the thumbscrew more. Why am I bound, if threatened with
torture for refusing to reveal a secret which I am bound to keep,
or falsely to accuse an innocent man, to prefer the pleasures
of an easy conscience to those of a whole skin and easy nerves ?
To insist on the specific character of the feeling in question
is nothing to the point; the pleasures of whist-playing are
different from those of touch or taste, but they are not necessarily
superior to them. The taste of port is specifically different from
that of sherry, but it is not necessarily superior to it. If it
be said ' Oh ! but you are inwardly conscious that these pleasures
are superior in kind, and not merely in quality, to those of sense,
that they ought to be attended to more than others/ is not
that really admitting that we have to do with something
more than a mere feeling, with a dictate of Reason or a judge-
ment of value ? It is not the feeling which claims obedience,
but the judgement which assigns a value to that feeling.
Moreover, not only does a Moral Sense theory fail to supply
any reason why the individual should accord to his own moral
perceptions a primacy among the feelings and emotions of which
his nature is capable, but it is totally unable to assign any
1 'The not taking into consideration this authority, which is implied
in the idea of reflex of approbation or disapprobation, seems a material
deficiency or omission in Lord Shaftesbury's Inquiry concerning Virtue.
He has shewn beyond all contradiction that virtue is naturally the interest
or happiness, and vice the misery of such a creature as man, placed in
the circumstances which we are in this world. But suppose there are
particular exceptions ; a case which the author was unwilling to put. ... Or
suppose a case which he has put and determined, that of a seep tick not
convinced of this happy tendency of virtue or being of a contrary opinion.
His determination is, that it would be mthout remedy' (Butler, Pref. to
Fifteen Sermons).
Chap, vi, ii] OBJECTIVITY OF MORAL JUDGEMENT 145
universal validity to such moral perceptions. Inconsistent or
contradictory feelings, gtw feelings, are equally true and valid
for those who feel them. When the colour-blind man calls the
red light green or grey, it really is green or grey to him ; his
judgement is as true as that of the man who pronounces it red.
Feelings as feelings are not * true ' or * false * at all ; while as
to the judgements based upon them, the judgement of A that
he sees red and of B that he sees green, these no doubt possess
objective validity, but such statements as to what two men
actually feel are perfectly compatible with one another. Now,
if a good act means simply an act which causes me to experience
a particular kind of feeling which I call moral approbation, it
is undeniable that such feelings are occasioned in different men
by different, and even opposite, kinds of conduct. The pious
fraud may occasion no less pleasure to the man brought up to
regard such acts as right than a sacrifice made in the cause
of truth will cause in the heart of another differently educated.
A Spanish bull-fight excites feelings of enthusiastic approval
in the minds of most Spaniards and feelings of lively dis-
approval in most Englishmen. Observe exactly where the
difficulty lies. It is not the practical difficulty of ascertaining
moral truth. Every ethical system has to admit that the
Conscience of the individual is not infallible, tliat men's ethical
judgements do as a matter of fact contradict one another. How-
ever strongly I feel that a certain course of conduct is right,
I may make a mistake, just as I may make a mistake about
a scientific or historical theory to which I may be no less
passionately attached. The objectivity of the moral judge-
ment does not mean the infallibility of the individual, or even
of a general consensus of individuals at a particular time and
place. What is meant is that if I am right in my approbation
bf this conduct, then, if you disapprove of it, you must be wrong,
If Morality be a matter of objective truth or falsity, then thfi
^QXSi^L&W^ rejnjrj& uoaflfifitfid, though you and I nay, the
[whole human race in its present stage of moral development
may have erroneously conceived some of its provisions. But,
if the goodness of an act means simply tbat the act
occasions a specific emotiofc in particular men, then the same
BASED ALL X
I 4 6 REASON AND FEELING [Book I
act may be at one and the same time good and bad. Moral
feelings will have no more objective truth or validity than any
other feelings which vary in their nature or intensity with the
varying sensibility of different men's skins or sensory nerves.
The bull-fight will be neither right nor wrong, but simply right
to some people, wrong to others, just as mustard is neither
objectively nice nor objectively nasty, but simply nice to some
people, nasty to others *.
It may perhaps be replied, ' These feelings are not what make
things right or wrong; they are merely the subjective index by
which we recognize the presence of an actual quality in the
world of objective fact/ This is no doubt what was really
meant by the doctrine of Moral Sense in the hands of con-
structive Moralists like Hutcheson. A full reply to the objection
would involve a discussion of the metaphysical system which it
presupposes. No doubt if knowledge of any kind could be
explained by mere feeling, Morality so explained would at least
possess as much objectivity as the rest of our knowledge.
Moral Sense theories are no more fatal to Morality than
Sensationalism is to Science. I can only point out here that,
just as all knowledge implies something more than feeling, so,
ii3torality is to possess any universal truth or validity, moral
perception* must be regarded as judgements. The specific moral
feeling can be at most merely the occasion or index by which we
are enabled to make the judgement, it cannot be its sole source ;
just as I cannot actually make the judgement that this triangle
is larger than that without sensible experience, though there
is more in the judgement than mere sense. The essential idea
of ' good ' cannot come from feeling, though feeling may some-
times be psychologically the cause or occasion of my pro-
nouncing this or that particular act to be right or good,
III
It has been the practice of ethical Rationalists to compare the
moral faculty with the faculty by which we immediately appre-
1 It may indeed be contended that there is an aesthetic, and therefore an
objective, element even in gastronomic matters. If so, we must substitute
pome pleasure of a still more purely sensuous type.
Chap, vi, iii] THE MATHEMATICAL ANALOGY 147
hend mathematical axioms or the laws of thought. I have myself
contended that it is possible to discover moral axioms, the truth
of which appeals to us very much in the same way as the truth
of the axioms 'If equals be added to equals, the wholes are equal *
or 'Two straight lines cannot enclose a space.' Such elhical axioms
are the three great laws of Prudence, Rational Benevolence, and
Equity, which Professor Sidgwick regards as the ultimate basis
of Ethics. And I have fully admitted the validity and importance
of these axioms, But this comparison of moral to mathematical
axioms may be overdone. It may be insisted on in a way which
ignores some of the characteristic features of our ethical judge-
ments, and its palpable failure to represent the facts may lead
to a reaction against the whole idea of rational Morality.
Rationalistic Moralists have not always observed that in them-
selves there is nothing ethical about these axioms of Prudence,
Benevolence, and Equity except the bare formal notion or
category of * the good ' which they involve. The axiom of
Equity, 'one man's good is of as much intrinsic worth as
the like good of another V may, indeed, be reduced to the form
of a merely analytical judgement. That which I recognize as
having value in one man I must recognize as having the same
value in another, provided it is really the same thing that is
implied in the assertion that it has value. And the two other
axioms those of Benevolence and Prudence simply assert that
more good i3 always more valuable than less good. They are
not merely comparable to the axioms of Mathematics ; they are
simply particular applications of those axioms. The judgement
that the value of the good of all is greater than of any one
man's may be treated as a mere case of the mathematical axiom
that the whole is greater than its part. But so far there JB
nothing really ethical about the judgement except in so far as
it involves the ethical proposition that value or good is one
of the things which have quantity. Yet, after all, such a way
of representing the matter is really superficial ; for it is in the
conception of value that the whole meaning of the judgement
lies. And that conception of value cannot be analysed away
1 This qualification of the axiom (not recognized by Utilitarians like
Bentham or Sidgwick) I shall explain and defend in Chap, viii of this Book.
148 REASON AND FEELING [Book I
into the mere statement of an emotional fact. Considered as
a mere statement of psychological fact, no assertion could well
be more false than that my feeling towards one man, the
emotion which I experience in knowing that he is benefited
or that he is injured, is the same as that which I should
experience in the case of any other. The ethical Rationalists
are, it appears to me, quite right in treating these judgements
as genuine axioms which are to some extent analogous to the
axioms of mathematics; but such axioms are by themselves
quite incapable of solving any concrete ethical problem. The
really ethical element in them is contained simply in the con-
ception of * value* or 'good,' and we cannot use them till we
have pronounced some concrete thing or experience to be good.
They resemble the axioms of Mathematics just because they are
purely formal. All that they can do is to direct us as to the
way we are to distribute * the good ' when we know what it
is. The really ethical judgement lies in the pronouncement that
this or thut is good. And, when we come to the judgement
which pronounces that this or that is good or has value, the
judgement assumes a form which seems psychologically much
less like the mathematical, and much more like the aesthetic,
judgement a form consequently in which it can with much
more plausibility be compared to a mere emotion or even a mere
sensation. I can give no reason why I judge this pleasure to be
higher than that the pleasure of Shakespeare to the pleasure
of champagne except that I see it to be so, just as I can give
no reason why I know this to be beautiful or that to be square,
except that I see that they are so. We naturally express our
judgement by saying ' I feel it to be so/ rather than ' I know
it to be so/ And that is one reason why they have so often
been supposed to be mere feelings. Very often probably this
immediacy is all that is meant by those who insist on treat-
ing them as feelings of a supposed 'Moral Sense/ But only
a Sensationalist can suppose that the expression 'I feel that
A is B ' represents a mere feeling. c I feel ' is here merely a
loose popular synonym for 'I judge/ Propositions cannot be
felt.
Another fact which has favoured tHe theory is the impossibility
Chap, vi, iii] THE AESTHETIC ANALOGY 149
of expressing our real and concrete ethical judgements, as
distinct from the merely formal and abstract axioms just con^
sidered, with the scientific accuracy and definiteness characteristic
of other self-evident truths. Although the judgement 'pleasure
is good but not so good as Virtue ' is an immediate judgement,
and so far resembles a mathematical axiom, it is one which does
not admit of being expressed with the same precision as mathe-
matical judgements. And still more when we come to particular
applications of our idea of value, when we ask what is the
relative value of this as compared with that pleasure, or what
is the comparative importance for an individual or a nation of
a definite kind of artistic sensibility and of social feeling, we do
not find that consensus among all who barely understand the
meaning of the terms employed which can be claimed for the
axioms of mathematics. And th& essence of the really ethical
judgement lies not in general axioms of the type suggested above
but in the concrete judgement ' this particular pleasure or this
kind of knowledge is good or valuable/ ' that kind of pleasure is
bad ' ; here the immediacy seems to be much more like the
immediacy of the aesthetic appreciation, or even that of a mere
judgement of perception, ' this is green/ All these characteristics
of the ethical judgement tend to win acceptance for the Moral
Sense theory of moral apprehension.
How far the analogy between aesthetic judgements and ethical
can be admitted, must depend upon the view which we take of
the aesthetic judgement itself. The Moral Sense writers have
usually assumed that aesthetic approval is merely a particular
kind of subjective feeling. The judgement * this picture is
beautiful ' means to them merely ' I get from the contemplation
of this picture a particular kind of pleasant feeling.' And, if
that were the case, the relegation of the moral judgement to the]
same category as aesthetic appreciation would be fatal to that
authority or universality which we divine to be of its essence. On
the other hand we may be prepared to deny that the judgement
of one man on matters of Art or Poetry is as good as another, as
would undeniably be the case if the aesthetic judgement were
nothing but a matter of feeling. We may maintain that there
is a right and wrong in matters of aesthetic appreciation as well
j 5 o REASON AND FEELING [Book I
as in matters of conduct. We may claim for the aesthetic
judgement a certain objectivity, and consequently a partly
rational character. But Aesthetics is a much more difficult
Science than^ Ethics. The objectivity of aesthetic appreciation is
much more difficult to defend, the relation between the rational
or intellectual and the merely sensuous or emotional elements in
it much more difficult to determine, than is the case with the
moral judgement. At all events, the theory of an absolute
standard of aesthetic value could not be defended without a more
elaborate treatment of the whole subject than would be here in
place. Consequently, I dispense myself from any further attempt
to define the relations between aesthetic and moral value, and
will only point out that the analogy between aesthetic perception
and moral may be admitted without giving up the position that
there is an element in the moral judgement which cannot be
reduced to mere subjective feeling or emotion and which must
be regarded as belonging to the rational or intellectual part of
our nature.
And when once the rational and objective character of the
aesthetic judgement is admitted, we may with great advantage
insist upon this rather than upon the mathematical analogy,
because the comparison avoids a suggestion which is apt to
cleave to the mathematical analogy the suggestion that these
judgements of value can be made prior to and independent of
experience *. The judgement ' this view is beautiful ' no doubt
(in so far as it claims that the man who does not think so makes
a mistake) asserts something which is not given in experience,
but no one contends that it can be made without looking at the
view, or even without the experience of other views and pictures
by which the man's aesthetic sensibility has been cultivated.
Even the ordinary judgement of perception (' this is a square
object ') involves, for those who have learnt the lesson of Kant's
Critique, much besides mere sensation the forms of space and
1 It is of course admitted by Kant that even the mathematical axioms in
point of time are not prior to experience ; his contention is that, when once
there has been experience of space or number in general, their truth is
seen independently of any particular fact or facts of experience that the
universal truth of the principle is implied presupposed in each particular
judgement about space or number.
Chap, vi, iv] NEED OF EXPERIENCE 151
time, the categories of substance and accident, quantity, &c.
And so the judgement 'this act of charity is good* involves
no doubt experience, for we cannot pronounce that it is good
without knowing what it is, an admission which was, as we
have seen, never explicitly made by Kant himself. But it
remains true (i) that the judgement of value is an immediate
judgement of the Practical Reason, not a mere feeling; (3) that
the essence of the judgement the idea of value is a distinct
intellectual concept or category ; and (3) that the moral judge-
ment possesses a universality or objectivity which cannot be
ascribed to mere sensations or to the judgements of perception
founded upon them 1 , So much is involved in the very idea
of Morality or duty or moral obligation. The very heart of our
moral conviction is that there is something which every rational,
being, in so far as he is rational, must recognize as intrinsically
right, that that something must be the same for all persons!
under the same conditions, and canijot be dependent upon thej
subjective caprice of particular persons. The Moral Sense
theory, duly realized and thought out, necessarily involves the
admission that that conviction on our part is a delusion. There
is, therefore, no real analogy between an ethical ' perception ' (if
the word is to be allowed) and the sensations, perceptions,
or emotions with which they are compared by the Moral Sense
school. So far then ethical Rationalism is right, when once we
have got rid of Kant's attempt to make out that the ethical
judgement is not merely not derived from experience but does
not require as its condition knowledge derived from experience 2 ,
IV
But there are further elements of truth in the Moral Sense
position to which we have not yet done justice.
l< 0f course there is an objectivity even in the judgement of perception.
My toothache as a feeling is purely subjective in the sense that I alone
feel it. But my judgement ' I have a toothache ' claims objectivity. I mean
that the man who denies is in error.
2 By experience is here meant of course experience in the sense of the
Empiricists mere sensible experience. There is no objection to saying
that moral judgements are derived from experience if we include in the
term ' experience ' the whol^ of our intellectual as well as our other
psychical activities.
15* REASON AND FEELING [Book I
. In the first place we must emphasize what is already implied
in the admission that experience is necessary to the ethical
judgement. This admission implies that the ethical judgement
is invariably based upon some fact of feeling ; since experience,
though it includes more than feeling, does always involve feeling.
The ethical judgement pronounces that something has value, and
we do not on reflection pronounce that anything can have value
except some state of consciousness. I do not, indeed, believe
that feeling represents the only element in, or aspect of, con-
sciousness which has value ; but feeling is always an element in
every state of consciousness, and an inseparable element. And
no judgement can be pronounced as to whether a state of con-
sciousness is good without taking the feeling-aspect of it into
account. Feeling is therefore always part of the ground on
which an ethical judgement is based. This represents the true
element in Hedonism. The mistake of Hedonism lies in trying
to abstract the feeling side of consciousness from its other sides,
and making the whole value of the consciousness to lie in that
feeling-aspect, the cognitive and conative elements being deliber-
ately put out of sight ; while the value of feeling is supposed to
reside in the mere abstract pleasantness in respect of which all
pleasures are qualitatively alike, and not in the total content
which is pleasant. We have already accepted the position that
knowledge and jgoodness are intrinsically valuable elements of
consciousness. / Yet these things taken apart from feeling are as
much abstractions as feeling when taken apart from knowledge
and volitioit And it is impossible to say what value we should
assign to the latter, if they were capable of actually existing
apart from the feeling by which they are necessarily and inevit-
ably accompanied. I can, indeed, intelligibly say that knowledge
and goodness, even when accompanied by bodily pain, are good ;
but, even when the pursuit of knowledge or the doing of a good
action brings with it a measure of pain, some measure of pleasant
feeling normally accompanies those intellectual or volitional
states. When I say that the state is on the whole painful,
I mean that its pleasantness simply as pleasantness is outweighed
by pains of another kind, and yet I may think that it possesses
more value than many states which orfthe whole are pleasant.
Chap. vi,iv] PLEASURE IN ALL GOOD 153
We may, indeed, attach value to knowledge even for a con-
sciousness which does not find pleasure in its possession ; but,
if so, we must do so either for its uses or effects or propter apem,
as a step to an enjoyment of which the man is capable but to
which he has not yet attained. In a consciousness which was
for ever incapable of feeling the smallest pleasure or interest in
what it knew, it would be difficult to say that knowledge could
be an end-in-itself . Indeed, the very idea of an ' end ' implies
the existence of beings with tendencies, desires, or impulses for
which some kind of satisfaction can be found in that end. This
satisfaction is not the same thing as pleasure, but there can be
no satisfaction without some (however low a degree) of pleasure.
1 The good ' is an intellectual category, but it is a category which
would be meaningless in a purely knowing consciousness. Hence
it may be doubted whether we could rationally attach any value
even to the good will in a consciousness which not only did not
derive, but was intrinsically and for ever incapable of deriving,
any pleasure or satisfaction from its goodness. We may, indeed,
recognize that the good will has a value, and ought consequently
to be cultivated, in those who, as a matter of present fact, do not
care about goodness and derive no pleasure from it. But then
we should say that they ought to care about it. In so far as it
is possible for a man to do his duty without liking the dutiful
action taken by itself (apart from the pains incidentally involved
in it), we should say that that was because he is not good
enough. The value of goodness does not mean merely its actual
pleasurableness to the agent at this or that moment ; but still
I can as little conceive it psychologically possible for a man to
say ' My whole will is completely devoted to and concentrated
upon the good, but it gives me not the smallest pleasure or
satisfaction to be good ' as I could attach any meaning to the
statement ' I recognize indeed the exquisite beauty of that land-
scape, but, as far as my own pleasure goes, I would just as soon
gaze at a blank wall ' ; though I can quite intelligibly say ' This
picture gives me more pleasure than that other which I acknow-
ledge to be more beautiful/ Beauty is more than pleasure, but
it is unintelligible without it. Value is not a feeling, but it
cannot be recognized as attributable to anything in consciousness
154 REASON AND FEELING [Book I
which can excite no feeling of pleasure in its possessor. The
fallacy of Hedonism lies in the attempt to estimate the value of
the feeling element in abstraction from the 'other elements of
consciousness. Knowing, feeling, willing are, for us at least, the
three inseparable aspects of consciousness. It is upon conscious-
ness taken as a whole that we pronounce our ultimate judge-
ments of value ; the nature of its knowledge and its will must
necessarily colour and determine the value of the feeling by
which in any consciousness they are accompanied.
Invariably, then, moral judgements imply facts of feeling as
part of their ground that is to say either feelings actually
experienced or desires which imply feeling in the present as well
as feeling in their subsequent satisfaction l . Those feelings need
not be the feelings of the person making the judgement, and in
many cases there is nothing specifically moral about them.
I judge that it is wrong for me or any one else to stick
pins into a human being, simply because it hurts. If I did
not know that it hurts, if I did not know what pain is, I could
not judge it to be a bad thing, or the act of causing it wrong.
Given that knowledge, I can pronounce the act wrong, quite
apart from any sympathetic or other feeling which the act may
excite in myself. But sometimes we can recognize a far less
superficial truth in the Moral Sense position than this. The
actual ground of my judgement may be simply an emotion ; and,
although an emotion to which I assign value must be to some
extent pleasant, I may assign it a value which is not measured
by its pleasantness. I may approve of an act not merely on
account of the pleasure or pain which it causes, but also on
account of the emotion which it excites, the emotion from which
it proceeds, or the emotion by which it is accompanied. I may
approve of maternal affection not merely on account of the
benefit arising to the babe and to society, but for its own sake ;
and that emotion, though it is a source of pleasure, is assuredly
one which also causes much pain. Yet the value which we
ascribe to it is certainly not smallest in those cases in which the
pain is greatest. Still more closely do we approach to a recogni-
1 What we usually call a desire I take to be /i state of feeling and a certain
state of will or conation combined.
Chap, vi, iv] MORAL EMOTION 155
tion of the specific emotion which the Moral Sense theory
wishes to make the beginning and end of the ethical judgement
when we take into consideration the feelings which the mere
contemplation of some acts excites in a well-re/yulated mind,
whether the mind be the agent's or that of some * disinterested
spectator 1 ' say for instance the disgust which is experienced at
an isolated act of otherwise practically harmless drunkenness, or
our feeling about acts of impurity. It is in cases of this sort
that we can least of all ignore the fact that not merely ordinary
feelings of pleasure but certain specific kinds of higher emotion
do form part of the ground on which our moral judgements are
based. They are part of what the moral judgement pronounces
to have value. And they are judgements which could not really
be pronounced by a consciousness which could not experience
those emotions, which knew only on the one hand the data
supplied by the senses and on the other hand the abstract axioms
of the Practical Reason.
But this recognition of the absolute indispensability of certain
specific emotions (in many cases) to our moral judgement does
not in the least invalidate what lias already been said as to the
intellectual, rational, objective character of the judgement of
value. The judgement that a certain emotion has value is
a different thing from the mere emotion itself 2 . Without the
1 * For, if we once suppose the general physical basis of animal life to be
seriously altered, it is impossible to say to what extent the types of senti-
ment and action which, under present conditions, approve themselves as
life -preserving and beneficial to the individual and the species would be
still in place ' (Taylor, The Problem of Conduct, p. 41 ). Prof. Taylor's insistence
that the details of duty would be different in different surroundings is quite
justified, but he seems to me to think that this proves more than it does
that it altogether upsets any claim for objective validity or a ' rational '
character in our moral judgements. But (i) it is true that I may recognize
that the ferocity of the tiger is as life-preserving and beneficial to its species
as the charity of the Saint ; yet I need not pronounce that it has the same in-
trinsic value : and (2) though the judgements as to right and wiong for human
nature would be different if our physical constitution were altered, that does
not show that every rational intelligence, in proportion as it is rational,
would not pronounce the same course of conduct to be right for man as he
is. And this is what we mean by treating the moral judgement as objective.
2 ' Notre vrai guide n'est niTinstinct, ni une pensee transcendante, c'est
la reflexion sur 1'instinct ' (Rauh, L' Experience morale, p. 96).
156 REASON AND FEELING [Book I
% priori and purely intellectual idea of value we could never
pass from the judgement ' I feel such and such an emotion ' to
' it is right for me and others to do the act which excites in me
this emotion ' ; though the judgement could equally little be pro-
nounced by a person incapable of experiencing the emotion, or at
least of understanding and respecting its existence in others
through the analogy of something more or less similar in his
3wn experience. ^It is not the existence of the feeling but our
judgement that that feeling is good that enables us to say that
the act which excites it is right or wron^ It is not merely
because it is a feeling excited by conduct that it can claim any
pre-eminence over other feelings. If that were so, it would have
no validity except for the persons naturally disposed to feel it.
But our judgement that certain conduct is wrong does not dis-
appear because as a matter of fact we may know that it excites
no such feeling of disgust or repulsion in the person guilty of it.
There are doubtless individuals who really do feel no disgust
whatever at isolated or even habitual acts of drunkenness (though
they are probably fewer than those who merely pretend to feel
none) : but we do not say that on that account drunkenness is
right for such men. On the contrary we say that, if a man has
not got such feelings, so much the worse for him : they are feel-
ings which he ought to have. He falls short of the ideal of
manhood if he has them not 1 . There are other cases where
natural feelings of disgust at particular kinds of conduct are
pronounced on reflection to have no value whatever e.g. the
young medical student's sensations on first entering a dissecting
room. We pronounce that such feelings should simply be got
over as quickly as possible. The ultimate truth then which the
Moral Sense school distorts is that in some cases a state of feel-
ing is judged to have an absolute value, which, though more or
less pleasant, is not measured merely by its pleasantness, and
that such states of feeling form in and for themselves, entirely
1 Cf. Aristotle, Ethic. Nicomach. III. i. 13 (p. 11106) *O yap pcQvuv
5 opyif6p.vos ov doKt dt ayvoiav Jipdrrciv . . . ayvofi f*V ovv iras 6 p.o\6rjpbr & fit
IT parr (iv KCU &>v a<f>KTOv 9 KOI dia rrjv rotavryv dftaprtai/ 5tAcoi Kal oAa>? KOKOI
yittovrctt*. r& 6 1 aKoixrtoy ftovXtTai \ycr&ai OVK $ Tif ayvoel ra avftQcpoyra' ov
yap cV Tfj flrpoatpecrci ayyoia curia rot) ajcovcrt'ou aXXa rfjt p,o^6tjpias.
Chap,vi,iv] REASON AND EMOTION 157
apart from any further consequences, an element in that ideal
good which we recognize it as our duty to promote. I shall
hereafter give other illustrations of this class of moral judge-
ments *, but meanwhile I should observe three things about the
feelings or emotional states of the kind which I n\ean :
(i) Although we can give no reason why the feeling, say of
human affection, should be better than a feeling of satisfaction in
eating except that we judge it to be so, the feelings to which we
give this kind of preference are not arbitrarily and capriciously
selected. They are intimately connected with our whole con-
ception of the proper relation of man to man our whole
conception of what human life and human society should be.
The judgement cannot therefore be reduced to any sort of
isolated perception involving no exercise of the percipient's
intellect, and no reference or relation to other judgements or
ideas. It is impossible to dissociate our condemnation of illicit
sexual intercourse from our conception of monogamy as the true
type of sexual relation, our approval of which is based upon
a great deal besides spontaneous emotions of approval or repug-
nance. The conception depends upon nothing less than our whole
ideal of what constitutes a desirable state of human society and
of the individual human soul. We judge that the state of feeling
most conducive to the maintenance of the approved type possesses
an intrinsic value. We cannot in the ordinary orthodox-utili-
tarian fashion prove irregular sexual relations to be wrong because
they tend to prevent marriage and the growth of population ; for
it depends upon many circumstances whether they have that
effect, and whether or not that effect is in itself to be regretted.
Our condemnation of fornication, in spite of the diminution of
pleasure which its prohibition undoubtedly involves, is riot a de-
duction from a judgement about marriage resting on Utilitarian
grounds, but simply one side or aspect of that ideal of life which
prescribes both the monogamous marriage and the rule of
purity before marriage. That ideal condemns sexual indulgence
except where it can be made instrumental and subordinate to
higher and more spiritual affections. When certain states of
feeling appear to be selected for approval or condemnation by
1 See Chap. vii.
158 REASON AND FEELING [Book I
a kind of instinct which can give no further account of itself,
these are, in so far as they persist after the fullest reflection, not
merely isolated feelings of approval or disapprobation such as
the deliverances of the Moral Sense are sometimes supposed to
be, but feelings which are elements in a single, interconnected,
articulated ideal of human life. And ideals are recognized as
such by the intellect, however much (in some cases) the existence
of certain feelings or emotions may be the condition of such
a recognition. So again when I condemn drunkenness, my
judgement implies a whole conception of human life that man
is a rational being, adapted for certain ends, responsible for his
actions, possessed of a certain worth or dignity, having such and
such relations to his fellows, capable of certain intellectual and
moral activities, activities which are interfered with and impeded
by drunkenness. This whole ideal of what man is and ought to
be is implied in my judgement that it is intrinsically degrading
and unworthy of a rational being voluntarily to place himself in
a state in which he is not master of his own actions, however
elaborate the precautions which he may take against doing harm
to himself and others when in that condition. The feeling of
repugnance to the act is inseparable from a whole complex
of judgements about human life and its purposes which are
very different from isolated emotions. So again with such an
obviously unutilitarian precept as that which condemns canni-
balism. Clearly if the victim is not killed on purpose to be
eaten, cannibalism under certain circumstances might present
itself as an eminently sanitary and economical arrangement.
If we judge that man ought to endure considerable priva-
tion some would perhaps say even extreme privation
rather than eat human flesh, it is because we feel that this
external reverence to a human corpse is an expression of a
reverence for humanity which possesses a higher value than
the momentary relief from hunger. It is impossible to isolate
our condemnation of cannibalism from our whole ideal of the
proper relation of man to his fellow men. The psychologically
very similar feeling against dissection which long stood in the
way of surgical progress we decline to encourage because it is
inconsistent with an enlightened ideal 6f human life as a whole.
Chap, vi, iv] NEED OF EXPERIENCE 159
(z) And these considerations do involve the recognition of
a principle which is constantly forgotten by Rationalists of the
Kantian type. It is quite true that the question of what is
moral for man depends upon his actual psychical constitution,
including his sensitive, aesthetic, and emotional nature. If it is
said that moral judgements are in a sense a priori, that must not
be taken to mean that we could define the rules of human con-
duct without an empirically derived knowledge of the actual
constitution of human nature, and of human society. That it is'
right to promote the true good of all that lives and is conscious
is, indeed, an a priori truth which Reason can recognize without j
any appeal to empirical knowledge except what is implied in the
idea of conscious life : but what actually is for the good of man
or any other creature cannot be ascertained without a knowledge
of the nature and capacities of that creature. The prohibition
of shooting would be irrational among beings who were ' like the
air, invulnerable ' : the law of marriage and all that flows from it
presupposes the sexual difference itself not merely the physical
difference, but all the emotional and moral differences between
man and woman. It would be absurd to attempt an answer to
the question what would be the best type of sexual union if
human beings were not so constituted that man's feelings towards
woman are different from those with which he regards his
own sex, if men and women were not naturally inclined towards
permanent and exclusive unions *, if emotions of the highest and
1 The researches of Prof. Westermarck (History of Human Marriage) tend to
confirm Aristotle's dictum that man is TJ) (f)v<ri a-vvbvacrriKoif /zaAXo> 5 noXirncov.
This is proved partly by inference from the fact that the higher apes are
monogamous, partly by a wide induction from anthropological and historical
facts. Polyandry is a rare, Polygamy a much more common institution,
but both are exceptional arrangements due to special circumstances. The
late*r work of Messrs. Spencer and Gillen (The Native Tribes of Central
Australia) may be held to modify Prof. Westermarck's conclusions, but the
most that they point to is a system of group-marriages, not the sheer promis-
cuity of McLellan's speculations ; and after all, even in those marriages, one
husband occupies an exceptional position. Even here a tendency to Mono-
gamy is discernible. The great difficulty experienced by otherwise suc-
cessful * free-love ' communities in America is the ineradicable tendency to
form exclusive unions. But of course these facts are intended rather as an
illustration than as a proof of the position taken up in the text.
160 BEASON AND FEELING [Book I
purest type were not found to be subtly and inseparably con-
nected with such unions, and so on.
(3) I may add that the passing of judgements of this kind
often demands for its full justification an amount of experience
which is quite beyond the reach of a single individual. The
monogamous ideal of life is based upon the accumulated ex-
perience of the human race, not merely the experience of the
numerical majority ; it is doubtful, indeed, whether the indepen-
dent verdict of the numerical majority, even in those countries
which have not frankly abandoned the Christian ideal in this
matter, would really endorse this judgement, but for the deference
paid to the verdict of the best men which is based upon the results
of all the experience within their reach, experience of themselves
and others, experience of the good results of the observance and
the bad results of the non-observance of the monogamous rule.
But by experience of good and bad results I do not mean, of
course, mere pleasure and pain. It is upon the whole spiritual
condition which results from the control as compared with
the whole spiritual condition which results from the non-
control of these particular passions that the judgement of value
is pronounced. And the dependence of these judgements upon
an experience which cannot well be possessed by the young makes
this department of morality peculiarly dependent in practice
upon respect for moral authority l . I shall return to this matter
in a chapter which will be specially devoted to the place of
Authority in Ethics. It is sufficient here to note that there
are many departments of Morality in which it must be recognized
that the judgements of the individual at least of ordinary
individuals, and of all individuals as regard a large part of
their lives are and must be largely influenced by Authority.
No prejudice is done by this admission to the final and para-
mount authority of the moral consciousness : for this authority
to which the appeal is made (when it is rightly made) is simply
1 This authority is not necessarily or exclusively that of a religious creed,
a religious teacher, or a religious community : but this is the most definite
and conspicuous form which moral authority actually assumes in modern
times. This dependence is, I believe, one explanation of the undoubted fact
that this is a department of morality which is peculiarly liable to suffer from
the decay of religious belief.
Chap, vi, iv] SPONTANEOUS FEELINGS i<Si
that of the moral consciousness in a higher stage of development,
or of the moral consciousness working upon an experience which
is wider and fuller than that of the isolated average individual.
Two very opposite schools of thought are apt to deny or
ignore the truth that the content of our moral judgements is
dependent upon the sensitive and emotional as well as the
rational nature of man. It is often forgotten by the ordinary
Utilitarian. He does not of course refuse to take into account the
experience that such and such things bring pleasure, but he does
sometimes fail to take into account tendencies to particular
emotions, spontaneous tendencies to approve of certain kinds
of conduct and to disapprove of others, which rest upon no
logical ground, but must simply be taken as data upon which
the Practical Reason has to work. The hedonistic assumption
that all a man's desires are really desires for pleasure favours
the delusion that desires can be created or extinguished or
modified at will, if only you can show that good hedonistic
results would be attained by doing so. On the other hand
the rationalistic Moralist often forgets that the raw material,
so to Speak, upon which Practical Reason pronounces its judge-
ments of value and which it works up into ideals must always
be supplied by the actual experiences, emotions, desires, tendencies
iand aspirations of human nature. The judgement that the
tendency of human nature to find satisfaction in certain kinds
of conduct has value is, indeed, an immediate judgement which
cannot be derived from experience in the ordinary sense of
the word ; but we very often cannot say why we should have
such a tendency, or deny that in beings differently constituted
other kinds of conduct might tend to their highest attainable
good *.
1 yon Hartmann is one of the few idealistic Moralists who have adequately
remembered this. Man, according to him, gets his notions of the End ' from
the application of Reason to the actual course of events, including the sub-
jective moral motives of men i(* aus der Anwendung der Vernunft auf den
gesamten Weltlauf einschliessrich der subjektiven sittlichenVeranlagung der
"Menschen.' Ethische Studien, p. i8i).| At the same time, when he goes on
so call the process of arriving at the ideal end ' inductive/ he seems to ignore
the fundamental difference between recognizing a value in the various ele-
ments of which the end is made up, and that of merely asserting their actual
RA8HDALL I M
i6a REASON AND FEELING [Book I
The question is raised, for instance, whether the received view
of the mutual duties of parents and children, brothers and
sisters, can be justified by a purely Utilitarian calculation. Can
it be shown to be conducive to the greatest happiness of the
greatest number ? Waiving the difference between a hedonistic
and a non-hedonistic conception of happiness, nothing is easier
than to show the practical advantages of the arrangement, if
you assume the actual tendency of the human mother to feel
for her own offspring the most passionate of human affections,
the actual tendency of all human beings to feel a stronger
attachment to their own near kin than to strangers, and conse-
quently to recognize a stronger claim upon their Benevolence.
Given this tendency, the encouragement of it leads both to
unselfishness in parents and to the proper bringing up of
existence. He seems sometimes (ib., p. 192) to fall into the mistake of trying
to form a conception of the ethical end by induction from the actual em-
pirically ascertained tendency of the Universe, the fallacy of which has been
sufficiently pointed out by Mr. Herbert Spencer's critics. That moral Reason
can deal with data which it cannot itself supply or create, na one (among
ethical Rationalists) appreciates better than von Hartmann. gT* Diese Norm
ist ein Produkt der Vernunft, ein Ideal, welches zeigt, wre der Mensch
eigentlich sein sollte. Aber dieses Ideal ist nicht ein systematisch aus
irgend welchem anderen Prinzip abgeleitetes, sondern ein Komplex von un-
mittelbaren Gefiihls- oder Geschmacksurteilen ' (ib., p. 94) j|\He points out too
.that in time this reasonable criticism of, and selection, TVmong our desires
modifies the feelings themselves (ib., p. 199). The only point in this state-
ment to which I should demur is that he seems disposed to identify the
'judgement of taste' with mere feeling, which would leave to the Reason
nothing but the function of collecting and combining the actual feelings of
the judger a mode of thought quite inconsistent with the whole of his
powerful plea for an absolute or rational standard of Morality. Reason
must not merely collect and systematize, but select and value the different
elements of human experience.
It is surprising to find how blind naturalistic Moralists continue to be to
the fact that the real problem of Ethics is as to how we determine or
ought to determine the ultimate end. This problem is wholly ignored in
such works as M. Levy-Bruhl's La Morale et la Science des mceurs (1904), the
main idea of which is that the Science of the means to the end should be
baaed upon Sociology (or a complex of sociological Sciences) : how the
end is to be discovered and what are the metaphysical implications of the
idea of an * end ' are questions which he does not ask. There is no indica-
tion in an otherwise clever work that its author is capable of even under-
standing their meaning.
Chap, vi, iv] FAMILY AFFECTION 163
children. On the other hand, put out of sight the de facto
emotional constitution of human nature, and nothing could
be easier than to demonstrate the disadvantages arising from
these narrow family attachments, and the infinite hedonistic
and moral superiority of a society in which all* older men
should be regarded as fathers, all equals as brothers. So
Plato argued, and he was only wrong because he supposed
that Reason could pronounce moral judgements without any
appeal to the actual emotional tendencies of human nature,
or because he supposed that human nature was more modifiable
than it is. The Moral Sense school are right in holding that
our moral judgements are partly dependent upon the feelings
and emotions with which we do naturally regard conduct of
various kinds, and that these must be taken account of before
we pronounce whether that conduct is to be regarded as right
or wrong. It would be impossible to show that it is a more
imperative duty to relieve suffering at our own door than
suffering at a distance, if it were not an actual tendency of
human nature to feel a readier and deeper sympathy with
the suffering that one actually beholds : and so on \ This
last illustration may help to suggest the importance of the
opposite side of ethical truth. While Reason must take
account of tho&e actual feelings and emotions which form part
of our moral nature before pronouncing by what means most
good will be realized, we cannot allow the actual strength of
the feeling to be the sole test of moral approval or disapproval.
Moral progress consists very largely in substituting deliberate
thought-out judgements for casual and variable emotions : and
the exercise of Reason in time reacts upon the emotions them-
selves. When we have come intellectually to recognize the
claims of suffering which we do not see, we may come to feel
for it a sympathy which is something very different from, and
very much more powerful as a motive for action than, the bare
intellectual recognition that the worth of a human being must
1 Hume was right in insisting that in average human nature (apart
from the influence of logical reflection or rational consideration) ' the
qualities of the mind are selfishness and limited generosity' (Treatise,
Book III, Pt. ii, 2).
M 1
1 64 REASON AND FEELING [Book I
be quite independent of geographical consideration^ or ethno-
logical affinities. Even moral feeling must be guided and
controlled by Reason; to a very large extent, indeed, the
difference between ' higher ' and ' lower ' feeling consists precisely
in the difference between mere feeling as it exists in merely
non-moral natures and feeling in the form which it assumes
when guided and controlled by human Reason. The judgement
of value which Reason pronounces is not dictated by the feelings,
but the actual feelings supply the materials which it uses in
building up a consistent and harmonious ideal of human life.
Reason cannot invent new feelings, but it can so regulate
human conduct as to produce a maximum of those in which
it recognizes most value, and that regulation of conduct tends
in time to produce actual feeling in accordance with the ideal
which Reason sets up.
V
The objections to the Moral Sense view of Ethics are sub-
stantially the same as those which must be urged against the
systems which represent the moral faculty as something sui
generis neither Reason nor feeling. Bishop Butler discerned,
as we have seen 1 , the fundamental defect of all mere Moral
Sense theories that they could assign no reason why this
feeling of the Moral Sense should be accorded any superiority
over other feelings. A Moral Sense can have no authority:
authority is of the essence of Conscience. To Bishop Butler
himself, at least when he wrote his Sermons, the authority of
Conscience was, it is probable, simply the authority of Reason.'
His habitual synonym for Conscience is a 'principle of Re-
flection ' : at times he explicitly calls it Reason. But some
of his disciples of whom Dr. Martineau is the most distin-
guished representative decline to admit this identification. It
is so exceedingly difficult to grasp the idea of a ' faculty J which
is neither part of our intellectual nature nor yet any kind of
feeling or emotion that the view is not easy to criticize. It may I
be enough perhaps to quote Martineau's statement of his position
and to point out the source of the confusion into which he
seems to fall : ,
1 See above, p. 144, note.
Chap, vi, v] MARTINEAU'S VIEW 165
6 And when, in order to scrutinise their relation, we lay them
side by side and look at their contents, we see at once that
the features, present in approval and absent from assent are
precisely the whole of the moral characteristics, ivhence the
judgement derives its ethical quality. In my assent to the
proposition that any two radii vectores of an ellipse, meeting
at their peripheral extremities, are together equal to the trans-
verse axis, and my dissent from the assertion that they are
always equal to one another, I have none of the self-contentment
and of the compunction respectively involved in my right and
wrong volitions; I assign no merit to the truth, no demerit
to the error, or to the mind that is subject to them ; were
my belief rewarded, I should be ashamed of the absurdity :
were my misbelief punished, I should resent the injustice.
But these experiences, which fail to attend the Yes and No
of Reason, are the sum of the moral sentiments which attend
the Yes and No of Conscience. There is nothing, therefore, in
common except the naked fact of acceptance or rejection ; the
thing accepted or rejected, it is plain, is wholly different V
There is much virtue in that ' nothing except/ All that
Dr. Martineau's objections really show is that the moral judge-
ment is an essentially different kind of judgement from any
other : they do not show that it is not a judgement. When
a piece of conduct is pronounced 'rational' or 'reasonable/
something else no doubt is meant than when a conclusion is
pronounced logically to follow from its premisses. If we treat
' reasonable ' and ' right ' as synonyms, that does not imply
that we do not recognize the enormous difference between
' reasonable ' or ' reasonable to think ' and ' reasonable to be
done/ In this sense it is quite true there is an element present
in the moral judgement and absent in the mathematical. It
does not follow that this element is simply ' the glow of emotion/
though such a glow may be a more or less inseparable accompani-
1 Types of Ethical Theory, 3rd ed., vol. II, p. 473. Cf. also the admission
'In one sense, every experience of our nature might be pronounced intellectual.
. . . Passion and emotion themselves are, in us, not without thought, and
may be always treated as thoughtjn a glow ' (p. 468). If there is thought in our
moral perception, there must be thought about something, and that some-
thing cannot be just the fact of the perception itself.
166 REASON AND FEELING [Book I
nient of the judgement. Nothing can be more important than
to emphasize the sui generis character of the moral judgement,
that is to say of that idea of goodness or value which forms
its essence., But that does not show the necessity for inventing
a separate faculty to give such judgements. We are not
confusing time with space because we assign to our ideas of
both an intellectual origin. We may if we like call Practical
Reason a separate faculty from speculative Reason that is
only a question of words. We really mean simply that they
are distinguishable aspects of one and the same rational self.
The important thing is that we should recognize that moral
judgements possess an absolute truth or falsity, which is equally
valid for all rational beings l ; and, if that is recognized, it seems
most natural to ascribe them to Reason.
Much the same line of objection to the rationalistic position
has been followed in a more recent attempt to rehabilitate the
old Moral Sense view of Ethics, or something like it, made by the
late Professor Gizycki. His line of argument seems to me to
imply the same misunderstandings, and to demand the same
concessions, as the old English ' Moral Sense ' view and Dr.
Martineau's Philosophy of Conscience. But there is one objection
made by Gizycki which demands an additional word of explana-
tion. It is really strange to find an eminent Professor of Philo-
sophy solemnly arguing that, if the rationalistic view were true,
1 the most intellectual man would be the best morally, and the least
intelligent would be the worst V Here in the first place I notice
the confusion already pointed out between what tells a man
his duty and what makes him do it. Men of genius may see
their duty clearly enough, but they do not always do it.
Nobody could discourse more beautifully about Morality than
Goethe or Coleridge. But this is not all. It is not even true
1 True for all rational beings, not equally binding on all rational beings.
All rational beings must recognize them as binding on beings constituted as
man is constituted. These essential principles of morality must no doubt
be the same for all such beings, but not its detail.
a An Introduction to the Study of Ethics, adapted from the German of
G. M. Gizycki by Stanton Coit, Ph.D., 1891, p. 87; a work which had
already appeared in 1889 under the title * A Student's Manual of Ethical
Philosophy. 1
Chap, vi, v] GIZYCKI'S ARGUMENTS 167
that, on the rationalistic principle, the most intelligent man
know his duty best. For ' intelligence ' has many branches or
departments, or aspects. The man who has mathematical
capacity may be singularly wanting in the gift of .language or
expression ; he may be wholly blind to the beauty of Art or of
Poetry ; while the Artist and the Scholar may be exceptionally
unmathematical. Poets have often been entirely unmusical.
Roughly speaking perhaps the possession of superior mental
capacity in one direction may be held generally to carry with it
something more than average capacity in others ; but to this
rule there are many exceptions. In the same way it may be
roughly very roughly true that men of superior ability are
on the whole more capable of moral appreciation (and even
perhaps more moral in practice) than men of inferior mental
capacity. We may distrust the speculations about a distinctly
criminal type of brain, but it is certain that professional criminals
are usually people of very low mental capacity, though a few
are men of great intellectual ability. At the same time it is
perfectly possible, and often happens, that the particular capacity
for apprehending the distinction between right and wrong may
be possessed by persons not otherwise remarkable for intellect ;
while intellectual persons are occasionally very deficient in this
respect. This might be admitted even by the straitest sect of
ethical Rationalism. But in these pages it has been further
contended that, though the apprehension of moral distinctions is
in itself an intellectual act, the exercise of this intellectual
capacity is often conditioned by and postulates a certain emo-
tional endowment. Some of our ethical judgements could not
be given at all were a certain emotion absent ; and, given the
emotion, the ethical judgement is often a very simple affair : but
intellectual judgements are not the less intellectual because they
lie within the capacity of very ' unintellectual ' persons. It is
much the same, I suppose, with the aesthetic faculty. The
intellectual character of the musical faculty its close connexion
with the capacity for the most abstract kind of thinking is
attested by the tendency of musical and mathematical talent to
go together. Yet intellect alone will not make a Musician;
musical originality or even high musical appreciation presupposes
168 REASON AND FEELING [Book I
a capacity for certain kinds of emotion, which the Mathematician
may lack. So with the moral faculty ; it belongs to the intellect,
yet it may be paralysed or perverted by -want of emotional
capacity. This has often been the case probably with enthusiasts
and fanatics men of exceptional sense of duty or exceptional
devotion to ideals of one kind or another, but little human
affection. Some persons may have little delicacy of moral
judgement for want of the original capacity for emotion. Still
more often may people who possess perhaps in a high degree all
the intellectual capacities required for giving judgements of
value exhibit small moral insight in actual life, because through
their own personal failure in right willing, or through their
unfavourable moral environment, they have not acted up to such
light as they had. The Reason that judges and the will that
acts are not one and the same thing, but they are only two sides
of one and the same self, and they do most powerfully act and
react upon one another. The maxim ' obedience is the organ of
spiritual knowledge ' has been abused in the interests of obscur-
antism and fanaticism, but it represents nevertheless a most
important fact in Moral Psychology 1 .
VI
To some minds it will probably appear that I have inadequately
stated the intimacy of the connexion between the rational judge-
ment of value and the emotions by which it is normally accom-
panied. There are Moralists who, agreeing that the idea of value
is logically distinguishable from the emotion with which right
conduct is contemplated, will insist that de facto they are so
inseparable that the moral judgement could not be made by, and
could have no meaning for, a mind destitute of the specific moral
emotion. ' I think,' writes a friend who takes this view 2 , ' that
the "reason" and "feeling" which are to be found in moral
judgments, though no doubt distinguishable, are not only always
found together, but each is unintelligible and empty apart from
1 Cf. Aristotle's fj KOKUI <f)dapriKf) apx^s
a I cannot call to inind any printed expression of this doctrine, though it
is taught by high authorities in Oxforda fa6t which must be my apology
for quoting a private letter.
Chap, vi, vi] FEELING AND JUDGEMENT 169
the other. The judgement " this is right" is not a moral judge-
ment unless one has, more or less, the moral emotion (for in the
judgement " this is* right/' when the ground is any authority, the
moral emotion and the judgment proper fall upon the authority,
not strictly upon the particular point), nor is it a moral emotion
unless it claims universality. This, I think, is the same view as
yours, but perhaps you might more carefully avoid the use of
language which suggests juxtaposition (reason -f feeling); which
is surely unsatisfactory, and leads to what one finds inadequate
in the language of Hume on one side and Kant on another/ To
such a line of criticism I should reply as follows :
(1) With regard to the suggestion about mere ' juxtaposition/
I have very definitely admitted that in all cases some feeling is,
in part, the ground of the judgement. That being so, the judge-
ment could not be made without the feeling, but the feeling
which is the ground of a moral judgement is, in my view, not
always any specifically moral or ' higher ' kind of feeling. In
some cases the judgement implies a particular kind of 'higher*
emotion, but not in all. In some cases the only feeling which
is implied as the ground of the judgement is simple pleasure and
pain, not in ourselves but in others, though without some
experience of them in ourselves we should not know what they
are in others. To know that this act causes pain in others is all
that I want to enable me to condemn it. That pain is the negation
of good, and that the good ought to be promoted, are self-evident
truths perceivable by the intellect. How far in actual fact there
exist persons so constituted as to be capable of seeing that truth
without experiencing the smallest emotional repulsion against
causing pain, or the smallest inclination to avoid it themselves,
is a question of empirical Psychology on which I should not like
to pronounce a decided opinion. But I see nothing self -con-
tradictory in the supposition that there may be such persons.
There certainly seem to be persons who do make this judge-
ment, but in whom ethical emotion and ethical inclination
are so small as in no way to account for the judgement being
made.
(2) And even in persons who are not altogether incapable of
moral emotion, some moral judgements are not as a matter of
170 REASON AND FEELING [Book I
fact accompanied by any emotion at all, though the same judge-
ment may on other occasions call forth emotion of great strength.
The proposition that pleasure is good and pain bad or that
some particular trifling pleasure of my own is good and conduct
which interferes with it wrong in myself or in another is one
that can be assented to without any emotion whatever ; and yet
that proposition is the ultimate ground for my condemnation
of some act of cruelty which might excite in me feelings of warm
indignation. And I regard it as a matter of great theoretical
importance to insist that the intellectual categories of good and
right are as distinctly present in the cool and calculating judge-
ment that it is unreasonable to throw away a large pleasure for
a smaller one (no matter whose that pleasure be), as in our
enthusiastic approval of some heroic act of self-sacrifice.
(3) Of course we can, if we choose, include in our idea of good and
evil, right and wrong, the emotion which they excite in normally
constituted persons, or even all the varieties of emotion that
they may excite in abnormally constituted persons. On the
principle that we do not know a thing fully till we know all its
relations, it may no doubt be said that we do not fully under-
stand the meaning of right and wrong unless we do take into
account these facts of our emotional nature. To a person
incapable of any such emotion the terms would no doubt not mean
all that they mean to one who is capable of it. But I am not
prepared to admit that it would mean nothing to him. Not
only would it mean something to him, but that something is,
I should hold, the very essence of the moral judgement, con-
sidered simply as a judgement. The ideas of good and evil,
right and wrong, seem to be as distinguishable in thought from
any emotion accompanying them as the idea of a circle is from the
aesthetic feeling which may perhaps be in fact its inseparable
accompaniment. To insist upon the greater practical importance
of the feeling attending the moral judgement would be wholly
beside the point.
(4) The contention that the term ' right* means nothing apart
from the emotions by which moral judgements at the higher
levels of moral experience are usually* accompanied seems to me
open to a further objection. I am unable to recognize the
Chap, vi, vi] NO SPECIFIC MORAL FEELING 171
existence of any one particular specifically ' moral ' emotion \ An
intellectual category must be one and the same for all intelligences,
though there may be a greater or less degree of clearness, explicit-
ness, and adequacy in the apprehension of it at different stages
of intellectual development. Hot emotion is essentially a variable
and subjective, thing. And the emotion excited by good or bad
conduct, and by the judgements of moral approbation or dis-
approbation which they call forth, are no exception to the rule.
These emotions are different in the case of different races, different
individuals, different periods of life. Even in the same individual
they vary from day to day with our changing moodvS and
circumstances. The emotions which different kinds of good or
bad conduct excite are very different, even when the intellectual
approval or disapproval is the same. Few people approve an
act of commonplace Justice with the warmth which they bestow
on an act of Generosity, and yet Justice is quite as important
as Generosity. When I judge a massacre to be wrong, my
judgement is exactly the same whether it has been committed
by Englishmen on Englishmen in the streets of London, or by
Chinamen on Chinamen in the streets of Pekin, but my emotion
would probably be very different both in kind and intensity.
Even with characters of exceptional moral earnestness, there
is every reason to suppose that the emotion accompanying their
ethical thinking must be of very different kinds. It is im-
probable that a mind of John Wesley's severity could ever have
felt the tender humanity of St. Francis of Assisi, or that in
a man of sympathetic nature like John Stuart Mill the sense of
duty assumed the emotional tone with which it was invested in
the Philosopher whose personal character has stamped itself for
ever upon the doctrine of the ' categorical imperative.' To say
that the category of value or of duty was present in the mind
of Mill as much as in that of Kant, however little the Metaphysic
of the former may have recognized its presence, is an assertion
which I understand and accept. Whether the emotional accorn-
1 ' Es giebt demnach nicht em bestimmtesGeftihl, welches als moralisch es
Gefuhl von alien anderen Gefiihlen verschieden ware, sondern jedes Gefuhl
entspricht in seiner Tendenz mehr oder minder sittlichen Aufgaben, oder
es widerspricht denselben irf htfherem oder geringerem Grade ' (Hartmann,
Das sittl. Beumsstaein, p. 148).
172 REASON AND FEELING [Book I
paniments of their judgements were the same is a psychological
question which it would be a piece of the most unwarrantable
dogmatism to determine a priori. If, therefore, the assertion
that a moral emotion claims universality means that the same
emotion must be present in all moral persons, I see no ground
for the assumption. Nor, indeed, in strictness can I understand
the meaning of asserting that any emotion whatever ' claims
universality/ That, when I recognize a value in a certain
emotion, my judgement claims universality I admit ; but I
recognize the probability that many different kinds of moral
emotion may possess a high degree of intrinsic worth, and I see
no reason for selecting one particular type of it as the one and
only * moral emotion,' in the absence of which the judgement
could not be moral at all. It may no doubt be urged that the
ideal man would feel exactly the same kind of emotion on the
same occasions. That would be a somewhat difficult contention,
inasmuch as a certain limitation, and therefore a certain indi-
viduality, seems essential to a nature that is to be truly human.
But, whatever may be thought of this point, the assertion
supplies no ground for saying that the judgement is not in
thought quite distinguishable from the emotion. The ideal man
might be unable to think of universal gravitation without
profound ' cosmic emotion/ but that supplies no reason for
declaring that a Physicist who has never felt a moment's ' cosmic
emotion ' in his life must be ignorant of universal gravitation.
(5) It is only, as I have already pointed out, in the case of
certain particular ethical judgements (not in all) that they simply
cannot be made by a consciousness incapable of certain emotions :
here where that is so, the judgements turn upon the actual value
of the emotions as elements in human life. A consciousness which
was entirely lacking in all the higher feelings aesthetic, intellec-
tual, social, moral to which the developed moral consciousness
assigns value, would assuredly have a limited and distorted
moral ideal, but it does not follow that it would attach no
meaning at all to the ideas of right and wrong, or be unable to
pronounce correctly upon simple problems of elementary
Morality. It might still for instance be able to recognize
the wrongness of the individual deliberately preferring his own
Chap.vi,vi] INFLUENCE OF INTEREST 173
interest to that of the community, and to apply that judgement
to many particular cases.
(6) It may even be admitted that those judgements which
do not psychologically depend upon the presence of emotion
are not very likely ever to be made to say nothing of the
respect paid to them by a mind totally destitute of the
emotions which naturally accompany them. If the human mind
could ever be a passionless thinking machine, it might indeed
be contended that the emotionless man would be a particularly
good judge of right and wrong in respect of those questions
questions for instance of Justice in the distribution of pleasure
which lay within its range. But no mind can ever be a passion-
less mirror of Reality. In the mind which is (relatively or
absolutely) devoid of moral or social feeling, the place of such
feelings is sure to be taken by other feelings, emotions, and
desires, which must necessarily distort the moral judgement
or totally prevent its exercise. Even our most abstract thinking
is dominated by purpose or interest of some kind. Minds which
take no interest in Morality do not think about it at all. I see
no reason why for instance a person incapable of moral emotion
should not be able to recognize the injustice of slavery, though
he might have felt no inclination to agitate for its abolition.
But we know that as a matter of fact the minds which first
pronounced slavery to be wrong were minds dominated by
a passion for Justice and an ardent love of Humanity. In
minds which have no such passion, indifference may prevent any
judgement whatever upon the problem; interest may suggest
wrong judgements.
This doctrine of the inseparability of the moral judgement
from one particular kind of emotion seems to me not only
unwarrantable in itself, but dangerous in its theoretical ten-
dency : for it obscures the fact that the judgement of value by
which we recognize that my own pleasure is a reasonable end
of pursuit is exactly the same in its intellectual character as our
recognition of an intrinsic value in heroism or saintliness,
although the emotional accompaniments of the two judgements
may be very different. It is true no doubt that the amount
of value which we recognize in the former case is much smaller
174 REASON AND FEELING [Book I
than that which we recognize in the latter. To the pleasure
which it is right to pursue we assign value: but we do not
attribute much intrinsic value to the will which wills that
pleasure unless the preference of the pleasure implies devotion
to some higKer kind of good, or to the good as such, on the part
of the agent ; and this is commonly the case only when the
pleasure aimed at is not the agent's own, since only in this case
is there usually present any strong temptation to pursue some
other end, though we may ascribe some small value to the
preference even of private interest to mere brute passion.
Conduct directed towards the good is right whether it implies
Virtue on the part of the agent or not : but such conduct need
not possess value in any appreciable degree. The value may
often lie in the end or consequences, not in the act itself. And
the term moral value is commonly reserved for the value that
we attribute to character to the good will or at least to
inclinations and dispositions, desires and emotions, which we
recognize as conducive to or resulting v from a settled bent
of the will towards the good l . It is important no doubt to
insist on the superior value which we ascribe to isuch preference
for the good. But the two kinds of value are not absolutely
incommensurable. However much superior the value of a good
act may "be to that of a transitory pleasure, we still use the term
' value ' of both, 'and we use it in the same sense : the two kinds
of value differ as being at the top and the bottom of the same
scale, not as representing two totally incommensurable scales.
Thefe can be only one ultimate scale of values, however
heterogeneous the objects which we appraise by that scale.
Thus to the actual relief of pain and healing of wounds which
resulted to the man fallen among thieves from the act of the
good Samaritan we assign value. If it were not good for
wounds to be healed, it would not have been right for the good
Samaritan to heal them; but we should not call the injured
1 Prof. Taylor seeins to me to forget this use of the term * moral value *
when he declares, without qualification, that * it is quite impossible, after
the fashion of popular philosophy, to draw a line between qualities that are
moral and qualities that are not so. Whatever is felt by men to be worth
having at all has, eo ipso, moral value, or rather, moral value is a tautologous
expression ' (Problem of Conduct, p. 297).
Chap, vi, vi] CONSCIENCE 175
man's feeling morally good. On the other hand, to the good
Samaritan's act we assign ' moral value/ and we may even assign
moral value to the emotion which prompted, or to the pleasure
which resulted from the act, even though the emotion and the
pleasure may not have been under the immediate control of the
will, because it would be an indication of character or of
a settled bent of the will. Such is the ordinary usage of
language. The distinction between ' moral value ' and ' value ' is
no doubt one of great practical importance, inasmuch as it
implies a conviction of the supreme and unique value of
a rightly directed will. But there is not the absolute disparity
between them that is suggested by the idea of a distinctively
moral emotion in the absence of which our judgements as to the
value of this or that element of human life could not be moral
judgements at all.
It has been contended in this chapter that ' the moral faculty '
is essentially Reason. By that is meant that the ideas of
Right and Wrong, Good and Evil, are intellectual concepts
or categories which cannot be reduced to any kind or sort of
mere feeling. But it has been fully admitted that practically
the power of deciding between right and wrong involves many
emotional elements, and these are certainly included in what is
popularly spoken of as Conscience. Conscience or (to speak
more scientifically) the moral consciousness may be held to
include not merely the capacity of pronouncing moral judgements,
but the whole body of instincts, feelings, emotions, desires which
are presupposed by and which influence these judgements,
as well as those which prompt to the doing of the actions which
they prescribe 1 . No more accurate definition can be given,
because the 'moral faculty* cannot actually exist apart from
the other elements of self-consciousness. The Practical Reason
implies all the other activities of Reason and would be impossible
without them; and it implies also, not a mere single specific
feeling or emotion, but a whole complex of feelings and
1 Another element in what is commonly called Conscience is simply the
individual's consciousness of the fact that he is or is not doing what
he himself believes to be right. * It perceives whether those [actions] it
judges right, or those it judges wrong, are actually adopted ' (Shadworth
Hodgson, Philosophy of Experience, vol. IV, p. 86J.
176 REASON AND FEELING [Book I
emotions upon the value of which the Practical Eeason has
to pronounce. * Conscience ' or the moral consciousness is a name
for a particular aspect of the single self which is thought and
feeling and will. Morality would be impossible and meaningless,
or at least defective and one-sided, for a being in whom any one
of these elements were wanting l .
1 It may be broadly stated that all recent moralists who approach the sub-
ject from a purely psychological point of view tend to agree with the Moral
Sense position in making Morality ultimately to rest upon feeling, though
they maybe less clear about the specific and distinctive character of the feel-
ing. To Hdtfding for instance the value-judgement is simply a feeling, arising
largely from Sympathy (Ethik, pp. 41, 72, &c.); the categorical imperative
is * an instinct 1 (ib., p. 55). Though quite aware that this position involves
the sacrifice of all objective character for moral judgements, he seems to me
constantly to use language and to express ideas which imply such an objec-
tivity. Simmel insists strongly on the fact that the ' ought ' is an ultimate
and unanalysable category of our thought, but makes the whole content of the
* ought ' come from feeling (Einleitung in die Moralwissenschaft, Berlin, 1892,
I, pp. 23 sq. t 54, 239, &c.). But it is difficult to see how it is possible to
assert the validity of a category (and if it is a category of thought its validity
can hardly be denied) without any power to apply it to a matter or to give
it a content. Such an assertion would seem to be like maintaining that we
have indeed a category of quantity or number, but are quite incapable of
counting. Granted that our judgements in detail are liable to be influenced
by all sorts of psychological considerations, just as subjective motives con-
stantly lead to numerical miscalculations (e. g. of the numbers present at
a meeting in which we are interested), it is difficult to see how there can ba
a category which we cannot validly use at all. After all the category of
ought in general is simply an abstraction got by comparing together actual
judgements of value. If what is contended is that we do think values but
that such judgements possess no objective validity, the reply to it must
simply be the general metaphysical reply to all Scepticism. Much of
Simmers polemic against Rationalism in Ethics seems to turn upon the old
confusion between Reason and reasoning (e. g. in Einleitung, I, pp. 98-99) ; at
the same time he has done a service by pointing out with much acuteness
and vivacity some of the psychological causes which as a matter of fact do
largely determine our actual moral judgements, e. g. our tendency to assume
that the usual or normal conduct of our society is the right course. But it
is perhaps a mistake to take Simmers use of the term * category ' too
seriously. It appears that ultimately the category of ' end ' (practically
identical with that of * ought ') is a merely ' subjective ' category (II, p. 347,
&c.) which would seem to mean that we have a confused idea of an ' ought *
which we take to mean something, but which is of no more objective signifi-
cance than the idea of 'Kismet' or that of,a Centaur, though (like those
ideas) it may influence human conduct. But the admission that as a matter
Chap, vi, note] THE AESTHETIC JUDGEMENT 177
of psychological fact these ideas of ' ought/ ' end,' * the good,' &c., do exist,
and cannot be resolved into something else, represents a great advance on
the crude Psychology which simply explained them as * fear of tribal ven-
geance,' or the like. When writers like Simmel deny their objective validity,
they do so as sceptical or sensationalistic metaphysicians, not as observers of
psychological fact. These admissions become particularly valuable when we
turn to the philosophical fireworks of such a writer as Guyau (Esguisse d'une
Morale sans obligation ni sanction), whose original discovery seems to be that
any factor of our consciousness which he cannot explain on the assumptions
of his own Philosophy may be got rid of by the simple device of calling it
' mystical.'
NOTE ON THE AESTHETIC JUDGEMENT
A chapter on the relation between the moral and the aesthetic judge-
ment might have formed a natural and desirable sequel to the treatment of
* Reason and Feeling ' in Ethics, but I do not feel that my acquaintance
with Aesthetic Philosophy enables me to undertake it. A few remarks on
the subject may, however, be useful with a view to clearing up what has
been said in the preceding chapter, and to prevent misunderstanding.
(t) I distinctly recognize an objective element in our aesthetic judge-
ments. That is implied in our strong conviction that there is a right and
a wrong about such judgements. They too, like moral judgements, are in
a sense judgements of value. But I do not say that they are * objective *|
in exactly the same sense and to the same extent as the ethical judgement.
For they seem to be more closely connected with the variable physiological
organization of individuals than ethical judgements. It has been suggested,
for instance, that the restful feeling of green for human beings is due to
effects on the human eye and nerves of its frequency in Nature especially
for our arboreal ancestors; while the effect of red ('like the sound of
a trumpet,' to quote the famous remark of a man blind from his birth) is
due to its infrequency in Nature. By beings with a different evolutionary
history, therefore, a red landscape with a few touches of green would, it
may be contended, be pronounced as beautiful, and beautiful in the same
way, as we think a landscape of predominant green with a few touches
of red. So again the beauty of a Gothic window as compared with a square
one may plausibly be connected with the frequency of the Gothic arch in
woofls and the rarity of square arches in Nature. Even if such theories are
well founded, they do not destroy the existence of an objective element
in our aesthetic judgements. The perfect intelligence might still pronounce
the aesthetic feeling which we experience good, though in beings otherwise
constituted other aesthetic experiences might be good also. It may be
contended that we have something parallel to this in the moral laws which
are obviously applicable only to beings constituted like man, though the
good for such beings may be. something in which every rational intelli-
gence would recognize value. But then I for one should contend that the
RASHDALL I N
178 REASON AND FEELING [Book I
more ultimate of our moral judgements, such as that which recognizes
the value of love, are independent of such differences in the structure of
individuals or of society (see Bk. Ill, chap, iii), and represent not merely
what all rational beings would pronounce valuable in us, but an element
of experience which must exist and have value in all higher minds and
in God. It may be that we might say the same of aesthetic judgements
that the value which may be recognized in aesthetic judgements which
differ and even contradict one another in detail, might all be referable
to some higher principles of aesthetic judgement which would explain
them all ; but we can form a less distinct conception of such principles
than we can of the fundamental moral laws. I cannot undertake to discuss
the matter here, but will only notice that aesthetic judgements (as we know
them in human beings) do seem to be more intimately connected with, and
inseparable from, sensations which presuppose a particular physiological
organization than the most fundamental moral judgements, although I do
not regard that fact as any reason for denying that they are in a true sense
objective.
(2) If the moral judgement is essentially a judgement of value, its sphere
must be absolutely all-embracing. There can be no department of human
life, no kind of human consciousness or experience, upon which the moral
Reason may not pronounce its judgements of value. People in whom
aesthetic interests are stronger than ethical interests frequently attempt
to set up a sphere of Art to which Morality is supposed to have no relation
whatever. Such persons simply show that they have too narrow a view
of what Morality is. What they really mean, or ought to mean, is that
aesthetic activities or enjoyments have a high value quite apart from any
further effects upon conduct in the narrower sense that it may be morally
right to paint and look at pictures which have no tendency to make the
artist or the beholder go away and perform his social duties better. That
artistic enjoyment has this high value and forms an important element
in true human good, I have strongly contended. Our aesthetic objector
may, however, mean more than this. He may mean that any amount
of aesthetic enjoyment, and all kinds of it, are right, and right in all
circumstances. Such a proposition is so extravagant that it could hardly
be made by anybody who really contemplated the full consequences of
his assertion ; but, whether the proposition be true or false, it represents
an ethical judgement as much so as the proposition that the interests
of Art must sometimes give way to the claims of social duty, and that there
are in the world plays not devoid of aesthetic value which it was morally
wrong to write, and which the State is right in not allowing to be acted.
The question what kinds of Art it is good to produce, how much time it
is right for such and such persons to spend in producing them or in con-
templating them, within what limits the aesthetic indulgence should be
restrained in the interests of wholesome moral feeling these and such -like
questions are moral questions. Morality deals with ultimate ends or
elements in the end. No indulgence which does not form part of the true
ultimate end can possibly be justified.
Chap, vi, note] ART AND BEAUTY 179
(3) The question may then be raised 'what is the relation between the
moral and the aesthetic judgement ? '
The moral judgement is a judgement of value; but is not,, it may be
asked, the aesthetic judgement also a judgement of value at least for
those who recognize its objective character and refuse to reduce it to the
judgement 'this gives me a particular kind of pleasure'? '"When I pro-
nounce that a thing is aesthetically ' good/ does not that imply that it
is an end which ought to be pursued ? Up to a certain point there can
be little difficulty in answering the question. We may say that the moral
judgement is in all cases the final one, but that the moral judgement must
use the data supplied by the aesthetic judgement. The aesthetic judgement
tells us * this is beautiful.' The moral judgement goes on to say 4 Beauty,
or this particular kind of beauty, has an intrinsic worth, and consequently
ought to be pursued/ We may even say that for a consciousness which
recognizes the intrinsic value of Beauty, the judgement * this picture is
aesthetically good* practically implies and includes the judgement 'the
contemplation of this picture has a certain intrinsic worth,' though other
and purely moral judgements will be required to determine its relative
worth as compared with other goods.
(4) But what if the moral judgement and the aesthetic judgement
actually contradict one another? In ordinary cases of what may be
superficially called collisions between the moral and the aesthetic judge-
ments no real difficulty arises. When I say 'this play is aesthetically
a good one, but on this particular evening it would be wrong for me to
go and see it,' this is merely an ordinary case of the collision between
goods. The judgement ' the contemplation of this play has a certain
worth * is not rendered untrue by the judgement ' What I should do with
my time and money if I did not go to see this play, has a greater worth,
and it is my duty not only to seek the good but the greatest good. Hence
it would be morally wrong to see the play. 1
The real difficulty arises, not when we pronounce merely that what is
aesthetically good is yet a good which for certain persons in certain circum-
stances ought to be surrendered in favour of a greater good, but when we
pronounce it to be from a moral point of view actually bad. In some cases
it may be possible to isolate and separate the good element from the bad.
We may approve a novel as a work of Art, and yet condemn the moral
tendency of incidental reflections or remarks by the author, or of certain
disgusting episodes which (even if not actually irrelevant to the plot as
it stands, as is often the case) may still be regarded as contributing
nothing to the aesthetic effect of the piece which could not equally be
secured by a somewhat different plot. Here we may say ' the work of Art
as such is good ; but a novel ought not merely to be artistic but to be
decent. WTiat I pronounce morally bad forms no part of what I pronounce
aesthetically good.' But in other cases the immoral tendency may be too
intimately allied with the artistic effect of the piece to be treated in this
way. The particular kind of Aft in question may be aesthetically good, and
yet by its very nature appeal to passions which had better (from a moral
N a
i8o REASON AND FEELING
point of view) not be excited, at least in this way and in this intensity.
This is particularly the case, I should judge, with certain kinds of Music in
their effect upon highly musical natures. But even here is not the case after
all only a case of the comparison of values ? If we condemn the piece
that is to say, if we judge that it ought not to have been written, or that it
ought not td be performed, or that particular persons should not hear
it, or that it should not be listened to frequently we judge that, though
the worth which it possesses qua work of Art is a real worth, that worth
is not so great as the worth of properly regulated passions, and that, if and
in so far as the former kind of good cannot be enjoyed without the loss of
the latter, that good is one which we should do without.
Of course I need hardly say that we may condemn the moral tendency of
a book or a piece of music without necessarily saying that nobody should
under any circumstances read the book or hear the music. The good may
still for particular persons and in particular circumstances outweigh the
evil. But that in some circumstances it is a moral duty to abstain from
enjoyments which are aesthetically admirable cannot be doubted. In the
great majority of cases at least as regards Literature the important
thing is the relative proportion which the morally stimulating and the
morally depressing in our reading bear to each other. Ruskin has remarked
that the important thing is not so much what we don't read as what we do
read. The properly nourished mind may for a sufficient purpose read,
without injury and even with advantage, much which in itself has an
immoral tendency, just as the properly nourished physical frame can
swallow many germs of disease without deleterious effects. The principle
must apply to a greater or less extent to other branches of Art.
(5) Another way of putting the matter is to say that, when we pronounce
a particular experience aesthetically good but morally bad, we mean that it
appeals to and satisfies a part of our nature, and a part which, when we
look at it in abstraction from our nature as a whole, we pronounce good :
but that, when compared with our ideal of human nature as a whole, this
particular indulgence fails to be approved. To indulge in it for certain
persons, in certain circumstances, or beyond a certain point, or in some
cases to indulge in it at all would be to attach disproportionate value
to this side of our nature as compared with others. The case of an aesthetic
indulgence given up in deference to moral considerations differs from the
case of a banquet condemned and abstained from as too costly or luxurious
only in the fact that the value of the good surrendered is, when taken in
abstraction from our ideal of human life as a whole, a higher or more
valuable good than the pleasures of good eating and drinking.
(6) From the point of view which has now been reached it may be
possible to make a further step towards the solution of the difficulties
presented by the problem of objectivity in the aesthetic judgement. The
difficulty with which we are confronted is that (a) we are unwilling to
admit that the judgement (say) of a certain Australian Minister of Educa-
tion who solemnly pronounced that he had himself examined the works
of William Shakespeare and could discover nothing in them but profanity
Chap, vi, note] OBJECTIVITY OF BEAUTY 181
and obscenity, and that he should therefore discourage their use in schools,
is objectively as good as that of the cultivated critics of all nations who
regard Shakespeare as the greatest dramatic genius that the world has
produced ; and yet that (b) so many of our aesthetic judgements are so
obviously connected with features of our particular human (srmetimes even
our local or racial) experience which we can perfectly well imagine to be
different in another planet. Take for instance the undeniable tendency
to regard the usual or normal or typical form of man or any other animal
as the more beautiful, and to regard any considerable deviation from it aa
ugly even when the individual thereby approximates to a type which in
another animal we should think beautiful. We do not like a human face
which approximates to the shape which in a horse or a mouse we should
think beautiful enough. May it be possible to admit that the question
what particular forms or colours give us aesthetic pleasure is largely
dependent upon physiological constitution, use and wont, environment,
accidental association ; but that the objectivity of the aesthetic judgement
lies not in the judgement which states the fact that we experience such
and such a feeling but in the judgement which ascribes a value to this
feeling that in truth it is not the strictly aesthetic judgement that is
objective, but the judgement of value which is pronounced on such and
such an aesthetic experience ? From this point of view we can admit that
aesthetic pleasure is often given to different persons by different experiences ;
and yet that in certain cases there may be no more value in the one state
of consciousness than in the other. The pleasure which red trees and
a green sunset might give to the inhabitants of another planet might be
just as 'true 1 or 'high* a pleasure as we derive from green trees and red
sunset. In a differently constituted planet square arches might suggest
feelings of awe and solemnity closely analogous to those which we derive
from a Gothic cathedral, and both kinds of emotion might have their value.
The negro's ideal of human beauty may include a broader nose and
a different shape of head from a European's, but the resulting pleasure
might to a perfectly disinterested intelligence appear to possess precisely
the same value. But, though this might be so with those particular
elements in the aesthetic consciousness which are in this way due to
accidental circumstances, it need not be so with all. The Australian
statesman mentioned above might have derived some pleasure from the
poetry (say) of Longfellow or Mr. Kipling, and the disinterested intelli-
gence would pronounce that that pleasure would have some value, but it
would ascribe a higher value to the different pleasure which a more
cultivated person would derive from Longfellow or Mr. Kipling, and
a still higher value to the pleasure which Longfellow or Mr. Kipling
have presumably derived from Shakespeare, but which the illiterate Minister
of Education would be incapable of feeling at all. For the different
estimate pronounced upon the poets in question would depend not upon
mere accidents of physical organization or environment but upon general
mental cultivation, upon qua/ities of intellect and character which to
an impartial intelligence would appear to possess very different values,
SEASON AND FEELING
Here it is not the same pleasure that is caused by different kinds of poetry
to different men, but a quite different pleasure. It is true that the
capacity for aesthetic appreciation may be dependent upon a delicacy
of eye and ear which is purely physical. An unmusical poet may through
the structure of his nervous system be incapacitated from deriving pleasure
from music without being a man of lower intellect or character than the
musician who derives exquisite pleasure from the same sounds, or rather
from sounds caused by the same instruments, though they are sounds
which the unmusical poet simply does not hear. When the unmusical poet
pronounces the music not to be beautiful, his judgement may in a sense
possess strictly objective truth : for not only is he right in saying that
he gets no aesthetic pleasure from the music, but he is right in saying
that no high objective value attaches to what he actually hears to the
sensations, ideas, and emotions which the music actually produces in him.
Could the musician share that experience, he would agree with the poet
as to its low intrinsic value. The poet is only in error if he denies the
objective value of the emotion which the music sets up in souls that
possess the musical capacity which has been denied him ; or when he
supposes that the elementary musical pleasure which he does himself derive
from a simple hymn or song is of equal intrinsic worth with the pleasure
which Beethoven or Bach give to the musical. Even where a pleasure
is given to some people by what appears to the more cultivated critic
absolutely ugly, there may be a worth in the pleasure, though we may
say that the uncultivated man is wrong, in a sense, in feeling it because his
enjoyment of it implies incapacity for something much better worth
enjoying. If we say more than this, if we say that he ought not to go
on indulging in his low aesthetic pleasures (even if he cannot school
himself into enjoying what the cultivated man enjoys), our judgement
is clearly a moral judgement, and not an aesthetic one at all. To distin-
guish more in detail between the elements of aesthetic appreciation which
are due to merely accidental circumstances and which might conceivably
vary in differently constituted beings without either of them being in error,
and those which are accounted for by incapacities in some beings for kinds
of consciousness the value of which could not be denied by any intelligence
without error, would involve a treatise on Aesthetic Philosophy which
I have no intention of attempting. I merely throw out the suggestion that
the really objective element in the aesthetic judgement is the judgement
of value which it implies. The judgement of value implied in aesthetic
judgement differs from ordinary judgements of value merely in being
a judgement as to the value of a particular class or aspect of human
experience which requires to be looked at in relation to a whole complex
of other judgements of value before it can form a ground for making the
avowedly and professedly moral judgement * this kind of experience ought
to be indulged in by A or B or promoted by A or B in C or D at such and
such a time and in such and such circumstances.'
(7) The result of this analysis or mere suggestion of a possible analysis
is not to deny the objectivity of many of our aesthetic judgements, but
Chap, vi, note] COMPARISON OF VALUES 183
to bring the objective element in them into closer connexion with our
ordinary judgements of value the judgements which we usually call dis-
tinctively moral judgements. The judgement 'this is beautiful 1 claims
objective validity in the sense that it asserts (a) that in the ideally consti-
tuted consciousness, it will produce such and such an aesthetic experience,
and (3) that this aesthetic experience possesses such and such a value.
There may be cases in which a man might derive an equally valuable
aesthetic experience from other external objects, just as one man likes
one kind of food and another another without there being any difference
of intrinsic value between the two kinds of pleasure : but that is nofc
so always. In other cases the consciousness that thought such and
such things beautiful would be pronounced by an omniscient mind to be
inferior to the consciousness to which it appeared ugly. At the same
time, though aesthetic judgements are (or include) judgements of value,
they are value-judgements of a very distinctive and special kind. There
will always be this much difference between them and what we usually
call moral judgements, (a) that to judge well of the value of various kinds
of aesthetic experience requires a different kind of mental capacity from
that which is required to judge well of other values, and (&) that the
judgement * this has aesthetic value * cannot pass into a moral judgement,
on which any one can be called upon to act, until the value of the aesthetic
experience has been compared with the value of other kinds of experience
the value for instance of Love in ourselves and of the pleasure produced
by a socially useful action in others, and it is this estimate of comparative
values which we usually call in a distinctive sense the moral judgement.
Many may have a good aesthetic judgement, i. e. are capable of the higher
aesthetic experiences and judge rightly of their value, who may have a bad
moral judgement, i. e. be incapable of appreciating other kinds of experience
at their true value when compared with the higher aesthetic experiences ;
others may have a good moral judgement in general, i. e. rightly estimate
(say) the superior value of Love and rightly balance the value of other
people's pleasure against their own, but may make mistakes in particular
cases from want of a developed aesthetic conscientiousness, i. e. because
they do not see that Shakespeare is beautiful or underestimate the true
value of the sense of beauty.
CHAPTER VII
IDEAL UTILITARIANISM
IN previous chapters I have sought to show that the way
to find out whether an action is right or wrong, when we are
forced to consider such a question for ourselves without reference
to some established rule 1 , is to consider whether it will tend
to produce for society in general a Well-being or \j^ai^ovia or
good which includes many elements possessing different values,
which values are intuitively discerned and compared with one
another by the moral or practical Reason. The right action is
always that which (so far as the agent has the means of knowing)
will produce the greatest amount of good upon the whole. This
position implies that all goods or elements of the good are in
some sense and for some purposes commensurable. Some of the
objections which may be taken to this position I shall consider
hereafter. In the present chapter I shall aim at illustrating
how the moral judgements implied by the special virtues, and in
particular by those which are prima facie most unutilitarian,
are explainable upon the supposition that all moral judgements
are ultimately judgements as to the value of ends. This view of
Ethics, which combines the utilitarian principle that Ethics must
be teleological with a non-hedonistic view of the ethical end,
I propose to call Ideal Utilitarianism. According to this view
actions are right or wrong according as they tend to produce for
all mankind an ideal end or good, which includes, but is not
limited to, pleasure.
A paramount position among our moral judgements is (as we
have seen) occupied by the three axioms of Prudence, Benevo-
1 When we ought to enter upon such a consideration is a question which
I have discussed in Book II, chap. v.
Chap.vii,i] BENEVOLENCE AND JUSTICE 185
lence, and Equity. It is self-evident to me that I ought (where
it does not collide with the greater good of another) to promote
my own greatest good, that I ought to prefer a greater good
on the whole to a lesser, and that I ought to regard the good
of one man as of equal intrinsic value with the like good of any
one else.
This last assumption will be further defended and explained
in the Chapter on Justice. Meanwhile, it may be assumed that
the ultimate meaning of absolute Justice is to be sought in this
equal distribution of good.
Such is the meaning, I take it, of ultimate social Justice.
Justice in this absolute sense prescribes the principle, whatever
it be, upon which the good is to be distributed, while Benevo-
lence is taken to mean the promotion of maximum social good
without reference to the question of its distribution. In this
sense even the hedonistic Utilitarian must admit the necessity
of recognizing that Virtue cannot be altogether resolved into
Benevolence, unless the meaning of Benevolence is narrowed
down to a Benevolence which is consistent with Justice. But
it must be admitted that there are many senses of the word
Justice, as popularly used, which do not seem prima facie
to have any reference to the question of the distribution of
Well-being or ultimate good. When we say that it is unjust
to punish a man without hearing his defence, or to compel
a man to give evidence against himself, or to punish a man
twice for the same offence, or to make an ex post facto law,
or to decide a civil action in favour of the poorer or the more
deserving litigant who has nevertheless the worse case in
all such cases there seems no obvious or immediate reference
to any principle for the ultimate distribution either of ultimate
Well-being or of its material conditions. In Aristotelian lan-
guage 'regulative' Justice 1 the Justice of the law-courts
seems to be a different virtue from ' distributive ' Justice. But in
all these heterogeneous uses of the term Justice there seems
1 The same may be said of his Commercial Justice, or Justice of Exchange.
It assumes the justice of the principle of private property and free barter
in exchange, which a Socialist might regard as intrinsically unjust on account
of the advantage which it gives to the possessor of unearned capital.
186 IDEAL UTILITARIANISM [Book I
to be this much in common ; they all prescribe impartiality in
the treatment of individuals ; they forbid inequality, or rather
arbitrary inequality inequality not justified by the require-
ments of sqcial Well-being, or some other general and rational
principle in the treatment of individuals. They all involve
the application of some general rule or principle without respect
of persons to particular cases. The question of the justice of
this rule is not, in common discourse, brought into question.
We call a judge unjust who refuses to apply the law impartially,
though we ourselves disapprove of the law and regard it as
essentially unjust. Thus we may say that the word, as used
in ordinary parlance, always denotes impartiality in distribution
upon some condition assuming some established principle or
rule of the actual social order, which must itself no doubt rest
upon some principle of absolute Justice if it is to be capable of
ultimate justification, but the justice of which is for the moment
assumed. Thus we say that it is unjust to punish one man more
severely than another for the same offence and under precisely
similar circumstances, because here no consideration of social
expediency (that is to say, at bottom no conflicting claims of
other men) can interfere with the general principle that one man
should be treated in exactly the same way as another under exactly
the same circumstances. The principles of absolute Justice cannot
require such unequal treatment : if they did, that would constitute
such a difference of circumstance as might justify the unequal
treatment. But we do not regard it as unjust for the judge to
decide a case in a way which will enrich an already rich man
and beggar a poor man, because we assume the justice of the
laws of property, and regard it as the duty of the judge simply
to administer that law impartially ; as unjust that a naval officer
should receive more prize-money than a common sailor, because
on other grounds we assume that social Well-being demands the
adoption of an unequal scale of remuneration for officers and
men, while we should regard it as unjust to give more to one
man than to another of the same rank. It is unnecessary to
multiply illustrations: in all cases the popular usages of the
term Justice, in so far as they are capable of defence, may be
held to imply the due regard of the claim of individuals not
Chap, vii, i] PARTICULAR VIRTUES 187
their intrinsic tnerit or ultimate claims to Well-being, but their
claim according to some established or recognized law or prin-
ciple of distribution. Varied as are the uses of the term Justice
in common language, the underlying idea of all of them seems to
be that our accepted principles of social conduct, whatever they
[may be, should be applied impartially as between different
Individuals or classes. Sometimes of course when an act or
a custom or an institution is pronounced unjust, it is meant
that the established principle itself is one which cannot be
defended upon any ground of social expediency, that it violates
the fundamental principle that the ultimate value of one man'$
good is equal to that of the like good of another. But this
question of absolute' Justice raises so many difficult and intricate
questions that further explanations must be reserved for a
separate chapter.
Subject to due regulation by the rule of Justice or Equity l , it
might seem to follow from the principles which we have hitherto
adopted that all virtues could be explained as ultimately resolv-
able into rational Benevolence or Love. But even the Hedonist
must recognize that special names are in practice given to various
special kinds of conduct, which are supposed to be conducive in
definite and distinguishable ways to human good ; such kinds of
conduct, or rather the dispositions to perform them, are called
particular virtues. On the view which judges of the ultimate
value of goods by other than a hedonistic standard we are able
to establish a sharper and clearer distinction between the different
duties or the dispositions which lead to their performance, since
we can recognize not merely a distinction between different
kinds of conduct all ultimately conducive to a single good, but
also a real and important distinction between the kinds of good
which they tend to promote. Thus even from the hedonistic
point of view it is clearly convenient to have a distinctive name
for the disposition to observe the rule of truth-speaking, though
1 Which includes Prudence, or the recognition of the due claims of self.
That due recognition of the claims of self is a duty is well put by Hcffding
(Ethik, p. 119) : * It follows from the principle of Welfare [or Utility] that
the individual is only one autong many, but it follows also therefrom that
the individual really is one among many. 1
i88 IDEAL UTILITARIANISM [Book I
to the Utilitarian truth-speaking is simply one of the particular
rules which the supreme and all-inclusive duty of promoting
human pleasure imposes upon mankind. From the point of view
of ideal Utilitarianism we may no doubt recognize that devotion
to true human good will include all other virtues, Veracity
among the number: but we shall be disposed to insist more
strongly upon this and other special or particular virtues, because
to us truthfulness of character, in ourselves and others, is a part
of the end or ideal life which the virtuous man will seek to pro-
mote, and not merely a means to a good other than itself. We
shall be less disposed to acquiesce in the disposition to reduce all
the virtues to Benevolence, since in practice ethical teaching
of this kind is pretty sure to obscure or slur over the fact that
the end which the benevolent man is to promote must include
many other kinds of good besides pleasure, many dispositions,
emotions, activities, states of consciousness which are valued for
their own sakes and not merely as a means to some further good.
I do not intend in the present work to attempt any exhaustive
enumeration or description of the particular kinds of conduct,
the particular duties or virtues, which are included in the dis-
position to promote true human good, or of the various ends or
elements in that good with which these various duties or virtues
are specially concerned. I shall not attempt to show elaborately
in what ways virtues such as Honesty, Industry, Family Affection,
Kindliness, Compassion, Loyalty (to the State or other social
institutions), Orderliness, Courage (physical and moral) are con-
ducive to the general good. That they are so is common ground
between the hedonistic and the ideal Utilitarian, though no
doubt it will be possible to find in connexion with all of them
casuistical questions which might have to be differently answered
by those who take and by those who refuse to take a hedonistic
view of human good. Descriptions or classifications of duties or
virtues are apt to be tedious and useless, unless the details of
duty are discussed with much greater fullness than is compatible
with the scope of the present work. I propose, therefore, to
confine myself in this chapter to some remarks upon those duties
or virtues which seem at first sight most difficult to reconcile
with the view that all virtue consists ultimately in the promotion
Chap, vii, ii] HUMANITY 1 89
of true social good, and which really are (as it appears to me) in-
capable of being reconciled with that doctrine, so long as social
good is understood in a purely hedonistic sense.
II
In the first place, I must observe that even those virtues
which are most obviously altruistic in their tendency are,
according to our view, also ends in themselves having a value
independent of, and in some cases much greater than, the mere
pleasure which they cause in others. Hence it becomes rational
to encourage the cultivation and exercise of these virtues even
in ways which cannot always be shown to produce a net gain in
pleasure on the whole. I have already illustrated this in the
case of Humanity to men and animals. The high value which
we assign to all natural kindliness of feeling and to parental
affection in particular is, I believe, one of the main grounds
for our condemnation of infanticide. The same consideration
forbids the extinction of life in the case of the old or the sick or
the insane, and generally speaking, persons whose existence
is a burden to the community, even should they be willing
to consent to the sacrifice. If it be assumed that their lives
are a burden even to themselves, then of course the question
is complicated with another, the lawfulness of suicide, to which
we shall return later on.
It is no doubt quite compatible with this high estimate of the
social affections to urge that in certain directions Christian
sentiment has been carried to extremes. But here it is important
to bear in mind a principle on which we shall have frequently to
insist that we must take into consideration the actual psycho-
logical constitution of human nature, and the impossibility
of modifying it exactly in the way and to the extent to which
w^ please. It might be difficult without this principle to justify
our absolute condemnation of the extinction of extremely mis-
shapen infants. It would be difficult, that is, to maintain
a priori that it would not be a gain to society to eliminate the
infants most grossly and obviously unfitted for life, were it not
for the fact of the horror which the idea actually excites in
humane persons. The moral reformer who should feel inclined
1 9 o IDEAL UTILITARIANISM [Book I
to suggest some modification of the existing custom will, however,
reflect on the extreme value of the feelings which such a sugges-
tion would shock, the extreme difficulty of drawing the line
between the permitted and the unpcrrnitted elimination, and the
impossibility of securing that interference with spontaneous
emotions shall stop just where he wants it to stop. He will
remember the ease with which the kindly inhibition of an
unhappy life might degenerate (in individual parents and in
society at large) into a mere selfish repudiation of trouble,
privation or anxiety, and the encouragement which any extension
of the practice would give to materialistic and hedonistic views
of life. We condemn infanticide, because we consider the feelings
which the prohibition cultivates to be of more intrinsic worth
than the good which it secures. Given the actual psychological
constitution of human nature, we may even judge it best that
such questions should not be raised at all : but, if they are
raised, there is no principle upon which they can be decided but
this of the comparative worth of the sentiments and type of
character encouraged by that prohibition and of the social advan-
tages whdtph might accrue from its relaxation. While I have
no doubt that on the whole the established rule is right, it is
possible that in certain extreme cases the Christian sentiment
has been pushed too far, and that in the case of actual monsters
or beings entirely destitute of human intelligence, in which it
is possible to draw a fairly definite line, and in which the life
ihat is preserved is as valueless from a moral as it is from
a hedonistic point of view, an exception might be made 1 .
1 It appears that this was the recognized doctrine both for Church and
State in Christian countries in the seventeenth century : see constant allu-
sions to it in connexion with the difficulty of defining the term 4 man ' in
the works of Leibniz. In ' Some Remarks on Punishment ' in the Inter-
national Journal of Ethics (vol. iv, 1893-4, p. 269 s</.), Mr. Bradley assumes
the whole of the modern aversion to infanticide to be due to what he would
regard as a pure superstition about the taking of human life. That the
feeling of the sanctity of life, assumed to be prescribed by direct divine
revelation, has historically exercised some influence in this direction can
hardly be denied ; but that so deeply-seated and widely-spread an ethical
change should be due entirely to * superstition ' or to merely theological ideas
(reasonable or unreasonable) is a view which will probably commend itself
only to anti-Christian fanaticism. The Buddhistic feeling against the taking
Chap, vii, iii] DUTY OF SELF-CULTURE 191
Another possible case in which a valuable sentiment has been
indulged to an exaggerated extent may perhaps be found in the
practice of preserving, at immense risk to warders and doctors,
the lives of homicidal maniacs.
Ill
I pass on to consider some other of the less obviously utilitarian
virtues and duties. Through all of them there seems to run the
general principle that a higher value should be attributed to
the exercise and cultivation of the higher that is to say,
of the intellectual, aesthetic, and emotional faculties than to
the indulgence of the merely animal and sensual part of our
nature. We regard knowledge, culture, enjoyment of beauty,
intellectual activity of all kinds, and the emotions connected
with those things, as having a higher value than the pleasures
arising from the gratification of the mere animal propensities to
eating and drinking or physical exercise or the like *. What
of life, however little in its exaggeration capable of rational defence, is at
all events sufficient to show that the sentiment with which we have to deal
is not the mere influence of a supposed divine command inherited^by Chris-
tianity from Judaism. Moreover, it is worthy of note that the piactice
advocated by Mr. Bradley was condemned by the best pagans. Even Plato,
to whom Mr. Bradley appeals, did not approve of the deliberate bringing
into existence of children expressly designed for the slaughter-house ; lie
sanctioned infanticide only in case of children born of patents who had
passed the prescribed age ; while Aristotle condemned infanticide for the
meie purpose of reducing population, and allowed it only in the case of
misshapen infants. For a sanction to ' social surgery ' of the wholesale
type advocated by Mr. Bradley we must descend below the level of the
' higher Paganism.'
1 We may legitimately attribute a higher value to athletic enjoyment
than to mere gratification of the senses because (a) athletic exercises
(especially in the form of games) in moderation are as conducive to the due
activity of the intellect as in excess (an excess very soon reached) they aie
detrimental to it, (b) because (especially in men of small moral or intellectual
capacities) they supply a useful antidote to still more animal propensities,
(c) because they do cultivate some moral and intellectual qualities. I might
say more on this side of the matter if it were not for the enormous exaggera-
tion of the moral value of athletics which is popular at the present moment,
and which is threatening the higher life of the nation no less than the
prestige of our commerce and ,the efficiency of our army. The fallacy of
the arguments commonly used by those schoolmasters who encourage the
i 9 2 IDEAL UTILITARIANISM [Book I
is the relative value of these things as compared with activities
of a directly social character, is a question on which we may have
to say something hereafter. It is not necessary to deny that the
encouragement even of such intellectual pursuits as are of the
least direct* and obvious social utility does lead to an increase of
pleasure on the whole, but our feeling about them is not based
upon any such doubtful calculations : and assuredly there are
many cases where an individual would find it difficult to justify
the devotion of his whole time to pursuits which bring pleasure
only to himself, and perhaps a very small circle of other people,
when it might be bestowed upon work which would undoubtedly
bring pleasure or a saving of pain to large numbers, if he thought
that all pleasure was of equal worth, that nothing was of any
value but pleasure, and that conduct was right only in so far as
it tends to increase of pleasure.
' This general principle of the superiority of certain parts of
our nature to others the more purely human to the more
animal is the root of two sets of virtues :
1. Of those virtues (though moderns are not much in the habit
of thinking of them as virtues at all) which consist in the
exercise of the higher intellectual and aesthetic faculties :
2. Of the virtues which consist in the due control or sub-
ordination of the lower or more animal impulses.
Of the first we need not speak more at length, except in
one connexion. This seems to be the place to say a word
about the source of our respect for Truth. Granted the great
social utility of being able to take a man's word (say in com-
mercial transactions), it is obvious, to my mind, that upon
hedonistic assumptions the exceptions would be much more
numerous than would commend themselves at least to a well-
brought-up Englishman. There would be no reason why we
should resist that tendency to say (in matters of no importance),
exaggerations of Athleticism seems to lie chiefly in assuming (i) that the
qualities undoubtedly cultivated by games cannot be cultivated in any other
way, (2) that the resource, initiative, self-control, habit of co-operation,
prompt action, &c., cultivated in one particular way will transfer themselves
to other spheres. Experience does not seem to favour either assumption. A
football player who excels in ' combination \is quite aa likely as other men
fco play for his own hand in real life.
Chap, vii, iii] VERACITY 193
at any expense to Truth, what would be agreeable to the hearer
which is, indeed, almost sanctioned by the current morality of
some civilized nations. It is of course possible to enumerate
many inconveniences particularly what we may call moral
inconveniences, loss of any opportunities of learning our defects
and the like which result from such a toleration of minor lying.
But, entirely apart from all such considerations, I believe that
we do on reflection recognize something intrinsically fitting in
the rule which prescribes that a rational being, endowed with
faculties which enable him to pursue, to cornmunicate, and to
love the truth, should use those faculties in that way rather
than for the purpose of making things appear otherwise than
as they are. So much appears to me to be the clear result
of introspection, and to be implied in the strongest moral
convictions of other men. But, it is equally easy to show
that to erect the principle of Veracity into a hard and fast
rule admitting of no exceptions is out of harmony with the
belief and the practice of the most conscientious persons. Where
some conventional use of language is sufficiently recognized,
formal untruths may no doubt be removed from the category
of lies proper by the principle that words must be taken to
mean what they are commonly understood to mean. In this
way we may defend the formal ' not at home/ the usual forms
of social and epistolary salutation, the hyperboles of courtly
compliment, though in proportion as these latter pass beyond
the minimum of fixed convention their justification becomes
more precarious. But this principle is inapplicable to the actual
deception practised by detectives, or by private persons towards
a brigand inquiring the whereabouts of his victim, or to the
denial of bad news to sick persons, or to lies told for the
preservation of important secrets, or to the employment of
ancient formulae (a political oath, a declaration imposed by some
ancient Statute, or a confession of faith 1 ), which nobody takes
quite literally, but with respect to which the limits of per-
missible latitude are not definitely fixed by universally under-
1 I have discussed this particular application of the principle in an article
in the International Journal ofiEihics, ' Prof. Sidgwick on Religious Con
fortnity,' vol. Ill (Jan. 1897).
R AS II D ALL I
I 9 4 IDEAL UTILITARIANISM [Book I
stood and accepted custom. Of course, in proportion as these
exceptions to the rule of truth-speaking are generally recognized,
part of the moral objection to them disappears. Though they
in some cases deceive for the moment the particular person to
whom they are addressed, they do not to any important extent
tend to weaken respect for truth, the habit of telling the truth,
and the general confidence in other people's statements.
It is no doubt much to be desired that a general under-
standing should be arrived at about such matters. But as
a matter of fact no such general understanding does exist,
and the absence of such an understanding forms an insuperable
objection to finding even in the case of Veracity the stronghold
of popular Intuitionism the case of an intuitively discerned
rule of conduct, universally binding without any consideration
of consequences. From our point of view we have no difficulty
in reconciling the ' intuitive ' basis of the virtue with the occur-
rence of exceptions based upon consideration of consequences.
Truth-speaking is a good, and so (still more) is that inward
love of truth of which truth-speaking is the expression and
the guarantee. It is almost invariably right to speak the
truth, because it is morally good both for ourselves to speak
it and for others to hear it, even when it is unpleasant to
both parties. But there are other goods besides truth-speaking
and truth-loving: and sometimes Truth must be sacrificed to
the more imperative claims of Humanity or of Justice. In
each case we must decide which is of the greatest worth the
speaking of truth and the habit of speaking it which my
lie would tend to discourage, or the life which my lie will
save, the injustice that it will prevent, the practical good which
it will enable me to do, the greater truth which it will enable
me to diffuse. There are even cases in which a lie has to be
told in the interests of Truth itself. An untrue statement
must be made to one man in order to keep a secret which
one has promised to respect ; a statement literally untrue must
be made that a higher truth may be taught or real liberty of
thought and speech advanced *.
1 This is admirably put by Hflffding (Ethik, p. 178) : * The duty of speaking
ihe truth amounts to this, the duty of promoting the supremacy of the truth
Chap, vii, iii] TRUTH-SEEKING 195
It will be observed that I have drawn no hard and fast
distinction between the duty of Veracity and the duty towards
Truth in a wider and more speculative sense. And it seems
to me of great practical importance to insist that t the social
duty of Veracity and the duty of scientific enquiry ultimately
spring from the same root, though in the case of Veracity
the duty is more directly and immediately dependent upon
our social relations. We ought not to lie one to another (as was
recognized by St. Paul), because we are * members one of another,'
because we do not like to hear lies told to ourselves, and ought
not to like them even when they are pleasant. Deception implies
want of respect for the personality of others. But, after all,
the distinction is only one of degree, for there is some social
reference even in the duty of seeking speculative truth. It
is under ordinary circumstances best for ourselves and for
others that we should seek and make known the truth in
matters of Religion and of Science as well as about the facts
of common life. It is important to insist upon the close
connexion between a very practical duty and one which is
intimately associated with the highest intellectual aspirations
for two reasons. It emphasizes the fact that the social duty
is not confined to the mere abstinence from false statements
(though of course the negative rule is capable of more exact
definition and admits of fewer legitimate exceptions than the
("die Wahrheit zur Herrschaft zu bringen") : the end may, however, often
be interfered with by speaking the truth. 1 So Sir Leslie Stephen : * The
rule, " Lie not," is the external rule, and corresponds approximately to the
internal rule, " Be trustworthy." . . . Truthfulness is the rule because in
the vast majority of cases we trust a man in so far as he speaks the truth : in the
exceptional cases the mutual confidence would be violated when the truth,
not when the lie, is spoken ' (A Study of Ethics, p. 208). So the insistence
upon a strict and literal interpretation of political or religious formulae ib
ofte*n opposed to the interests of Truth. The man too scrupulous to join a
party, some part of whose programme does not express his real mind, or to
subscribe a creed details of which are obsolete, often does less than he might
do to propagate the truth. Such protests often have their value, but it is
perhaps the tendency of conscientious persons to over-estimate this negative
devotion to Truth. In the case of the actual * pious fraud ' or ytvvalov ^cC8o
it is most commonly the minor, not the major premiss of the moral syllogisn
which is questionable. Such frauds would be justifiable if (when all thei
consequences are considered) they were socially beneficial.
2
196 IDEAL UTILITARIANISM [Book I
positive), and it further illustrates how the admission of ex-
ceptions is compatible with the fullest recognition of an 'intuitive'
basis for the duty. It may be recognized as a general principle
that it is a duty to seek- for and to reveal the truth in spite
of the fact that its discovery often seems to weaken or to
shatter beliefs, institutions, habits, traditions of high social
utility. Even in the most modern times I believe that this
duty is inadequately recognized, at least by those who are
in the habit of attaching most value to what are commonly
called moral considerations in the narrower sense of the word.
There is probably, in this country at least, too much, not too
little, unwillingness to communicate to the ignorant and the
young the results of Science' or of scientific Theology, for fear
they should weaken the reverence and the Morality which
have in the past been associated with beliefs no longer tenable.
And yet those who put the duty highest acknowledge that
it has at times to give way to others more imperative still.
No one but a fanatic thinks it a duty to proclaim the truth
on every subject, at all times and under all circumstances
in omnibuses and railway trains, before old and young, simple
and learned, on suitable occasions and unsuitable with equal
openness and equal insistence. Some respect we all recognize
it as right to show to the known convictions, the sympathies,
the limitations, the prejudices of our hearers; to the social
convenience of the principle that there is a time and place
for all things ; to a host of conventions, traditions, and under-
standings. The principle that all moral judgements are judge-
ments of value, while all value is comparative, supplies us
with an unfailing means of reconciling the highest reverence
for Truth with the limitations which all sensible and right-
feeling persons recognize to the duty of actively proclaiming it ;
although it does not (any more than any other ethical principle)
supply us with an infallible mode of discerning what is right
in difficult cases of ' conflicting duties V
1 Of course in the strictest sense there can be no * conflict of duties.' It is
no doubt true that the duty only begins when the conflict of traditional rules
or of real moral principles has been decided. If one supposed * duty ' is
overruled by another, the former is not really a duty. But the expression
is a natural and convenient one.
Chap, vii, iv] PURITY 197
IV
The due subordination of the appetites, their control in such
a way as is most favourable to the activity of the tigher part
of our nature, constitutes the virtue of Temperance in that wider
sense indicated by the Greek gg^gpo-rfy?^ translated by the
Schoolmen temperantia, but for which modern languages have
no single comprehensive name. In some ways the circumstance
is regrettable, as it tends to oblivion of the fact that the same
consideration which dictates the control of the sexual impulse
dictates also moderation not only in drinking but in eating
and (it may be added) in respect of all the lower and more
animal pleasures. On the other hand it has the advantage
of emphasizing the fact that in the degree and kind of control
which the highest Morality imposes upon the sexual appetite
we have advanced beyond the mere moderation which com-
mended itself to the average Greek mind in the time of
Aristotle.
It is in, dealing with the virtue of Purity as it has been
understood by the Christian consciousness, and the higher
religious consciousness even outside the limits of Christendom,,
that hedonistic-utilitarian explanations of Morality breaJt-xiown^
most hopelessly. It is in reference to this virtue that the
developed moral consciousness does seem most nearly to assume
the form which Intuitionism gives to all ethical precepts
that of a prohibition to do certain acts, a prohibition which
gives no further account of itself, and which positively forbids
any calculation of consequences or admission of exceptions.
While strongly insisting that the moral consciousness in its
highest development does condemn all sexual indulgence outside
monogamous marriage, I should contend that this prohibition
admits of being stated in the form of a judgement as to the
ultimate value of an end. It is a certain state of feeling which
is pronounced to be of intrinsic value a state of feeling which
the clearest moral insight and the highest spiritual experience
of the race have decided to be incompatible with sexual in-
dulgence outside a relatively permanent monogamous union.
If the moral consciousness here seems to forbid all calculation
198 IDEAL UTILITARIANISM [Book I
of consequences, or comparison of values, it is because from
the nature of the case it is practically impossible that con-
siderations of social well-being should ever prescribe a departure
from the n^le. I will not attempt to discuss the wholly abnormal
circumstances in which it might be possible to conceive that
some great advantage, whether for country or for humanity,
might be obtained by submission to a single act of impurity
at the behest of a tyrant or the like. Without positively
.denying that such exceptions might conceivably be found, I will
only point out that even the absolute refusal to relax the
rule in however extraordinary a case would be quite compatible
with the doctrine that the morality of acts depends upon their
qQ&$eq&$nce3, for it may be held that such a refusal (when we
take into account its tendency to secure respect for the principle
in the eyes of others) is so great a good as to be worth any
sacrifice which has to be paid for it in any particular combination
of circumstances. The man or the woman who brought suffering
on family or country by heroism of this kind would not be
setting up an arbitrary categorical imperative against the true
interests of the human race, but simply interpreting the true
interests of the race by a non-hedonistic standard of value.
I have said that the law of Purity is the moral precept which
admits of the most exact definition and which gives rise to the
smallest possibility of exceptions of a kind which will appeal to
men of highly developed moral nature in modern Christendom.
But it is worth pointing out that there is a side on which the
law is less capable of exact and universally accepted definition,
and on which it involves questions obviously incapable of settle-
ment without reference to social consequences. There is a con-
sensus, within the limits indicated above, that sexual indulgence
must be limited to monogamous marriage. But as to the exact
conditions which constitute a lawful monogamous marriage the
consensus is certainly much less complete in particular upon
two points, upon the question of prohibited degrees and the
question of divorce. With regard to prohibited degrees, nothing
much need be said, since it is generally admitted by those
who do not feel that society is bound for all time by the
decision of the early Church, or of Roman Emperors and their
Chap.vii,iv] MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE 199
ecclesiastical advisers, that the limits must be determined by
considerations of social convenience in the ordinary sense of
the term. The only way in which the adoption of a non-
hedonistic standard will be likely to modify our attitude towards
the question will be in reinforcing the demand that the higher
moral aspect of marriage shall be allowed due weight as well as
the question of mere materialistic convenience. We shall ask
not merely whether the prohibition of marriage with a deceased
wife's sister is most conducive to the convenience and enjoyment
of widowers and their families, but whether the principle that
marriage-relationship shall be regarded as equivalent to blood-
relationship tends to heighten the general ideal of the marriage
bond. I do not contend that this consideration will practically
be likely to modify the decision to which we should have come
on other grounds. On the question of divorce, however, this
aspect of the matter becomes of paramount importance.
Those who take the highest view of the marriage-tie for
practical purposes, we may as well say, those who adopt the
Christian view of marriage are agreed in insisting that it
is part of its ideal that such unions shall be permanent. The
ideal of marriage is a spiritual union of a kind which absolutely
forbids any voluntary termination of it, even independently
of the interests of children, which are also no doubt best secured
by the greatest attainable permanence. The question whether
under particular circumstances, when this ideal has not been
reached, the dissolution of the marriage with liberty to marry
again is or is not the less of two evils involves precisely the same
kind of comparison of goods in this case of very heterogeneous
goods which we have seen to be necessary in every ethical
judgement. Here, as usual, the comparison is not wholly a
balancing of higher good against lower : there are moral advan-
tages and moral disadvantages on both sides. On the one hand
there is the moral advantage of insisting upon the idea of per-
manence, in forcing people to enter upon marriage with the
deliberate intention of doing all that in them lies to make it
a permanent and a spiritual union and not a mere partnership
based upon interest and terminable at pleasure : on the other
hand there are the obvious moral objections to the prohibition of
aoo IDEAL UTILITARIANISM [Book I
re-marriage where cohabitation has become impossible. The
question does not seem to be one which admits of any universal
solution without regard to circumstances of time and place :
and it is f,o be observed that the moral problem is here not
precisely the same as the political problem. It is one question
whether people aiming at the highest ideal of life ought to
marry again in certain circumstances : it is another question
whether, if people wish to do so, the State should prevent them.
The question is, therefore, one to which the State may quite
intelligibly give one answer, and the Church, which is a voluntary
society for the promotion of the highest life, a somewhat different
one. On the other hand any appearance of discord between the
morality of the Church and the morality of the State is itself
a grave source of moral perplexity and relaxation : on such
matters the State, at least in Protestant countries and with the
majority of their inhabitants, is a more powerful moral educator
than the Church. I will leave the subject with the remark that on
this question there is likely to be a grave difference between the
solutions offered by hedonistic and by non-hedonistic Utili-
tarianism. The logical Hedonist will attach much greater im-
portance than the ethical Idealist to the hardship involved in
the prohibition of re-marriage to an offending party 1 9 and much
less to the social importance of inculcating, even at the cost
of real hardship to individuals, a high and spiritual ideal of
marriage.
Another question connected with the definition of Purity
is raised by the change which is actually passing over the
morality of Europe with regard to the relation of the sexual
instinct to the procreation of children. The subject deserves
a passing mention because we have here a great unsettled
problem of Ethics in which differences of ethical theory may
have a vital bearing upon practical questions of immense moment :
and it is good even from the most purely theoretical point of
view to bring our ethical theories into contact with real practical
1 I regard the prohibition of marriage even by the Church to the inno-
cent party in the case of adultery as clearly incapable of rational justification
(whatever may be thought about the question of the guilty party) : the
Eastern Church has always observed this distinction.
Chap.vii,iv] AN ETHICAL PROBLEM aoi
problems. In Christian countries there has been a tendency
until recently to condemn all restriction, even of the most purely
negative kind, to the number of births, and to represent it as
a moral duty for married persons to bring into tl\e world the
largest number of children that is physically possible. The time
is past when such a precept would have been defended on the
ground that a maximum increase of population is in itself, in all
circumstances, a desirable end ; though our solution of the
problem may be seriously affected by our view of the degree
of urgency which the population question has reached. Every one
but a Pessimist will admit that the population of a country
ought to be kept up or even (so far as this can be done without
lowering the quality of its life) to increase ; and that therefore
it is a moral duty on the part of married persons to be willing
to undertake the responsibilities of parentage : that is part of the
ideal of marriage. It does not follow that it is desirable that
population should increase with a maximum rapidity : if that
were so celibacy would be immoral. But even apart from the
population question, there are many considerations which may
reasonably be urged against the assumption that large families
are always a good thing : and these considerations are not
all of a hedonistic or materialistic character. There is the
wife's health, the interference with other than purely domestic
employments, the loss of educational advantages which the
increase of family may entail upon every member of it. Of
course if it is considered desirable that the increase of families
should sometimes be restrained by rational considerations, the
morality of such restraint may depend much upon the method
adopted. Methods which involve ' interference with nature '
are open to objections which cannot be urged against the method
which involves nothing but self-restraint during certain periods.
The question is one which cannot be discussed in detail here,
though it is one which urgently demands free and candid
examination. My object here, as throughout this chapter, is not
so much to discuss and to settle detailed questions of Casuistry as
to point out the method by which they ought to be solved. In
this, as in other cases, if, we are not to prove unfaithful to the
method we have adopted, we must not fall back upon the short
203 IDEAL UTILITARIANISM [Book I
find easy method of saying that we have an intuition that all
such methods are wrong. We must fairly estimate on the one
hand the evils of all sorts, moral, intellectual, hedonistic, which
are produced by the over-multiplication of families to the indi-
viduals primarily concerned and to the community in general,
cm the other the goods which may be secured by the contrary
practice, and compare them with the good and evil involved in
the proposed remedy the value or unvalue which we attribute
to the act in itself and to its subsequent effects upon health,
upon character, and upon the whole ideal of life which it ex-
presses and tends to foster. We must pronounce on the side
on which we judge the balance of ' good ' to lie.
The other branch of the Greek self-control (trta^potnlvq) is the
one to whicli the term Temperance has generally been confined
by modern usag$. There is a disposition to narrow it still
further to the duty of moderation in drinking, whicli has nearly
succeeded in eliminating from modern Morality the idea that
there is anything disgraceful in what medieval Ethics styled
1 gulosity ' - over-eating or excessive addiction to the ' pleasures
of the table J at whatever expense of money or (what is the same
thing) of human labour. When taken in the narrower sense
of moderation hi drinking, there is undoubtedly no duty that
can be more easily or convincingly inculcated on the most purely
hedonistic grounds, so" lung- *L ib is understood to forbid merely
habitual excess in the use otfcilcohol or similar stimulants. And
of course occasional exces/may be condemned on account of the
great probability that It will lead to more frequent acts of
the same kind. Nevertheless, the question of the immorality
of occasional drunkenness is one upon which there will be,
as it seems to me, a real difference between the verdict of hedon-
istic and of ideal Utilitarianism. The hygienic ill-effects of
getting drunk ,6nce a month are probably not so bad (for many
men) as the t Aing of two glasses of port every day after dinner.
For home men the former are in all probability a negligible
quantity, while the two glasses of port would mean certain gout
or chronic dyspepsia. On hedonistic principles an occasional act
of drunkenness would only be condemned because it might lead,
in the man himself and others, to habits of excess which would
Chap, vii, iv] TEMPERANCE 203
not be innocent, and under many circumstances there is littlo
risk l that such an act will lead to habitual excess. And yet the
healthy moral consciousness docs condemn as intrinsically de-
grading even the most occasional act of deliberate drunkenness.
On the method of ideal Utilitarianism such a condemnation will
be justified without any elaborate attempt to prove the existence
of remoter social ill consequences. We sec the act to be intrin-
sically disgusting, and there is an end of the matter a .
It will be observed that in some of the obligations usually
included under the name of Purity and in tho duty of Temper-
ance we have clear instances of self -regarding duties. It is true
no doubt that no kind of wrong-doing is without social ill effects,
but in some cases the social ill effect may be simply the encourage-
ment of the like violations of self -regarding duty in others.
There would be no objection to such encouragement unless the
act were wrong in the individual case. The duty of Sol I"- culture
of developing one's intellectual and aesthetic capacities in
.so far as is compatible with the fulfilment of social obligations
is another self-regarding duty. On the method of hedonistic
Utilitarianism a man on a desert island would have no duties
except to get as much pleasure as possible, and perhaps to
preserve his capacity for future service in the event of his
rejoining society. The latter contingency being, in the case
supposed, highly problematical, it might be urged that an
Alexander Selkirk would best observe the precepts of tho
Utilitarian creed by seeking to increase his pleasure to a maxi-
mum point, even though the effect of such indulgence would
be to incapacitate himself for future service, and to hasten his
end. c A short life and a merry one ' would be the aim of any
1 I Jo not say none. The loss of self-respect which arises from a first act
of drunkenness may invblve grave consequences, but this IB so just because
the man does not really believe that drunkenness is only wrong so far as it
diminishes pleasure.
2 Of course by drunkenness I mean the voluntary extinction of conscious-
ness -and self-control for no purpose but momentary pleasure or satisfaction
of impulse. If alcoholic poisoning were a suitable anaesthetic for medical
purposes, its use might undoubtedly be as justifiable as that of chloroform.
Jn normal circumstances it is- obvious that there cuu be no iniuotcr good
effects to outweigh the immediate evil.
204 IDEAL UTILITARIANISM [Book I
such consistent Utilitarian who thought that a longer life of
higher pursuits would not so effectually extinguish the misery
of solitude as ' the short vehemence ' of some carnal pleasure.
On our theory it would be the duty, even of the man accidentally
separated from society and little likely to rejoin it, to cultivate
the higher part of his nature and with that view to moderate
his indulgence in such lower pleasures as might be open to him.
Among the virtues which are based upon the principle of
the due subordination of lower to higher impulses may perhaps
be included the virtue of Humility. This virtue is unlike the
various forms of Temperance inasmuch as the impulse which
is subordinated is not of a purely animal character : pride or the
high estimation of self is a feeling which, though it may have no
doubt an instinctive and almost animal impulse as its basis,
arises in its human form from desires peculiar to a rational
nature. There is no passion, I may remark in passing, which
more obstinately refuses to be resolved into a desire of pleasure
on the one hand or into any other impulse, such as love of power,
on the other. The love of power is no doubt closely connected
with the tendency to self -estimation and self Assertion, but it is
not the same thing. Love of power is itself a very clear instance
of a ' disinterested desire, 5 though the fact is often forgotten by
Hedonists owing to the plausibility of the attempt to resolve
it into love of the pleasures which power will bring. But love
of power is not the same thing as pride : it has a closer affinity
with vanity. The pleasure of self-approbation can only be
explained on the supposition that there is already a love of self-
approbation which cannot be resolved into a desire for the
pleasure.
The virtue of Humility seems to call for some further exami-
nation because it is often brought forward as a palmary instance
of the non-utilitarian, and even the non-teleological character,
of our highest ethical judgements. From the point of view of
hedonistic Utilitarianism the approval of Humility could hardly
be justified except on the ground th%t most people are prone
to an over-estimation of self (which involves obvious social
Chap, vii, v] HUMILITY 205
inconveniences), and that it is therefore desirable to aim at the
opposite state of feeling in the hope of reaching the desirable
mean. But it is not only from a hedonistic point of view that
we may feel a difficulty in admitting that there can fye anything
virtuous in an untruthful estimate of one's own powers, attain-
ments, or achievements, whether in the moral, the intellectual,
or any other sphere. The Idealist will feel bound, more even
than the Hedonist, to aim at Truth ; and it may be doubted
whether the undiscriminating exaltation of Humility, con-
sidered as an under-appreciation of self, is the best means of
attaining this end. It might be urged that it is more likely
to lead to profession, on occasions when such profession
will be belauded, of an estimate which is not really enter-
tained. And yet it can hardly be seriously maintained that
there is nothing of permanent worth in the Christian ideal
of Humility beyond a common-sense precept that it is well
to think rather less of oneself than one is naturally inclined
to do for fear of thinking too much. The frequent exaggerations
and occasional gross aberrations of Christian sentiment on this
matter may be admitted: and yet we have only to think of
Aristotle's revolting picture of the high-souled man (jue
to realize that even.the least Christian modern Moralist will recoil
from that proud insistence upon one's own merits which is more
or less the tendency of all pagan thought, at least till the second
century of the Christian era, upon this matter. The solution of
the difficulty seems to be that we should approve a truthful
estimate of one's own powers and merits as being most favour-
able to moral progress, to intellectual self-development, and
to social usefulness; but that we should disapprove of any
habitual dwelling with satisfaction upon one's own capacities
01? one's own merits for two reasons. Any true or worthy con-
ception of the moral ideal places too great a gulf between that
ideal and the actual performance (in his own view) even of
a good man to permit him any great self-complacency at the
thought that he is better than the majority of his neighbours-
1 Ethic. Nicomach., IV, 3 (p. 11236). Of course I am aware of the
explanations by which all superior people are accustomed tn
Aristotelian ideal.
ao6 IDEAL UTILITARIANISM [Book I
In most men at least this feeling will be strengthened by the
recognition that the difference between themselves and their
fellows is largely due to the influence of others in the present or
the past, apd not to any efforts which begin exclusively with
themselves. To use theological language, the good man will ascribe
his goodness to ' grace/ recognizing that his good qualities are
due in the first instance to parentage, influence, example, social
tradition, education, community, Church, and ultimately, if he is
a religious man, to God : he will care for goodness too much for
its own sake to treat it as a ground for self-satisfaction at his own
achievement as compared with that of others, 1 And that brings
us to the second ground upon which the high ethical value of the
Humility may be considered to rest. The good man cares too
much for others to derive pleasure from the thought that they
are worse than himself. His highest goodness is too much
pervaded by the impulse of self-communication to be regarded
as a private possession which is enjoyed because it is he that has
it rather than some one else. The Saint cannot help being
aware that he has certain qualities of character which many
men lack, but so far from wishing to keep his virtues to himself
he will wish that they were common as the air of heaven, that
' all the Lord's people were prophets/ He will, moreover, recog-
nize in others goodness, or at least capacities of goodness, which
will prevent his treating the worst of men with anything
1 It may be objected that if a man is to ascribe his virtues (in a sense)
to God or the Universe, so may he his vices. Humility will be saved at the
expense of Remorse. In so far as this difficulty is theological or meta-
physical, I shall deal with it in the chapter on Free-will (Book III,
chap, iii) : from the merely ethical point of view I should contend that,
just as the consideration I am insisting on is not inconsistent with a due
approval of and satisfaction in one's own good qualities, so the reflection
that a man did not make his own original bad tendencies will not be
inconsistent with disapproval of those tendencies and dissatisfaction with
himself so long as he yields to them. The same consideration will
condemn an exaggerated contemplation of one's own original bad ten-
dencies no less than exaggerated self-complacency at one's good ones.
If the good man will be more disposed to dwell upon the share of other
persons or of the Universe in the production of his good qualities than
upon their share in the production of his had ones, that is because it is
morally healthier, more conducive to moral progress, to do so.
Chap, vii, vi] SUICIDE ao;
approaching contempt. When those capacities are unrealized,
he will feel sorrow and pity rather than smug self-complacency.
It is not so much by his opinion of himself that the Aristotelian
' magnanimous man ' disgusts us as by his contempt for other
people. Humility then turns out to be no separate, distinct,
isolated, non-social virtue l a sort of arbitrary appendix to the
code of duty to one's neighbour introduced (as seems to be
suggested in some quarters) by special divine decree for the
express purpose of showing the inadequacy of all rational prin-
ciples of Morality. The duty flows directly from the general
principle of the individual's subordination to the whole society.
Any attempt to cultivate the virtue in and for itself is likely
to be suicidal: it is simply one particular aspect of the ideal
attitude towards the moral ideal on the one hand and towards
one's neighbour on the other. Pride means self-absorption ;
Humility is simply the consequence of absorption in something
higher and something wider. Just as true Benevolence does not
involve absolute forgetfulness or neglect of self, so true Humility
does not demand a voluntary ignorance of one's real capacities
or character, or forbid the assertion of one's claims in ways con-
sistent with due respect for the claims of others. Humility only
involves a due subordination of self-love to those social impulses
in the satisfaction of which alone the true or higher self-love can
attain its end. True Humility is but an aspect of true love
of one's neighbour.
VI
The question of Suicide is one of so exceptional a character
that a writer on Ethics may fairly be asked how he proposes
to deal with it. It will be unnecessary to enlarge upon the
various utilitarian reasons against suicide in the vast majority
of 'cases. Even if life be hedonistically not worth living, it
1 That Humility is really a kind of Charity is well recognized by St.
Thomas Aquinas, who is entirely free from the medieval tendency to encourage
excessive self-debasement. He condemns * Pusiilanimitas ' as severely as
Aristotle. In principle he exactly hits the weak points of the Aristotelian
ideal when he condemns the vainglorious man, because ' appetitum gloriae
suae non refert in debitum finem, putaad honorem Dei, vel proximi salutem '
(Summa TheoL, II, Pt. ii, Q. 132).
IDEAL UTILITARIANISM [Book I
is possible to do something to diminish its miseries. Only if
there were reason to hope that the practice could be largely
imitated, would a pessimistic Hedonism include suicide among
its duties. It is only when a man's life becomes burdensome
to others as well as to himself that the hedonistic Utilitarian
would seem logically bound to sanction it. When, however,
life is looked upon as possessing value on other than hedonistic
grounds, it can no longer be pronounced to have lost that value
the moment it ceases to yield a balance of pleasure on the whole
either to the individual or to society. This consideration is
amply sufficient to condemn the act in a vast number of cases in
which it might seem rational enough on hedonistic grounds.
It would not tend to a right estimate of the relative importance
of the higher and lower goods for a man to give up the struggle
to live nobly the moment he begins to doubt whether it is
hedonistically worth the pain that it costs, or for society to
allow him to do so as soon as his services cease to bring it a net
gain of pleasure. It may be thought, however, that even allow-
ing its due weight to this consideration, there are extreme cases
in which it becomes difficult to defend the peremptory rule
of modern Christianity when once it is admitted that pain is an
evil. There are times when life seems to have lost its value
from an intellectual and a moral point of view as well as from a
hedonistic one. When life has reduced itself to a slow and pain-
ful process of dying, why, it may be thought, should we prolong
a useless agony which seems to be as incompatible with moral
effort as with enjoyment of life ? On this question I will only
make the following remarks, premising that they are not intended
as a full and adequate discussion of the subject :
(i) It is impossible, as I have several times remarked, to con-
struct de novo an ideal of human life without taking into
consideration the actual constitution of human nature, including
feelings about conduct which from a purely rational point of
view seem difficult to account for. I do not regard the exis-
tence of such feelings as final arguments for or against particular
kinds of conduct. They cannot dispense us from the necessity of
passing upon them our judgements of value. It is always possible
that such feelings, however strong and widely diffused, may
Chap, vii, vi] SUICIDE AND IMMORTALITY 209
in some cases be feelings which Reason must disregard. But when
in a general way the feeling commends itself to us as possessing
high moral value, or as intimately associated with what possesses
high value, the wise man will hesitate to defy it in particular
cases, even though a priori he might have been inclined to
doubt whether its value is great enough to overbalance what
is sacrificed to it.
(3) Although the value of the higher life is not dependent
upon its duration, the comparative value of higher and lower
goods may be considerably affected by the answer which is given
bo the question how long the consequences of moral effort may
be expected to last. There are many cases in which I should
myself be unable to regard as rational the prohibition of suicide
without admitting the postulate of Immortality. The good will
us possible even in extrernest agony, but the good will is not all
that is necessary for Well-being ; and it does not seem possible
bo decide whether the continuance of moral discipline is worth
the prolongation of an existence from which all else that gives
value to life has departed without asking what are to be the
fruits of this moral discipline, whether it is rational to hope for
another state in which the character thus formed may have
further opportunities of expressing itself in moral activity and
3f producing that happiness without which all other good must
be incomplete. I may add that this is almost the only case
^unless we include also the somewhat parallel question of infan-
ticide) in which the answer to any detailed question of Ethics
2an rationally be affected by the answer that is given to a purely
theological problem. Our attitude towards Morality in general
bhe whole tone and temper of our ethical life is likely to be
profoundly modified by our acceptance or rejection of fundamental
bheological ideas ; but I hardly know of any other detailed ques-
tion of Casuistry (except of course those connected with what
[nay be called in the narrower sense religious or ecclesiastical
Juties), about which what is the rational solution for a Christian
>r a Theist could be pronounced irrational for one who does not
,hink it reasonable to entertain even the hope of Immortality, 1
1 I may by anticipation explain that I do not regard any external authority
is infallible.
BAJ3HDALL J P
IDEAL UTILITARIANISM [Book I
(3) We shall hereafter have to consider the weight which
an individual ought to attach to those ethical judgements of
other men which have taken shape in established rules and
institutions, and in particular to the ethical judgement of the
best men in a word the place of Authority in Ethics. This
is precisely a case in which the wise man will feel bound to
remember the great weight of authority to which the absolute
rule against suicide may appeal 1 . A strong feeling against
suicide seems to be the spontaneous deliverance of the moral
consciousness, wherever the Christian view of life, with its ideas
of discipline, education, or moral probation, and its sense of
responsibility to a divine Father, is accepted. It was the accept-
ance of this faith by a society in which suicide was one of the
commonest ways of quitting life which created the modern
tradition on the subject. The strength of the feeling is the more
remarkable in the entire absence of any express prohibition
either in the Jewish or the Christian scriptures. Any one who
sympathizes with this general view of life will give its due
weight to this accumulation of authority before he proceeds
1 No doubt it may be urged that there may be just as many possible
opportunities of moral discipline in another life as there are in this,
and that we might as reasonably refuse to inoculate against small-pox,
on account of the moral discipline which small-pox may involve, as refuse
to cure a diseased life by a voluntary death. (Cf. Hume's Essay on Suicide.)
I should submit that the two cases are* apt parallel. We do know tolerably
well the consequences of curing disease or refusing to cure it, and we judge
that, though there is some good to be got by voluntary endurance of pain,
there is more good to be got on the whole by fighting against it, and using
one 1 s life for work and for enjoyment. In the case of Suicide we do not
know enough about the consequences of the two alternatives to make such a
comparison of moral advantages and disadvantages. We do not know whether,
if opportunities of moral discipline and self-improvement are voluntarily
thrown away here, other such opportunities will be afforded in another
life. I freely admit, however, that such merely negative considerations
would not be sufficient to condemn Suicide, but for the strong moral instinct
against it which seems to accompany a certain stage of moral development
an instinct so strong that it supplies (for those who believe that the course
of things is directed by Reason towards an End) a presumption that it has
a purpose in the economy of the Universe. I admit that such instincts and
the presumptions founded upon them are not final : but a man ought to
be very sure of his ground before he overrules them.
Chap, vii, vi] SOME PROBLEMS 211
to introduce either in theory or practice an exception to this
rule, even in those extreme cases where his own unassisted moral
consciousness might have felt disposed to do so.
I have been speaking of the general rule. There ae no doubt
exceptional cases in which suicide, or something which it is
difficult to distinguish from suicide, would be generally approved.
Where a sufficient object is to be attained by it, the voluntary
courting of death becomes the sublimest heroism: and, if it
be held that only the actual wielding of the weapon or voluntary
swallowing of the poison constitutes suicide, a little ingenuity
might possibly reveal exceptional cases where an unselfish
object of great importance could only be achieved by such an
act of self-slaughter. The strong feeling against multiplying
such cases or accustoming men even to contemplate their possi-
bility is, as I have contended, a healthy one. I will only venture
to suggest a doubt whether the idea that it is an absolute duty,
under all circumstances, to prolong life to the last moment
at which medical skill and care can prolong it is not sometimes
carried to extremes. It is a remarkable fact that when it was
rumoured that the imprisoned Europeans in Pekin had deter-
mined in the last resort to shoot themselves and their wives,
rather than face certain torture and dishonour at the hands
of the barbarians, not a word was heard in condemnation of that
resolve. When the alternative between a more or a less painful
form of death is brought about by disease and not by human
agency, are we bound to choose the more painful ? May it not
at least be said that, when disease has reached a certain point,
the Physician may frankly recognize that to save pain rather
than to prolong life should be his primary aim ? And perhaps
this is not going much beyond the actual practice of the medical
profession in recent times.
I cannot but feel that in my treatment of this question I may
seem to some to be hesitating between a frank acceptance and
a thorough-going rejection of what are commonly called ' Intui-
tions.' But the reason for this is, I believe, to be sought in the
nature of things, in the real difficulty of distinguishing mere
feelings or aversions which may be only prejudices due to
inheritance or environment or superstition from real judgements
P 2
2i a IDEAL UTILITAKIANISM [Book I
of value *. And yet I am clear that the two things must be
distinguished. Incest is not wrong simply because it shocks
me, but because I judge that the feeling which revolts from
incest is one which deserves respect. The idea of eating rat's
flesh inspires me with horror, but under some circumstances
I am clear that it would be a duty to eat it. There are cases
where it is less easy to discriminate between pathological
aversion and moral condemnation. The only approach to a test
by which to effect such a discrimination that I can suggest
is to put the question does the spontaneous aversion or apparent
intuition disappear after full reflection upon the act itself as well
as upon all circumstances and consequences ? If an intuition an
apparently unaccountable repugnance to some kind of conduct
persists after a due consideration of all the consequences of
yielding to it, it may probably be taken to represent not merely
a feeling, but a feeling to which the moral Reason attributes
intrinsic value. If it disappears, it may be dismissed as a
pathological affection, due to mere education or environment,
which it is rational to ignore. The aversion to cruelty remains
even when we have satisfied ourselves that coursing causes
an amount of pleasure to some Englishmen and bull-fighting
to most Spaniards which greatly outweighs the pain caused
1 ' As knowledge arises unperceived from the excitations of experience, it
develops a host of prepossessions, partly true, partly erroneous. . . . Just in
the same way there arise from the original nature of the mind and the
silently working influences of circumstances many prepossessions, some true
and some erroneous, concerning what we ought to do ; if we examine our-
selves, we find that at first it is only belief in Duty in general and in
binding laws of action that stands out with clearness and self-evidence ; but
what these laws are, and how far we can comprehend them in their purity,
depends partly upon the influence of external conditions of life, which
moderate or excite our blind impulses, partly upon the accuracy with which,
in reflection, we separate the general commands of Conscience from the
individual forms in which, as applicable to the particular circumstances of
our own life, they first pi-ess themselves upon us ' (Lotze, Microcosmus, E. T., I,
pp. 710-1). How far a study of the psychological and evolutionary origin of
our moral intuitions or instincts may assist the process of discrimination
between permanently valid moral judgements and inherited prejudices
or survivals of an earlier morality, I have considered in a later chapter
(Book III, chap, iv).
Chap, vii, vii] DIFFICULTIES 313
to hare and bull and horses. On the other hand a Jew or an
eastern Christian probably experiences no less horror at the
thought of eating blood-pudding, and a strictly educated Scotch-
man at the thought of Sunday music. But in these cases, when
the man learns the history of the traditions about Sabbath-
observance and the eating of blood, he ceases to attach any
moral value or authority to the scruple, though for a time
the mere subjective feelings may retain something of their old
intensity.
In most cases it is possible in this way to break up an intuitive
moral feeling into the feeling and the judgement that accompanies
it. But in other cases this analysis is by no means easy. I do
not believe that there is any infallible logical or psychological
process for distinguishing between real judgements of value and
mere prejudices or valueless instincts, any more than there is
any infallible receipt for correct reasoning. If there were,
the difficulties both of ethical speculation and of practical
life would for the most part disappear. But the difficulty
of the process, of which such a case as that of suicide may
be considered the extremest illustration, contains in it nothing
to make us doubt: (i) that Morality ultimately rests upon
immediate judgements of value ; (2) that a feeling whether the
feeling arises from the contemplation of the act or from the act
itself can legitimately be a ground of action only when ap-
proved by a judgement of value ; (3) that no moral judgement
can be considered final in which the moral Reason has not
contemplated all the foreseeable consequences of an action before
passing its judgement of value,
VII
So far it has been assumed that the moral criterion is con-
stituted by the effect of the action upon the good of mankind.
It seems unnecessary at every turn to add * and of animals in
so far as their good can be promoted by human action ' : but
in strictness (as was contended by John Stuart Mill), this ought,
I believe, always to be included. The idea of taking into con-
sideration the good of animals will no doubt seem to many
t i
*I4 IDEAL UTILITARIANISM [Book I
extravagant. A disposition to minimize the intelligence of animals,
and the importance of their sufferings, is a traditional prejudice
of the metaphysical mind. The prejudice was no doubt in-
herited frcnn Theology, but prejudices of theological origin
often continue rampant in the philosophical field long after
Theology, more in touch with changes of popular sentiment,
has got rid of them. Philosophers will not now, like the
Cartesian who denied feeling to the brutes or Spinoza who
admitted it 1 , boldly pronounce that we may do what we
like with the animals. But still there is an unwillingness
to admit that the sufferings of animals really matter. It is,
we are told by writers of the school of Green, not in the
interest of animal well-being, but in that of our own humanity
that we ought to avoid causing them unnecessary suffering.
I have already dwelt upon the illogicality of this position in
speaking of the question whether pleasure is part of the end
for mankind. The same considerations which apply to the
case of human pleasure apply also to that of animals. If the
suffering of animals is no evil, it cannot be inhumane in me
to cause it. If it is an evil, it must be my duty to prevent
it. The well-being of animals then whatever well-being they
are capable of seems to me quite distinctly to possess some
value, and therefore to form part of that good which constitutes
the ethical end. From a practical point of view no doubt
the duty becomes very much more of a negative than a positive
one. For it rarely happens in practice that we can do much
1 * Nee tamen nego bruta sen tire : sed nego, quod propterea non liceat
nostrae utilitati consulere et iisdem ad libitum uti, eademque tractare, prout
nobis magis convenit ; quandoquidem nobiscum natura non conveniunt et
eorum affectus ab affectibus humanis sunt natura diversi ' (Ethica, P. IV,
Prop. XXXVII, Schol. I). Such is Spinoza's quite logical deduction from
the theory which bases my neighbour's claims simply upon the fact that my
good and his are ' a common good/ and not on the fact that each has value.
Perhaps the first Philosopher to assert strongly the duty of humanity to
animals was Schopenhauer, who condemns Kant for resting it merely upon
the tendency of cruelty to spread from beast to man, instead of treating
animals as (in their way) ends in themselves (Die Grundlegung d. Moral., 8,
E. T., p. 94). The claims of animals are fully recognized by Hflffding (Efhik,
pp. 172, 173) : ( That the beast is not to be treated as a mere means, follows
at once from his capacity for pain/
Chap, vii, vii] DUTY TO ANIMALS 315
to promote the positive well-being of animals, at least of animals
not in a state of captivity; and, although we do assign some
value to the well-being of domestic animals, it is, we think,
of very small value in comparison with that which we set
upon human well-being. While, therefore, we should condemn
the infliction of needless torture upon the brutes, we should
generally condemn any large expenditure of human energy
in ministering to their comforts and luxuries. What is the
comparative value of animal pleasure or of the avoidance of
animal suffering as compared either with human pleasure and
pain or with the higher good of man is a question on which
wide differences of opinion exist, as is shown by the much-
debated question of Vivisection. I do not propose now to
discuss that problem in detail. I will merely say that from
the point of view which I have taken up it is not possible
either to deny that it may sometimes be right to inflict unmerited
suffering upon an animal or to declare that no amount of animal
suffering can be of any importance when compared with the
smallest amount of human convenience or the smallest accession
to human knowledge. The whole question is one of comparative
value : and that is one which no formula can settle l .
It will be observed that I have assumed that the sole good
of which animals are capable is pleasure, and that for them there
exists no evil but pain. Such is the only hypothesis on which,
in our profound ignorance of animal minds, it seems reasonable
to act. No doubt it would be difficult to deny that the domesti-
cation or education of animals, in some cases amounting almost
to their participation in human friendship, may constitute a sort
of higher good, and may be looked upon as possessing something
more than a merely hedonistic value : but I cannot follow an
enthusiastic writer in the International Journal of Ethics who
has lately contended that animals have a right not merely to
pleasure but to ' self-realization V
1 The only adequate and philosophical discussion of the question which
I have seen is to be found in Edmund Gurney's essay in Tertium Quid. He
decides for a moderate and strictly regulated permission of Vivisection.
8 The Eights of Animals, by Henry S. Salt (Jan., 1900).
316 IDEAL UTILITARIANISM [Book I
VIII
The vievi of Ethics which has now been sketched lacks a
recognized name, and it is a misfortune that it does so: for
modes of thought which have no names often fail to obtain
the currency of those which have. The term Utilitarianism
is irretrievably associated with Hedonism; and the word In-
tuitionism, the only creed which is popularly recognized as
the opposite of Utilitarianism, is inevitably suggestive of the
crude and absurd theory that the morality of an act can be
determined apart from its consequences. And yet the view
expounded in this chapter has been widely held. It is the view
of Plato and of Aristotle, though in them there is always a
tendency to make Morality consist in the pursuit of the individual's
own well-being, unhedonistically understood, strongly as it was
asserted, especially by Plato, that that individual's own good
was essentially bound up with that of his society. It was the
view of all the older English Moralists, in whom Platonic and
Aristotelian traditions were universalized by Christianity the
view of Cumberland, of the Cambridge Platonists, and (sub-
stantially) of Clarke. It was equally the view of the Moral
Sense school, which arose when in Locke the rationalistic
tendency had sunk back into Theological Hedonism : for Hut-
cheson, the author of the famous 'greatest happiness of the
greatest number 1 ' formula, recognized the superior 'dignity'
of some pleasures and of some persons as compared with that of
others. It was very seldom, indeed, that the proposition that
Morality consists in promoting the true well-being of human
society was ever formally denied before the time of Butler in
England 2 and of Kant in Germany 8 . The ethical system of Kant
1 Hutcheson actually used the phrase ' greatest numbers.'
2 And by him explicitly only in the Dissertation. In the Sermons he still
often adopts the Utilitarian test, though he treats conscience as a sort of
magical key to Utility.
8 I do not say that the proposition was always positively asserted. This
was prevented partly by the influence .of ideas of Natural Rights derived
from the conception of Natural Law and partly by the idea of particular
Chap, vii, viii] INFLUENCE OF KANT
(assisted in England by the influence of Butler and his followers)
has produced a hopeless confusion between the
Morality con8iste^jn^^D^tin^.gajBnd and the question what
th JSiig. From that confusion Moral Philosophy^ has hardly
yet emerged: and we still occasionally find eminent writers
arguing that Morality consists in doing certain things that one
feels a mysterious prompting to do without knowing why one
does them or seeking to harmonize and co-ordinate the isolated,
instinctive, unanalysed deliverances of one's moral consciousness.
But on the whole there is observable a very general tendency to
come back to the view of the older seventeenth-century writers,
and to assert that Morality consists in the promotion of true
human good, but a good of which pleasure is only an element.
Janet in France, in Germany Lotze (though he has hardly
elaborated a Moral Philosophy), and more recently Paulsen,
may be mentioned among the writers who have contributed
to this tendency 1 . If it is not the view of Hegel, in whom Moral
Philosophy is practically merged in political Philosophy, it
is at least the view of many who call themselves his disciples 2 .
And yet the system remains without a name. Non-hedonistic
Utilitarianism might serve the turn, though a definition by
negation is unsatisfactory. Idealistic Utilitarianism would do
better, though the term is too apt to suggest a metaphysical,
instead of a purely ethical, position. Professor Paulsen has
suggested that * teleological ' Ethics should be contrasted with
unteleological or ' f ormalistic ' Ethics 3 . This is an excellent
classification, but unfortunately we still lack a neat and recog-
nized term to denote the view of Ethics which is at once teleo-
logical and anti-hedonistic. On the whole, perhaps, the term
4 ideal Utilitarianism 4 ' seems the best that is available. Eudae-
precepts npt discoverable by Reason but enjoined by express divine Revela-
tion.
1 Lotze often approaches very near to the position of pure Hedonism, but
he is saved from it by his admission of a qualitative difference in pleasure.
2 Notably Dr. McTaggart, if we are to include that very original thinker
among 'Hegelians.' I may also mention Mr. Moore's Principia Ethica
as a striking expression of the same view of Ethics.
9 A System of Ethics, Eng. T/ans., by Prof. F. Tilly, 1899.
4 In so far as he is teleological and not hedonistic, I might include among
2i8 IDEAL UTILITARIANISM [Book I
monistic Ethics might better serve to distinguish such a view
from the rigorist or ascetic theory which refuses even to include
pleasure in its conception of the end ; but (through the persistent
misrepresentation of certain writers) the term Eudaemonism has
become too much confused with Hedonism to be wholly free
from ambiguity. The term Utilitarianism will perhaps suf-
ficiently suggest that we do estimate actions by their tendency
to promote human good, and ' Utility ' will always carry with it
some suggestion of pleasure ; while the qualification ' ideal ' will
remind us that the good for which we seek is not a conception
got by abstraction from a number of empirically given experiences
of pleasure or pain, but an ideal set up by rational judgements
of value passed upon all the elements of our actual experience.
the supporters of ' Ideal Utilitarianism ' the distinguished German thinker,
Edward von Hartmann, whose writings appear to me to be the moat im-
portant of recent contributions to the subject. But von Hartmann insists
that the true end, and consequently the true Ethic, is not positively but
negatively Eudaemonistic (' privativ-eudamonistische '). This seems to imply
three differences from ordinary Hedonism : (i) Inasmuch as positive happi-
ness or good of any kind is unattainable, the object of the moral man must
be to diminish the evil of the Universe, partly for the sake of the persons
immediately affected, and partly with a view to assist the efforts of the
Absolute to reach the one ultimately desirable good (all consciousness being
necessarily attended with more pain than pleasure) a relapse into its
original state of Unconsciousness ; (2) the true ethical end must include
other elements of Value besides pleasure (' Unter dem Gesichtspunkte eines
ethischen Zweckes ergeben sich andere Wertbestimmungen fur alle Binge und
Seelenvorgange als unter dem Gesichtspunkte des ftsthetischen, religitisen,
eudamonistischen,intellektualischen.' EthischeStudien^. 128) ; (3) Morality,
though an end-in-itself to us, is from the point of view of the Universe merely
a means to a further end (as to this see below, Bk. Ill, chap. ii). It is clear
that the first and the third modifications are dictated by a pessimistic
system of Metaphysics which I do not share, and seem to have no necessary
connexion with the second, which is not at all suggested by the term
' negative Eudaemonism. 1 With this reservation his view of the relation
to each of the various elements in the end hedonistic, intellectual, moral
seems to me peculiarly well balanced, except that his desire to show the un-
attainability of positive Well-being makes him exaggerate the difficulties
and underestimate the utility (restricted as I myself believe it to be) of
the 'hedonistic calculus.' All these difficulties would equally have to be
met in determining how to attain a minimum of pain.
Chap, vii, ix] MR. BRADLEY'S OBJECTIONS
IX
Some of the objections most frequently urged against such
a view of Ethics will be considered in our later books. But
there is one to which I may briefly reply at once. The view
that we have arrived at is that the morality of our actions is to
be determined ultimately by its tendency to promote a universal
end, which end itself consists of many ends, and in particular
two Morality and pleasure. Against this position it may be
objected that if two (or more) goods are brought together, neither
of them will remain unaltered. The different ends cannot simply
exist side by side : the difference between them must be ' tran-
scended/ * That two elements should necessarily come together,
and at the same time that neither of them should be qualified
by this relation, or again that a relation in the end should not
imply a whole which subordinates and qualifies the two terms-
all this in the end seems unintelligible V I have alluded to this
objection here because it seems to be directed against an ethical
position more or less resembling my own. It is easy enough to
expose any system to ridicule when the critic deliberately intro-
duces into the statement of it features which have no place in the
minds or the writings of those whom he criticizes, and ignores
much which they both think and say. I do not know any writer
who has maintained that the good consists of two elements good-
ness and virtue which are unaltered by their relation to each other.
At all events, in these pages nothing has been said, and nothing
is implied, about the different elements in the end not being
qualified by the relation in which they stand to one another:
and much has been said of a directly opposite tendency. I have
insisted that the recognition of differences among pleasures means
the qualification of pleasure by other elements in consciousness
knowledge or virtue or whatever it is, and that, on the other
1 Bradley, Appearance and Reality, 2nd ed., p. 426. The criticism is indeed
directed against the idea of a good consisting of only two ends happiness
and goodness for which the present writer does not contend, but in prin-
ciple the objection might equally be brought against any view which recog-
nized a good consisting in a number of goods.
IDEAL UTILITAKIANISM [Book I
hand, the idea of pleasure is so intimately bound up with all that
we call good that it is impossible to form any conception of an
ideal Virtue or contemplation of Beauty which includes no kind
or degree of pleasure. We can give no account of 'the good*
without breaking it up into various ' goods ' ; and yet no one
element in the good can be unaffected by the relation into which
it is brought in the consciousness of the person enjoying it with
the other elements in that good. In particular, the value which
is set upon the good will determines the kind of pleasure
which can be regarded as good by the good man. What the
benevolent man regards as good for self is a different thing from
what a selfish man regards as his good. The pleasure which
is derived from culture is a different thing from the pleasure
which comes from other sources just because the goodness of
culture does not lie solely in its pleasantness. For the ideal man
placed in favourable circumstances it will be impossible to draw
a sharp line between the good for himself and the good for
others : for he finds his good largely in activities useful to
others, and the indulgences which apart from their bad effects on
others he might enjoy he can enjoy no longer when he knows
those effects. The ideal end or good for man is not a number of
goods lying side by side and having no relation to one another,
but a particular kind of life in which various elements are
harmoniously combined. Undoubtedly the elements are altered
by their relations, just as the notes of a chord or the instruments
of an orchestra produce together an effect which is different from
what each of them produces by itself. But there could be no
musical notation unless we could distinguish these elements and
speak of the whole the chord or the Jhiarmony as produced by
their combination. That the whole is the sum of the parts is
true, though it is not the whole truth : for it is equally true that
the whole is more than that sum. Every attempt to distinguish
the elements of which the ideal good is made up involves some
abstraction. But, as no one has taught us more convincingly
than Mr. Bradley himself, all thought involves abstraction. We
could give no intelligible account of the good except by regarding
it as a combination of goods. Further reply to Mr. Bradley's
somewhat lofty and contemptuous remarks upon the tendency
Chap, vii, ix] GOODS AND THE GOOD
of what he calls < popular Ethics 1 ' must be left to the further
course of our argument. The objections apply to every system
of Ethics which has attempted to give any intelligible account of
'the good* that is to say, to almost every systejp of Ethics
except perhaps Mr. Bradley's own. They all represent the
good life as an ideal in which many distinguishable elements are
harmonized and combined 2 . From such a view Mr. Bradley is
estopped by his doctrine of an essential and unavoidable con-
tradiction in the deliverances of the moral consciousness a
doctrine which will be dealt with in another chapter. Mean-
while, it may be observed in passing that Mr. Bradley's own
objection can be retorted with some effect upon his system, in
which ' self-assertion ' and * self-sacrifice ' are pronounced equally
good in complete isolation from each other without any attempt
being made to build up a coherent and harmonious ideal of life
in which each shall find its proper place. If the moral conscious-
ness were incapable of making such an attempt, Mr. Bradley
could not be blamed for leaving the matter there : it will here-
after be contended that the moral consciousness lies under no
such incapacity, however difficult in detail may be the problems
to which this collision gives rise 3 t
1 No writer is really so much open to the objection just mentioned as
Kant himself, whom even Mr. Bradley will hardly treat as a representative
of 'popular Ethics.'
9 Dorner is right in protesting that 'das Sittliche eine Totalitat, eine
Einheit ist, die nicht mosaikartig sich zusammensetzen lasst ' (Das menach*
liche Handeln, 1895, p. 53),
8 Book II, chap. iii.
CHAPTER
JUSTICE
WE have so far been engaged in considering the nature of the
various goods, or elements in the good, which it is the individual's
duty to realize for human society. But to say that it is our
duty to produce the greatest possible good is a principle which
cannot by itself determine the right course of action in any
single instance. There remains the question, ' Whose good is to
b^J^QUaotedl,' JWe want a principle J^ui<ifijus ,aa to the
distribution of good among tha various persons c^j&fele of enjoy-
ing it : and we have so far been content to take as our guide
Bentham's principle * Every one to count for one and nobody for
more than one/ though we have already given to this maxim
the somewhat different form ' Everybody's good to be treated as
of equal value with the like good of every one else.' This
modification must now be further explained and justified. I have
already said as much as seemed necessary about Justice in the
popular sense of the term, the relative or conventional Justice
which prescribes equal treatment of different individuals upon
the basis of some established and accepted social order or con-
stitution or system of understandings. We have here to deal
with the absolute Justice by whose precepts the morality of the
very social order or constitution or system of understandings
must itself be determined. If in this chapter I shall seem to
be straying into subjects which belong more properly to Political
Philosophy or even to Political Economy than to Ethics, I may
plead that any treatment of Ethics which does not touch upon
such questions must necessarily be theoretically barren and
practically unprofitable. Man is a social being, and it is impos-
sible to determine his duties, or even to examine into the abstract
Chap, viii, ii] CONFLICTING IDEALS 323
nature of duty, without dealing to some extent with his relations
to the social environment in which he finds himself.
Now, when we ask ' What is Justice ? ', we are at once met by
two conflicting ideals, each of which on the face gf it seems
entitled to respect f % In the first place t^jjrind^^
human being is of equal intrinsic value, and is
equal respect, is one which commends itself to common sense,
a principle which may naturally claim to be the exacter expres-
sion of the Christian ideal of Brotherhood.^ On the other hand
the principle that the^godLfi>^gkt~tQ be preferred to, the .bad,
that men ought to he rewarded, according to their goodnoaa or
according to their work, is one which no less commends itself to
the unsophisticated moral consciousness. We shall perhaps best
arrive at some true idea of the nature of Justice by examining
the claims of these two rival and prima facie inconsistent ideals
fhft-Jdftaj of flqMfility. considered in the sense of equality of con-
sideration, and foe idftn.1 of j^afc rernmponet t>r reward and we
shall perhaps do well to start with the suspicion that there will
be a considerable presumption against any solution of the problem
which does not recognize some meaning or element of truth
in each of them.
II
In examining the doctrine of 'eyery one to count for one
and nobody, Joe J&QI&. tb&U, me ' in Jits Benthamite form, it ia
essential to bear in mind the context in which it stands. It was
put forward by Bentham (not, of course, for the first time)
as f M n fr> r *-hft diflfrihiifcinn nf Imppmoflft He saw clearly
enough that his ' greatest happiness ' principle, or the principle
of greatest good (however good be interpreted), stands in need of
this or some other supplementary canon before it can be available
for practical application. It is obvious that in a community of
a hundred persons we might produce the greatest possible happi-
ness or good in a variety of ways. It would be quite legitimate,
so far as the greatest happiness principle is concerned, to give
the whole of our disposable good to twenty-five out of the hun-
dred, and to ignore the other seventy-five, provided that by so
doing we could make each of these twenty-five four times as
3*4 JUSTICE [Book I
happy as we should make each of the hundred by an equal
distribution ; and, if by an unequal distribution we could make
twenty-five people five times as happy, or give them five times
as much ggod (whatever the true good be) as we could procure
for each of the hundred by an equal distribution, we should
be absolutely bound by our * greatest good ' principle (taken by
itself) to ignore the ^venjj^fizg, and distribute our good ex-
clusively among the five-and-twenty. The principle which
Bentham adopted as a solution of such problems is the maxim
' Every one to count for one and nobody for more than one/ He
failed to see how impossible it is to establish such a principle by
experience or to rest it upon anything but an a priori judge-
ment. Only a grammatical ellipse dispensed him from the
necessity of expanding it into the ' Every man ought to count
for one, &c.,' and so introducing an * ought' that mystical,
meaningless word of which he is said to have pronounced that,
if it is to be used at all, it ought to be banished from the
Dictionary.
^^jma^m^tibigi . c&m jjpt .assert ^that, eve^one .ought. J&L
receive an. equal .ahftre, Q! wealtlv ,or joL
social consideration, but simply equal consideraticui iB.
tribution of ultimatje^Qod*. Bentham was no Socialist; at heart
he was not much of a democrat. Equality of political power,
when in later years he advocated it, was for him merely a means
to secure that legislation should aim at giving every one, as far
as possible, an equal share of whatever 'good' legislation is
capable of securing. The value of the maxim is not much
affected by the fact that Bentham himself recognized no good
but pleasure.
Now so long as the amount of good would be neither increased
nor diminished by an equal distribution, the justice of such
la rule will hardly be disputed. Understood in this abstract
sense, the rule merely asserts that, if you have a certain quantity
of good to divide between A and B, you ought to give half to A
and half to B, so long as all you know about them is that one is
A and the other B, or * other things being equal/ or < so long
as there is no reason for preferring A to B. 9 How far the axiom
pught to be modified in its practical application by the fact that
Chap, viii, ii] THE BENTHAMITE MAXIM 2*5
A never does differ from B solely in being a different individual,
and what kind of inequality between A and B supplies reason-
able ground for an inequality in the shares assigned to them, are
questions which have yet to be considered. But it 0an hardly
^e denied that equality is the right rule for distributive Justice
in the absence of any special reason for inequality.
Our first difficulty arises in the case where an equal distribution
of good necessarily diminishes the amount of good to be dis-
tributed. It is clear that this is often the case. It is easy
to imagine cases where the difficulty occurs in connexion with
an actual distribution of a definite material good thing to a
definite and assignable number of persons. In a beleaguered
garrison nobody would question the justice of an equal dis-
tribution of rations; but supposing it were known that relief
could not arrive for a month, and that the provisions available
could -keep half of ihem alive, while an equal distribution would
ensure the slow starvation of the whole, there would be some-
thing to be said for casting lots as to which half should be fed
and which should starve. I do not maintain that the conditions
indicated could ever be exactly forthcoming, or even that the
course suggested would be actually the right one to take if they
were. But, if that course would not be right in the case sup-
posed, it must be for some other reason than its injustice. No one
would be bold enough to propose that the whole garrison should
starve simply to ensure an ideal equality between all the in-
dividuals concerned. The kind of Socialism that insists that all
should be miserable rather than that any one should be made
a little happier than anybody else has been justly described
as ' Individualism run mad.' In a less extreme form the difficulty
I have indicated is of constant occurrence. The Schoolmaster,
for instance, has to face the problem how far a whole class is to
be kept back that the ultra-stupid minority may learn some*
thing. And when we turn from detailed questions of individual
conduct to large problems of social and political action, the case
supposed is not the exception but the rule. "Nobody will deny
that the present (distribution of good things is excessively and
arbitrarily unequal. The jnost satisfied champion of the existing
social order will not deny that many people are badly clothed,
BABHDALL I Q
946 JUSTICE [Book I
badly fed, overworked, and otherwise miserable through no
fault of their own. And yet the most extreme advocate of social
reconstruction, who is at once sane and well informed, will hardly
deny that> any attempt to produce an immediate equality of
possessions, or of happiness, or of opportunity (whichever it be),
wojild only cure these inequalities by producing, in no long
period, a general dead-level of misery and want, or (to put it
at the lowest) by seriously diminishing the ultimate Well-being
of the country or the race. Here, then, an unequal distribution
has to be adopted in order that there may be something to dis-
tribute. Either we may say (from a rough, practical point of
view) that equality is a good but is not the good, and that
we must in practice balance the principle of greatest good against
the principle of equality, or (with more scientific precision) we
may assert that in such cases there is no real sacrifice of equality.
^fulfilled even in the case whore its practical-operation
seems to involve the height of inequality, just as the laws of
motion are fulfilled when two opposite forces neutralize each
other and produce rest. ^JLJEfeLtihe jndividual jis entitled
to Jsjsimgly equality of consideration. The individual has had
his rights even when the equal rights of others demand that
in practice he should receive no good at all, but even a consider-
able allowance of evil. It would be the height of injustice,
indeed, that the good of ninety among a hundred people should
be considered, and the Well-being of the remaining ten wholly
ignored. The ninety and the ten are entitled to consideration
precisely in the ratio of ninety to ten. The rights of the ten
would be grossly violated, if the ninety were to do what would
be best for themselves were the remaining ten out of the way ;
as, for instance, by dividing among themselves all the available
provisions, and giving none to the excluded ten. On the other
hand there are cases where it would not only be expedient, but
just, that ten men should die that the remaining ninety might
live, e.g. in war, where an indefensible position has to be de-
fended merely to delay an enemy's advance. In such cases the
minority gets its rights as fully as the majority, provided its
proportionate claim to consideration has been duly satisfied
before it was determined that the measure proposed was on the
Chap, viii, ii] EQUALITY OF CONSIDERATION
whole for the general good. David would have been guilty of no
injustice had his choice of Uriah the Hittite for the post of danger
been determined by purely military and impersonal considerations*
Not only does the principle of equal consideration not neces-
sarily prescribe any actual equality of Well-being or of the
material conditions of Well-being : when properly understood,
it does not favour the attempt to draw up a priori any detailed
list of the ' rights of man/ It is impossible to discover any
tangible concrete thing, or even any specific 'liberty of action
or acquisition/ to which it can be contended that every individual
human being has a right under all circumstances. There are
circumstances under which the satisfaction of any and every
such right is a physical impossibility. And if every assertion of
right is to be conditioned by the clause ' if it be possible/ we
might as well boldly say that every man, woman, and child
on the earth's surface has a right to sd?iooo a year. There
is every bit as much reason for such an assertion as for maintain-
ing that every one has a right to the means of subsistence, or to
three acres and a cow, or to life, or to liberty, or to the Parlia-
mentary franchise, or to propagate his species, or the like. There
are conditions under which none of these rights can be given to
one man without prejudice to the equal rights of others. There
seems, then, to be no ' right of man ' which is unconditional,
except the right jto^consideratjon that is to say, the right to
have his true Well-being (whatever that true Well-being be)
regarded as of equal importance in all social arrangements with
the Well-being of everybody else. Elaborate expositions of the
rights of man are, at best, attempts to formulate the most impor-
tant actual or legal rights which an application of the principle
of equality would require to be conceded to the generality of
men at a particular stage of social development, ffiflj ***-ftft
intn the oae supreme and unconditional
; and all particular applications
of that principle must be dependent upon circumstances of time
and place. What particular legal rights will, in certain con-
ditions of time and place, best conduce to each man being equally
considered in the distribution of Well-being, must be-ascertained
by experience.
228 JUSTICE [Book I
In practice most of the crude or dangerous misapplications
:> the doctrine of equality spring from the attempt to translate
ui abstract equality of consideration into an immediate equality
>f concrete possessions, or personal liberties, or political power,
or what not. Most of the objections to the doctrine may (I think)
be met by bearing in mind the distinction on which I have been
dwelling. Thus it might be objected to the principle of equality
that an attempt to realize the immediate equality of property, or
of some particular kind of property, might be good for the present
generation, though it would lead to ultimate anarchy. The
objection is met if it be remembered that future generations
have rights as well as the present. Generations yet unborn may
have the right to consideration; though that is obviously the
only right that they are at present capable of enjoying l .
Then, again, most of the cruder and more direct applications
of the equality principle involve the tacit assumption that
the legislator has at his command a definite quantity of happiness
or other good which he can distribute at his pleasure. ^
momenta .reflection showa that it is never 'goa
simply^ the conditions of good, that are capable of
trjjbu^d/ either by the State or by a private individual^ _This
is not (as has sometimes been thought) an objection to Bentham's
principle properly understood. It is always possible to aim
at an equal distribution of good, to attach equal value to each
man's good, to consider each equally, in so far as his Well-being
is capable of being affected by our action; but it is not always
possible actually to secure this equal distribution of Well-being.
Nothing that can possibly be distributed is a good under all
circumstances or to all persons. There is no paradise that some
people would not contrive to turn into a hell even for themselves.
It is obvious that equal conditions of Well-being will not
produce equal amounts of actual Well-being to persons of
differing mental and bodily constitution. The devotee of equality
as a practical watchword will probably say, ' Let the conditions
be equally distributed ; for the rest, the individual must take
1 If this mode of statement be thought paradoxical, it may be put in
another way that it is a duty now to respect the rights which future
generations will have when they are born.
Chap, viii, ii] NOT EQUALITY OF WEALTH 3*9
care of himself.' But such a rule of conduct would actually
violate the principle of equal consideration. For the end to
be aimed at is not equality of conditions, but equal Well-being,
or rather (as already explained) so much equality as ii consistent
with there being as large as possible an amount of good to
distribute. But actual equality in the distribution of any
concrete thing might not only diminish the amount to be
distributed, but might actually widen the inequalities in the
resulting enjoyment. A distribution of food, for instance, which
[took no account of the varying appetites and needs of different
individuals might produce a lower average of actual health and
enjoyment than an unequal distribution. To insist on according
the same measure of personal liberty to children and to adults,
to uncivilized men and to civilized, to the insane or half-witted
and to the sane, might actually result in lowering the real
Well-being which each and every one might enjoy under an
unequal distribution : the amount of liberty might be too great
for the Well-being of one class, and too small for that of the
other. When we come to the higher sources of human pleasure
or to those higher kinds of human good which cannot be
expressed in terms of pleasure, it is still more glaringly evident
that men's capacities for such goods vary enormously, and that
an equal distribution of their material conditions would not
result in an actual equality of enjoyment and would therefore
be opposed to the principle of equal consideration. We assuredly
should not effect an equal distribution of aesthetic enjoyment by
subjecting every citizen to a uniform course of artistic education.
The jj^i^_oL^iiu^a^^capacity for different kwls of good
, itself a sufficient condemnation of any attempt
to_equalize^ conditions irrespectively of the varying capacity
to^ u^^the^conditions and to turn.. them, (so to speak) into
Any social arrangements which should
wholly ignore differences of character and ability in the dis-
tribution of material goods would not only infallibly diminish
the amount of good on the whole, but might even militate
against the equal consideration of each individual in the dis-
tribution of it. It has gften been objected to the Benthamite
rule that it would require society to treat the drunken idler
3 3 o JUSTICE [Book I
as well as it treats the industrious and capable workman. Such
an objection implies a total misunderstanding of the principle.
To treat the drunkard in a way which would encourage him
in his drunkenness and his idleness to give him the wages
and the liberty which do conduce to Well-being in the sober
and industrious would not really be to consider his good as
much as theirs. It would really not be considering his true
good at all, to say nothing of the violation of other men's
rights involved in placing the man who makes no contribution
to the general good in the same position as those who do. To
reward the idler as much as the industrious (even if we supposed
that the reward would really be for his good) would be to make
him count not for one but for several ; since his support would
impose additional labour on the industrious members of the
community. To examine what social arrangements are best
fitted to secure a really equal consideration of each man's good
is no part of my present undertaking ; but it may safely be said
that no social arrangements will have that effect which do not
in some way secure that men's material conditions shall have
some proportion to their varying powers of utilizing them for
their own Well-being and that of the whole society.
Many people will be disposed to meet these difficulties by
suggesting the true idea of social justice is ' equality of oppor-
tunity. 1 I should be far from denying the great practical value,
within certain limits, of this ideal; though it would be easy
to show the impracticability of a literal realization of it: to
give everybody really equal opportunities the State would
have to supply every child with an equally good mother 1 .
But from a theoretical point of view, the ideal itself is open
to exactly the same objections as the ideal of equal distribution
when applied to so gross and concrete a matter as food. The
English navvy would not be given an equal opportunity of making
the most of his life by an allowance of food which would seem
wanton superfluity to a Japanese soldier 2 . Equally far removed
from the ideal of just distribution would it be to furnish equal
1 Of. Leslie Stephen's essay on ' Social Equality * in Social Eights and
Duties, vol. i.
9 The varying capacity for work is not here to the point.
Chap, viii, ii] EQUALITY OF OPPORTUNITY $31
educational opportunities to the dunce and the genius. Here
it would, indeed, be difficult to say on which side the inequality
would lie. The dunce might want three times the attention
that the genius would require in learning to read ^ while the
genius will require for the realization of his capacities a higher
education which the dunce is quite incapable of utilizing. It
will perhaps be contended that the man who is not capable
of profiting by it may be said to ' enjoy ' the opportunity as
much as the man who is. But this is clearly a mere faqon de
} parler. The opportunity is no more a good to the man to whom
Nature has denied the capacity for using it than a pair of
spectacles is a good to a blind man. But, if by * equality of
opportunity* is to be meant a simple equalization of external
conditions irrespective of the individual's power of using it,
if we are to eliminate from the inequalities which we are to
aim at equalizing all those which are due to the inequality
of Nature's bounty, such a principle will lead to some strange
results. In that case we shall have satisfied our duty to the
idiot by giving him every advantage that we offer to the
sane man, while we shall refuse to violate our ideal of equal
opportunity by providing him with asylums and keepers, which
the sane man does not want. The distinction between men
of different race, between the sexes, between the sick and the
whole, will have to be equally ignored l . In whichever way
equality of opportunity is understood, it leads to results which
would strike every one as absurd and unjust. * Equality of
opportunity/ however valuable as a rough practical application
within certain limits of some deeper principle, cannot be pushed
to its logical consequences without absurdity. It leads to such
absurdity because it is opposed to the principle of equal con-
1 Another more formidable difficulty arises if we extend our view to in-
equalities not of physical constitution, but of physical circumstance. If
every member of society or of every local community is to have the full
benefit of superior soil, climate, &c., we have Capitalism at once, though the
Capitalist is a group instead of an individual. On the other hand, we might
ask the Socialist who aims at equality whether he is really prepared to give
to the Laplander as much extra advantage as would compensate him for not
living in the Riviera, or to penalize the inhabitant of Johannesburg to an
extent which would put him on a level even with the Londoner.
JUSTICE [Book 1
sideration which commends itself to us as just, while it cannot
always be assumed that it will accord with the principle
of maximum good which is no less self-evidently reasonable.
Equality gf opportunity is only a rational maxim in so far
as it leads to greater good on the whole and to a more equal
distribution of that good. And it is always possible that some
measure of inequality of opportunity may lead both to the
existence of more good on the whole, and to a more equal
distribution of that good. The institution of the family neces-
sarily involves great inequality of opportunity, and yet it
is possible that the system under which each child is looked
after by its own mother leads to each getting a higher average
of attention than would be secured under a system of State
crkehes and boarding-schools, which after all would not eliminate
the necessary inequality of opportunity arising from the varying
capacity of different educators. While there can be little doubt
that a much greater measure of ' equality of opportunity ' is
socially desirable, it is not to be assumed that the total extinction
of more or less hereditary classes enjoying a certain superiority
of wealth, of culture, and consequently of opportunity, is neces-
sarily conducive to the public interest ; though the progressive
diminution of such differences is undoubtedly involved in every
attempt to raise the material, intellectual, and moral level of the
least favoured classes. So far as superior opportunity secures
on the whole superior efficiency in certain kinds of work by
which all benefit, the superior opportunity will receive a social
justification, and so be not unjust.
How far the principle of equal consideration requires or would
be promoted by an unequal distribution of actual goods is
a practical question which I do not desire here to discuss. Any
distribution of good things which the world has actually seen is,
of course, just as far removed from an equal distribution of
actual good as it is from an equal distribution of the conditions
or opportunities of Well-being. Whether, on the principle of
equal consideration, a particular step towards greater equality
ought to be promoted or resisted, will depend upon the question
whether, under existing conditions things being what they are,
human nature being what it is, and so on the change will be in
Chap, viii, ii] LIBERTY IS INEQUALITY 333
the interest of all, the interest of each being regarded as of
exactly equal importance. That equality of consideration would
be violated by immediate attempts at forcible and sudden social
reconstruction will be generally admitted. But thc^ is not all.
A certain liberty of action is, and always will be, a condition of
Well-being ; and liberty of action implies inequality. It implies
some power of appropriating to one's self the results of one's own
activity, or of disposing of them to others. Granted that
necessary work might be parcelled out by the State, it is difficult
to see how rational beings could occupy their leisure, either in
a way agreeable to themselves or in a way favourable to the
development of intelligence and character, without a power of
voluntarily disposing of their activities in such a way as to
constitute an inequality of enjoyment, either for themselves or
for persons immediately dependent upon them or favoured by
them. And it is impossible that those inequalities should not
be the parent of other inequalities. The man who has been
benefited by association with a man of exceptional talent, or
learning, or skill, will pass on his exceptional advantages to
others. A town which has been blessed with inhabitants of
exceptional energy and character will enjoy advantages which
the State could not possibly transfer to others, though it might
make it its business artificially to destroy them. A remorseless
application of the principle of equality would not only be fatal
to the family but would involve the enforcement of the unnatural
maxim of clerical seminaries, ^pas d 'amities particuli&res,'
At what point the attempt to realize equality ceases to be. on
the whole productive of a greater probability of good for each,
is a practical question which experience only will enable us to
decide. I merely want to point out (i) that some inequality is
5 (s) that there is only
^lwfWB.prActifift-b] ft w4. ftlways right, axu
since we can always (ideally) give
each individual equal consideration in making up our minds
whether this or that will be on the whole for the general good ;
and (3) that, while it is certainly a duty to aim at a social con-
stitution which shall bring about more actual equality of good,
it must not be assumed a priori that such equality will always
JUSTICE [Book I
be secured by increased equality of wealth or political power
or by any other kind of external equality whatever. The
principle of equal consideration certainly requires us to aim at
greater equality of actual Well-being, but only on condition that
violate the, equal xight of
enjoy as much good as it is possible for him to enjoy.
So far I have been able to contend that obvious objections to
the principle of equality properly understood do not really form
an objection to the principle of equal consideration to the doc-
trine that each man is entitled to an equal consideration at the
hands of the community; though the result of such equal
consideration, under given conditions, may be an exceedingly
unequal distribution of actual goods. But now I have to meet
a difficulty which is less easy of even theoretical solution.
Ill
It has already been indicated incidentally that it is not only
the less than normal capacity, but also the more than normal
capacity of exceptional persons, that may impose upon the
community unequal sacrifices to enable them to attain an equal
level of Well-being. Let us look at the difficulty in its least
serious form. The number of persons capable of the highest
intellectual cultivation and of enjoying the good incidental
to such high cultivation is unquestionably a small minority. If
such goods are to be enjoyed at all, they can only be enjoyed by
the few ; and yet to give these few the opportunity of such
cultivation imposes upon the community sacrifices of inferior
good (such good as can be enjoyed by all) quite out of proportion
to the number of those for whom the sacrifice is made. It may
be contended, of course, that the extra value of the services
of such persons to the community is well worth the social cost
involved in their long years of unproductive education or
preparation, the number of persons and (it may be) the expendi-
ture of material employed in giving that education, the waste
which (on any conceivable system of selection) will be incurred
by the education of persons who eventually turn out to be
unfitted for the highest work, and so oij. So long as that is the
case, we do no doubt escape the difficulty by our formula of
Chap, viii, iii] UNEQUAL CAPACITIES 235
equal consideration. These favoured persons may be allowed
advantages which the many do not enjoy ; but it is good for
each member of the community that they should enjoy them*
Once again, equality of consideration itself demands ^departure
from concrete equality. In this way our difficulty is fairly met,
so long as we confine our attention to such higher kinds of
culture and resulting Well-being as are of obvious social utility,
But when we come to what (though the word has somewhat
priggish associations) must, I suppose, be called 'the higher
culture/ the case is different. It is greatly to be feared that the
cost of higher culture to the community must always be con-
siderable. It may be doubted whether there is not a kind of
culture which demands for its vitality the existence of a class
invested with something more than an equal share of all that
makes life pleasant and attractive, that relieves from sordid
cares and gives room for the free expansion of individuality a
class with a good deal of leisure (at least in youth), a good deal
of freedom, an education of the kind that can only be kept alive
as an hereditary tradition l . But of course such a class can only
be maintained by enormous waste. The leisure will be wasted
in a large proportion of cases ; the liberty will be abused ; the
freedom to do with one's life what one pleases without justifying
it to the rest of the community, will, in a majority of cases, be
used to do with one's life what cannot be justified. Only a small
proportion of these favoured individuals will do enough fully to
justify their superior advantages. It may be said, indeed, that
a socialistic or communistic community might devise means for
keeping alive such a class if its social value be adequate to the
1 This view is unaffected by the fact that, where this class exists, indi-
vidual members of it (often the highest intellects) may come from the classes
outside it. They enter into and appropriate the tradition which is kept alive
by the favoured families. And it is, of course, superfluous to remark that by
the favoured class I do not merely or primarily mean what is called in the
conventional sense the Aristocracy or the Plutocracy (neither of which, as a
class, cares much for ' higher culture ' or contributes much to it), but a class
enjoying as an hereditary possession a more than average measure of wealth
or opportunity, and the existence of which is often no doubt more or less
dependent upon the richest class either by being recruited from it or by
supplying its needs.
JUSTICE [Book I
cost it involves. But, granting for the present this social value,
what is the probability of a whole community, organized on
principles of pure equality and accustomed to exact in all
department implicit obedience to its collective will, recognizing
the value of such culture * ? That, of course, is a practical
question which does not necessarily touch our theory. If such
a community would not recognize the value of a class which is
essential to the highest social Well-being, then to that extent
all attempts at greater equality of social conditions should stop
at the point at which the existence of this class begins to be
endangered, on the principle of equal consideration itself. But
all this is assuming the social value of the class. And yet may
there not be a point at which the benefits of ' culture ' cease to
be capable of very wide diffusion ? Is it possible to prove, either
a priori or a posteriori, that there may not be a final irreconcila-
bility between the higher Well-being of the few and the lower
Well-being of the many 2 ?
Many will be disposed to brush aside the objection somewhat
contemptuously. They will be disposed to say, 'Yes, there is
a certain exquisite polish of life which probably is not capable
of wide diffusion, which demands the existence of a few favoured
families with estates, and dividends, and large houses. It is
possible that, if an omnipotent Social Democracy were established
to-morrow, it would seriously diminish the present expenditure
upon professors and libraries in the German Empire. There would
be less "research" on matters but remotely connected with life.
Fewer monographs would be published. Emendations would not
flourish. Latin verse-making would lose the high market value
which it still commands in this countiy. There would even be
1 I need hardly say that many things which are now impossible might
become possible with the gradual education of the community.
2 I mean merely that something must be taken off from the lower Well-
being of the many, not that the condition of the many must be made an
absolutely undesirable one. It might be, of course, contended that it was
actually good that men of lower capacities should enjoy less than the largest
possible amount of the lower goods (eating, drinking, &c.). On this view
the difficulty will disappear, but this position postulates that all who are
capable of it have the opportunity of entering the favoured class. And this
ie just what no artificial arrangement seems capable of securing.
Chap, viii, iii] THE COST OF CULTURE 237
a general lowering of the standard of Greek and Latin scholarship.
Those who would still study Greek and Latin would have to be
content with knowing those languages, say, rather better than
even learned men are now content to know French anjl German.
And there would be fewer people to take an interest in
Aldine editions or old china. But all this is of very little
weight of very little weight even for the serious intellectual
interests of humanity at large. To urge such matters as
a grave objection to any policy which would bring us even
a step nearer the social millennium, is like justifying Egyptian
bondage, because without it, in all probability, the modern
globe-trotter would have had to eliminate the Pyramids from his
programme.'
Personally, I should have a good deal of sympathy with such
a reply, though I might feel less confident than our sanguine
Socialist that the vulgarizing rust, which might be the price of
a real advance towards social equality, would stop at the mere
polished surface of our intellectual life. But so far we are
contemplating comparatively trifling differences of intellectual
level say the difference between the intellectual level of Berlin
and that of a South American University. Let us now suppose
it were possible by some scheme of social reconstruction to win
for the great mass of European society the social and economic
conditions which may be attained by some communistic brother-
hood in the United States, but at the cost of extinguishing all
Science, all Literature, all Art, all intellectual activity which
arises above the highest level known in such communities.
That might possibly represent, even on the intellectual side taken
by itself, a higher kind of life than is now lived by the vast
majority even of European humanity. The extinction of the
' higher culture ' could not, therefore, be resisted on the ground
of the* diffused influence upon the community of the small
cultivated class. If asked whether we should as a fact resist
such a social revolution as I have contemplated in the interests
of tke higher culture, many of us would be disposed to answer, ' If
the programme included the bringing of human society at large up
to the moral level of a Moravian mission settlement, opposition
to it would be hard to justify/ If we confine our attention
238 JUSTICE [Book I
merely to the general diffusion of a low material comfort, a dull
contentment, and an education ranging between that of the
Sunday School and that of the Mechanics' Institute, we might
well be in<agreat doubt and perplexity. I for one should certainly
doubt whether, if I had the power, I could doom the world to
a continuance of our present social horrors, although their re-
moval might lead to the evanescence of research and speculation,
' sweetness and light/ full and varied exercises of the faculties,
and all the rest of it. Of course I do not assert for one moment
that such an alternative is now, or ever will be, in its naked
simplicity, presented to the social reformer. In the long run
(putting aside the influence of exceptional outbursts of religious
excitement) it is probable that moral and intellectual progress
are intimately connected. In the long run the diffusion of some
culture among the many is only obtainable by the maintenance
of a much higher culture among the few. But after all it is
easy enough to conceive circumstances in which we might have
to choose between the wide diffusion of a lower kind of Well-
being and a much narrower diffusion of a higher kind of life.
In the intellectual sphere, at all events, there is a higher life
which, if it exists at all, can only exist for the comparatively
few ; and, in certain circumstances, it is at least a speculative
possibility that the existence of such a life for the few should
only be purchasable by sacrifices on the part of the many
which are not compensated by any appreciable advantage to
that many. If under such conditions we pronounce that the
higher life ought not to be extinguished, then we do at least
depart from the principle of equal consideration, understood as
we have hitherto understood it.
In the cases already contemplated, some will perhaps doubt
whether the principle should be sacrificed or not. I will now
mention a case in which probably no one will hesitate. It is
becoming tolerably obvious at the present day that all improve-
ment in the social condition of the higher races of mankind
postulates the exclusion of competition with the lower races.
That means that, sooner or later, the lower Well-being it may
be ultimately the very existence of countless Chinamen or
negroes must be sacrificed that a higher life may be possible
Chap, viii, iii] ANIMALS AND MEN 239
for a much smaller number of white men l . It is impossible to
defend the morality of such a policy upon the principle of equal
consideration taken by itself and in the most obvious sense of
the words. If we do defend it, we distinctly adopt tl&e principle
that higher life is intrinsically, in and for itself, more valuable
than lower life, though it may only be attainable by fewer
persons, and may not contribute to the greater good of those
who do not share it.
I will add a case which calls still more indisputably for the
application of the same principle. When we say, ' Every one to
count for one/ we are no doubt thinking merely of human beings ;
but why are the lower animals to be excluded from consideration?
I should be prepared to say that in point of fact they ought not
to be wholly ignored. Their pain is certainly an evil, possibly
as great an evil, as equal pain in human beings apart from the
question of the activities with which the pain may interfere:
their comfort or pleasure has a value to which every humane
person will make some sacrifices. But few people would be dis-
posed to spend money in bringing the lives of fairly-kept London
cab-horses up to the standard of comfort represented by a sleek
brewer's dray-horse in preference to spending it on the improve-
ment of the higher life in human beings. The lives of animals
cannot be thus lightly treated except upon a principle which
involves the admission that the life of one sentient being may be
more valuable than the life of another, on account of its greater
potentialities apart altogether from the social utilities which
may be involved in their realization. However inconsiderable
the differences of capacity among human races or individuals
may be when compared with the differences between the lowest
man and the highest beast, the distinction that we make between
them implies the principle that capacity does matter. The claim
of the individual does after all depend upon his capacity for an
intrinsically valuable kind of life ; we cannot talk of the value of
an 'individual' apart altogether from the question what sort
of individual it is, and only the Hedonist will seek to judge of
* The exclusion is far more difficult to justify in the case of people like
the Japanese, who are equally civilized but have fewer wants than the
Western.
4 o JUSTICE [Book I
that value solely by the individual's capacity for pleasure. No
positive proof can, as it appears to me, be given that the higher
good of few and the lower good of many may not come into
collision. A.nd when they do come into collision, there are some
cases in which we should, I think, prefer the higher good of the few.
How far then does this admission modify our acceptance of
the Benthamite principle of equal consideration ? Only to this
extent that, if we still adhere to the formula ' every one to
count for one and nobody for more than one/ we must reduce it
to a still more abstract form. We may still say that every one
is to count for one so long as all we know about him is that he
is one l . We may still say, ' Caeteris paribus, every one is to
count for one/ But then, this will only amount to the assertion,
' Every one is to count equally, so long as he is equal ; but the
capacity for a higher life may be a ground for treating men
unequally.' Or more simply we may say ' Every man's good to
count as equal to the like good of every other man.'
While it is impossible to show that the claims of the few
possessing higher capacities for good will never conae into
collision with the claims of the many to such good as they
are capable of, there are some considerations which will, I think,
very largely prevent the necessity of choosing between the rival
claims in practical life. While we cannot theoretically demon-
strate that the best sort of life (in the intellectual region) will
always diffuse its benefits over the whole social organism, we
may in general find an ample justification for promoting the
higher culture of the few in the ultimate results of such higher
culture to the community generally. The principle of Election
has a place in Ethics and Politics as well as in Theology. It is
often right for governments and for individuals to bestow much
more than their fair share of attention upon the few on account
of the ultimate value to society of there being such a higher
class. We are, in fact, applying once more the principle that, in
the equal distribution of good, future generations have their
1 Or, as it is well put by von Hartmann, ' If Equity demands a distribution,
without respect of persons, that means only : all peculiarities of the person
which are irrelevant (unwesentlich) for the purpose of the distribution must
be put aside ' (Das sittl Beuwsstsein, p. 438).
Chap, viii, iii] PRINCIPLE OF ELECTION 241
share as well as the present. It is sometimes suggested that, in
the then condition of the world, Athenian culture and Athenian
democracy were impossible without slavery 1 . It would perhaps
be hard to show that the actual slaves of the time were much
better off for the intellectual and the political life in which they
had no share ; but it would not be too much to say that in the
forces which have ultimately banished slavery from Europe and
America, in the forces to which the modern democratic movement
owes its existence, that Hellenic city-life of which slavery was
the foundation is no unimportant factor. In so far as that
was so, slavery might claim a temporary and relative justifica-
tion. On the same principle, we might justify our compara-
tive indifference to the welfare of the black races, when it
collides with the higher Well-being of a much smaller European
population, by the consideration that if the higher life is ever
to become possible on any large scale for black men it can only
be through the maintenance and progress of a higher race. Still
more are such considerations applicable to the maintenance of
a culture or a civilization within a community from the benefit
of which large classes within it are at present excluded, though
of course the effort to extend the class that benefits by it should
go hand in hand with the effort that maintains and improves the
culture of the few. Such considerations will, it may be, practically
prevent the necessity of our actually claiming for a smaller class
any social expenditure (so to speak) but what can ultimately be
repaid to the society (though not always to the actual persons)
which makes that Well-being possible. Since, however, the re-
payment is made to future generations, it supplies no ground
for assuming that a communistic or ultra-socialistic community
would be sure to recognize the importance of such an expenditure.
It may be well, perhaps, to summarize the conclusions which
I have endeavoured to establish.
(i) It is a self-evident truth that in the distribution of ultimate
good every one should count for one, and nobody for more than
1 That Aristotle would have thought so there can be no doubt. But it
should not be assumed that had men arisen capable of appreciating the
essential injustice and the economic defects of slavery, Greek civilization
and Greek culture would have been the worse for an Abolitionist campaign.
KA8HDALL X B
JUSTICE [Book I
one, so long as all that we know about the persons in question
is that they are individual members of human society. This is
the ideal of Justice.
(2) The r equal distribution of concrete good things would
often produce unequal amounts of actual Well-being, and would
therefore be inconsistent with the principle of equal consideration.
Strict equality of opportunity equally fails to satisfy the require-
ments of ideal Justice.
(3) The equal distribution even of actual Well-being would
often produce a low total amount of good to be distributed, and
would consequently violate the equal right of each to have as
large a share of good as it is possible for him to have consistently
with respect for the like right in others. Practically this con-
sideration must involve much inequality in actual distribution.
The only equality that it is reasonable to aim at is equality
of consideration.
(4) All men are not capable of the same kind or amount of
good. While the enjoyment by some of such good as, from the
nature of the case, cannot be enjoyed by all is usually for the
good of all, and hence justified by the principle of equal con-
sideration, it is impossible to show that this will be invariably
the case. Individuals, or races, with higher capacities (i.e.
capacities for a higher sort of Well-being) have a right to more
than merely equal consideration as compared with those of lower
capacities. Hence the formula, ' Every one to count for one,
nobody for more than one,' must be interpreted to mean ' every
one's good to count for as much as the like good of any one else/
(5) In practice it may, however, usually be assumed that the
realization of such superior capacities by those who possess them
is for the ultimate good of the human race.
We have, so far, left out of account altogether all strictly
moral differences between man and man. We have left out of
account the question whether the share of good to be allotted
to each man, or rather (as we have seen) his share of considera-
tion in the distribution of good, ought ever to be more .than
another's on account either (from one point of view) of his
greater contribution to the common good, or (from another) his
greater virtue or merit. An answer to this question will
Chap, viii, iv] THEORY OF EEWAED $43
practically amount to a discussion of the second of the formulae
which purport to be an adequate expression of social justice
the formula, ' To every one according to his merits/ the theory
of just recompense or reward,
IV
I shall now proceed to examine this second formula which,
on the face of it, presents itself to many people as self-evidently
just and reasonable the theory of reward or just recompense.
This doctrine is apt to express itself in two forms. Sometimes
it is said that every one ought to be rewarded in proportion
to his merit ; at other times we are told that every one should
be rewarded according to the amount of his work or service
to society. Sometimes the maxim is * tf^^j^jaiaji^ flm>rd irg
to his merit ' ; at other times ' to ^yjgayjWMi jftfifiW^^
work. 1 /
Although, on a superficial view, these two formulae might be
accepted as practically identical, there is really a fundamental
difference between them. We may no doubt reduce both of
them to the form ' everybodjLJs_ jtojbe^j^warde^.^
his merit/ Bj^inJUheJ^
in the secpud in an economic, sense. A moment's consideration
will show that the two interpretations would lead to essentially
different results. A picture painted with the toes by a handless
man may show much more zeal, industry, perseverance, and
the like, as well as more skill and ability, than one painted
in the usual way. If the two pictures were of equal artistic
worth, the painters ought, according to the second formula,
to be rewarded equally ; while, according to the first, the toe-
painter should receive, it may be, ten or twenty times the reward
of the hand-painter. And this is by no means an extreme
<
1 I am here treating the formula in the sense in which it is usually put
forward as a rule for the actual distribution of concrete goods. If it
is put forward as a formula for the distribution of actual Well-being, its
application would have to be further modified by the principle which
has been already dwelt upon in connexion with the formula of equal con-
sideration the principle thatun equal wage will not secure ^qual Well-
being.
244 JUSTICE [Book I
illustration of the divergent consequences of the two methods :
for it is not easy to exaggerate the difference between the
maximum and the minimum of human talent, skill, strength,
or other capacities which determine the quantity and value
of the results produced by a given amount of labour. Let us,
then, examine the economic interpretation of our thesis first.
The theory that ideal Justice means paying each man in propor-
tion to the value of his work to the community looks plausible only
so long as we forget that economic value is essentially relative,
and not absolute. What we mean by the value of a given thing
is the amount of other things which will actually be given for
it under certain social conditions. But, when we are assuming
that the very constitution of society has been, so to speak, put
into the melting-pot when we are given carte blanche to
reconstruct human society in accordance with ideal Justice,
all the usual means of ascertaining value disappear. Our
ordinary ideas of value postulate that wealth is divided among
a number of individuals who, under whatever restrictions, are
free to barter one form of it for another. The value let us
say of medical attendance depends upon the amount of other
good things which people are prepared to give up in exchange
for medical attendance, under such conditions as the following :
(i) that the numbers of the medical profession depend upon the
number of persons who are induced to enter it by the advantages
which it holds out, as compared with other professions open to
the same class of persons; (2) that the profession requires
a certain expenditure upon education ; and (3) that this ex-
penditure is only within the reach of a limited number of
persons who have themselves or their parents accumulated
a certain amount of wealth, and become, to a limited extent,
capitalists ; and so on. I need not take further pains to show
that values, no less than prices, are fixed by competition l . The
1 All the conceptions employed by Economists* such as ' marginal utility/
' marginal demand/ ' consumer's rent/ and the like, seem to be in the same
case. It may be observed that even if some means could be discovered,
in the absence of competition, for measuring the extent to which different
commodities could satisfy the actual desires of men, this would be no cri-
terion of their true ethical value for those whb hold that good does not mean
what men actually desire. The ethical disquisitions of some Economists
Chap, viii, iv] VALUES ARE COMPARATIVE 245
very instance which I have chosen is, indeed, one of those in
which prices are not wholly fixed by competition; and, just
at the point at which they cease to be fixed by competition
(between different classes of workers, if not between individual
workmen), we cease to be able to express the value of the article
supplied. It is customary with general practitioners to regulate
their fees by the wealth of the patient, of which the probable
rental of his house is taken as a rough indication. Now, if
patient A pays io&, patient B pays 78. 6d., and patient C 5., for
a precisely similar visit, which fee represents the true value
of the commodity supplied? This is a question which it is
obviously impossible to answer. Now, in a community organized
throughout upon a non-competitive basis, it would be as im-
possible to express in general terms the value of medical attend-
ance as compared with other things that have value, as it is to
express the true value of those particular visits which are
remunerated according to the wealth of the patient. Value
is ascertained by competition. It implies that there is a limited
supply of the commodities in question, or at least a limited supply
of commodities in general, and that if you have one, you can't
have another. Now, medical attendance is precisely a com-
modity for which there is a by no means unlimited demand.
A socialistic State which should determine the vocation of all
its members, and provide their whole education, might very
conceivably secure medical attendance free for all its citizens.
If everybody could have as much medical attendance as he
required without giving up his share of any other commodity,
it would be clearly impossible to ascertain the economic value
of medical attendance to the community.
It may be said that these considerations would cease to be
applicable when we think not of the demand for this or that
commodity (which is always limited) but of the demand for
commodities in general which is practically unlimited. The
(even when they repudiate the hedonistic Psychology) seem to me to be
seriously vitiated by the assumption that such is the case. One of the great
objections to schemes for the immediate realization of the socialistic ideal is
that they would certainly involve an attempt 'to fix remuneration (including
hours of work) by reference to the wants at present felt, and the ideal of
* happiness ' at present entertained, by the average worker.
JUSTICE [Book I
case would not, indeed, be altered supposing the State undertook
to determine how much of each commodity the worker should
receive, and exchange were made as criminal as accumulation.
But what, if the worker were paid by tickets on the stores,
and each worker were allowed to take his day's allowance in
whatever form he pleased? Two cases are then supposable.
The State would have to fix the amount of one commodity
which should be exchangeable for another. If it undertook
to estimate the value of the article by reference to the amount
of skill, knowledge, training, &c., which it took to produce it,
we must suppose the problem which we are discussing already
solved ; since what we are in search of is precisely some common
ienominator by means of which to compare the value of watch-
making and the value of turnip-cultivation. If, on the other
hand (to avoid involving ourselves in a logical circle), we assume
that the quality of the labour is to be neglected, the only
criteria by which it is possible to ascertain how much of one
commodity ought to be served out as the equivalent of so much
of another will be (i) the amount of labour expended on its
production, (2) the amount of land or its products and capital
required for its production, capital being resolvable into
the results of past labour, and of the ' abstinence ' or waiting
which has saved it from immediate consumption 1 . On the
principle now contemplated, the worker who was allowed to
-take his pay in beef or in bread would, of course, have to choose
between several pounds of bread and one of beef, because it
takes more land to grow a pound of ox-flesh than to grow a
pound of flour. But this element in the relative value of
different commodities has, of course, nothing to do with the
value of the workman's work qua work 2 . Hence, the only
1 It seems unnecessary for our present purpose to discuss the economic
question how far land should be regarded as capital.
8 It may be urged that the worker whose work has involved expenditure of
capital, i e. ' abstinence ' or ' waiting/ should be remunerated for that ex-
penditure. But under such an ideal system as is here contemplated the
work which produced the capital would have been adequately rewarded at
the time ; and, when we presuppose an ideal distribution, there would be no
occasion for capital to be accumulated by c the voluntary saving of indi-
viduals, as the State would have provided all that was required out of the
Chap, viii, iv] QUALITIES OF WORK $47
way in which we can compare the value of two pieces of work
(on any hypothesis) is by their respective amounts*
Even then our difficulties are not at an end. What is
amount of work 1 Clearly not the time spent on it; for some
kinds of work are harder than others. But hardness is not by
itself a reason for additional remuneration, except in so far
as harder work is more disagreeable than lighter work, Some
very light kinds of work may become disagreeable by reason of
their extreme monotony ; while severe bodily exercise is to some
people a positive delight. Hard work may likewise become
disagreeable when pursued for such a length of time as would
not be disagreeable in the case of lighter work. But all that the
hard-worker can claim is that, in so far as his work is more
disagreeable than other work, he shall be compensated for its
disagreeableness, either by liberty to work for fewer hours, or
by other advantages such as more food, tickets on stores, &c.
It is possible that some system might be devised for comparing
the relative disagreeableness of work by ascertaining the amounts
of each which the average man would be willing to do for the
same remuneration, including under that term all the advantages
whether in leisure or food or other conveniences by which
a community might endeavour to equalize the conditions of
workers in different occupations. In that way it might be
possible to ascertain the quantity of work which different
commodities or services to the community cost. And quantity
of labour, in the sense explained, is the only criterion by which
we could measure the relative value of different kinds of work.
Although this reasoning seems to me to be unanswerable, it is
probable that to some minds it will be found too abstract to be
satisfying. ' What ! ' they will exclaim ; * do you mean to say
that the Physician does not perform a greater service to society
than the ploughman? Is he not therefore to receive a pro-
P9rtionate reward ? Granted that the destruction of competition
would prevent your measuring this relative value in terms of
8. d., the general sense of the community is surely equal
to the task of appreciating the relative importance of different
common funds. In speaking of 'capital* throughout this chapter I of
course mean * productive ' and not ' consumptive ' capital.
348 JUSTICE [Book I
services, and will act according to its innate sense of what is
just or appropriate/ I answer : Is it so clear that the service
of the Physician is so much more important than that of the
ploughman 1 At present we measure their relative importance
by the comparative difficulty of getting them. But with carte
blanche to postulate any form of society that he chooses, the
legislator would have no difficulty in making it quite as easy
to get medical attendance as to get bread. A sufficient number
of people will be educated as Physicians to secure that medical
attendance shall be forthcoming for every man who wants it,
and sufficient ploughmen will be provided to supply everybody
with as much bread as he can eat. And, when these two
conditions are secured, no further production either of bread
or of medical attendance will be of the slightest value to the
community *. If you can have enough of both, it is impossible
to say which is the more valuable. If you ask which is the
more valuable when you cannot have enough of both, it must
be admitted that the ploughman performs the more indispensable
service. Some of us would die or suffer without the Physician :
but we should all die without the ploughman or some equivalent
food-producer. If, then, this is the sense which you put upon
the principle 'To every man according to his work/ it would
seem that the ploughman should be paid more than the Physician.
But it is impossible to admit the justice of the principle thus
interpreted. The Physician would naturally say to the State,
' If I had known that I was to be served like that, I should
have wanted to be a ploughman too. And if you, for your
greater convenience, insisted that I should be a Physician, why
should I suffer on that account? You say, "Bread is more
necessary than medical attendance " ; but if you did not want
to have both, you should not have insisted on my being a
Physician/
It is evident that the real consequences of following out this
maxim, ' Every man according to his work,' would be very
different from those usually intended by at least one class of
its advocates. When they do not mean that equal work should
1 Foreign trade being, for greater simplicity, ignored. If corn IB exported,
it is, of course, not serviceable to the community 09 bread.
Chap, viii, iv] WORK AND FACULTY 349
be recompensed by equal advantages, they usably assume that
what is commonly considered the higher work, that which
employs the highest faculties, intellectual wotk, artistic work,
spiritual work, &c., should be remunerated more highly than
the lower, more mechanical, more animal work. Now, this
contention may be based on one of two grounds : either (i)
on the ground that by such work a higher service is performed
to the community, or (2) that the higher faculty should receive
higher remuneration simply because it is higher. In the first
case, I am unable to see the justice of the demand. The man
who prints Bibles no doubt renders a higher service to the
community than the man who prints * penny dreadfuls/ But,
assuming that both minister to legitimate social needs, nobody
would propose that the former should receive higher remunera-
tion than the latter. So long as the different values spring from
some difference in the mere objective results of work, nobody
will contend that the more important or ' higher ' consequences
should form a ground for unequal reward of exactly the same
work. If you say, 'The work itself is different, not merely
its external consequences/ I cannot see how there can be a
difference in kind between one work and another when abstracted
both (i) from the results to the community and (2) from the
faculties employed by the worker. If you mean to insist upon
the last, then you adopt the second of our two original alterna-
tives, which we have yet to examine.
Is the superior dignity the moral or aesthetic or intellectual
superiority of the activities employed any ground for additional
remuneration? Of course, if intellectual work is considered
more disagreeable than unintellectual, then the work ought to
receive compensating advantages. But it is not the common
opinion that to intellectual persona intellectual work is less
agreeable than manual labour or mechanical drudgery. Most
people would probably say, ' Coeteris paribua, the intellectual
work is infinitely the more pleasant/ Even if we suppose the
social estimation and other conditions of intellectual and manual
labour equalized, there would probably be more persons anxious
to undertake intellectual, instead of manual work than the
community could provide with adequate employment. For our
250^ JUSTICE [Book I
present purpose, however, it is enough to negative any claim
for additional remuneration on the ground of additional dis-
agreeableness. If, however, the intellectual work is supposed
to imply assort of merit on the part of the worker, and to claim
remuneration on that score, one must ask, ' To what does the
intellectual worker owe the opportunity of doing this higher
work?' The answer will be, (i) partly to superior education
and opportunities, (2) partly, in the case of the higher kinds of
intellectual work, to the possession of natural capacities which
are confined to a more or less small proportion of the human
race. Now, in so far as the position of the brain- worker is due
to education, it is clearly not his merit but the organization of
society which has put him in this position. Under present
conditions, it is generally the command of capital that secures
education; and, the capital expended upon education being
nearly always accumulated by others than the person whom
it benefits, it will hardly be pretended that an accident of this
kind can claim remuneration on grounds of abstract Justice,
however expedient it may be as a means to the general good
under certain conditions that such remuneration should be given.
And under altered social arrangements the community could, of
course, easily secure that the requisite educational advantages
should be given to as many persons as its social needs might
demand. In either case, there is no question of superior merit
in the intellectual worker.
But how does the matter stand with regard to those capacities
for higher work which are due to Nature ? Nature has given
to many Englishmen intellectual powers possessed by very few
negroes. Among Englishmen she has made, perhaps, from two
to five per cent, capable *, with the requisite education, oppor-
tunity and application, of obtaining a first-class in literae
humaniores at Oxford to take the distribution of one particular
kind of intellectual capacity as a sample of the comparative
rarity of high intellectual powers. And when we come to the
highest kind of intellectual capacity, she gives high originality
to one man in a thousand, genius to half a dozen in a genera-
tion, and so on. But should the possession of capacities for
1 I need hardly say that this estimate is little better than guesswork*
Chap, viii, iv] NO RIGHT TO REWARD 351
doing the precise kind of work which only a certain number
of his fellow countrymen can do should even the power to do
(a power which is implied, of course, by even the most modest kind
of oriffincUity) the particular thing which no one else* living can
do, constitute ground for superior remuneration? So long as
the question is considered merely as one of * reward ' of some
additional gratification, not implying or essential to the exercise
of his superior faculty I must say that I cannot see the justice
of this extra remuneration. Everybody would admit that the
mere rarity of a capacity would be no ground for exceptional
treatment ; though, of course, the most mechanical and accidental
kind of superiority (e.g. delicacy of touch enabling a man to
test grain better than anybody else) may, under a competitive
regime, enable a man to appropriate an enormous share of the
world's wealth. Under a competitive regime giants and dwarfs
can make considerable money by exhibiting themselves ; but
on principles of ideal Justice is there any reason why they
should be paid more for their day's labour than an ordinary
sandwich-man ? Is the case altered when the qualification is
not merely rare but intellectually or artistically or even (in so
far as moral qualities are not under the immediate control
of the will) morally admirable ? Should strength of brain or
steadiness of nerve or a natural love of work entitle a man to
a superior share of the good things of life, any more than
strength of arm ? If a man has a body of extraordinary size
or strength, it is right that I should look upon him not, indeed,
with the feeling of awe or respect which is often in fact inspired
by the feeling that in certain circumstances such a man might
assault us with impunity, but with the feelings of wonder and
interest which are inspired by an elephant or a fossil mammoth*
If he has extraordinary skill and agility of body, it is fitting
that I should look upon him with the half-aesthetic, half*
sympathetic feeling that is inspired by the sight of a gazelle
or a greyhound. If he has exceptional brain-power, the imagina-
tion at a poet or the penetration of a philosopher, it is right that
I should treat him with respect, i. e. the intellectual respect that
his qualities merit. If he has moral or spiritual capacities above
353 JUSTICE [Book I
with moral and spiritual reaped). But I see no reason why, on
account of either the intellectual or the spiritual superiority,
I should offer him u bottle of champagne while for my less
gifted guest I only provide small beer. Neither intellectual
nor spiritual superiority seems to constitute an intelligible
ground for assigning to a man a larger share of carnal delights
than his neighbour. / The opportunity of freely exercising his
superior faculty and the power or authority which his particular
gift fits him to wield, these strike us as the fitting rewards, and
the only fitting rewards, for superiority of this kind J To the
man who is capable of a higher kind of happiness than others
because of his higher gifts, that higher happiness itself surely
is the due reward not a larger meed than others of those lower
kinds of pleasure of which alone his inferior may be capable.
If any difference were to be made between the two, it might
be plausibly argued that the superior man should receive less
of those lower pleasures which he ought better to be able to
do without, than the man who is capable of nothing else. Of
course it may be suggested that the superior man may be
expected to 'make a good use' of his superior wealth, i.e. to
use it in the public interest. But if so, the wealth is not really
'distributed/ the distribution is merely postponed. The real
problem is, 'what is it just that the superior man should
enjoy V
To translate the somewhat abstract language into terms of
actual social arrangements, Justice does not seem to me to
require that because Nature has given a man capacities which
fit him for superior usefulness to the community, his work per
hour should on any principle of abstract Justice and apart
from considerations of social utility be paid at a higher rate
than the equally exhausting or disagreeable work of common
men l . When I say ' paid at a higher rate/ I mean that there
is no reason why he should be better fed, clothed, or housed ;
1 The fatigue of work demands remuneration only in so far as (i) it makes
it disagreeable, which it does not always do, or (2) makes the worker capable
of doing less of it. If, on account of the value of his work, it is socially de-
sirable that he should do a longer day's work than others, then no doubt the
absence of recreation should be made up to him in other ways.
Chap, viii, iv] WORK AND PAY 353
that he should be indulged in more or more expensive amuse-
ments, or allowed longer holidays.
No doubt it is quite true that the man of higher faculty
requires for the exercise of those faculties certain external
conditions of an exceptional character. And some of these
conditions may consist in a larger supply of those conveniences
and indulgences which ordinary men are quite capable of
appreciating. Nay, the higher faculty may sometimes be a
source, not of greater happiness, but of greater misery, unless
these conditions are forthcoming. The musical genius, for
instance, might be driven distracted by being compelled to live
amid the noise and bustle, the barrel-organs and the hurdy-
gurdies, which would be Paradise to many an East-end factory-
girl. And of intellectual workers in general it may be said that
they do require for the favourable exercise of their faculties
a larger share of certain comforts and conveniences than would
be likely to fall to the lot of the average workman under
a regime of absolute equality. It is doubtful whether the
luxurious table of a successful barrister is any more conducive
to his activity than the humbler fare of the solicitor's managing
clerk, who may sometimes do quite as large an allowance of
brain- work ; but it is probably true that the brain- worker wants
more and better food than is absolutely necessary for the less
exhausting kinds of mechanical work. Still, if everybody had
his fill of plain and wholesome diet, I don't know that the brain-
worker could on grounds of abstract Justice claim anything
more *. Nor is there any reason in the nature of things existing
social conventionalities apart why the brain-worker should be
clad in broad-cloth, and the hand- worker in corduroy. But it
is otherwise when we come to less material conveniences. It is
probably desirable in the interests of his efficiency that the
higher-class brain-worker should be set free from petty worries
and anxieties. Under existing conditions, that would mean that
he ought to be allowed servants to do for him things which
other people have to do for themselves; under any arrange-
1 It is possible no doubt that a certain amount of luxury, even in matters of
eating and drinking, may sometimes be conducive to efficiency, but, if the
luxuries were given on this ground, they would not be given byway of * reward.'
354 JUSTICE [Book I
ments he would want a larger amount of service. It is desirable
that he should have more house-room than the most ideal
Socialism would probably assign to ordinary hand-workers.
The doctor's carriage is none the less a personal luxury because
it is also necessary to his business. The author will want
a study, the artist a studio, the student books and room to
stow them. If his wife is to be capable of sharing his life, and
not to be a mere housekeeper, she must also be secured more
than the normal exemption from household drudgery by nurses
and other servants. And if family life is to be maintained, it is
practically inevitable that some of these advantages should be
extended to his children, who may nevertheless be very far from
inheriting his mental superiority. Then, too, it is probable that,
if the lives of highly cultivated people are to be made as agree-
able to them as their lives are to people of less cultivation, they
will want amusements or interests that will impose upon the
community a heavier tax than the amusements of the less
cultivated. We can hardly conceive of the most absolutely
socialistic State allowing very extensive opportunities of foreign
travel to every one ; and yet it is clearly desirable that they
should be within the reach of some. Moreover, for the exercise
of certain mental gifts, considerable leisure and some liberty of
action may be essential including the liberty at times to be
unproductive. Literary production of a certain kind has, indeed,
often been stimulated by the most abject bodily want ; but it is
certain that the higher kinds of intellectual labour could never
be made into a daily task, to be exacted under penalty of im-
prisonment or short commons by a socialistic taskmaster. In
ways like these it is probably right that the more gifted man
or even the more educated man when once the community has
allowed him a higher education than the common should have
exceptional treatment. But it is rather because these things
are necessary or desirable for the full development and enjoy-
ment of a faculty which ought to be developed, than as 'reward '
for being differently constituted from ordinary men, that he
may rightfully claim from the community the use in certain
directions of more wealth than wopld fall to his lot under
a perfectly equal distribution,
Chap, viii, iv] MORAL MERIT $55
Our examination of the dictum, ' To every man according to
his work/ has, so far, tended to this result that we can accept
it only in the sense, 'The development of higher capacity is
of more worth than the development of lower capacity, and
consequently ought to be provided with all the conditions
necessary to its exercise/ And this was, it will be remembered,
the one exception which our examination of the other maxim
' Everybody to count for one, and nobody for more than one,
compelled us to adopt before we could admit its universal
applicability in any sense other than the purely abstract one,
' Caetei*i8 paribus, everybody to count for one/ or ' One man's
good to count for as much as the like good of any other/ We
came to the conclusion that the higher good was worth more
than the lower, and that consequently the man who has more
capacity for higher good should count for more than the man
who has less.
So far, however, we have confined our attention to those
differences in capacity for work which are due solely to differ-
ences of natural endowment. But now, what of the differences
which are due to will ? What of the strictly moral differences ?
Ought the virtuous to be rewarded ? What, in ultimate analysis,
are we to make of the popular notion of ' merit ' ? Here it is
necessary to put aside two philosophical problems with which
a discussion of this question is usually involved.
(i) I put aside for the present the question of Free-will. The
facts of heredity, the phenomena of mental pathology, and the
constancy of statistics make it plain that Free-will (in the popular
' indeterminist ' sense of the word) is on any view not the only
cause of some men's goodness and other men's badness. And it
is obviously impossible to discriminate in our treatment of other
people between the part which undetermined choice (if such
a thing there be) may play in the formation of actual good
volitions, and the factors in their causation which are due to
other influences. Hence it is clear that, if we are in any sense
to reward men for their goodness, we must look only to the
actual quality of their volitions. We must reward them for
being good without raising the question how they came to be so.
(a) The question involves an answer to the theory of punish-
356 JUSTICE [Book I
ment. If punishment is retrospective and retributive, then it
may be inferred that reward must also rest upon an a priori
basis, and not be a means to anything beyond itself. That is
a question* which I reserve for separate treatment in the next
chapter : but, even if we deny that the bad man ought to suffer
pain as an end-in-itself , independently of the moral effect to be
produced upon him and others, it does not follow that we must,
on that account, decline to say that happiness ought to be
distributed in proportion to goodness. It is one thing to cause
a man pain, another to refuse to make him happier than some-
body else. When it is a question of inflicting pain, the onus
probandi, so to speak, would seem to rest with the inflicter ;
when it is a question of distributing happiness, it may be
considered to lie with the claimants. If I hang, or assault, or
Imprison a man, he naturally demands my authority for doing
so ; but it might easily be maintained that I do no wrong to A by
giving a certain lot of happiness to B. The question is, there-
fore, not settled by the view we take of the theory of punishment,
unless, indeed, we look upon punishment in a merely negative
aspect as the withholding of some good l . We must therefore
still ask, * Is it reasonable that an individual or a community,
having the conditions of happiness or Well-being 2 at his or its
disposal, should distribute them to all equally, or should dis-
tribute them in proportion to the moral worth of the individuals
concerned ? '
To this question the obvious practical answer will be that we
distribute in accordance with merit because we want to make
as many people good as possible, and that experience shows that
the best way of effecting that object is to contrive that, so far
as possible, goodness shall lead to happiness, and badness to
misery 3 . The question whether, apart from such tendency,
1 See below, p. 294 note.
9 The idea of distribution according to merit is generally understood to
refer to the distribution of happiness, since the higher elements of Well-
being constitute the merit which is to be rewarded, and cannot therefore be
themselves distributed by way of reward.
8 If we hold (with Aristotle) that Virtue necessarily or intrinsically leads to
happiness (given the favourable external conditions or an ' unimpeded exer-
cise ' of virtuous activities), the question ceases to have any meaning except
Chap, viii, iv] CLAIMS OF SUPERIOR CAPACITY
Justice would require an unequal distribution of external goods
is an extremely abstract question which it can never be necessary
to answer for the solution of any practical problem. But, if the
question must be answered, I should be disposed to say : If the
matter be treated as an abstract question of merit and reward
I can see no reason at all why superior moral goodness should
be assigned a superior quantity of external goods, that is to say
the means of indulging desires which have no connexion with
this superior goodness. So far as the word 'merit* mean*
anything more than ' intrinsic worth ' or * value/ it must be
treated as one possessing no intelligible meaning. Goodness does
not merit material reward, as though goodness were a loss tc
the possessor which can only be rationalized if he be paid for it
But if the question be asked whether the good man ought not tc
be made happy, I should answer, ' Yes, certainly he ought to b<
made happy, because the kind of happiness of which the gooc
man is capable possesses so much higher a value than th<
happiness of the less virtuous character. Just because Virtue
is not by itself the only good for man, though it is his highes
good and an essential condition of the good, the man who has ii
should be given all that is necessary to complete his true Well
being. Pleasure taken by itself in abstraction from all othei
elements of consciousness may have a very small value : pleasure
taken in connexion with elements of consciousness that are bad
such pleasure in a word as a bad man is capable of may hav<
still smaller or perhaps a negative value ; but such pleasure ai
accompanies the exercise of the higher faculties under favourabL
circumstances possesses a very high value indeed/ But if thii
be the ground on which we pronounce that goodness should be re
warded, it is clear that it is not any and every kind, nor everj
amount of pleasure or material source of pleasure, that should b<
the ideal reward of the good man. The fitting reward of th<
in relation to God, who may no doubt be conceived of as creating htunai
nature in such a way as to make goodness constitute or contribute to th<
happiness of the creature. Goodness can hardly be thought to be a good a
all without being supposed to be a source of happiness : the question
remains whether, in so far as happiness is dependent on external circum
stances, the other conditions of.happiness ought to be made to follow upoi
goodness.
EA8HDALL I R
$58 JUSTICE [Book I
good man (if we still talk of reward at all) is the opportunity for
the freest and most fruitful exercise of his highest capacities
their exercise in such a way as shall be most favourable both to
the goodness itself and to the pleasure which, under favourable
circumstances, goodness brings with it. It is (as Aristotle puts
it) the 'appropriate* or 'cognate* pleasure that is the fitting
reward of the activity, together with such other pleasures as are
conducive or not unfavourable to the continued exercise of
virtuous activities. And to that end the man ought clearly
to be assigned not the amount of external goods which he has
* earned/ for moral goodness cannot be expressed in terms of
external goods, or of such happiness as external goods can secure,
but the quantity of external goods which will be most calculated
to secure that ideal of life which includes goodness and culture
and happiness *, And if it be asked what is to be done when
the claims of the good man come into collision with those of less
[good or bad men, I answer in accordance with the principle
which we have already adopted : ' the higher kind of life is
worth more than the lower: consequently the man with the
higher capacities 2 must be treated as of more value than the
1 This of course represents the Aristotelian idea of the proper relation of
external goods to cvdaipovta, but it is a principle which Aristotle entirely
forgets in his crude account of distributive Justice. It is perhaps a some-
what paradoxical result of our principle (one which Aristotle would have
been little disposed to admit) that the less completely virtuous man might
sometimes have to be assigned more material reward than the more virtuous.
The average man, even the average good man, certainly does want, to make
him really happy, many external goods which would not have increased the
happiness of St. Francis of Assisi, or even of an ideal man of less one-sided
development than St. Francis.
2 The higher capacities, not the higher performance. Logically we should
have to admit that, if the bad man could be rendered capable of the
higher life by expending upon him what it would be prepared to spend
upon the better man, the expenditure would be equally justified. And there
are cases where that principle may really be acted on. We are justified in
spending money to bring one sinner to repentance which might otherwise
have been spent in adding to the comforts of ninety-and-nine just persons
who need no repentance. How to compare the claims of the sinner and the
just might often be a difficult problem but for the fortunate fact that the
conversion of the most obviously anti-social, sinners involves the saving of
considerable expense to the just persons.
Chap, viii, iv] REWARD INJURIOUS TO VIRTUE
man of less capacity : of how much more value is a problem
which the practical Reason must solve when occasion arises for it/
It should be observed, indeed, that the grounds on which we
do, in a sense, admit the good to be entitled to reward will by
themselves set a limit to the amount of this reward, in so far as
it consists in the means of gratifying the lower or more animal
lesires. It will be generally admitted that the possession, or at
least the consumption, of much wealth in such ways is not
ivourable to may even be inconsistent with the highest
ioral Well-being. And when the existing inequalities are
justified as a means to the encouragement of ' merit/ it is often
forgotten that the influence of excessive wealth upon the moral
Well-being of its possessors may be as injurious as its influence
n decreasing the moral and physical Well-being of the poor. If
he question be raised, whether the system of rewarding Virtue
s not itself injurious to Virtue, I should be quite prepared to
^admit that the reward of Virtue might very easily be carried to
this point, though in the interests of society we often have
to encourage social service even to the injury of the highest
character. And this is one of the difficulties that I should feel
in admitting, even as an abstract and theoretical proposition,
that the good man ought, as a matter of a priori Justice, to be
rewarded in proportion to his merit. For that would mean, if
we use words in their ordinary sense, that every increase of
Virtue should, on principles of ideal Justice, bring with it
a larger house, more servants, better dinners, more expensive
pleasures, more splendid equipages, and more costly horseflesh.
And these things would possibly not be good for the good man*
The House of Lords may be a useful institution under existing
social conditions, but it can hardly be said to ' encourage ' the
highest Virtue in Peers or their eldest sons.
But how far is this principle, that the good ought to be
rewarded, available as a canon of distributive Justice in actual
life ? For practical purposes hardly at all. We must, no doubt,
in criticizing or seeking to alter existing social arrangements
bear in mind the necessity of securing conditions favourable to
the highest type of life. But in its ordinary economic arrange-
ments the only kind of goodness which society at large has it
JUSTICE [Book I
in its power to reward is positive contribution to social good,
and for the most part such contribution to social good as admits
of being not altogether inadequately expressed in terms of
s. d. <The only kind of reward, in short, of which it is possible
to take much practical account is the economic reward for work
done. For how is it possible to discriminate between the portion
of the work produced which is due to superior goodwill, to
industry, perseverance, integrity, and that which is due to
superior capacity ? It is obvious that one workman can do in
an hour twice as much work as another working equally hard.
But how can we test the intensity of a man's application ? It
is practically impossible to reward industry without rewarding
cleverness also. And yet we have seen that the ideal of just
reward is not satisfied by paying a man according to the actual
quantity of work done irrespective of the qualities which he
shows in doing it. It follows then that, if there is to be any
diversity of reward at all, it cannot be based upon the principle
of ideal Justice, but must be regulated by sodial expediency. If
anybody thinks that men in general could be induced to put
forth their maximum activity in the service of the community
without the prospect of reward, for themselves and those nearly
connected with them, he is a person with whom it is useless to
argue. Rewards there must be; and yet rewards cannot b&
directly justified by considerations of ideal Justice, but only
indirectly by their tendency to bring about in the long run-
equality of consideration in the distribution of good.
And lest I should be accused of taking a low view of human
nature or inadequately recognizing its future improvability, let
me add two practical considerations which must be borne in
mind before our conclusions are used as a justification of the
social status quo, or as an argument against any suggested
modification of society in a socialistic direction. In the first
place, it must be remembered that a very small reward is quite
sufficient to call forth men's utmost energies when no other is
obtainable. A free labourer would laugh in your face if you
proposed to allure him to greater industry by the offer of an
additional two ounces of bread per diem, but such an offer is found
a very effective stimulus among the inmates of His Majesty's
Chap, viii, iv] REWARD AS A MEANS
gaols. German judges probably work as hard as English ones,
though they do not receive such large salaries. After a certain
point small incomes stimulate activity as much as larger ones
when no larger ones are to be had. The other consideration is
that even in the existing state of society the rewards for which
men work (in so far as they do work for reward) are very largely
honorary rewards which take the form of social consideration
or of interesting employment for their higher faculties. The
pecuniary gains even of the most remunerative professions are
small compared with those of commerce, but they are more
attractive to educated men because even at the present day
an eminent Physician or Lawyer enjoys more consideration and
has a more interesting life than a successful clothier or brewer
with a much larger income. And the Civil Service can secure
the highest ability at a still lower rate. Even wealth itself is
largely valued as the concrete embodiment of success and the
source of social consideration. In the society of the future
these principles might be carried much further. Rewards will
always be necessary, but rewards may be increasingly small in
their cost to the community, and increasingly non-material in
character; and, though reward must always in the nature of
things consist in some sort of differential advantage, the ad-
vantage may be increasingly consistent with and conducive to
the highest development of the less favoured individuals.
Reward must always, under any possible conditions of human
life, mean the getting something which somebody else has not
got : it need not always mean the gain of one at the expense of
the whole. Both the lower kind of non-material rewards (stars,
ribbons, titles, newspaper notoriety, conventional social position)
and the higher (more responsible and more intellectual work,
power, influence, interesting society, the esteem of the best)
must always from the nature of the case belong to the few,
but tfcey need not involve a burden on the many. And
if the enjoyment of the best things in life does involve, and
always must to some extent involve, exceptional material ad-
vantages, the material side of the reward may still be treated as
i condition of that better ]}.h which ideal Justice would award
bo the exceptionally gifted, and not as its essence.
JUSTICE
While the principles of ideal Justice can hardly be made into
& rule capable of actual application to the actual payment of each
individual citizen even in a socialistic Eutopia, the principle
that the higher life possesses superior value has a most important
bearing upon questions of social organization and social policy.
It emphasizes the fact that we must not push the search for
equality of conditions, or even the pursuit of maximum Well-
being for all, to the point which might be fatal to progress and
so extinguish the higher kinds of human existence altogether.
From the point of view of reward, if that principle is to be
admitted at all, it would be only moral effort that could be
supposed to carry with it a title to superior remuneration : and
the difficulty of distinguishing superior effort from superior
ability was, we saw, insuperable. But, if we claim for higher
capacity the conditions of its exercise on the ground simply of
the higher worth of the life which such capacity makes possible,
it will become unnecessary to draw a sharp line between moral
and intellectual capacity, between superior exertion and superior
success. All kinds of higher life moral, intellectual, and
aesthetic will be treated as more valuable than lower life. In
the distribution of good things or, to speak more practically, in
the criticism and modification of social institutions each element
in life should receive the weight that is due to its intrinsic
quality, and not merely to its amount measured by a hedonistic
or any other merely quantitative standard. Such is the ultimate
meaning of that idea of distributive Justice or just recompense
which protests against the Benthamite idea of equal consideration,
pure and simple, and seeks to mend it by the Aristotelian formula,
' equal things to equal persons.'
The general result of our enquiry has been, I apprehend, to
show that each of these competing ideals of Justice is only
reasonable in the sense in which it becomes equivalent to the
other. We saw that Equality was only reasonable in a* sense
which implied, not equality in the possession or enjoyment of
any concrete good, but only equality of consideration equality
in the degree of importance which is attached to each man's
Chap, viii, v] BENTHAM AND ARISTOTLE $63
individual Well-being in the distribution of ultimate good so far
as such distribution is capable of being effected by human
action. And even so, the formula * every one to count for one
and nobody for more than one* requires to be interpreted as
meaning 'every one's good to be considered as of equal value
with the like good of every other individual '. It is not really
individuals considered simply as individuals but individuals con-
sidered as capable of a certain kind of good that are intrinsically
valuable, and entitled to consideration equal in so far as their
capacities are equal, unequal in proportion as their capacities are
unequal. And when we turned to the other ideal of recompense
or reward, we found it to be childishly unreasonable in so far as
it meant that every individual should be assigned sugar-plums, in
proportion to his moral or other ' merit/ but entirely reasonable
in so far as it meant that superior capacity constitutes a superior
title not only to the conditions for the realization of such capaci-
ties, but to those other good things of human life which are
pecessary to complete that ideal of a desirable life of which
virtuous activity is not the whole. These two ideals come to the
same thing ; both prescribe equality of treatment when capacities
are equal, treatment in proportion to the intrinsic worth of the
capacity when they are unequal. And the worth of a capacity
is really, as we have pointed out, the worth of that kind of good
life which the capacity enables the individual to realize. As the
formula of reward according to merit seems toa hopelessly
charged with misleading suggestions to be adopted by a rational
system of Ethics, I prefer to retain the Benthamite maxim with
the explanation that it is each man's good that is as good as the
like good of another, not the individual abstracted from all those
capacities the possession of which can give him worth or entitle
him to ' consideration ' at the hands of his fellows *.
1 If we grant that superior capacity should receive the superior coasftdera.-
tion, the question may still be raised whether, if and in so far as the persons
enjoying superior culture are not and cannot always be those intrinsi-
cally, most fit to receive it, the existence of a favoured class enjoying
such culture can be justified. To a large extent this state of things actually
exists : to a certain extent it must probably always be so if the higher cul-
ture is to subsist at all. I should reply : I have already urged that the
existence of this class is socially useful, if ' useful ' be only understood in
JUSTICE [Book I
The superior man's good is worth more than the inferior man's
(whatever the nature of his superiority) how much more must
be decided by our judgement of value in each particular case of
moral choice. The superior man's good has more value than that
of the inferior man, simply because it is a greater good.
VI
From this point of view it might almost appear as if we
had succeeded in reducing our two maxims of Justice and
Benevolence to one and the same all-embracing precept that
of promoting a maximum of good on the whole.
But our difficulties are not yet at an end. It may still be
asked, c What are we to do when we can only satisfy equal claims
to good by diminishing the total amount of good to be enjoyed ? '
Even the abstract and theoretical solution of this problem is,
it must be confessed, a matter of extreme difficulty, to say
nothing of practical applications. It may, indeed, be maintained
that our theory of equal consideration for good of equal worth
will still prove equal to the strain. We have already seen how
frequently inequality in actual distribution is demanded by the
a non-hedonistic sense. If it could be shown that its existence could not be
justified on social grounds, I should still maintain that a society with a
cultivated class would be better than a society without one ; the inequality
would be justified by the superior value of higher good. But it would still
remain a duty to aim at making the favoured class consist of the persons
most capable of the higher life. So far as that cannot be done, it is atill
better that the higher life should be led by some, even though that life be
not so good a thing as it might be if the opportunity of it were reserved for
the most capable persons. Von Hartmann's tirades against the 'social-
eudaemonistic Moral principle ' and the associated ideal of equality (he
entirely fails to distinguish between the different possible senses of the
word) are to a large extent answered by his own convincing, if exaggerated,
demonstrations of the necessity for social inequality (Das sittliche Bewusst-
mn, pp. 503-508, &c.). When he seems positively to contend for the maxim-
izing of inequality, his argument turns partly upon an over-estjfaate of the
necessity for competition, so that the fittest (in an intellectual and ethical
sense) may he selected, while he forgets that the higher stages of animal
and human evolution have been attended by a progressive diminution of
waste ; and partly upon his pessimistic exaggeration of the incompatibility
between progressive culture and happiness whether in the individual or the
society.
Chap, viii, vi] JUSTICE AND BENEVOLENCE 265
maxim of equal consideration itself. But are we to assume that
this must always be so that, no matter how great an inequality
is required to effect -it, the promotion of maximum good on the
whole will always be right, because the hardship to th individual
or the minority sacrificed will always be no more than is war*
ranted, on the principle of equal consideration, either by the
inferior numbers of the minority or by their inferior capacities
for good * *? It is clear that if the sacrifice of good on the whole
to fairness of distribution were carried beyond a certain point,
we should be violating the principle that one man's good is
of the same value as the like good of another. If we were
to impose great hardships upon a whole community in order
that the life or health of one man might be spared, that would
be to treat that man's life as more valuable than the life of many.
But what if a very slight increase of good on the whole
could be secured by a very gross inequality in its distribution ?
Ought we never to sacrifice something in the total amount
of good that there may be a greater fairness a greater approach
to equality for equal capacities in its enjoyment? I think
it is clear that, if a very small sacrifice of good on the whole
could secure much greater equality in its distribution, we should
say that the sacrifice ought to be made. Whether the structure
of human society is such that we could ever produce more good
on the whole by distributing unequally, is a problem which
we hardly possess the data for determining 2 . But we may
perhaps be tolerably certain that a rigid carrying out of the
principle that no sacrifice of individuals is to be condemned
which is balanced by an equivalent increase of good on the
1 It is clear that in this last case Justice, in the sense which we have given
to it, might prescribe the sacrifice of the majority to a minority, but it will
simplify the discussion to assume that the superior numbers and the superior
capacity are on the same side.
2 That a fairer distribution of material wealth would be worth purchasing
at the cost of diminished production on the whole, few would dispute. But
then it cannot be assumed that the additional production would really be
additional good. In all probability it would not be so. A lesser amount
more fairly distributed would produce greater good on the whole. Here a
law of diminishing returns comes into play. 100 added to a rich man's
income would not perceptibly add to his enjoyment ; divided among ten
poor men it might produce a great deal.
266 JUSTICE [Book I
whole would lead to a sacrifice of unfortunate minorities the
weak in mind or body, the sick, the halt, the maimed such
as common humanity would condemn x . At all events we are
not entitled to exclude the speculative possibility of such a state
of things, and consequently must not assume an invariable
harmony between the ultimate results of our two maxims of
Benevolence and of Justice or Equity.
How then are we to co-ordinate the two principles of action ?
One way of doing so is tempting on account of its simplicity.
We might say that equality of distribution is itself a good, and
so that it will always be right to promote the greatest good
on the whole, after giving due weight to the good involved
in equality. The question how much gain in fairness of dis-
tribution is to be treated as equivalent in worth to a given
amount of other goods will then be simply an ordinary case
of comparison of values a very difficult one in practice, but
offering no particular difficulty in theory. But objection may
be taken to regarding as 'a good' so abstract a thing as a
distribution something which cannot be regarded as the good
of any one of the persons affected nor of all of them collectively,
since we have admitted the possibility of a diminution of good
on the whole in consequence of such an ideal distribution. Such
an objection is no doubt a reasonable one : and it might lead us
to give up the attempt to reduce our axiom of Benevolence and
our axiom of Equity to a single principle. From a practical
point of view it might be enough to say that there are simply
two sides of a single ideal of life, and the practical Reason must
decide in each case which is more important Justice or good on
the whole. But it seems hardly consistent with the very mean-
ing of ' good ' to suggest that it may sometimes be a duty to
promote something which is not the good. If we are to attempt
to defend these maxims of Justice and Benevolence as valid and
self -consistent judgements of the practical Reason, it is a matter
of life and death to our position to find either a common de-
nominator, in terms of which both principles could be expressed,
1 As already suggested (above, p. 163), this consequence might be avoided
by assigning a sufficiently high value to sympathetic feelings a solution
which is practically much the same as we arrive at below.
Chap, viii, vi] JUSTICE ITSELF A GOOD 367
or at least some third principle which should govern us in
deciding between their respective claims in deciding when
to sacrifice quantity of good in favour of just distribution, and
when to sacrifice justice of distribution in order that there may
be more good to distribute. The difficulty may, I think, be escaped
by remembering that, according to the view of the end here
adopted, it is not only the pleasure or other non-moral good which
is promoted by right actions which constitutes the supreme ethical
end, but the qualities of character which these acts express.
And not only Benevolence but Justice also is part of the ideal
life for the society at large and for each individual member
of it. And this inclusion of Justice or Equity in our ideal of life
sets limits to the extent to which we can allow individuals or
societies to promote a maximum of other good at the expense
of great inequality in its enjoyment, just as the inclusion of
culture among our ends or elements in the end sets limits to the
amount and kind of pleasure which we can regard as elements in
the good. In insisting therefore that an individual or a society
ought sometimes (if such a collision should in practice occur) to
sacrifice something in amount of good in order to effect its more
just distribution, we are not enjoining any one to subordinate the
pursuit of good to something which is not a good at all, but
simply insisting on one particular case of that subordination
of lower goods to higher which every non^hedonistic system
of Ethics must admit at every turn. An abstract ' distribution '
cannot be a good, but a disposition and a will to distribute justly
may be, A society which for the sake of increasing the pleasure
or even the culture of some should be content to condemn a
minority of its members to extreme hardships would be thinking
too much of its pleasure or its culture and too little of its own
Justice. If an individual or a minority, on the other hand, were
to demand of the majority that this sacrifice should be carried
beyond a certain point, it would be thinking too much of its own
claims or (to put it in another way) too much of the encouragement
of -sympathy and mercy to individuals and too little, it may be,
of culture or pleasure in society at large. There is a proper
degree of subordination t of the individual to society, and a sub-
ordination which goes* beyond that degree. Both of these
368 JUSTICE [Book I
principles of conduct may be expressed as ultimately qualities
of human character. When a Quaker or a disciple of Tolstoi
refuses to kill a man in a just war because that particular man
has committed no crime, he is, according to common opinion,
wrong because his ideal attaches too much importance to kind-
ness and goodwill for individuals and too little to the common
interests of human society at large and that system of rights by
which those interests are promoted. Were a society to refuse to
do anything for its submerged tenth or twentieth to do more
for them than their strict numerical proportion might demand
in the interest of its own comfort or even of its own culture, that
would be attributing too much importance to comfort and culture
and too little to the moral quality (whether you call it Justice or
Benevolence) which revolts against allowing individuals to suffer
the worst horrors of poverty because they are only a minority.
What is the exact degree of importance which should be attached
to each of these elements of character solicitude for individual
interests and the care for other forms of social good is, just like
any other question as to the relative value of goods, a problem
upon which the practical Reason must pronounce in each par-
ticular case, and which does not admit of being solved by any
exact or universal formula.
The principle which I have been contending for may be briefly
expressed thus. The claims of social good are paramount. It is
always a duty to promote maximum social good. Both the rule
of Justice and the rule of Benevolence ultimately turn on the
value of certain kinds of consciousness. Benevolence asserts
the value of good. Justice asserts the value of persons. There
is no real and final collision between these aspects of the ideal
end, for good is ultimately the good of definite individuals.
Justice and Benevolence are thus the correlatives of one another.
Good has no worth it has indeed no existence apart from
persons : persons have no value apart from the good which they
are capable of enjoying. But it is true that the good of some may
have ultimately to be secured at the cost of a diminished enjoyment
of good by the whole society. And Justice does prescribe that
we should aim at bestowing equal good on equal capacity.
Some sacrifice of individuals to the whole is, indeed, prescribed
Chap, viii, vii] PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS 369
by the just claims of the majority. Too great a sacrifice of the
individuals does present itself to us as unjust even when it
might be prescribed by the principle of maximum good. But
when this is the case, it is because consideration fot the claims
of individuals no less than consideration for the whole forms part
of that ideal character which is itself the highest element in the
good. When Justice itself is given its due place as part of
the true good for society and each individual in it, we may say
that it is always a duty to promote the greatest good on the
whole.
VII
To apply these highly abstract considerations to practice to
enquire to what conclusions they point in the region of social
and political conduct forms no part of my present undertaking.
Every political question is, of course, in the last resort an ethical
question. But in so far as the duty of the individual turns upon
questions as to the ultimately best form of human society or the
means of promoting it by social and political action, the dis-
cussion passes into the region of social and political rather than
of purely ethical Philosophy. The considerations on which
I have insisted will, I trust, have shown the impossibility of
any individual immediately effecting by his own unassisted
efforts an ideally just distribution, the impossibility even for
society of realizing it immediately, the unreasonableness even
under any conceivable social order of basing the distribution of
good merely upon a principle of ideal Justice to each particular
individual without reference to that other side or aspect of
Morality which enjoins the promotion of the greatest good on'
the whole. The enjoyment by each individual of as much good
as he is entitled to by his capacities (relatively to the capacities
of others) must be looked upon therefore as an ideal a far-off
ideaj, to which only more or less distant approaches are possible
even in the region of self-consistent Utopias. This would,
perhaps, be admitted by many zealous advocates of Equality.
But I hope I have further indicated the necessity of not making
any Actual equality of good, even as a distant ideal, our primary
object, but rather general Well-being; and I truat I have shown
JUSTICE [Book I
further that such a course is imperatively required by ideal
Justice itself, since the only equality that is capable of im-
mediate realization is equality of consideration, and to produce
equality ofe distribution at the cost of lowering the average
amount distributed would be a violation of that one essential
equality, If in the course of my argument I have incidentally
replied to some of the arguments by which the extremer kinds
of Socialism l are sometimes advocated, I trust it has become no
less evident that any attempt to justify the statue quo the
taking of interest, the system of inheritance, the fixing of wages
and prices by competition and the like as an even approximate
realization of Justice is a still more indefensible thesis. This
present state of affairs may be for the moment with the
exception of this or that immediately possible reform a less
violation of justice than any other possible system ; and so long
the maintenance of the existing order of society minus the
possible reforms will be demanded by Justice itself : Justice can
never require us to make matters worse. None the less, the
discrepancy between the present distribution of wealth and any
that could a priori be justified in the interests of general Well-
being emphasizes the fact that one large element of private
duty which Justice prescribes for the individual must be the
striving after a more socially beneficial system. But we shall
be prepared to find that even in the remote future no system of
distribution that is at once possible and socially expedient will
realize the dream of any other equality than equality of con-
sideration.
The ideal Justice which I have attempted to adumbrate is not
capable of immediate political realization. It would open up
a large question were I to ask how far it is capable of immediate
application in the domain of private Ethics I mean, how far ib
is possible for each individual to act upon principles of ideal
Justice, in so far as it rests with himself to determine how much
1 In strictness Socialism does not necessarily imply an equal distribution
of material things, but the more thoroughgoing advocates of the doctrine
that the State should be the sole owner of the instruments of production
and the sole employer of labour often adopt that programme only as a
means to an ultimate equality of wealth or enjoyment,
Chap, viii, vii] PERSONAL EXPENDITURE 1171
of that portion of the world's wealth over which he has legal
control he shall allocate to himself, and how much to the service
of other individuals or of the community. I cannot attempt
now to discuss that question adequately ; I am at present con*
cerned with a purely theoretical and not with a practical ques*
tion. And yet it is desirable sometimes, even in the interests of
pure theory, to point out some of the practical bearings of
speculative ethical controversies. And therefore I do not hesi-
tate to suggest the urgent need of bringing our highest ideal of
Justice to bear upon the details of private life and especially of
personal expenditure. It is obvious that it is not possible for
most people in an un-ideal state to act in accordance with what
would be the right in an ideal state of things. For each man to
allot to himself no more of the good things of this life than might
be his under a regime of ideal Justice would demand a heroism
which such equality would not involve under such a regime, and
at times would be injurious to others, and even to society at
large. In some directions it would be inexpedient for any one ;
in many directions it would be inexpedient for every one. Such
an attempt would not really conduce to Justice itself; for under
existing conditions the professional man, compelled to live like
an artisan, would suffer much more than the artisan suffers.
For the present we must to some extent acquiesce in the idea of
a standard of comfort for each class. The maintenance of such
a standard is up to a certain point required by the different
demands for efficiency in different callings, in part by the
necessity for keeping up that stimulus to superior industry,
skill, inventiveness and the like, which we have seen to be
essential to social Well-being even where it would otherwise be
difficult to reconcile with the requirements of ideal Justice. But
where different standards of comfort exist, some measure of con-
formity to the customs of one's class or position, in such matters
as eating and drinking, housing, service, dress, entertainment,
amusement and the like, is demanded under penalty of hardship
and isolation such as would not be endured by any one, were
such matters arranged for us on principles of ideal Justice in
a socialistic State. If the system is good on the whole, it cannot
always be wrong for the individual to fall in with it : the individual
JUSTICE [Book I
cannot be required to act in a 4 way which, if generally imitated,
would be socially injurious, and the attenaj^ to do away with all
expenditure which exceeds what would be possible if wealth
were equally distributed would, we have some reason to believe,
be socially injurious. Still, it is a clear duty on the part of
every one who is convinced that the share of good things
enjoyed by the few is disproportionate and intrinsically unjust,
to seek to limit his own personal expenditure wherever he can
do so without a less efficient discharge of his own social function
or other social inconvenience. It would be a step to the creation
of a new morality upon such subjects, if we were to cultivate
the habit of compelling ourselves to give some kind of reason
for our indulgence in any kind of expenditure over and above
what would be allotted under a regime of pure equality, whether
the justification be found in our particular social function, in
the conditions necessary for the exercise of our own particular
capacities, natural or acquired, in the superior intellectual or
aesthetic value of our pleasures $nd their indirect social effects,
in the necessity of inequality and competition as a stimulus
to industry, or only in the necessities and conventionalities of
the existing social code, which sometimes render intrinsically
unnecessary expenditure the smaller of two evils. If it is
probable that the principle of a class standard of comfort will
always be inevitable and even in a measure socially useful, we
must at least recognize the duty of trying to reduce the present
enormous differences between the highest and the lowest standard ;
and, in the case of those whose class standard is high, of aiming
for themselves at the lower rather than the higher limit allowed
by that standard, except when some higher good to the consumer
himself or some social advantage to others would seem to result
from the higher expenditure. It may safely be said that the
scale of expenditure prevalent among the richest classes is as
little conducive to their highest Well-being as to that of the
poorest. If under existing conditions the existence of such
expenditure is necessary as a stimulus to the entrepreneur or
the captain of industry, the fact that it should be necessary is.
a moral evil for the gradual removal of which it is a duty to
strive.
Chap, viii, vii] IMMEDIATE APPLICATIONS 273
A word must be added to bring these general considerations
to bear upon the dntj^ojf the individual The duty of Justice in
the individual seeffitf^to consist in (1) seeking to bring about by
political or other means such an improvement in political and
social organization as will realize a more complete equality of
consideration than is possible in his existing environment;
(2) observing this principle of equal consideration in his rela-
tions to his fellow men in so far as is possible under existing
conditions ; (3) respecting all those political and social arrange*
ments, however much at variance with the ultimate ideal, as are
enforced by the existing social order, in so far as that order
cannot immediately be improved upon by the individual's volun*
tary action under existing conditions. It is to the duties of
Justice and Benevolence taken together that we should ulti-
mately refer the duty of Loyalty to existing social institutions
and particularly to the State ; the duty of Honesty, which means
respect for the existing laws of property so long as they are not
capable of immediate improvement by the individual's own action ;
and the observance of such other rules, whether enforced by law
or otherwise, as are found conducive to social Well-being. In
a sense, as I have endeavoured to show, all duties are social,
since it is never either right or possible to aim at one's own
individual good without regard to the good of others. In a
sense no duty is purely social in the sense of the Hedonist, since
every duty is more or less liable to modification by the con-
sideration that the true good alike for individuals and for
societies is something more than pleasure. In the highest sense
Benevolence and Justice (if we include in it Prudence or due
regard for self) may be so understood as to include all other
virtues : true Justice and true Benevolence represent two sides,
each of them unintelligible or, at least, certain to be misunder-
stood if taken apart from the other of the single all-inclusive
duty of promoting the different kinds of good in proportion to
their We intrinsic worth or place as elements in the good. It
is beoause this good does include various elements that Virtue in
general is divided into the many virtues with which we have
already attempted to deal in the preceding chapter. To insist
on the fact that all virtues* can be reduced to the single virtue of
BABHDALL I m
$74 JUSTICE [Book I
just Benevolence is desirable because it emphasizes the truth
that there is a single all-inclusive ideal of life in reference
to which alone separate 'virtues' become intelligible; over-
emphasis - in ethical teaching upon the 'unity of Virtue 1 and
neglect of particular * virtues' practically tends either to a
vagueness which may degenerate into Antinomianism, or (if
the consequential test of virtuous conduct in detail is much
insisted upon) to a too hedonistic interpretation of the ultimate
good. Insistence upon Benevolence as the sole ultimate duty
can only be safe when it is duly interpreted as a Benevolence
which is inclusive of Justice, and which has due regard to all
those non-hedonistic elements in the good which are promoted
by and consist of the special virtues to which particular names
have been assigned. In all that has been said about social duty,
it is assumed that the individual's own good is to be given due
consideration, and, when this good is non-hedonistically inter-
preted, it will include many forms of * self -regarding ' duty
besides Prudence in the sense of due regard for one's own
' interest* in the hedonistic sense.
VIII
Before leaving the subject of Justice some addition seems to
be called for to what has been said about the institution of
property. If the principles which have been laid down in this
chapter are right, the duty of respecting that institution is
simply a particular part of the duty of obeying the State
a duty which is itself a part of the more general obligation to
respect the conditions of social Well-being. A more detailed
discussion of property seems to belong rather to political than
to ethical Philosophy in its narrower sense. It may be well,
however, briefly to point ou$ in what sense we can, and in what
sense we cannot, regard the duty of respecting property as one
of essential and permanent obligation. It is a duty to respect
the existing laws of property because some system of distribut-
ing material wealth or its enjoyment is essential to .social
Well-being, and the existing system is the best that has
hitherto been devised ; $t all events individual acts of rebellion
against it retard rather than accelerate the working out of
Chap, viii, via] PRIVATE PROPERTY $75
a better system, The same regard for social Well-being and
the best possible distribution of it which prescribes obedience
to the existing law sanctions any improvement of it that may
be possible, the moment that it does become possible * Property
is the creation of Law, and what Law has created, Law may
modify in the future as it has modified it in the past. A priori
it might seem that some form of collective ownership in the
instruments of production would be more likely to harmonize
the conflicting claims of different individuals than any possible
system of private Capitalism. This is not the place to enquire,
how far the enormous practical difficulties of bringing about
such a system without introducing other and worse evils are
difficulties inherent in the nature of things, and how far they
are difficulties which it may ultimately be found possible to
overcome. Whether ownership should be individual or collec-
tive is simply a detailed question of the means to social Well-*
being. But it may be pointed out that there is one limit which
is set to the attempt to substitute collective for individual
ownership by the nature of the end itself. The end, as we |
have seen, is, or rather includes, a certain type of character or
(more properly) a certain kind of life led by men of a certain
character. The end is the perfection of individual lives. The
perfect life for the individual is not an isolated or solitary life :
it is eminently social, a life whose good consists in activities
which minister to the good of others as well as to his own. But
still it must be a life in which there is room for the individual
to act, to pursue his own ideals, to choose the means to them,
to direct his own activities, to reap the fruit of those activities,
to experience the consequences both of success and of failure.
There can be no true human good life which does not include
all this, and it is difficult to see how any system of distribution
can minister to this end which does not allow some appropria-
tion of material wealth more individual and permanent thaq*
any which is consistent with a thorough-going Collectivism-
Collectivism of the kind which aims at securing an absolute
equality of distribution or, at least, some close approximation
to it. Wealth cannot be made subservient to a truly moral life
without some measure of liberty in its use, an4 consequently
T a
JUSTICE [Book I
even in its abuse. The right use of wealth cannot be secured
by the most magnificent system of public maintenance. Just
as- children brought up in large public institutions are often
more deficient in character, initiative, and intelligence than
children educated in very unsatisfactory homes, so an institu-
tion-bred population could not realize a high ideal of human
life. Men and women might be lodged in the most luxurious
of workhouses, fed sumptuously every day at the public expense,
driven daily from the most moderate of State-regulated tasks to
the most refined of State-regulated amusements. They might
be dosed periodically with the most carefully considered doses
of State-regulated education, culture, and even religion. But all
these things could not avail to produce an ideal human life.
Character cannot be developed when the will is passive, nor
intelligence when there is little demand or opportunity for its
exercise. There must be room for initiation, for .selection, for
choosing what to do or not to do, for laying out plans not from
day to day but for a long future. And this there cannot be
without not merely some appropriation of material wealth for
immediate needs but some power of disposing of it with a view
to the deliberately chosen purposes of a man's whole life, and
to the good of others in whom he is interested. This line of
thought has been well developed by Prof. Bosanquet. ' Is it not
enough, we may be asked, to know that one can have what is
necessary and reasonable ? No ; that makes one a child. A
man must know what he can count on, and judge what to
do with it. It is a question of initiation, plan, design, not of
a more or less in enjoyment V
It is possible that all that Prof. Bosanquet contends for, and all
that can reasonably be contended for as a matter of principle,
might be combined with a much greater extension of collective
ownership than he himself would be disposed to contemplate.
Socialism does not object to private property, but only to
private capital. It is only upon the questionable assumption
that private property necessarily carries with it the institutions
of unlimited private bequest and private Capitalism that Prof.
1 Essay on * The Principle of Private Property,' in Aspects of ike Social
(1895)1 P- 3*3*
Chap, viii, ix] OBJECTIONS $77
Bosanquet's demand for a sphere in which individual choice and
individual responsibility shall have free play can be considered
fatal to the more moderate socialistic schemes. Socialism allows
the possession of private property in the only sense in which
nine-tenths of the community now possess private property.
Private property may perhaps come hereafter to mean some-
thing seriously different from what it means now; but Prof.
Bosanquet's general principle ought to be fully accepted. It
is the supreme condition of a truly moral system of property-
distribution that it shall be the one most favourable to the
cultivation and development of the highest individual charac-
ters. If in some form the institution of private property must
be regarded as permanently necessary for the development
of individual personality, we need not dwell upon the extent
to which that institution as it now exists the system of
unlimited competition, unlimited accumulation, unlimited in-
heritance will have to be modified before it can be regarded
as the system best calculated to develope in the individual a moral
ideal which includes in itself Benevolence and Justice.
IX
The whole of my treatment of Justice in this chapter will
(like the Benthamite formulae which I have accepted in a modi-
fied shape) be met in some quarters by the objection that it
is inconsistent with an adequate recognition of the 'organic
character of human society/ Here again it would lead me too
far into the political region to discuss the truth and meaning of
the undoubtably important but much-abused formula that
'society is an organism/ What is meant by the objection is,
I take it, practically 1 something of this kind It has hitherto
been assumed that man's duty consists in contributing to
a certain general welfare of society, as though he could allot
a certain amount of good to himself and other lots of good
to other individuals: whereas, as a matter of fact, we cannot
distinguish between the good that a man does to himself and
1 I do not here discuss the metaphysical or logical question how far the
abstract category of Organism is applicable to Society, and confine myself
to the ethical side or application of the doctrine.
JUSTICE [Book I
the good that he bestows on another. True human good
consists largely in activities which are at once my good and the
good of others 1 . And further a man's duty does not consist
in a general contribution to a lump of good? it consists in
performing some special function marked out for him by his
position in the social organism. Neither a man's contribution
to the general good, nor the quantity or quality of it which he
enjoys, can be exactly the same as every other man's. No
improved social arrangements can secure that the tailor shall
enjoy exactly the same good as the scholar. The tailor's function,
his activity, and therefore a large part of his true good, consists
in doing his tailor's work and finding his own good in it, and
the scholar's good consists in leading the scholar's life. You
cannot 'distribute* to the tailor the scholar's good, which
consists mainly in leading the scholar's life. All social progress,
all culture, all civilization involves a constantly increasing
'differentiation.' It is only in an extremely simple state of
society that the lives of different people can exactly resemble
one another, a society in which only very simple needs are felt,
and in which each family or household supplies practically all
its own needs. And the increasing differentiation necessarily
carries with it not only unlikeness but inequality. The different
kinds of life are not, and cannot conceivably be, all equally
pleasant, or equally valuable from any other point of view than
that of the goodwill which may be exhibited in all of them.
The differentiation involves exceptional sacrifices for some,
exceptional advantages and enjoyment for others. To aim at
the equalization of individual Well-being is therefore inconsistent
with the welfare of society at large. And that is not all. The
true good of every individual, even apart from his occupation
or sphere of social service, is necessarily unlike that of every
other : every individual is more or less unlike every other and
therefore to some extent wants a different kind of life to satisfy
him. And these differences become greater, the higher the
state of social development, the higher the capacities, and
the higher the development of the individual concerned. A dead
level of individual Well-being could oqly be secured by cutting
1 Qualifications of this principle are discussed below, Bk. II. chap. iii.
Chap, ix, ix] ORGANIC VIEW OF SOCIETY 279
down all individual eminences, and that would mean the
extinction of all the higher kinds of Well-being altogether : for
these are essentially dependent upon the multiplication and differ-
entiation of wants on the one hand, and of individual capacities
on the other. The formula of equal consideration, even in the
modified form which we have given to it, is therefore, it may be
urged, no less objectionable from the point of view of a true
individualism than it is from that of the 'social organism 1 /
There can be no doubt as to the extreme importance of these
considerations from a practical point of view. They do constitute
an enormous objection and difficulty in the way of all collectivist
schemes. They are absolutely fatal to any crude attempt at an
immediate realization of the collectivist ideal. An immediate
Collectivism would certainly mean the lowering not merely
of material conditions but of modes and ideals of life to the
level which the many are immediately capable of appreciating.
And they will always be fatal to schemes of Socialism which
aim at an absolutely dead level of material conditions, at an
extinction of all differences in education, in culture, in modes
of life, in quantity and quality of work. The Socialism which
proposes to impose six hours 1 manual work a day on every one
on Physicians and Scholars and inventors for instance would
mean a return to Barbarism. But these consequences are,
I should contend, sufficiently guarded against by the interprets
1 This principle has been urged with much force, but with some exaggera-
tion, by Sim m el (Einleitung I, p. 360, et passim), though he is not one of those
who insist much on the idea of a social organism. On this basis a running
fire is kept up against Socialism all through his powerful writings. By way
of criticism I will only add to what I have said in the text the following
remarks : (i) The only sort of Socialism which he seems to contemplate is
one which aims at absolute equality of conditions ; (2) his ultimate good is
not either pleasure or Well-being, but a ' maximum of energy, 1 which is best
secured by maximum ups and downs of pleasure and pain : the struggle for
existence 'becomes with him not a means but an end (see further below,
Bk. II. chap, iii, ad fin.) ; and for this a larger measure of ' differentiation ' is
naturaUy required than is wanted on a more commonplace interpretation
of ideal Well-being. That a high development of individual capacity re-
quires some liberty, and that all liberty involves some inequality and some
pain, is no doubt true: but immel'8 view seems to involve a positive
apotheosis of Unrest.
a8o JUSTICE [Book I
bion which I have placed upon the Benthamite formula. What
I have contended for is simply equality of consideration ; and
an absolute equality of conditions would involve a diminution
of general welfare which would be inconsistent with the good
of all members of the society or the great majority of them, and
would therefore be condemned by the formula itself. Moreover,
I have admitted the superior rights of the superior kind of
Well-being, and therefore of the superior man who is capable
of enjoying it. I have only insisted that even the claims of the
superior man must be estimated with due regard to the claims;
be they small or great, of other people. If any one likes to
regard the highest development of a few superior beings as an
object compared with which immense masses, so to speak, of
commonplace virtue and happiness may be treated as a negligible
quantity, such a view would to my mind misrepresent the actual
verdict of the healthy moral consciousness, but it would be quite
consistent with the formula of equal consideration if we assume
that he was right in his judgements of comparative value l . But
if (to return to the social side of the objection) by the allegation
that my view is inconsistent with the organic character of human
society it is implied that human society has a good which is
distinct from the good of the individual persons composing it,
if this * good ' or 'development* of society is made a sort of fetish
to which whole hecatombs of individual lives are to be ruthlessly
sacrificed, I can only reply that such a view seems to me a pure
superstition a widely prevalent superstition which is responsible
for much of the stupidity and mismanagement with which the
world's affairs are often conducted. With the Philosopher the
mistake may sometimes be an honest blunder: translated into
practical politics this vague talk about the * interests of the
social organism* generally carries with it the assumption that
society is to be organized in such a way as to secure a maximum
advantage to the limited class which is actually in possession
of the lion's share of good things, and that those who threaten
1 Simmel has suggested that in some cases a man might justifiably treat
himself as a person of this importance, like Nietzsche's Vbermensch. So anti-
social an attitude would, in my view, involve the sacrifice of the higher to
the lower, even in the individual's own life.
Chap, viii, ix] INDIVIDUAL WELFARE *8i
to disturb this arrangement are to be shot down forthwith. In
practice it means Beati possidentes: the existing Prussian
constitution in Church and State is the final and highest
development of ' the Idea/
There is no good that is not the good of some individual
or individuals, though unquestionably that good is the good
of social beings interested in the welfare of their fellows,
and occupying definite positions in the social system. It is
a clear deliverance of the reflective moral consciousness that we
should endeavour to secure as much as possible of this good life
for as many individuals as possible. It is true no doubt that,
when we come to ask in detail how the good life is to be enjoyed
by as many individuals as possible, we must remember all those
characteristics of human society which are emphasized by the
formula ' society is an organism ' that one man's good is not
necessarily another's loss, that it is in discharging his social
function that the individual attains his truest good, that social
functions vary, that a man's good must be relative to his
function, that increasing differentiation in many respects is a note
and condition of social progress, that the life of society is
a continuous growth and can only be gradually modified, that
some liberty is a condition of all higher Well-being and that
all liberty carries inequality with it, and finally that the maxim
represents an ideal which it is a duty to aim at but which can
never be fully realized. These considerations will be further
developed in the chapter on * Vocation/ But all this does not
seem to require any modification of our doctrine that Justice
does consist in the apportionment to each individual of his due
share of good, in so far as that good can be secured or modified
by human agency. Questions of Justice cannot be thought out
without assuming that good is a thing which we can distribute.
This assumption involves, like all speculative theories, a good
deal of abstraction. But it in no way implies that we really
suppose that human * Well-being ' or ' good ' is a tangible lump
of -plum-cake which we can serve out in slices according to
a tariff prescribed by the intuitive moral consciousness. It
merely asserts that the .social Organism is not an end in itself
but a means to the good of individual human beings, each of
a8a JUSTICE [Book I
i
whom should be treated (as far as possible) according to his
own individual worth l .
To complete our treatment of Justice one more question must
be faced the question of Punishment* We have seen in what
sense it is a duty for the individual, both in his private relations
and as a member of a community, acting in concert with others,
to aim at rewarding Virtue. It remains for us to inquire c In
what sense, and on what grounds, is it a duty to punish Vice 1 '
NOTE ON RENOUVIER'S IDEA OF JUSTICE.
An attempt has been made by M. Renouvier in his Science de la morale *
one of the most serious and earnest efforts to grapple with the real problems
of Ethics which has been made in recent times to resolve all Virtue or at
least all moral obligation (in the strict sense) into Justice. Taking his
stand on the Kantian principle that Justice represents the conditions upon
which the liberty of one (i.e. his opportunities of obtaining his true end) is
compatible with the like liberty of all, he attempts to deduce therefrom all
the ' strict ' duties which man owes to man. But it is admitted that such
duties can only be fully discharged in an ideal state of society (the Mat de
paix). They postulate a state of things in which every one else is equally
willing to perform his duty towards the agent and towards all others.
Where others ignore their obligations, the right of defence justifies en-
croachments upon the liberty of others (including all State coercion) which
go beyond strict Justice, while scope is afforded for a Benevolence equally
going beyond those limits ; but such Benevolence can only be considered a
duty in so far as it springs out of one's duty to oneself the duty of develop-
ing oneself morally and cultivating one's generous emotions. Hence a code
of Ethics suitable to the existing Mat de guerre is not (like the duties of Jus-
tice) capable of strict scientific formulation. I admit that it is possible to
give a tolerably accurate analysis of our actual moral ideas on this basis.
M. Renouvier's work seems to me quite the ablest attempt to develope the
Kantian formalism into something like a reasonable and self-consistent
system. But it seems to be open to the following objections ; (i) The duty
of respecting others' liberty is not an ultimate and independent duty, but is
derivable from the value of others' good ; a certain kind of liberty is an
1 'The whole developed apparatus of constitution and government would
have absolutely no end or meaning if their activities did not ultimately result
in the good of individuals ' (Sigwart, Vorfragen der Ethik, p. 17). It might
seem unnecessary to quote so obvious a remark, except as a proof that
sanity in talking about the social organism is not quite unknown among
philosophers of acknowledged distinction* c
* Published in 1869.
Chap, viii, note] RENOUVIER'S VIEW 283
essential condition of Well-being, bat it is not Well-being itself. To aim at
liberty rather than Well-being seems to me irrational. (2) This being so, it
is arbitrary to set the limits which Renouvier sets to the assistance which
one man owes to another to say that he must abstain from interference,
but is under no obligation to help others to realize their true goo. (3) We
can form so inadequate a picture of a perfect humanity and a morally perfect
society that it is hardly worth while to attempt to draw out in detail the
duties which in such a state man would owe to man : any value which such
an attempt might possibly have would seem to be rather for Law than
for Morality. (4) When the author comes to the critical question of
property, he is obliged to admit that the a priori rights of property
(substantially Locke's divine right of the first grabber) which he claims as
necessary to the liberty of each are in the nature of things (and not only in
consequence of other men's injustice) unfairly restrictive of the liberty of
others, so that his a priori Morality is not even fit for an ideal society
or consistent with itself. (5) Hence it is practically much more convenient
to reduce both the Justice appropriate to the itat de paix and the restric-
tions imposed by the Mat de guerre to a general duty of promoting as far as
possible under actual circumstances the good of each in proportion to its
intrinsic value. This is, I believe at bottom, what all this elaborate appara-
tus comes to, when its arbitrary and dogmatic accidents have been removed.
For a discussion of the idea of ' works of supererogation, 1 necessitated in a
peculiarly harsh and rigorous form by M. Renouvier 1 s system, the reader may
be referred to the chapter on ' Vocation* in our second Book.
CHAPTER IX
PUNISHMENT AND FORGIVENESS
THERE was a time when the notion that blood demands blood
was held so firmly and so crudely that little distinction was
made between intentional and unintentional acts of homicide.
Ancient law abounds in traces of this inveterate instinct of
primitive humanity. We see the legislator of the Pentateuch
endeavouring to limit its operation by the institution of cities of
refuge, whose walls protected the unintentional homicide against
further pursuit by the avenger of blood. We find the same
inability to distinguish between voluntary and involuntary
homicide in the curious notions of the Canon Law (still, perhaps,
theoretically in force among us) about the 'irregularity' con-
tracted by consecrated persons and consecrated places through
the most unwitting bloodshed, and not contracted by the most
atrocious violence involving no physical effusion of blood. We
see the same curious but once useful superstition in the old law
of Deodand, which required the forfeiture of the inanimate
object or the irrational animal which had, in the most accidental
way, been the instrument of man's death. Thus even the horse
from which a fatal fall had been sustained, or the boat from
which a man had drowned himself, were made the subjects
of this peculiar application of retributive justice. At the present
day the cruder forms of this old-world cry of blood for blood are
no longer heard; but what is, perhaps, after all only a more
refined form of the same fundamental notion lingers in the
theory which makes the primary object of punishment to be
retribution. A man has done wrong, therefore for that reason
and for no other, it is said, let him be punished. Punishment,
we are told, is an end in itself, not a means to any end beyond
Chap.ix, i] KANTS BETBIBUnVE THEORY 285
itself* Pffrci^TflftTItt }(V\Trt| tf]| ffift rn^y nnf. f^ f.l^fi fafalF A - The
guilt of the offence must be, in some mysterious way, wiped out
by the suffering of the offender ; and that obliteration or cancelling
of the guilt-stained record, be it noticed, is conceived of as quite
independent of any effect to be produced upon the sufferer by
his bodily or mental pain. For, the moment we insist upon the
effect produced upon the sufferer's soul by his punishment,
the retributive theory is deserted for the reformatory or the
deterrent. Here is the famous passage of Kant :
'Juridical punishment can never be administered merely as
a means for promoting another good, either with regard to
the criminal himself or to civil society, but must in all cases be
imposed only because the individual on whom it is inflicted
has committed a crime. . . . The penal law is a Categorical
Imperative ; and woe to him who creeps through the serpent*
windings of Utilitarianism to discover some advantage that
may discharge him from the justice of punishment, or even*
from the due measure of it l ! ' He goes on to defend the lex
tqJ^pnis as the only just principle for the allotment of penalty
to crime, and to make the famous declaration that, ' if a civil
society resolved to dissolve itself with the consent of all its
members ' [so that punishment would be no longer required for
deterrent purposes], '. . . the last murderer lying in the prison
ought to be executed before the resolution was carried out V
There we have the retributive theory propounded by the
greatest of modern philosophers; and it is still defended by
philosophers and philosophic jurists in Germany, England, and
America 3 . For most modern men, whether or not they have
consciously abandoned the theory, this view exercises but little
influence over our ideas of Atwnan justice, though it is to be
feared that it still casts a black shadow over popular conceptions
of the punishment in store for sin in another world.
1 Kanrt Philosophy of Law, E. T. by Hastie, 1887, p. 195.
8 Ib. p. 198.
* Hegel has usually been understood to maintain the retributive theory.
Dr. McTaggart (Hegel's ' Theory of Punishment ' in International Journal of
Ethics, vol. VI, July, 1896) has endeavoured to show that this is a mis-
understanding. Dr. McTaggait's own view, whether really 'Hegelian' or
not, is in the main that for which I contend.
PUNISHMENT AND FORGIVENESS [Book I
It is difficult to argue against a theory whose truth or false-*
hood must be decided for each of us by an appeal to his own
moral consciousness, by the answer which he gives to the
simple question whether he does or does not in his best moments
feel this mysterious demand that moral guilt should be atoned
by physical pain, That the sight of wrong-doing particularly
when it takes the form of cruelty does inspire a sentiment
of indignant resentment in healthy minds, and that it is right
and reasonable that in all legal ways that sentiment should
be gratified, no sensible person will deny. But that is only
because experience shows that the infliction of pain upon offenders
is one of the most effectual ways and in some cases the only
effectual way of producing amendment. /Thft qnpflti<m iff
^hether, apart from its effects, there would be any moraLpro^
priety in the mere infliction of pain for pain's sake. A wrong
has been done say, a crime of brutal violence; by that act
a double evil has been introduced into the world. There has
been so much physical pain for the victim, and so much moral
evil has polluted the offender's soul. Is the case made any
better by the addition of a third evil, the pain of the punished
[offender, which ex hypothesi is to do him no moral good what-
ever? If, as enlightened philanthropists sometimes seem to
imagine, the direct effect of all punishment that really is punish-*
ment were to inspire the offender and others with a passionate de-
sire to repeat the offence, if in our prisons a liberal diet, genial
society, free communication with the outside world, artistic cells,
abundant leisure and varied amusement were found in practice
to be more deterrent and more reformatory than solitude and
plank bed, skilly and the narrow exercising yard, how many
disciples of Kant would be Kantian enough to forbid the institu-
Won of a code of graduated rewards for our present system of
pain-giving punishments ?
Perhaps the simplest way of satisfying ourselves that it is
impossible to reconcile the retributive theory of punishment, either
with the actual practice of our courts or with any practicable
system of judicial administration, will be to notice the modi-
fication which is presented by Mr. Bradley. Mr. Bradley
Beems to be so much struck with the obvious disproportion
Chap, ix, i] MB, BRADLEY'S VIEW
between the moral and the legal aspect of various offences, that
he actually gives up the doctrine that the amount of punish**
merit should correspond with the amount of the offence, while
still maintaining that punishment in general is justified only
by the past sin, not by the future advantage.
c We pay the penalty, because we owe it, and for no other
reason; and if punishment is inflicted for any other reason
whatever, than because it is merited by wrong, it is a gross
immorality, a crying injustice, an abominable crime, and not
what it pretends to be. We may have regard for whatever
considerations we please our own convenience, the good of
society, the benefit of the offender; we are fools, and worse,
if we fail to do so. Having once the right to punish, we may
modify the punishment according to the useful and the pleasant,
but these are external to the matter ; they can not give us a right
to punish, and nothing can do that but criminal desert. . , , Yes,
in spite of sophistry, and in the face of sentimentalism, with
well-nigh the whole body of our self-styled enlightenment against
them, our people believe to this day that punishment is inflicted
for the sake of punishment,' &c. 1
1 Ethical Studies, 1876, pp. 25, 26. In a note which appeared in the Inter
nationalJoumal of Ethics (' Some Remarks on Punishment/ vol. IV, Ap., 1894,
p. 284), Mr. Bradley protests against being supposed to hold that punish*
ment is inflicted for the sake of pain. Alluding to an article in the same
Journal, which is substantially reproduced in the present chapter, Mr. Bradley
remarks : ' Mr. Rashdall appears to me to misunderstand the view which he
attacks. He takes me to hold an " intuitive theory of punishment/* by which
(so far as I can judge) he means a view based on some isolated abstraction.
I find this strange, and what is perhaps stranger is that he treats me as
teaching that punishment consists in the infliction of pain for pain's sake.
At least I am unable otherwise to interpret his language. Now, I certainly
said that punishment is the suppression of guilt, and so of the guilty person.
But I pointed out that negation is not a good, except in so far as it belong^
to and is the other side of positive moral assertion (Ethical Studies, p. 25).
Pain, of course, usually does go with the negative side of punishment, just
as some pleasure, I presume, attends usually the positive side. Pain is, in
brief, arf accident of retribution, but certainly I never made it more, and
I am not aware that I made it even an inseparable accident. If a criminal
defying the law is shot through the brain, are we, if there is no pain, to hold
that there is no retribution ? My critic seems, if I may say so, to hold an
" intuitive theory " of my views/
Upon this explanation I shojild like to make the following remarks:
(i) I admit that for ( pain * I ought to have said * or other evil, lose of
288 PUNISHMENT AND FORGIVENESS [Book I
Now, in the first place, is this consistent? If punishment
is ' modified ' for utilitarian reasons, does not that mean that
it is inflicted partly for retribution and partly for some other
reason ? Jf so, we do not pay the penalty because we owe it,
and for no other reason. And, secondly, is it logical? If sin
by itself confers the right and imposes the duty of punishment,
there must be a right to inflict either a definite amount of
punishment or an infinite amount. If the latter, it is obvious
that the State will always have the right to inflict any quantity
of punishment it pleases upon any of its citizens at any time,
since all have sinned and incurred thereby unlimited liability to
something good being treated as an evil/ If it were not thought an evil to
be shot through the brain, the shooting would certainly not be a punish-
ment What retribution would be in which there was no such evil, I am
wholly at a loss to understand.
(2) I am quite willing to admit that Mr. Bradley recognizes a positive
side as well as a negative side to punishment, but I have entirely failed to
discover what this positive side is. Mr. Bradley goes on to say that punish-
ment is ' the reaction of a moral organism, and this organism has a par-
ticular concrete character. 1 I don't deny that in punishment the organism
reacts against the criminal ; and veiy often the criminal reacts against the
organism. But what I want to know is ' why ought it so to react ? ' If it
has a purpose in doing so, let that purpose be expressed. If the purpose be
to produce any effect upon society, it seems to be totally misleading to
say that ' punishment is inflicted for the sake of punishment ' or for ' retri-
bution ' and so on. If that purpose be anything else besides the production
of good effects on conscious beings, it seems to me wholly immoral and
irrational. I cannot look upon an abstraction like ' moral assertion ' as an
end-in-itself.
(3) In spite of Mr. Bradley's explanations, I cannot admit that the views
he maintains in the above-mentioned Article are reconcilable with the
chapter in Ethical Studies. Mr. Bradley formerly maintained that it was
immoral to punish except for retribution : now he defends * s<^|^ JJj^gery '
(i. e. wholesale Infanticide) for the reduction of population. Any infliction
of pain, loss, or death is justified, it appears, for an adequate social end
provided we do not call it punishment. Surely it is a mere sophism to
suppose that the ( gross immorality, 1 the ' crying injustice,* the * abominable
crime* of unmerited punishment can be escaped by the mere trick of calling
it * social Surgery ' instead of * punishment.* It is fair to add that Mr. Bradley
adds : ' I should have little to correct in the old statement of my view except
a certain number of one-sided and exaggerated expressions. 1 To me, if I may/
say so with profound respect for his later writings, the chapter in Ethical
Studies to which he alludes seems to consist, in little else but one-sided and
exaggerated expressions.
Chap, ix, i] PUNISHMENT NOT RETRIBUTION
punishment. * Use every man after his desert, and who should
'scape whipping 1 ' Such a contention would render the whole
theory nugatory. If, on the other hand, wrong-doing confers
a right to inflict a merely limited amount of punishment,
Mr. Bradley is open to the following objections :
I ( x ) How^jgan this amount be fixed? How can n^pj^J^guilt
he. expressed in terms of physical pain ? To any one who
believes that punishment is justified by its effects, the right
or just amount of punishment is that which will best serve
the ends for which punishment exists i. e. deterrence and
reformation. But how, apart from its end, can the amount
of punishment due to each offence be fixed ? I find in my own
mind no intuitions on the subject, and believe that if we were all
to sit down and attempt to write out lists of crimes, with the
number of lashes of the cat or months of imprisonment which
they intrinsically merit, we should find the task an extremely
difficult one, and should arrive at very discordant results. At
all events, such a task would be hopelessly out of harmony with
the actual practice of the most enlightened tribunals. It is
obvious that drunkenness in a ' gentleman ' will often be, morally
speaking, as culpable as burglary in an hereditary criminal. But
it is not so much the practical as the theoretical impossibility
of the task that I wish to emphasize. The idea of expressing
moral guilt in the terms of cat or birch-rod, gallows or pillory,
hard labour or penal servitude, seems to be essentially and
intrinsically unmeaning. There is absolutely no commensura-
bility between the two things.
(a) Assuming this difficulty removed, it is clear that when the
proper amount of punishment has been inflicted, the right tp
punish has been exhausted. If any further punishmeal^te
inflicted for utilitarian reasons, it will be simply, on Mr. Bradley**
premisses, so much unjustifiable cruelty. If forty stripes save
one is th# proper punishment for any offence, the fortieth will be
simply a common assault, no matter whether it is inflicted by
the private individual or by the public executioner.
(3) The only way of escape open to Mr. Bradley would be
to contend that though the State may not for utilitarian reasons
increase, it may for utilitarian reasons reduce the ideally just
RASBDA&L I U
390 PUNISHMENT AND FORGIVENESS [Book I
punishment. The position is on the face of it a somewhat
arbitrary one, and it is open to this objection : it involves the
admission that in all cases wrong-doing confers a right, but does
pot impose a duty of punishment. Can it be moral that society,
if it might, without failure in duty, remit punishment, should
punish just because it pleases so to do ? This would be to admit
that whether we shall punish or not is to be determined by mere
caprice. So, if you say that it is a duty to punish, except where
utilitarian considerations demand that less than the ideal amount
should be inflicted, you practically admit that whether any
punishment should be inflicted at all, and how much, must be
determined by teleological considerations. The theory of an
intuitive command to punish will have reduced itself to the
somewhat barren assertion that you have no right to punish
except where there has been wrong-doing. This is a proposition
which it is hard to dispute, since, as a general rule, no public
purpose is served by hanging the wrong man. There are, how-
ever, cases where it must be admitted that suffering may lawfully
be inflicted on innocent persons e. g. where a barony or a hun-
dred is made to pay compensation to persons injured in a riot,
or where a savage village that has sheltered a murderer is burnt
by a European man-of-war. There are, too, exceptional crises
in which it is necessary, in the interests of society, to be less
exacting in the matter of evidence than a civilized state ought to
be in qutet times.
We are here, however, straying into difficult and disputable
questions of details, and it is best to be content with simply
pointing out that, when we have applied to the theory the
qualifications which are demanded by the obvious facts, it is
reduced to very modest limits. It amounts simply to the asser-
tion that punishment should be inflicted only on the guilty;
it admits that in its infliction the legislator should be governed
by utilitarian considerations, that is, by the end which punish-
ment actually serves.
From the point of view which we have hitherto been taking,
the retributive theory will appear to many a mere survival
of bygone modes of thought. Yet, as is usually the case with
theories which exhibit so much persistence as the one before us,
Chap, ix, i] CONCESSIONS 391
the retributive theory of punishment contains a good deal of
truth at the bottom of it, deeper truth perhaps than the Ben-
thamite view, which has taken its place in popular thought.
There are, I think, three elements of truth which the retributive
view of punishment recognizes, and which the ordinary utilitarian
view often ignores.
(l) JJmtly, Jfc po^flftaaftfl paynhnlngWI or ^^^naLJCTtih. It
is correct as an explanation of the origin of punishment. That
punishment originates in the instinct of vengeance is a common-
place of Anthropology. Criminal law was in its origin a sub-
stitute for private vengeance. The fact is illustrated by the
Jewish law of homicide, by the Saxon system of Wergilt, and by
the Roman law which punished the thief caught red-handed
twice as severely as the thief convicted afterwards by evidence
taken in cold blood. The theory was that the owner would
naturally be twice as angry in the first case as in the second,
though, of course, the injury done either to himself or the com-
munity would be precisely the same. And this connexion between
punishment and vengeance is not simply a matter of history. It
is still (as Sir Henry Maine has insisted 1 ) one of the purposes of
punishment to serve as an outlet, a kind of safety-valve, for the
indignation of the community. All laws ultimately depend for
their enforcement upon the public sentiment in their favour;
hence the legislator cannot afford to take no account of popular
sentiment in their administration. There are many features
of the modern criminal law which can only be defended on
account of the desirability of keeping up a certain proportion
between the measure of public indignation and the measure
of legal penalty for instance, the distinction made between
accomplished crimes and attempts at crimes which have failed
through causes independent of the offender's volition. Public
opinion will sanction capital punishment when the blood of
a brothei* man seems to cry for vengeance from the ground ;
it would not tolerate an execution for an attempted murder
which has failed through a pistol missing fire. It may be doubted
whether this irrational mode of estimating punishment by the
actual, and not by the intended, effects of an act is not sometimes
1 Ancient Law, 4th ed., 1870, p. 389.
u a
PUNISHMENT AND FORGIVENESS [Book T
carried unnecessarily far, as when, for instance, a Magistrate
remands a prisoner to see how his victim's wounds progress.
Whence it would seem to follow that, since a total abstainer's
wounds "heal sooner than a drunkard's, a man is to be punished
more severely for stabbing a drunkard than for stabbing a total
abstainer. In ways like this, deference to popular sentiment
may be carried too far, but there can be no doubt of the sound-
ness of the principle that the criminal Jaw, while it seeks to
guide, must not go too far ahead of popular sentiment, nor yet
(as American lynch law occasionally reminds us) lag too far
behind it.
(%) The second half-truth held in solution by the retributive
theory is the fact that punishment is reformatory as well as
merely deterrent. Very often, indeed, it will be found on exami-
nation that those who most loudly clamour for reformatory
punishments do not really believe in the reformatory effect
of punishment at all. Punishment is necessarily painful (posi-
tively or negatively), or it ceases to be punishment. Those
people who denounce any particular punishment on the ground
that it is painful, really mean that you ought to reform criminals
instead of punishing them. Now, of course, it is the duty of
the State to endeavour to reform criminals as well as to punish
them. But when a man is induced to abstain from crime
by the possibility of a better life being brought home to
him through the ministrations of a prison Chaplain \ through
education, through a book from the prison library, or the efforts
of a Discharged Prisoners' Aid Society, he is not reformed by
punishment at all. No doubt there are reformatory agencies
much more powerful than punishment; and without the co-
operation of such agencies it is rarely that punishment makes
the criminal into a better man. But it is none the less true that
punishment does help to make men better, and not simply to
induce them to abstain from punishable acts for fear of the
consequences. At first sight this may seem to be a paradox ;
but it seems so only when we forget that every man has'in him
a better self, as well as a lower self. And if the lower self
1 Or (according to a system which is, I believe, adopted in some American
prisons) by the lectures of the Moral Philosopher attached to the prison.
Chap, ix, i] EEFOBMATORY PUNISHMENT 293
is kept down by the terror of punishment, higher motives are
able to assert themselves. Fear of punishment protects a man
against himself. If in the punishment of criminals we have
practically to think much more of its effects upon oth'ers than
of its effects upon the men themselves, it is otherwise in educa-
tion. Fear of punishment by itself will seldom turn an idle boy
into a diligent one ; but there are few boys who could be trusted
to work their best at all times, if in their weaker moments they
were not kept to their duty by a modicum of fear ; and there
are few of us, perhaps, whose conduct would not fall still fur-
ther behind our own ideal than it actually does, if our better
selves were not sometimes reinforced by fear of punishment,
at least in the form of social disapprobation or loss of reputation.
And in the case of actual crime, that conviction of the external
strength of the Moral Law which punishment brings with it is
usually at least the condition of moral improvement; though
that conviction will not make a man morally better, unless
the external judgement is ratified and confirmed by the appellate
tribunal of his own Conscience. Nevertheless, this external re-
spect for the Moral Law is the first step to the recognition of its
internal, its intrinsic authority.
Plausible as it looks to deny a priori that mere pain can
produce moral effects, the extravagance of the contention becomes
evident when it is seen that it involves the assertion that no
external conditions have any effect whatever upon character. It
is matter of common experience that men's characters are power-
fully affected by misfortune, bereavement, poverty, disgrace.
Adversity is not, of course, uniformly and necessarily productive
of moral improvement. But no one will deny that under certain
circumstances, and with men of certain temperaments, great
moral changes are often produced by calamity of one kind
or another. In some cases the effect is direct and immediate ;
in other* cases the effect is produced indirectly through the
awakening of religious emotion. In either case, of course, all
that the misfortune does is to create conditions of mind favourable
to the action of higher motives and considerations, or to remove
conditions unfavourable to their action. Punishment, op its
reformatory side, may be said to be an artificial creation of
$94 PUNISHMENT AND FORGIVENESS [Book I
conditions favourable to moral improvement. The artificial
creation of such conditions has, of course, this advantage over
ordinary misfortune, that it is seen to be the direct consequence
of the wrong-doing, which is not necessarily the case with
other alterations of circumstances*
In view of these considerations, we may, perhaps, go one step
further and maintain that even in cases where punishment will
not have a reformatory effect, where the tendencies to evil are
too strong to be kept in check by fear, even then punishment
may be, in a sense, for the moral good of the offender. Wicked-
ness humbled and subdued, though it be only by external force,
is a healthier moral condition than wickedness successful and
triumphant. That is the extremest point to which we can go
with the advocates of the vindictive theory. This is, I suppose,
the truth which underlies the hackneyed expressions about
avenging the insult offered to the Moral Law, vindicating the
Moral Law, asserting its majesty, and so on. We recognize that
punishment may sometimes be right, in the interests of the
offender himself, even when it fails to deter. The pleasures
of successful wickedness may be treated as bad pleasures which
are of less than no value, and even pleasures not in themselves
connected with the successful wickedness may, when enjoyed
by a bad man, be regarded as of very small intrinsic value. But
still, it is always a certain effect on consciousness and character
that constitutes its justification, not merely the satisfaction of an
impersonal and irrational law 1 .
1 I should be prepared to recognize a larger amount of truth in the
a priori view of punishment, if the idea of punishment were to be confined
simply to the withholding of good things, to what theologians have called
i a yoena damni. Whether it would be right to make the bad happy if the
absence of happiness would have no effect on their badness not even that
of making them feel that goodness is stronger than evil is almost too
abstract a question to admit of an answer ; but that in a sense it is true that
goodness and happiness ought to go together has already been admitted in
the last chapter. I could accept Mr. Moore's view that 'the infliction of
pain on a person whose state of mind is bad may, if the pain be*not too
intense, create a state of things that is better on the whole than if the evil
state of mind had existed unpunished,* with the reservation * whether such
a state of things can ever constitute a positive good, is another question '
(Principia Ethica, p. 214). Only I should submit that the ground of our
Chap. ix. i] MORAL END OF THE STATE
(3) A word will suffice to indicate the third and the highest
truth which the vindictive theory of punishment caricatures. It
is the truth the great Aristotelian truth that the State has
a spiritual end. *
We all know that experience sets tolerably striet limits to the
extent to which it is desirable that the State should interfere
with personal liberty and private life in the pursuit of moral
and spiritual ends. There are many grave moral offences which
the State may reasonably refuse to punish for quite other
reasons than indifference to moral Well-being. The offence may
be incapable of exact definition. It might require for its
detection a police-force which would be a public burden, or
involve an inquisitorial procedure, or give rise to blackmailing
and false accusation to an extent which would constitute a greater
evil than the offence itself. The experience of the ecclesiastical
courts, which continued in full operation in this country down
to 1643 \ or of the clerical government prevalent in Borne under
the Papacy, would afford plenty of illustrations of the- evils,
incident to such attempts to extend police supervision to the
details of private life. Very often, no doubt, the difficulty
arises largely from the fact that the attempt puts too great
a strain upon the Conscience of the community. Many offences
may be, on the whole, condemned by public opinion which are
not condemned with sufficient earnestness to secure the enforce-
ment of the criminal law against them. With all these admissions,
it must still be contended that the State is perfectly entitled to
repress immorality. If an act is not inconsistent with the true
Well-being either of the individual or of society, it is not
immoral; and, even if it were admitted that the State should
Dot interfere with conduct affecting only the Well-being of the
individual, it is impossible that any act which affects the Well-
approval is not the mere fact ' that the combined existence of two evils may
pet constitute a less evil than would be constituted by the existence of either
dngly ' (ib.) p. 215), but the tendency of the pain to make the state of mind
Less opposed to our ideal of what it ought to be.
1 Their jurisdiction over laymen was of course occasionally exercised to a
much later date. Since the penances imposed by the ecclesiastical courts
nrere (and theoretically are) enforceable by imprisonment, no distinction
in principle could be drawn between their action and that of the State.
396 PUNISHMENT AND FORGIVENESS [Book 1
being of an individual should be without consequences for
others also. The distinction between crimes and sins can be
found only in considerations of social utility. A crime is simply
a sin which it is expedient to repress by penal enactment 1 .
Every civilized state punishes some offences which cannot be
said to be injurious to the ' public good/ unless moral Well-being
is considered to be part of the public good.
It must be remembered that it is not merely by actual and
direct intimidation that the State can promote Morality. The
criminal law has an important work to do in giving expression
to the moral sense of the community. Popular ideas as to
the moral gravity of many offences depend largely upon the
punishment which is awarded to them by the criminal courts.
There are probably thousands who have hardly any distinct
ideas about sin except those which are inculcated at Assizes and
Petty Sessions. It is no uncommon experience for a clergyman
to be told by a dying man notorious, it may be, for fornication
or drunkenness or hard selfishness that he has nothing to
reproach himself with, his Conscience is quite clear, he has
never done anything wrong that he knows of, he has no reason
to be afraid to meet his God, and so on. Then upon enquiry it
turns out that what the man really means is that he has done
nothing for which he could have been sent to prison.
There are many offences which the State can do little to
check by the directly deterrent efforts of punishment, but which
it can do much to prevent by simply making them punishable.
Since a few persons with good coats have actually been sent
to prison for bribery at elections, the respectable public has
really begun to suspect that there may be something wrong
in the practice. A very little reflection upon the * different
estimates which are formed of these forms of immorality or of
Dishonesty for which people go to prison, and of those for which
tliey do not go to prison, will show at once the enormous
importance of the criminal law in promoting the moral education
of the public mind. While, therefore, there are some kinds of
1 In practice, of course, this term is usually reserved for the graver kinds
of offences against the law. We do not talk about the crime of having
one's chimney on fire.
Chap, ix, ii] COMPULSOBY MORALITY 297
wrong-doing which, either from their essential natures or from
collateral considerations, cannot be wisely dealt with by the
criminal law, we may expect that with the necessary moralization
of a community, the sphere of criminal law ought gradually to
extend. In the growing disposition to enact and enforce laws
against gambling, to assist, if not to enforce, temperance by Act
of Parliament, and to protect by the criminal law the chastity of
young girls, we may recognize an instalment of moral progress.
The doctrine that you cannot make men moral by Act of Parlia-
ment is about as true as the doctrine that you cannot make men
abstain from crime by Act of Parliament. In spite of all the
efforts of the Legislature, the practice of stealing has not been
entirely stamped out. The fact that no legislation has suc-
ceeded in producing a perfectly moral community does not show
that the State cannot do much to make a community more
moral than it would otherwise be.
II
It will be urged by some that the enforcement of Morality
tends to deprive that Morality of the freedom which is one of
its essential conditions. The ideal life that we want to promote
is not a society in which certain things are done, but a state of
society in which certain things are done from the right motives
by persons ' in a certain state of mind ' and * doing them for their
own sake* (TTWS lxoz>res and avr&v tveKa r&v 7rparTo/ut^o)i;),as Aristotle
would put it. The aim of society, and of the State, is to promote the
growth of characters of a certain type. Too great social pressure,
still more decidedly too much State coercion, is destructive of the
spontaneity, the individuality, the variety without which the
highest types of character will not grow. We do not wish to
turn people out exactly in the same mould. That is so partly
because the mould which any existing society would be apt to
impoe is not an ideally perfect one, and we want to have room
for further growth in our ideal : partly because (within certain
limits) there is room for considerable variety not merely in the
type of external conduct, but in actual character. Different
types of characters are mutually complementary and combine
to form an ideal society. Bui even the character which we do
398 PUNISHMENT AND FORGIVENESS [Book I
want to be universal that devotion to the general good, that
compliance with the primary conditions of social Well-being,
which must be an element in all intrinsically valuable characters
would Icae much of its value if enforced beyond a certain
point. The failure of Monasticism has been largely due to its
attempt to enforce too much. Not only does the prescribed
routine of life destroy individuality and originality, but even
the Morality which is actually secured ceases to be the result of
moral effort. A life in which there are no temptations or
rather in which the place of natural temptations is taken by
artificial ones manufactured by unnatural conditions of life 1
and no room for spontaneous effort is not conducive to moral
growth. There is much in the history of monastic institutions
which goes to show that such a minute regulation of life by
unbending rule encourages a certain childishness of character, to
say nothing of graver anti-social tendencies. That is so even
though the hold which the rule has on the man depends entirely
(in modern times) upon his voluntary consent 2 . Still graver
would be the deterioration of character under a system wherein
all life should be regulated by police discipline. Character isi
formed by acts of choice; consequently character cannot be!
developed when there is no occasion for the individual to choose!
at alL
These considerations have been much insisted upon by the
late Professor T. H. Green, and (as it seems to me with con-
siderable exaggeration) by Prof. Bosanquet. To say that * the
promotion of morality by force ... is an absolute self-contradic-
tion ' 8 is to take a very superficial view of the matter. Such
a dictum assumes that, when an act is enforced, it must be done
merely because it is enforced. It cannot be doubted that dis-
1 With all its beauties, it is impossible to read many pages of the Imitatio
Christi without feeling that the writer is incessantly occupied with tempta-
tions of this kind.
* This, of course, was not the case in the Middle Ages, when the secular
arm returned the * apostate ' monk to his convent ; and even now the penni-
less condition of the renegade monk often has the same effect.
8 Bosanquet, Philosophical Theory of the State, 1899, p. 192. The statement
is, indeed, modified by the preceding sentence : ^Whatever acts are enforced
are, so for as the force operates, withdrawn from the higher life.*
Chap, ix, ii] IMMORALITY AND CBIMfi 299
honesty would become rampant in a country wherein stealing
should be unpunished. And yet it would be the veriest cynicism
to assert that the majority of our fellow countrymen keep their
hands out of other people's pockets only because they are afraid
of going to prison if they don't. The existence of punishment
for an offence may create a state of feeling in which the act is
looked upon as wrong in itself. The individual who begins
with abstaining from fear of punishment may end by regarding
the act with hearty and spontaneous dislike : and the individual
born into a society already permeated with this feeling may
simply not be aware that the existence of punishment for the
offence has anything to do with his own dislike of it. There
may be no great objection to the formula that the State ought
rather to create the conditions of Morality than to enforce it,
but it is impossible to draw a sharp line of distinction between
the two things. One of the conditions for the growth of a ' free
Morality* may be the existence of laws which have compara-
tively rarely to be enforced. There is hardly any kind of
legislation in favour of Morality advocated by any sensible
person which might not be brought within the formula under-
stood in a liberal sense: understood strictly, it would exclude
kinds of legislation to which few sensible persons object. To
seek to enforce all Morality would indeed be fatal to the higher
growth of character: but it is ridiculous to contend that no
room would be left for the spontaneous exercise of Virtue
because certain elementary requirements of Morality are en-
forced by law. Liberty to get drunk is surely no more essential
to character than liberty to steal.
When all these admissions have been made, it may still be
maintained that there is no fundamental distinction in principle
between the offences which the State will do well to punish and
those which it will do well to let alone. There is no civilized
Statb which does not in practice punish many offences for nc
other reason than that there is a strong moral feeling against
them. If there is to be moral progress in the future, we may
expect the area of conduct dealt with by the criminal law to
widen. And it involves no cynicism to predict that there will
be little progress unless it does. Bad conduct which people feel
300 PUNISHMENT AND FORGIVENESS [Book I
really strongly about they will always want to repress. And
the punishment of the grosser kinds of misconduct, so far from
diminishing people's sensitiveness about the unpunished mis-
conduct, teiyls greatly to increase it. Conscience is aroused by
the reflection that much misconduct which goes unpunished differs
only in degree from that which conducts men to prison. When
we wish to make people feel strongly the wrongness of idleness
or certain kinds of ' company-promoting/ we point out that it is
really the same thing as stealing. When we attain to a social
condition in which it shall be possible to punish the worst kinds
of company-promoting, perhaps even the worst kinds of idleness,
we shall perhaps feel more sensitive about that excessive pursuit
of self-interest or amusement which at present counts almost as
a virtue^
III
There is another aspect of the retributive theory of Punishment
on which I should like briefly to insist. If the theory of the
moral criterion which has been defended in previous chapters be
a true one, it must be true in every case and without any
exception. The idea that punishment can be an end in itself
apart from the effects which it is to produce is wholly incon-
sistent with that principle of teleological Morality which (in
every other connexion) would be accepted by most of those who,
in servile adherence to an unintelligent philosophical tradition,
still maintain the retributive theory of punishment 1 . The
1 The influence of mere tradition in this matter is curiously illustrated in
the case of Prof. Bosanquet, who still considers it necessary to speak of
punishment as retributive, while the explanation of punishment which he
gives, though to my mind evasive and unsatisfactory, has really nothing
' retributive ' about it except the name. He sums up : 'In short, then,
compulsion through punishment and the fear of it, though primarily acting
on the lower self, does tend, where the conditions of true punishment exist
(i. e. the reaction of a system of rights violated by one who shares in it), to
a recognition of the end by the person punished, and may so far be regarded
as his own will, implied in the maintenance of a system to which he is ^
party, returning upon himself in the form of pain. And this is the theory
of punishment as retributive f (The Philosophical Theory of the State, p. 227).
Verily one would not have thought so if Prof. Bosanquet had not told us so !
The fact is that Prof. Bosanquet so completely rejects the retributive theory
Chap, ix, iii] PLATONIC VIEW 30*
essence of the moral judgement is, as is scarcely denied by the
modern adherents of the Kantian tradition, a judgement of
value. Nothing can be right except as a means to something
which has value in itself ; nothing surely can be an %nd in itself
except some state of a conscious being, and to say that a state of
conscious being is an end in itself is to say that it is good. The
essence of punishment is the endurance of pain or some other
evil. In spite of the high authorities that may be quoted for
the contrary view, I venture, under the aegis of Plato and the
many Christian thinkers who have found his ideas on this
subject in essential harmony with the Christian temper, to
maintain that an evil cannot under any circumstances become
a good except relatively either positively, as a means to
some morally good state of consciousness, or medicinally (h
QapfidKov eRet), by way of remedy against some worse evil. If
it be urged that punishment is a good as a means to the vindica-
tion or the assertion or the avenging of the Moral, JLaw, I should
venture to ask how an abstract ' vindication ' or ^assertion ' can
be a good how a mere event or occurrence in nature can be
a good except in so far as it is the expression of some spiritual
state or a means of producing such a state. Even the Moral
Law itself is not an end in itself, but only souls or wills
recognizing and regulating their action by the Moral Law. If
it be urged that the avenging of the Moral Law is right because
it is the expression of the avenger's indignation, that is an
intelligible answer; and I have already admitted that the
expression and cultivation of indignation is one of the purposes
of punishment, though this can be hardly regarded as an ulti-
mate end, but rather a means to a further end the spiritual
good of the man himself and of society at large. But, if punish-
ment is to be justified on account of the good it does to the
punisher, we have already gone some way towards the abandon-
of punishment that he really cannot believe that it has actually been held
by any one else. And yet I am free to admit that there is much in all this
talk about involuntary and impenitent submission to an unreformatory
punishment being really the act of the person's own will, which is quite as
unintelligible and ethically objectionable as the crudest form of the retribu-
tive theory, as implied for instance in the many popular views of the Christian
doctrine of Atonement.
3 oa PUNISHMENT AND FOEGIVENESS [Book I
ment of the retributory theory in its ordinary form ; and further
a question arises as to the punisher's right to inflict evil on
another in order to secure a good for himself. He the punisher
is no dopbt an end in himself, and is justified in seeking his
own good; but what right has he to ignore another's good
except as a means to some greater good of his own or of the
society in which he lives ? It will hardly be seriously contended
that such and such a sentence of five years' penal servitude is to
be justified because the pain involved is outweighed by the
spiritual good which Mr. Justice So-and-so may have secured to
himself by passing it. It may be suggested that it is justified
because it is the expression of the indignation of society ; that
the sentence tends to promote in society a reverence for the law
which the criminal has broken, or, again, that the punishment
produces moral good in the offender. In that case we have
frankly abandoned the idea that punishment is an end in itself,
and have adopted the view that it is a means to some good in
society at large or in the criminal himself. It is true that the
word 'deterrence' hardly expresses adequately the fact that
the good which punishment confers upon society is in part a
spiritual good; that it tends not merely to deter men from
committing crime, but to impress upon their minds the idea that
crime is wrong something to be avoided and hated for its own
sake. The word ' reformation,' again, hardly does justice to the
idea that it is good for the criminal to feel the indignation of
society, to feel the external effects of his wrong-doing : that it is
a good, one which it would be perhaps worth while (if we are to
raise so abstract and unpractical a question) to promote, even if
we knew that in this particular case it would not lead to that
which is the ultimate object of all punishment (so far as the
criminal himself is concerned), the alteration of his will, the
change of his character. That mere consciousness on the part of
the criminal may even be regarded as in its way a good. The
endurance of evil cannot be itself a good: the utmost length
that we can go is to say that it may be a necessary condition *or
element in a state of mind which we can recognize as relatively
good as better than that of successful and unresisted eyil-<
doing. Both the 'deterrent theory' and the 'reformatory
Chap, ix, iii] USING HUMANITY AS END 303
theory' are no doubt inadequate to express the whole truth
about punishment. There is a side of punishment which might
perhaps be best expressed by the term ' educative theory ' ; or,
perhaps, we may simply say that the end of punjshment is
partly deterrent or utilitarian, and partly ethical. Both sides of
punishment would be summed up in the assertion that our view
of punishment must be a teleological one.
It is sometimes supposed that the utilitarian view of punish*
ment is inconsistent with a proper respect for human personality :
it involves, we are told, the treatment of humanity as a means
and not as an end, If by ' utilitarian ' theory is meant a view
resting upon a hedonistic theory of Ethics, I have nothing to say
in its favour ; if by ' utilitarian ' is meant simply a view which
treats punishment as a means to some good, spiritual or other-
wise, of some conscious being, I should entirely deny the justice
of the criticism. In the first place I should contend that in
a sense it is quite right and inevitable that we should treat
humanity as a means. When a servant is called upon to black
the boots of his master, or a soldier to face death or disease in
the service of his country, society is certainly treating humanity
as a means : the men do these things not for their own sakes,
but for the sake of other people. Kant himself never uttered
anything so foolish as the maxim which indiscreet admirers are
constantly putting into his mouth, that we should never treat
humanity as a means: what he did say was that we should
never treat humanity only as a means, but always also as an
end. When a man is punished in the interest of society, he is
indeed treated as a means, but his right to be treated as an end
is not thereby violated, if his good is treated as of equal impor-
tance with the end of other human beings. Social life would not
be possible without the constant subordination of the claims of
individuals to the like claims of a greater number of individuals ;
and there may be occasions when in punishing a criminal we
have to think more of the good of society generally than of the
individual who is punished. No doubt it is a duty to think also
of the good of the individual so far as that can be done con-
sistently with justice to other individuals : it is obviously the
duty of the State to endeavour to make its punishments as far as
3 o4 PUNISHMENT AND FOBGIVENESS [Book I
possible reformatory as well as deterrent and educational to
others. And how the reformatory view of punishment can be
accused of disrespect for human personality, because forsooth it
uses a mail's animal organism or his lower psychical nature as
a means to the good of his higher self, I cannot profess to
understand. The retributive view of punishment justifies the
infliction of evil upon a living soul, even though it will do
neither him nor any one else any good whatever. If it is to do
anybody any good, punishment is not inflicted for the sake of
retribution. It is the retributive theory which shows a dis-
respect for human personality by proposing to sacrifice human
life and human Well-being to a lifeless fetich styled the Moral
Law, which apparently, though unconscious, has a sense of
dignity and demands the immolation of victims to avenge its
injured amour propre.
The real basis and stronghold of the theory which I am
investigating is to be found in the undoubted psychological fact
that the sense of indignation or resentment at wrong arises
naturally and spontaneously in the human mind 1 without any
calculation of the personal or social benefits to be derived from
gratifying it, and in the profound ethical conviction that for
societies though not always for individuals it is morally good
and healthy that this indignation should be encouraged and
expressed. 'Kevenge, my friends/ says Carlyle, 'revenge and
the natural hatred of scoundrels, and the ineradicable tendency
to revancher oneself upon them, and pay them what they have
^erited; this is for evermore intrinsically a correct, and even
a divine feeling in the mind of every man/ Such language
I could cordially adopt 2 , though with the proviso (of which more
hereafter) that this feeling is not so divine as the love which the
best men do succeed in feeling towards the worst, and that it
must not be allowed to extinguish that higher feeling. The
feeling of indignation is a natural and healthy one, natural
1 Psychologically, no doubt, this tendency can in a sense be explained
by evolutionary causes.
3 Except in so far as the word 'revenge' may imply the theory which
I am disclaiming. I make this quotation (and the following from Stephen)
from a second-hand source, and it seems hardly necessary to spend further
time in searching for the passages.
Chap, ix, in] CRIMINAL LAW EDUCATIVE 305
and healthy, we may add, in partial correction of Carlyle, in
proportion to its disinterestedness. It is one great purpose of
Criminal Law to give expression to this natural indignation
against wrong. But Law, in the discharge of its idegl function
as Reason without Passion (vovs avtv wcWovs), seeks not merely to
express but to regulate, and to regulate with a view to an end.
In the words of Sir James Stephen, ' the criminal law regulates,
sanctions, and provides a legitimate satisfaction for the passion
of revenge ; the criminal law stands to the passion of revenge in
much the same relation as marriage to the sexual appetite/
And in both cases the ultimate end of the regulation is to
be found in a certain ideal of social Well-being.
The error of the upholders of the retributive theory lies,
as it seems to me, in mistaking a mere emotion or feeling
an emotion or feeling which in itself is a good and important
element in every well-balanced character for a judgement of
the Practical Reason. The Practical Reason may often judge
that the emotion should be freely indulged, though at other
times it will no less emphatically pronounce that the most
elementary requirements of social order demand its partial or
entire restraint. The real question is whether it is right to
punish simply because we feel inclined to do so, to gratify
a natural passion simply because it is there, or whether in this,
as in the case of other spontaneous emotions or desires (including
the spontaneous impulses of Affection and Benevolence), we ought
to regulate passion by Reason, to act for an end, i. e. for the pro-
motion in ourselves and others of whatever we take to be the
ideal kind of human life. How the existence of an instinctive
resentment against personal wrong, or in good men against
wrong to others or moral depravity, can suspend the one all-
comprehensive duty of love to all men (including, of course, our-
selves) is a question which will, perhaps, offer no difficulties
to those philosophical Moralists whose ethical system seems to
consist in the mixture of a little truculent Theology borrowed
from primitive Judaism with a good deal of pure paganism ; but
which must, I think, be an embarrassing one to those Retribu-
tionists who profess any sympathy with Christian standards
of Ethics. The most Christian of mediaeval thinkers (e. g. Dante
RASHDALI, 1 X
306 PUNISHMENT AND FORGIVENESS [Book I
or Wyclitfe l ) always maintained that God's punishments were,
and man's should be, the expression of love. And this remark
suggests another of the difficulties involved in the retributive
theory the difficulty of reconciling it with that side of the
moral ideal which is expressed by the word Mercy or Forgive-
ness.
IV
It is one of the great embarrassments of the retributive
theory that it is unable to give any consistent account of the
duty of forgiveness and its relations to the duty of punishment.
It is seldom that one finds anybody so logical as to maintain
that it is always a duty to punish, and never right to forgive, at
least till the wrong-doing has been expiated by punishment,
a theory which runs counter to a strongly felt and widely diffused
ethical sentiment and 7 which makes the Berenger law or our
own First Offenders' Act a piece of immoral legislation. Others
seem to have no answer to the difficulty but the admission :
c Here are two inconsistent moral precepts : it is a duty to
punish and a duty to forgive : it is impossible to lay down any
general principle in the matter : you must do whatever strikes
you as best in each case as it arises/ Such an answer may satisfy
those who think that Morality consists simply in a collection
of isolated impulses, intuitions, or particular judgements, which
Reason is incapable of reducing to any consistent or intelligible
whole. It will hardly satisfy those who believe that our ethical
judgements can be reduced to a system, and that the emergence
of apparent ethical antinomies simply shows that we have not yet
succeeded in getting to a really fundamental ethical principle.
The absence of internal contradiction, though by itself it will
supply no adequate content for the Moral Law, we may surely
venture (with Kant) to regard as a necessary condition of any
law which can really claim to be moral. If the duty of punish-
ment is to rest upon an a priori deliverance of the moral
consciousness which pronounces that, be the consequences what
they may, sin must be punished, it is difficult to see how forgive-
ness can ever be lawful. If punishment is sometimes right and
sometimes wrong, on what principle are we to distinguish between
1 Dant.p in fhp Piir/i/itwtn Wvnliffp PVPH a a rp.crfl.rdfl Hpll.
Chap, ix, iv] FORGIVENESS 307
the two classes of cases ? That is the problem to which, as it
appears to me, no intelligible answer can be given on the retribu-
tive theory, but which is not insusceptible of a solution on the
basis of the teleological or educative view.
Among the very few moral philosophers who have bestowed
any serious attention upon this question of forgiveness is Bishop
Butler. By him the duty of forgiveness is resolved into the
duty of being ' affected towards the injurious person in the same
way in which any good men, uninterested in the case, would be ; if
they had the same just sense, which we have supposed the injured
person to have, of the fault : after which there will yet remain
real good-will towards the offender 1 .' The duty amounts to
this : ' that we should suppress that partial, that false self-love,
which is the weakness of our nature ; that uneasiness and misery
should not be produced, without any good purpose to be served
by it: and that we should not be affected towards persons
differently from what their nature and character require.'
' Resentment/ he says again, ' is not inconsistent with good-will ;
for we often see both together in very high degrees ; not only in
parents towards their children, but in cases of friendship and
dependance, where there is no natural relation. These contrary
passions, though they may lessen, do not necessarily destroy
each other/
The duty of resentment and the duty of forgiveness are thus
reduced to particular applications of the general law of promoting
social Well-being. It is our duty to make our own personal
resentment subordinate to the general good of society, just as
it is a duty to subordinate goodwill towards individuals to the
interests of other individuals. In determining whether we should
resent or punish an injury (to ourselves or to others) or whether
we should forgive, we should simply consider what is best for
the interests alike of the individual himself and of society at
large*, the offender's good and the injured person's interest alike
being assigned its due, and no more than its due, importance.
Thp distribution (so to speak) of punishment and of forgiveness
will alike be guided by the general principle of Benevolence
or goodwill to society in general, the duty of promoting the
1 Sermon IX.
308 PUNISHMENT AND FORGIVENESS [Book I
greatest good on the whole, guided and controlled by the prin-
ciple of ' Equity/ in the sense which has already been defined.
It may also be observed incidentally that on this view of the
duty of fprgiveness as simply a particular manifestation of
the general duty of love, we are able to clear up an ambiguity
about the meaning of forgiveness which often occasions some
difficulty in discussions of this kind. We are often told that
forgiveness is not inconsistent with punishment ; that we may
punish first and forgive afterwards, at least where punishment
is a duty arising out of some public function or parental relation
and not a mere gratification by legal or extra-legal means of
resentment against private wrong. And this is quite true as far
as it goes ; forgiveness may mean simply the cessation of personal
resentment after the exaction of whatever penalty may be
demanded by considerations of social Well-being and public duty.
But, although in practice the adoption of this attitude may no
doubt be easier in the public official than in the private person,
it is impossible to draw a hard and fast line between punishment
inflicted by the official in the discharge of public duty and the
resentment exhibited by the private person, or between the
vengeance which takes the form of legal prosecution and that
which shows itself in private remonstrance or the refusal of
social intercourse. Even legal punishment generally requires
private initiation, and the same considerations of social Well-
being which require legal punishment in some cases requirfe private
resentment in others. It would be to the last degree disastrous
to the Well-being of any society whatever if individuals altogether
ceased to show anger or to express resentment at personal rude-
ness or personal liberties or general want of respect for one
another's personalities; and from the nature of the case it is
usually the injured party who must take the initiative in such
resentment, though it may be that the ideal society would save
him such a necessity by anticipating the resentment, an ideal
which is already approximately realized in groups of people
among whom good breeding is combined with that real good
feeling of which good breeding is ^t its best the expression and
at its worst the caricature.
AH this shows that we cannot attain to the ideal combination
Chap, ix, iv] FORGIVENESS AND PUNISHMENT 309
of punishment with forgiveness by merely laying it down that
the magistrate must punish while the man must forgive. Nor,
again, can we merely say that the duty of forgiveness begins
when the due punishment has been exacted. For jvhat will
forgiveness mean in this case? Are we to say that when the
formal sentence has been served, it is the duty of the judge or of
society generally to treat the criminal with the same cordiality
with which we should have received him had he never offended ?
Undoubtedly society does not give its repentant criminals the
fair chance that they may reasonably claim, but to say that we
must treat them as though they had never done wrong, or that
former convictions should not aggravate the sentence, is surely
to demand what is impracticable and pernicious. Nor in private
relations can we always be called upon to treat the man who has
betrayed our trust even after repentance or apology as though
he had not betrayed it ; nor can a friend, after a quarrel which
has revealed in him a character which we had not suspected,
ever again be a friend in the same sense or degree as before, even
after the most ample repentance or apology. Without, there-
fore, denying that there is a sense in which forgiveness may be
combined with punishment, it is impossible to find for that
forgiveness which is compatible with punishment a meaning
more definite than this that punishment should not exclude
whatever kind of goodwill can in the circumstances be
properly combined with punishment. And that surely is some-
thing far too indefinite to satisfy the idea of forgiveness in its
full and ordinary sense. It is impossible, in short, to get rid of
the popular association of the idea of forgiveness with remission
of penalty.
There is, then, a sense in which forgiveness is opposed to
punishment. On the view that I have taken it will sometimes
be a duty to punish and sometimes to forgive. In determining
which* we shall do in each particular case, the good man
whether the private individual or the public official, who is after
a/11 only the representative of a society of individuals as much
bound by the law of love in their corporate as in their individual
capacity will consider which, having regard to all the circum-
stances of the case, will test serve those social ends to which
310 PUNISHMENT AND FORGIVENESS [Book I
punishment and forgiveness alike are means. The ideal punish-
ment would no doubt be one which was the best alike in the
interests of society and of the individual. Under our present
system of f legal punishment it is to be feared that this is an ideal
not very often attained. A man has often to be punished in
the interest of society whose own Well-being would be best pro-
moted by forgiveness. In such a case we have to balance the
interest of society against the interest of the individual, or rather
perhaps what the society gains by the moral improvement
of the particular individual against what it gains from the
deterrent and educative effect of the punishment upon other
individuals.
And upon this view of the relation of punishment to forgive-
ness, there is no absolute antagonism between that sense of
forgiveness in which it is opposed to punishment and that sense
in which it is compatible with punishment. Just the same con-
siderations which impose the duty of punishment will limit the
measure of it ; just those same considerations which allow of the
total remission of penalty in some cases will allow of some miti-
gation of it in other cases, and will impose in all cases the duty
of showing whatever Benevolence and goodwill towards the
offender is compatible with that measure of punishment which
social duty demands. Punishment and forgiveness, when they are
what they ought to be, being alike the expression of love, the
mode and degree of their combination will likewise be only
the application of the general precept of love to the circumstances
of the particular case.
In the main, then, we may accept Bishop Butler's interpre-
tation of the proper relation between punishment and forgive-
ness, and yet we cannot but feel that something is missed
in this cool and calculating utilitarian analysis. We feel that
there must be something more in forgiveness than the mere
limitation of vengeance by the demands of public welfare.
Seeley, in one of the best chapters of Ecce Homo, helps us
to supply the deficiency 1 . It is true that in its essence the
duty of forgiveness is the duty of laying aside private or
1 Ecce Homo, chap. xxii. Von Hart man n has also recognized this justifica-
tion of forgiveness (Das sittl. Beuwsstsein, p. 178).
Chap, ix, iv] DIVINE PUNISHMENT 311
personal resentment, of resenting the wrong because it is a
wrong and not because I am the victim of it. But what
Bishop Butler has missed is the fact that vengeance often
loses its moral effect just because the avenger of the wrong
is its victim, while forgiveness often touches the heart just
because the forgiver is the man who suffered by the wrong,
and therefore the man in whom it is hardest to forgive. The
wronged man's forgiveness will often have a moral effect, awaken
a gratitude and a penitence, which the forgiveness of the dis-
interested spectator or the remotely interested ' society ' would
not secure. It is perfectly true, as Butler taught, that forgive-
ness is only a particular case of love ; but he forgot that to
a human being who has wronged his fellow, forgiveness is an
infinitely more convincing proof of love than punishment can
ever be, and may, therefore, touch the heart as punishment will
seldom touch it. In the light of this principle nothing that has
been said as to the duty of balancing the good effects of forgive-
ness against the good effects of punishment need be recalled ;
only, in choosing between them, this peculiar magic of the
wronged person's forgiveness must needs be duly remembered.
In conclusion, I may remark that all these considerations are
as much applicable to any punishments which Theists may
expect as the consequence of sin in another world as to the
clumsy attempts at ideal Justice with which we are obliged
to be satisfied in the school or the criminal court. Now as
in the days of Plato it is a paramount duty of Moral Philosophy
to lay down Canons for Theology (TVTTOVS wept OeoXoyias). It need
hardly be pointed out that the acceptance of our principles about
Punishment will involve a considerable amendment of popular
ideas about what we shall still do well to think of as divine
punishment, while we recognize the inadequacy of such a meta-
phor or symbol of God's dealing with human souls. Few
Theolegians of the present day will be bold enough to follow
Abelard in defence of everlasting punishment as being justified
by jbhe example and warning which the fate of the wicked
supplies to the rest of humanity. And the acceptance of the
principles here laid down about forgiveness may involve a no
less complete reconstitutidn of many popular schemes concerning
PUNISHMENT AND FORGIVENESS [Book I
divine forgiveness and atonement. The idea of vicarious suffer-
ing has nothing immoral about it ; under the conditions of human
life love can hardly be manifested in its highest degree without
it. It is otherwise with the idea of vicarious punishment. Even
on the retributive view of punishment, the idea of substituted
vicarious punishment would never for a moment be defended by
a modern Christian except with a view to bolster up an obsolete
theological tradition still less so on the view -of punishment
adopted in these pages. On the other han$ the idea that the
nature of God has received its fullest revelation in a self-
sacrificing life and death is one against which the Moralist
Ban have nothing to say.
Oxford : Printed at the Clarendon Pres& by HORACE HART, M.A.
