Chapter V: is ON THE CONNEXION BETWEEN JUSTICE AND UTILITY (1)

The strongest obstacle to the doctrine of Utility has been drawn from the Idea of Justice. The rapid perception and the powerful sentiment connected with the Just, seem to show it as generically distinct from every variety of the Expedient.

To see whether the sense of justice can be explained on grounds of Utility, the author begins by surveying in the concrete the things usually denominated just. In the first place, it is commonly considered unjust to deprive any one of their personal liberty, or property, or anything secured to them by law: in other words, it is unjust to violate any one's legal rights. Secondly, The legal rights of a man may be such as _ought_ not to have belonged to him; that is, the law conferring those rights may be a bad law. When a law is bad, opinions will differ as to the justice or injustice of infringing it; some think that no law should be disobeyed by the individual citizen; others hold that it is just to resist unjust laws. It is thus admitted by all that there is such a thing as _moral right_, the refusal of which is injustice. Thirdly, it is considered just that each person should receive what he _deserves_ (whether good or evil). And a person is understood to deserve good if he does right, evil if he does wrong; and in particular to deserve good in return for good, and evil in return for evil. Fourthly, it is unjust to _break faith_, to violate an engagement, or disappoint expectations knowingly and voluntarily raised. Like other obligations, this is not absolute, but may be overruled by some still stronger demand of justice on the other side. Fifthly, it is inconsistent with justice to be _partial_; to show favour or preference in matters where favour does not apply. We are expected in certain cases to prefer our friends to strangers; but a tribunal is bound to the strictest impartiality; rewards and punishments should be administered impartially; so likewise the patronage of important public offices. Nearly allied to impartiality is the idea of _equality_. The justice of giving equal protection to the rights of all is maintained even when the rights themselves are very unequal, as in slavery and in the system of ranks or castes. There are the greatest differences as to what is equality in the distribution of the produce of labour; some thinking that all should receive alike; others that the neediest should receive most; others that the distribution should be according to labour or services.

To get a clue to the common idea running through all these meanings, the author refers to the etymology of the word, which, in most languages, points to something ordained by _law_. Even although there be many things considered just, that we do not usually enforce by law, yet in these cases it would give us pleasure if law could be brought to bear upon offenders. When we think a person bound in justice to do a thing, we should like to see him punished for not doing it; we lament the obstacles that may be in the way, and strive to make amends by a strong expression of our own opinion. The idea of legal constraint is thus the generating idea of justice throughout all its transformations.

The real turning point between morality and simple expediency is contained in the penal sanction. Duty is what we may _exact_ of a person; there may be reasons why we do not exact it, but the person himself would not be entitled to complain if we did so. Expediency, on the other hand, points to things that we may wish people to do, may praise them for doing, and despise them for not doing, while we do not consider it proper to bring in the aid of punishment.

There enters farther into the idea of Justice what has been expressed by the ill-chosen phrase, 'perfect obligation,' meaning that the duty involves a moral right on the part of some definite person, as in the case of a debt; an imperfect obligation is exemplified by charity, which gives no legal claim to any one recipient. Every such right is a case of Justice, and not of Beneficence.

The Idea of Justice is thus shown to be grounded in Law; and the next question is, does the strong feeling or sentiment of Justice grow out of considerations of utility? Mr. Mill conceives that though the notion of expediency or utility does not give birth to the sentiment, it gives birth to what is _moral_ in it.

The two essentials of justice are (1) the desire to punish some one, and (2) the notion or belief that harm has been done to some definite individual or individuals. Now, it appears to the author that the desire to punish is a spontaneous outgrowth of two sentiments, both natural, and, it may be, instinctive; the impulse of _self-defence_, and the feeling of _sympathy_. We naturally resent, repel, and retaliate, any harm done to ourselves and to any one that engages our sympathies. There is nothing moral in mere resentment; the moral part is the subordination of it to our social regards. We are moral beings, in proportion as we restrain our private resentment whenever it conflicts with the interests of society. All moralists agree with Kant in saying that no act is right that could not be adopted as a law by all rational beings (that is, consistently with the well-being of society).

There is in Justice a rule of conduct, and a right on the part of some one, which right ought to be enforced by society. If it is asked why society _ought_ to enforce the right, there is no answer but the general utility. If that expression seem feeble and inadequate to account for the energy of retaliation inspired by injustice, the author asks us to advert to the extraordinarily important and impressive kind of utility that is concerned. The interest involved is _security_, to every one's feelings the most vital of all interests. All other earthly benefits needed by one person are not needed by another; and many of them can, if necessary, be cheerfully foregone, or replaced by something else; but security no human being can possibly do without; on it we depend for all our immunity from evil, and for the whole value of all and every good, beyond the passing moment. Now, this most indispensable of all necessaries, after physical nutriment, cannot be had unless the machinery for providing it is kept unintermittedly in active play. Our notion, therefore, of the claim we have on our fellow-creatures to join in making safe for us the very groundwork of our existence, gathers feelings around it so much more intense than those concerned in any of the more common cases of utility, that the difference in degree (as is often the case in psychology) becomes a real difference in kind. The claim assumes that character of absoluteness, that apparent infinity, and incommensurability with all other considerations, which constitute the distinction between the feeling of right and wrong, and that of ordinary expediency and inexpediency.

Having presented his own analysis of the sentiment of Justice, the author proceeds to examine the _intuitive_ theory. The charge is constantly brought against Utility, that it is an uncertain standard, differently interpreted by each person. The only safety, it is pretended, is found in the immutable, ineffaceable, and unmistakeable dictates of Justice, carrying their evidence in themselves, and independent of the fluctuations of opinions. But so far is this from being the fact, that there is as much difference of opinion, and as much discussion, about what is just, as about what is useful to society.

To take a few instances. On the question of Punishment, some hold it unjust to punish any one by way of example, or for any end but the good of the sufferer. Others maintain that the good of the society is the only admissible end of punishment. Robert Owen affirms that punishment altogether is unjust, and that we should deal with crime only through education. Now, without an appeal to expediency, it is impossible to arbitrate among these conflicting views; each one has a maxim of justice on its side. Then as to the apportioning of punishments to offences. The rule that recommends itself to the primitive sentiment of justice is an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth; a rule formally abandoned in European countries, although not without its hold upon the popular mind. With many, the test of justice, in penal infliction, is that it should be proportioned to the offence; while others maintain that it is just to inflict only such an amount of punishment as will deter from the commission of the offence.

Besides the differences of opinion already alluded to, as to the payment of labour, how many, and irreconcileable, are the standards of justice appealed to on the matter of taxation? One opinion is, that taxes should be in proportion to pecuniary means; others think the wealthy should pay a higher proportion. In point of natural justice, a case might be made out for disregarding means, and taking the same sum from each, as the privileges are equally bestowed: yet from feelings of humanity and social expediency no one advocates that view. So that there is no mode of extricating the question but the utilitarian.

To sum up. The great distinction between, the Just and the Expedient is the distinction between the essentials of well-being--the moral rules forbidding mankind to hurt one another--and the rules that only point out the best mode of managing some department of human affairs. It is in the higher moralities of protection from harm that each individual has the greatest stake; and they are the moralities that compose the obligations of justice. It is on account of these that punishment, or retribution of evil for evil, is universally included in the idea. For the carrying out of the process of retaliation, certain maxims are necessary as instruments or as checks to abuse; as that involuntary acts are not punishable; that no one shall be condemned unheard; that punishment should be proportioned to the offence. Impartiality, the first of judicial virtues, is necessary to the fulfilment of the other conditions of justice: while from the highest form of doing to each according to their deserts, it is the abstract standard of social and distributive justice; and is in this sense a direct emanation from the first principle of morals, the principle of the greatest Happiness. All social inequalities that have ceased to be considered as expedient, assume the character, not of simple inexpediency, but of injustice.

Besides the 'Utilitarianism,' Mr. Mill's chief Ethical dissertations are his review of Whewell's Moral Treatises (_Dissertations and Discussions_, Vol. II.), and parts of his Essay on _Liberty_. By collecting his views generally under the usual heads, we shall find a place for some points additional to what are given in the foregoing abstract.

I.--Enough has been stated as to his Ethical Standard, the Principle of Utility.

II.--We have seen his Psychological explanation of the Moral Faculty, as a growth from certain elementary feelings of the mind.

He has also discussed extensively the Freedom of the Will, maintaining the strict causation of human actions, and refuting the supposed fatalistic tendency of the doctrine.

He believes, as we have seen, in Disinterested impulses, but traces them to a purely self-regarding origin.

III.--He does not give any formal dissertation on Human Happiness, but indicates many of its important conditions, as in the remarks cited above, p. 702. In the chapter of the work on 'Liberty,' entitled Individuality, he illustrates the great importance of special tastes, and urges the full right of each person to the indulgence of these in every case where they do not directly injure others. He reclaims against the social tyranny prevailing on such points as dress, personal habits, and eccentricities.

IV.--As regards the Moral Code, he would repeal the legal and moral rule that makes marriage irrevocable. He would also abolish all restraints on freedom of thought, and on Individuality of conduct, qualified as above stated.

He would impose two new moral restraints. He considers that every parent should be bound to provide a suitable education for his own children. Farther, for any one to bring into the world human beings without the means of supporting them, or, in an over-peopled country, to produce children in such number as to depress the reward of labour by competition, he regards as serious offences.

SAMUEL BAILEY.

Mr. Samuel Bailey devotes the last four in his Third Series of 'Letters on the Philosophy of the Human Mind,' to the subject of the Moral Sentiments, or the feelings inspired in us by human conduct. He first sets down five facts in the human constitution, in which moral phenomena originate--

1. Man is susceptible of pleasure and pain of various kinds and degrees.

2. He likes and dislikes respectively the causes of them.

3. He desires to reciprocate pleasure and pain received, when intentionally given by other sentient beings.

4. He himself expects such reciprocation from his fellows, coveting it in the one case, and shunning it in the other.

5. He feels, under certain circumstances, more or less sympathy with the pleasures and pains given to others, accompanied by a proportionate desire that those affections should be reciprocated to the givers.

These rudimentary affections, states and operations of consciousness [he is careful to note that, besides feelings, intellectual conditions and processes are involved in them] are found more or less developed in all, or nearly all the human race. In support of the limitation now made, he adduces what are given as authentic accounts of savages devoid of all gratitude and fellow-feeling; and then goes on to trace the nature and development of moral sentiment from the rudimentary powers and susceptibilities mentioned, in those that do possess them. In doing so, he follows the convenient mode of speech that takes actions for the objects that excite the susceptibilities, although, in reality, the objects are no other than human beings acting in particular ways.

The feelings he supposes to be modified in manner or degree, according as actions are (1) done by ourselves to others, or (2) done to others by others, or (3) done to others by ourselves; _i.e._, according as we ourselves are the subjects, the spectators, or doers of them.

First, then, he considers our feelings in regard to actions done to us by others, and the more carefully, because these lie at the foundation of the rest. When a fellow-creature intentionally contributes to our pleasure, we feel the pleasure; we feel a liking to the person intentionally conferring it, and we feel an inclination to give him pleasure in return. The two last feelings--liking and inclination to reciprocate, constitute the simplest form of moral approbation; in the contrary case, dislike and resentment give the rudimentary form of moral disapprobation. It is enough to excite the feelings, that the actions are merely _thought_ to be done by the person. They are moral sentiments, even although it could be supposed that there were no other kinds of actions in the world except actions done to ourselves; but they are moral sentiments in the purely selfish form. That, for moral sentiment, mere liking and disliking must be combined with the desire to reciprocate good and evil, appears on a comparison of our different feelings towards animate and inanimate causes of pleasure and pain; there being towards inanimate objects no desire of reciprocation. To a first objection, that the violent sentiments, arising upon actions done to ourselves, should not get the temperate designation of moral approbation and disapprobation, he replies, that such extremes as the passions of gratitude and resentment must yet be identified in their origin with our cooler feelings, when we are mere spectators or actors. A second objection, that the epithet _moral_ is inapplicable to sentiments involving purely personal feeling, and destitute of sympathy, he answers, by remarking that the word _moral_, in philosophy, should not eulogistically be opposed to _immoral_, but should be held as neutral, and to mean 'relating to conduct, whatever that conduct may be.' He closes the first head with the observation, that in savage life the violent desire of reciprocation is best seen; generally, however, as he gives instances to show, in the form of revenge and reciprocation of evil.

In the second place, he considers our feelings when we are spectators of actions done to others by others. These form the largest class of actions, but to us they have a meaning, for the most part at least, only as they have an analogy to actions done to ourselves. The variety of the resulting feelings, generally less intense than when we are the subjects of the actions, is illustrated first by supposing the persons affected to be those we love; in this case, the feelings are analogous to those already mentioned, and they may be even more intense than when we ourselves are personally affected. If those affected are indifferent to us, our feelings are less intense, but we are still led to feel as before, from a natural sympathy with other men's pains and pleasures--always supposing the sympathy is not (as often happens) otherwise counteracted or superseded; and also from the influence of association, if that, too, happen not to be countervailed. Of sympathy for human beings in general, he remarks that a certain measure of civilization seems required to bring it properly out, and he cites instances to prove how much it is wanting in savages. In a third case, where the persons affected are supposed to be those we hate, we are displeased when they are made to rejoice, and pleased when they suffer, unless we are overcome by our habitual associations with good and evil actions. Such associations weigh least with rude and savage peoples, but even the most civilized nations disregard them in times of war.

He takes up, in the third place, actions done by ourselves to others. Here, when the action is beneficent, the peculiarity is that an expectation of receiving good in return from our neighbours takes the place of a desire to reciprocate; we consider ourselves the proper object of grateful thoughts, &c., on the part both of receiver and of spectators. We are affected with the gratification of a benevolent desire, with self-complacency, and with undefined hopes. When we have inflicted injury, there is the expectation of evil, and a combination of feelings summed up in the word Remorse. But Remorse, like other sentiments, may fail in the absence of cultivation of mind or under special circumstances.

Having considered the three different kinds of actions separately, he next remarks that the sentiment prevailing in each case must be liable to a reflex influence from the other cases, whereby it will be strengthened or intensified; thus we come to associate certain intensities of moral sentiment with certain kinds of action, by whomsoever or to whomsoever performed. He also notes, that in the first and third cases, as well as in the second, there is a variation of the sentiment, according as the parties affected are friends, neutrals, or enemies. Finally, a peculiar and important modification of the sentiments results from the outward manifestations of them called forth from the persons directly or indirectly affected by actions. Such are looks, gestures, tones, words, or actions, being all efforts to gratify the natural desire of reciprocating pleasure or pain. Of these the most notable are the verbal manifestations, as they are mostly irrepressible, and can alone always be resorted to. While relieving the feelings, they can also become a most powerful, as they are often the only, instrument of reward and punishment. Their power of giving to moral sentiments greater precision, and of acting upon conduct like authoritative precepts, is seen in greatest force when they proceed from, bodies of men, whether they are regarded as signs of material consequences or not. He ends this part of the subject by defending, with Butler, the place of resentment in the moral constitution.

He proceeds to inquire how it is that not only the perfection of moral sentiment that would apportion more approbation and disapprobation according to the real tendencies of actions, is not attained, but men's moral feelings are not seldom in extreme contrariety with the real effects of human conduct. First, he finds that men, from partial views, or momentarily, or from caprice, may bestow their sentiments altogether at variance with the real consequences of actions. Next there is the difficulty, or even impossibility, of calculating all the consequences far and near; whence human conduct is liable to be appreciated on whimsical grounds or on no discernible grounds at all, and errors in moral sentiment arise, which it takes increased knowledge to get rid of. In the third place, it is a fact that our moral sentiments are to a very great extent derived from tradition, while the approbation and disapprobation may have originally been wrongly applied. The force of tradition he illustrates by supposing the case of a patriarchal family, and he cannot too strongly represent its strength in overcoming or at least struggling against natural feeling. The authoritative precept of a superior may also make actions be approved or disapproved, not because they are directly perceived or even traditionally held to be beneficial or injurious, but solely because they are commanded or prohibited. Lastly, he dwells upon the influence of superstition in perverting moral sentiment, finding, however, that it operates most strongly in the way of creating false virtues and false vices and crimes.

These circumstances, explaining the want of conformity in our moral sentiments to the real tendencies of actions, he next employs to account for discrepancies in moral sentiment between different communities. Having given examples of such discrepancies, he supposes the case of two families, endowed with the rudimentary qualities mentioned at the beginning, but placed in different circumstances. Under the influence of dissimilar physical conditions, and owing to the dissimilar personal idiosyncracies of the families, and especially of their chiefs, there will be left few points of complete analogy between them in the first generation, and in course of time they will become two races exceedingly unlike in moral sentiment, as in other respects. He warns strongly against making moral generalizations except under analogous circumstances of knowledge and civilization. Most men have the rudimentary feelings, but there is no end to the variety of their intensity and direction. As a highest instance of discrepant moral sentiment, he cites the fact that, in our own country, a moral stigma is still attached to intellectual error by many people, and even by men of cultivation.

He now comes to the important question of the test or criterion that is to determine which of these diverse sentiments are right and which wrong, since they cannot all be right from the mere fact of their existence, or because they are felt by the subjects of them to be right, or believed to be in consonance with the injunctions of superiors, or to be held also by other people. The foregoing review of the _genesis_ of moral sentiments suggests a direct and simple answer. As they arise from likings and dislikings of actions that cause, or tend to cause, pleasure and pain, the first thing is to see that the likings and dislikings are well founded. Where this does not at once appear, examination of the real effects of actions must be resorted to; and, in dubious cases, men in general, when unprejudiced, allow this to be the natural test for applying moral approbation and disapprobation. If, indeed, the end of moral sentiment is to promote or to prevent the actions, there can be no better way of attaining that end. And, as a fact, almost all moralists virtually adopt it on occasion, though often unconsciously; the greatest happiness--principle is denounced by its opponents as a _mischievous_ doctrine.

The objection that the criterion of consequences is difficult of application, and thus devoid of practical utility, he rebuts by asserting that the difficulty is not greater than in other cases. We have simply to follow effects as far as we can; and it is by its ascertainable, not by its unascertainable, consequences, that we pronounce an action, as we pronounce an article of food or a statute, to be good or bad. The main effects of most actions are already very well ascertained, and the consequences to human happiness, when unascertainable, are of no value. If the test were honestly applied, ethical discrepancies would tend gradually to disappear.

He starts another objection:--The happiness-test is good as far as it goes, but we also approve and disapprove of actions as they are just or generous, or the contrary, and with no reference to happiness or unhappiness. In answering this argument, he confines himself to the case of Justice. To be morally approved, a just action must in itself be peculiarly pleasant or agreeable, irrespective of its other effects, which are left out: for on no theory can pleasantness or agreeableness be dissociated from moral approbation. Now, as Happiness is but a general appellation for all the agreeable affections of our nature, and unable to exist except in the shape of some agreeable emotion or combinations of agreeable emotions; the just action that is morally commendable, as giving naturally and directly a peculiar kind of pleasure independent of any other consequences, only produces one species of those pleasant states of mind that are ranged under the genus happiness. The test of justice therefore coincides with the happiness-test. But he does not mean that we are actually affected thus, in doing just actions, nor refuse to accept justice as a criterion of actions; only in the one case he maintains that, whatever association may have effected, the just act must originally have been approved for the sake of its consequences, and, in the other, that justice is a criterion, because proved over and over again to be a most beneficial principle.

After remarking that the Moral Sentiments of praise and blame may enter into accidental connection with, other feelings of a distinct character, like pity, wonder, &c., he criticises the use of the word _Utility_ in Morals. He avoids the term as objectionable, because the _useful_ in common language does not mean what is directly productive of happiness, but only what is instrumental in its production, and in most cases customarily or recurrently instrumental. A blanket is of continual utility to a poor wretch through a severe winter, but the benevolent act of the donor is not termed useful, because it confers the benefit and ceases. Utility is too narrow to comprehend all the actions that deserve approbation. We want an uncompounded substantive expressing the two attributes of _conferring_ and _conducing to_ happiness; as a descriptive phrase, _producing_ happiness is as succinct as any. The term useful is, besides, associated with the notion of what is serviceable in the affairs and objects of common life, whence the philosophical doctrine that erects utility as its banner is apt to be deemed, by the unthinking, low, mean, and derogatory to human nature and aspirations, although its real import is wholly free from such a reproach. Notwithstanding, therefore, the convenience of the term, and because the associations connected with it are not easily eradicated, whilst most of the trite objections to the true doctrine of morals turn upon its narrow meanings, he thinks it should be as much as possible disused.

Mr. Bailey ends by remarking of the common question, whether our moral sentiments have their origin in Reason, or in a separate power called the Moral Sense, that in his view of man's sensitive and intellectual nature it is easily settled. He recognizes the feelings that have been enumerated, and, in connexion with them, intellectual processes of discerning and inferring; for which, if the Moral Sense and Reason are meant as anything more than unnecessary general expressions, they are merely fictitious entities. So, too, Conscience, whether as identified with the moral sense, or put for sensibility in regard to the moral qualities of one's own mind, is a mere personification of certain mental states. The summary of Bailey's doctrine falls within the two first heads.

I.--The Standard is the production of Happiness. [It should be remarked, however, that happiness is a wider aim than morality; although all virtue tends to produce happiness, very much that produces happiness is not virtue.]

II.--The Moral Faculty, while involving processes of discernment and inference, is mainly composed of certain sentiments, the chief being Reciprocity and Sympathy. [These are undoubtedly the largest ingredients in a mature, self-acting conscience; and the way that they contribute to the production of moral sentiment deserved to be, as it has been, well handled. The great omission in Mr. Bailey's account is the absence of the element of _authority_, which is the main instrument in imparting to us the sense of obligation.]

HERBERT SPENCER.

Mr. Spencer's ethical doctrines are, as yet, nowhere fully expressed. They form part of the more general doctrine of Evolution which he is engaged in working out; and they are at present to be gathered only from scattered passages. It is true that, in his first work, _Social Statics_ he presented what he then regarded as a tolerably complete view of one division of Morals. But without abandoning this view, he now regards it as inadequate--more especially in respect of its basis.

Mr. Spencer's conception of Morality as a science, is conveyed in the following passages in a letter written by him to Mr. Mill; repudiating the title anti-utilitarian, which Mr. Mill had applied to him:--

'The note in question greatly startled me by implicitly classing me with Anti-utilitarians. I have never regarded myself as an Anti-utilitarian. My dissent from the doctrine of Utility as commonly understood, concerns not the object to be reached by men, but the method of reaching it. While I admit that happiness is the ultimate end to be contemplated, I do not admit that it should be the proximate end. The Expediency-Philosophy having concluded that happiness is a thing to be achieved, assumes that Morality has no other business than empirically to generalize the results of conduct, and to supply for the guidance of conduct nothing more than its empirical generalizations.

But the view for which I contend is, that Morality properly so called--the science of right conduct--has for its object to determine _how_ and _why_ certain modes of conduct are detrimental, and certain other modes beneficial. These good and bad results cannot be accidental, but must be necessary consequences of the constitution of things; and I conceive it to be the business of Moral Science to deduce, from the laws of life and the conditions of existence, what kinds of action necessarily tend to produce happiness, and what kinds to produce unhappiness. Having done this, its deductions are to be recognized as laws of conduct; and are to be conformed to irrespective of a direct estimation of happiness or misery.

'Perhaps an analogy will most clearly show my meaning. During its early stages, planetary Astronomy consisted of nothing more than accumulated observations respecting the positions and motions of the sun and planets; from which accumulated observations it came by and by to be empirically predicted, with an approach to truth, that certain of the heavenly bodies would have certain positions at certain times. But the modern science of planetary Astronomy consists of deductions from the law of gravitation--deductions showing why the celestial bodies _necessarily_ occupy certain places at certain times. Now, the kind of relation which thus exists between ancient and modern Astronomy, is analogous to the kind of relation which, I conceive, exists between the Expediency-Morality, and Moral Science properly so-called. And the objection which I have to the current Utilitarianism, is, that it recognizes no more developed form of morality--does not see that it has reached but the initial stage of Moral Science.

'To make my position fully understood, it seems needful to add that, corresponding to the fundamental propositions of a developed Moral Science, there have been, and still are, developing in the race, certain fundamental moral intuitions; and that, though these moral intuitions are the results of accumulated experiences of Utility, gradually organized and inherited, they have come to be quite independent of conscious experience. Just in the same way that I believe the intuition of space, possessed by any living individual, to have arisen from organized and consolidated experiences of all antecedent individuals who bequeathed to him their slowly-developed nervous organizations--just as I believe that this intuition, requiring only to be made definite and complete by personal experiences, has practically become a form of thought, apparently quite independent of experience; so do I believe that the experiences of utility organised and consolidated through all past generations of the human race, have been producing corresponding nervous modifications, which, by continued transmission and accumulation, have become in us certain faculties of moral intuition--certain emotions responding to right and wrong conduct, which have no apparent basis in the individual experiences of utility. I also hold that just as the space-intuition responds to the exact demonstrations of Geometry, and has its rough conclusions interpreted and verified by them; so will moral intuitions respond to the demonstrations of Moral Science, and will have their rough conclusions interpreted and verified by them.'

The relations between the Expediency-Morality, and Moral Science, conceived by Mr. Spencer to be, the one transitional, and the other ultimate, are further explained in the following passage from his essay on 'Prison-Ethics':--

'Progressing civilization, which is of necessity a succession of compromises between old and new, requires a perpetual re-adjustment of the compromise between the ideal and the practicable in social arrangements: to which end both elements of the compromise must be kept in view. If it is true that pure rectitude prescribes a system of things far too good for men as they are; it is not less true that mere expediency does not of itself tend to establish a system of things any better than that which exists. While absolute morality owes to expediency the checks which prevent it from rushing into utopian absurdities; expediency is indebted to absolute morality for all stimulus to improvement. Granted that we are chiefly interested in ascertaining what is _relatively right_; it still follows that we must first consider what is _absolutely right_; since the one conception presupposes the other. That is to say, though we must ever aim to do what is best for the present times, yet we must ever bear in mind what is abstractedly best; so that the changes we make may be _towards_ it, and not _away_ from it.'

By the word _absolute_ as thus applied, Mr. Spencer does not mean to imply a right and wrong existing apart from Humanity and its relations. Agreeing with Utilitarians in the belief that happiness is the end, and that the conduct called moral is simply the best means of attaining it, he of course does not assert that there is a morality which is absolute in the sense of being true out of relation to human existence. By absolute morality as distinguished from relative, he here means the mode of conduct which, under the conditions arising from social union, must be pursued to achieve the greatest welfare of each and all. He holds, that the laws of Life, physiologically considered, being fixed, it necessarily follows that when a number of individuals have to live in social union, which necessarily involves fixity of conditions in the shape of mutual interferences and limitations, there result certain fixed principles by which conduct must be restricted, before the greatest sum of happiness can be achieved. These principles constitute what Mr. Spencer distinguishes as absolute Morality; and the absolutely moral man is the man who conforms to these principles, not by external coercion nor self-coercion, but who acts them out spontaneously.

To be fully understood, this conception must be taken along with the general theory of Evolution. Mr. Spencer argues that all things whatever are inevitably tending towards equilibrium; and that consequently the progress of mankind cannot cease until there is equilibrium between the human constitution and the conditions of human existence. Or, as he argues in _First Principles_ (Second Edition, p. 512), 'The adaptation of man's nature to the conditions of his existence cannot cease until the internal forces which we know as feelings are in equilibrium with the external forces they encounter. And the establishment of this equilibrium, is the arrival at a state of human nature and social organization, such that the individual has no desires but those which may be satisfied without exceeding his proper sphere of action, while society maintains no restraints but those which the individual voluntarily respects. The progressive extension of the liberty of citizens, and the reciprocal removal of political restrictions, are the steps by which we advance towards this state. And the ultimate abolition of all limits to the freedom of each, save those imposed by the like freedom of all, must, result from the complete equilibration between man's desires and the conduct necessitated by surrounding conditions.'

The conduct proper to such a state, which Mr. Spencer thus conceives to be the subject-matter of Moral Science, truly so-called, he proposes, in the Prospectus to his _System of Philosophy_, to treat under the following heads.

PERSONAL MORALS.--The principles of private conduct--physical, intellectual, moral, and religious--that follow from the conditions to complete individual life; or, what is the same thing, those modes of private action which must result from the eventual equilibration of internal desires and external needs.

JUSTICE.--The mutual limitation of men's actions necessitated by their co-existence as units of a society--limitations, the perfect observance of which constitutes that state of equilibrium forming the goal of political progress.

NEGATIVE BENEFICENCE.--Those secondary limitations, similarly necessitated, which, though less important and not cognizable by law, are yet requisite to prevent mutual destruction of happiness in various indirect ways: in other words--those minor self-restraints dictated by what may be called passive sympathy.

POSITIVE BENEFICENCE.--Comprehending all modes of conduct, dictated by active sympathy, which imply pleasure in giving pleasure--modes of conduct that social adaptation has induced and must render ever more general; and which, in becoming universal, must fill to the full the possible measure of human happiness.

* * * * *

This completes the long succession of British moralists during the three last centuries. It has been possible, and even necessary, to present them thus in an unbroken line, because the insular movement in ethical philosophy has been hardly, if at all, affected by anything done abroad. In the earlier part of the modern period, little of any kind was done in ethics by the great continental thinkers. Descartes has only a few allusions to the subject; the 'Ethica' of Spinoza is chiefly a work of speculative philosophy; Leibnitz has no systematic treatment of moral questions. The case is very different; in the new German philosophy since the time of Kant; besides Kant himself, Fichte, Hegel, Schleiermacher, and many later and contemporary thinkers having devoted a large amount of attention to practical philosophy. But unless it be Kant--and he not to any great extent--none of these has influenced the later attempts at ethical speculation amongst ourselves: nor, again with the exception of Kant, are we as yet in a position properly to deal with them. One reason, for proceeding to expound the ethical system of the founder of the later German philosophy, without regard to his successors, lies in the fact that he stood, on the practical side, in as definite a relation to the English moralists of last century, as, in his speculative philosophy, to Locke and Hume.

IMMANUEL, KANT. [1724-1804.]

The ethical writings of Kant, in the order of their appearance, are--_Foundation for the Metaphysic of Morals_ (1785); _Critique of the Practical Reason_ (1788); _Metaphysic of Morals_ (1797, in two parts--(1) _Doctrine of Right_ or Jurisprudence, (2) _Doctrine of Virtue_ or Ethics proper). The third work contains the details of his system; the general theory is presented in the two others. Of these we select for analysis the earlier, containing, as it does, in less artificial form, an ampler discussion of the fundamental questions of morals; but towards the end it must be supplemented, in regard to certain characteristic doctrines, from the second, in some respects more developed, work.[26]

In the introduction to the Metaphysic of Morals, Kant distinguishes between the empirical and the rational mode of treating Ethics. He announces his intention to depart from the common plan of mixing up the two together, and to attempt for once to set forth the _pure_ moral philosophy that is implied even in the vulgar ideas of duty and moral law. Because a moral law means an absolute necessity laid on all rational beings whatever, its foundation is to be sought, not in human nature or circumstances, but _à priori_ in the conception of pure reason. The most universal precept founded on mere experience is only a practical rule, and never a moral law. A purely rational moral philosophy, or Metaphysic of Morals, will serve the double end of meeting a speculative requirement, and of furnishing the only true norm of practice. It investigates the idea and principles of a potentially pure Will, instead of the acts and conditions of human volition as known from psychology. Not a complete Metaphysic of Morals, however, (which would be a Critique of the pure Practical Reason), but merely a foundation for such will be given. The supreme principle of morality is to be established, apart from detailed application. First, common notions will be analyzed in order to get at this highest principle; and then, when the principle has been sought out, they will be returned upon by way of synthesis.

In the first of the three main sections of the work, he makes the passage from Common Rational Knowledge of Morals to Philosophical. Nothing in the world, he begins, can without qualification be called good, except _Will_. Qualities of temperament, like courage, &c., gifts of fortune, like wealth and power, are good only with reference to a good will. As to a good will, when it is really such, the circumstance that it can, or cannot, be executed does not matter; its value is independent of the utility or fruitlessness of it.

This idea of the absolute worth of mere Will, though it is allowed even by the vulgar understanding, he seeks to establish beyond dispute, by an argument from the natural _subjection_ of Will to Reason. In a being well-organized, if Conservation or Happiness were the grand aim, such subjection would be a great mistake. When Instinct could do the work far better and more surely, Reason should have been deprived of all practical function. Discontent, in fact, rather than happiness comes of pursuit of mere enjoyment by rational calculation; and to make light of the part contributed by Reason to happiness, is really to make out that it exists for a nobler purpose. But now, since Reason _is_ a practical faculty and governs the will, its function can only be to produce a Will good in itself. Such a Will, if not the only good, is certainly the highest; and happiness, unattainable by Reason as a primary aim, and subject in this life altogether to much limitation, is to be sought only in the contentment that arises from the attainment by Reason of its true aim, at the sacrifice often of many a natural inclination.

He proceeds to develop this conception of a Will in itself good and estimable, by dealing with the commonly received ideas of Duty. Leaving aside profitable actions that are plain violations of duty, and also actions conformed to duty, but, while not prompted directly by nature, done from some special inclination--in which case it is easy to distinguish whether the action is done from duty or from self-interest; he considers those more difficult cases where the same action is at once duty, and prompted by direct natural inclination. In all such, whether it be duty of self-preservation, of benevolence, of securing one's own happiness (this last a duty, because discontent and the pressure of care may easily lead to the transgression of other duties), he lays it down that the action is not allowed to have true moral value, unless done in the abeyance or absence of the natural inclination prompting to it. A second position is, that the moral value of an action done from duty lies not in the intention of it, but in the maxim that determines it; not in the object, but in the _principle of Volition_. That is to say, in action done out of regard to duty, the will must be determined by its _formal à priori_ principle, not being determined by any _material à posteriori_ motive. A third position follows then from the other two; Duty is the necessity of an action out of respect for Law. Towards an object there may be inclination, and this inclination may be matter for approval or liking; but it is Law only--the ground and not the effect of Volition, bearing down inclination rather than serving it--that can inspire _Respect_. When inclination and motives are both excluded, nothing remains to determine Will, except Law objectively; and, subjectively, pure respect for a law of practice--_i.e._, the maxim to follow such a law, even at the sacrifice of every inclination. The conception of Law-in-itself alone determining the will, is, then, the surpassing good that is called moral, which exists already in a man before his action has any result. Conformity to Law in general, all special motive to follow any single law being excluded, remains as the one principle of Volition: I am never to act otherwise, than so as to be able also to wish that my maxim (_i.e._, my subjective principle of volition) should become a universal law. This is what he finds implied in the common notions of Duty.

Having illustrated at length this reading, in regard to the duty of keeping a promise, he contrasts, at the close of the section, the all but infallibility of common human reason in practice with its helplessness in speculation. Notwithstanding, it finds itself unable to settle the contending claims of Reason and Inclination, and so is driven to devise a practical philosophy, owing to the rise of a 'Natural Dialectic' or tendency to refine upon the strict laws of duty in order to make them more pleasant. But, as in the speculative region, the Dialectic cannot be properly got rid of without a complete Critique of Reason.

In Section II. the passage is made from the popular moral philosophy thus arising to the metaphysic of morals. He denies that the notion of duty that has been taken above from common sage is empirical. It is proved not to be such from the very assertions of philosophers that men always act from more or less refined self-love; assertions that are founded upon the difficulty of proving that acts most apparently conformed to duty are really such. The fact is, no act _can_ be proved by experience to be absolutely moral, _i.e._, done solely from regard to duty, to the exclusion of all inclination; and therefore to concede that morality and duty are ideas to be had from experience, is the surest way to get rid of them altogether. Duty, and respect for its law, are not to be preserved at all, unless Reason is allowed to lay _absolute_ injunctions on the will, whatever experience says of their non-execution. How, indeed, is experience to disclose a moral law, that, in applying to all rational beings as well as men, and to men only as rational, must originate _à priori_ in pure (practical) Reason? Instead of yielding the principles of morality, empirical examples of moral conduct have rather to be judged by these.

All supreme principles of morality, that are genuine, must rest on pure Reason solely; and the mistake of the popular practical philosophies in vogue, one and all--whether advancing as their principle a special determination of human nature, or Perfection, or Happiness, or Moral Feeling, or Fear of God, or a little of this and a little of that--is that there has been no previous consideration whether the principles of morality are to be sought for in our empirical knowledge of human nature at all. Such consideration would have shown them to be altogether _à priori_, and would have appeared as a _pure_ practical philosophy or metaphysic of morals (upon the completion of which any popularizing might have waited), kept free from admixture of Anthropology, Theology, Physics, Hyperphysics, &c., and setting forth the conception of Duty as purely rational, without the confusion of empirical motives. To a metaphysic of this kind, Kant is now to ascend from the popular philosophy, with its stock-in-trade of single instances, following out the practical faculty of Reason from the general rules determining it, to the point where the conception of Duty emerges.

While things in nature work according to laws, rational beings alone can act according to a conceived idea of laws, _i.e._, to principles. This is to have a Will, or, what is the same, Practical Reason, reason being required in deducing actions from laws. If the Will follows Reason exactly and without fail, actions objectively necessary are necessary also subjectively; if, through subjective conditions (inclinations, &c.), the Will does not follow Reason inevitably, objectively necessary actions become subjectively contingent, and towards the objective laws the attitude of the will is no longer unfailing choice, but _constraint_. A constraining objective principle mentally represented, is a _command_; its formula is called _Imperative_, for which the expression is _Ought_. A will perfectly good--_i.e._, subjectively determined to follow the objective laws of good as soon as conceived--knows no Ought. Imperatives are only for an imperfect, such as is the human, will. _Hypothetical_ Imperatives represent the practical necessity of an action as a means to an end, being _problematical_ or _assertory_ principles, according as the end is possible or real. _Categorical_ Imperatives represent an action as objectively necessary for itself, and count as _apodeictical_ principles.

To the endless number of possible aims of human action correspond as many Imperatives, directing merely how they are to be attained, without any question of their value; these are Imperatives of _Fitness_. To one real aim, existing necessarily for all rational beings, viz., Happiness, corresponds the Imperative of _Prudence_ (in the narrow sense), being assertory while hypothetical. The categorical Imperative, enjoining a mode of action for itself, and concerned about the form and principle of it, not its nature and result, is the Imperative of _Morality_. These various kinds of Imperatives, as influencing the will, may be distinguished as _Rules_ (of fitness), _Counsels_ (of prudence), _Commands_ or _Laws_ (of morality); also as _technical, pragmatical, moral_.

Now, as to the question of the possibility of these different Imperatives--how they can be supposed able to influence or act upon the Will--there is in the first case no difficulty; in wishing an end it is necessarily implied that we wish the indispensable means, when this is in our power. In like manner, the Imperatives of Prudence are also _analytical_ in character (_i.e._, given by implication), if only it were possible to have a definite idea of the end sought, viz., happiness. But, in fact, with the elements of happiness to be got from experience at the same time that the idea requires an absolute whole, or maximum, of satisfaction now and at every future moment, no finite being can know precisely what he wants, or what may be the effect of any of his wishes. Action, on fixed principles, with a view to happiness, is, therefore, not possible; and one can only follow empirical directions, about Diet, Frugality, Politeness, &c., seen on the whole to promote it. Although, however, there is no certainty of causing happiness, and the Imperatives with reference thereto are mere counsels, they retain their character of analytical propositions, and their action on the will is not less possible than in the former case.

To prove the possibility of the Imperative of morality is more difficult. As categorical, it presupposes nothing else to rest its necessity upon; while by way of experience, it can never be made out to be more than a prudential precept--_i.e._, a pragmatic or hypothetic principle. Its possibility must therefore be established _à priori_. But the difficulty will then appear no matter of wonder, when it is remembered (from the Critique of Pure Reason) how hard it is to establish synthetic propositions _à priori_.

The question of the possibility, however, meanwhile postponed, the mere conception of a categorical Imperative is found to yield the one formula that can express it, from its not being dependent, like a hypothetical Imperative, on any external condition. Besides the Law (or objective principle of conduct), the only thing implied in the Imperative being the necessity laid upon the _Maxim_ (or subjective principle) to conform to the law--a law limited by no condition; there is nothing for the maxim to be conformed to but the universality of a law in general, and it is the conformity alone that properly constitutes the Imperative necessary. The Imperative is thus single, and runs: _Act according to that maxim only which you can wish at the same time to become a_ _universal law_. Or, since universality of law as determining effects is what we understand by nature: _Act as if the maxim of your action ought by your will to become the universal law of nature_.