Chapter V: is ON THE CONNEXION BETWEEN JUSTICE AND UTILITY (2)

Taking cases of duties according to the common divisions of duties to ourselves and to others, perfect and imperfect, he proceeds to show that they may be all deduced from the single Imperative; the question of the _reality_ of duty, which is the same as the establishment of the possibility of the Imperative as a synthetic practical proposition _à priori_, at present altogether apart. Suppose a man tempted to commit suicide, with the view of bettering his evil condition; but it is contradictory that the very principle of self-conservation should lead to self-destruction, and such a maxim of conduct cannot therefore become a universal law of nature. Next, the case of a man borrowing without meaning to repay, has only to be turned into a universal law, and the thing becomes impossible; nobody would lend. Again, to neglect a talent that is generally useful for mere ease and self-gratification, can indeed be supposed a universal practice, but can never be wished to be. Finally, to refuse help to others universally might not ruin the race, but can be wished by no one that knows how soon he must himself need assistance. Now, the rule was, that a maxim of conduct should be _wished_ to become the universal law. In the last two cases, it cannot be wished; in the others, the maxim cannot even be conceived in universal form. Thus, two grades of duty, one admitting of merit, the other so strict as to be irremissible, are established on the general principle. The principle is moreover confirmed in the case of transgression of duty: the transgressor by no means wishes to have his act turned into a general rule, but only seeks special and temporary exemption from a law allowed by himself to be universal.

Notwithstanding this force and ease of application, a categorical Imperative has not yet been proved _à priori_ actually existent; and it was allowed that it could not be proved empirically, elements of inclination, interest, &c., being inconsistent with morality. The real question is this: Is it a necessary law that all rational beings should act on maxims that they can wish, to become universal laws? If so, this must be bound up with the very notion of the will of a rational being; the relation of the will to itself being to be determined _à priori_ by pure Reason. The Will is considered as a power of self-determination to act according to certain laws as represented to the mind, existing only in rational beings. And, if the objective ground of self-determination, or _End_, is supplied by mere Reason, it must be the same for all rational beings. _Ends_ may be divided into _Subjective_, resting upon individual _Impulses_ or subjective grounds of desire; and _Objective_, depending on _Motives_ or objective grounds of Volition valid for all rational beings. The principles of action are, in the one case, _Material_, and, in the other, _Formal, i.e._, abstracted from all subjective ends. Material ends, as relative, beget only hypothetical Imperatives. But, supposed some thing, the presence of which in itself has an absolute value, and which, as End-in-self, can be a ground of fixed laws; there, and there only, can be the ground of a possible categorical Imperative, or Law of Practice.

Now, such an End-in-self (not a thing with merely conditional value,--a means to be used arbitrarily) is Man and every rational being, as _Person_. There is no other objective end with absolute value that can supply to the Reason the supreme practical principle requisite for turning subjective principles of action into objective principles of volition. Rational Nature as End-in-self is a subjective principle to a man having this conception of his own being, but becomes objective when every rational being has the same from the same ground in Reason. Hence a new form (the second) to the practical Imperative: _Act so as to use Humanity (Human Nature) as well in your own person, as in the person of another, ever as end also, and never merely as means_.

To this new formula, the old examples are easily squared. Suicide is using one's person as a mere means to a tolerable existence; breaking faith to others is using them as means, not as ends-in-self; neglect of self-cultivation is the not furthering human nature as end-in-self in one's own person; withholding help is refusing to further Humanity as end-in-self through the medium of the aims of others. [In a note he denies that 'the trivial, Do to others as you would,' &c., is a full expression of the law of duty: it contains the ground, neither of duties to self; nor of duties of benevolence to others, for many would forego receiving good on conditions of not conferring it; nor of the duty of retribution, for the malefactor could turn it against his judge, &c.]

The universality of this principle of Human and Rational Nature as End-in-self, as also its character of objective end limiting merely subjective ends, prove that its source is in pure Reason. Objectively, the ground of all practical legislation is Rule and the Form of Universality that enables rule to be Law (of Nature), according to principle first (in its double form); subjectively, it is End, the subject of all ends being every rational being as End-in-self, according to principle second. Hence follows the third practical principle of the Will, as supreme condition of its agreement with universal practical Reason--_the idea of the Will of every rational being as a Will that legislates universally_. The Will, if subject to law, has first itself imposed it.

This new idea--of the Will of every rational being as universally legislative--is what, in the implication of the Categorical Imperative, specifically marks it off from any Hypothetical: Interest is seen to be quite incompatible with Duty, if Duty is Volition of this kind. A will merely subject to laws can be bound to them by interest; not so a will itself legislating supremely, for that would imply another law to keep the interest of self-love from trenching upon the validity of the universal law. Illustration is not needed to prove that a Categorical Imperative, or law for the will of every rational being, if it exist at all, cannot exclude Interest and be unconditional, except as enjoining everything to be done from the maxim of a will that in legislating universally can have itself for object. This is the point that has been always missed, that the laws of duty shall be at once self-imposed and yet universal. Subjection to a law not springing from one's own will implies interest or constraint, and constitutes a certain necessity of action, but never makes Duty. Be the interest one's own or another's, the Imperative is conditional only. Kant's principle is the _Autonomy of the Will_; every other its _Heteronomy_.

The new point of view opens up the very fruitful conception of an _Empire_ or _Realm of Ends_. As a Realm is the systematic union of rational beings by means of common laws, so the ends determined by the laws may, abstractly viewed, be taken to form a systematic whole. Rational beings, as subject to a law requiring them to treat themselves and others as ends and never merely as means, enter into a systematic union by means of common objective laws, _i.e._ into an (ideal) Empire or Realm of Ends, from the laws being concerned about the mutual relations of rational beings as Ends and Means. In this Realm, a rational being is either Head or Member: Head, if legislating universally and with complete independence; Member, if also universally, but at the same time subject to the laws. When now the maxim of the will does not by nature accord necessarily with the demand of the objective principle--that the will through its maxim be able to regard itself at the same time as legislating; universally--a practical constraint is exerted by the principle, which is _Duty_, lying on every Member in the Realm of Ends (not on the Head) alike. This necessity of practice reposes, not on feeling, impulse, or inclination, but on the relation between rational beings arising from the fact that each, as End-in-self, legislates universally. The Reason gives a universal application to every maxim of the Will; not from any motive of interest, but from the idea of the _Dignity_ of a rational being that follows no law that it does not itself at the same time give.

Everything in the Realm of Ends has either a _Price_ or a _Dignity_. Skill, Diligence, &c., bearing on human likings and needs, have a _Market-price_; Qualities like Wit, Fancy, &c., appealing to Taste or Emotional Satisfaction, have an _Affection-price_. But Morality, the only way of being End-in-self, and legislating member in the Realm of Ends, has an intrinsic _Worth or Dignity_, calculable in nothing else. Its worth is not in results, but in dispositions of Will; its actions need neither recommendation from a subjective disposition or taste, nor prompting from immediate tendency or feeling. Being laid on the Will by Reason, they make the Will, in the execution, the object of an immediate _Respect_, testifying to a Dignity beyond all price. The grounds of these lofty claims in moral goodness and virtue are the participation by a rational being in the universal legislation, fitness to be a member in a possible Realm of Ends, subjection only to self-imposed laws. Nothing having value but as the law confers it, an unconditional, incomparable worth attaches to the giving of the law, and _Respect_ is the only word that expresses a rational being's appreciation of that. Autonomy is thus the foundation of the dignity of human and of all rational nature.

The three different expressions that have been given to the one general principle of morality imply each the others, and differ merely in their mode of presenting one idea of the Reason to the mind. _Universal application of the Maxim of Conduct, as if it were a law of nature_, is the formula of the Will as absolutely good; _universal prohibition against the use of rational beings ever as means only_, has reference to the fact that a good will in a rational being is an altogether independent and ultimate End, an End-in-self in all; _universal legislation of each for all_ recognizes the prerogative or special dignity of rational beings, that they necessarily take their maxims from the point of view of all, and must regard themselves, being Ends-in-self, as members in a Realm of Ends (analogous to the Realm, or Kingdom of Nature), which, though merely an ideal and possible conception, none the less really imposes an imperative upon action. _Morality_, he concludes, is _the relation of actions to the Autonomy of the Will_, _i.e._, to possible universal legislation through its maxims. Actions that can co-exist with this autonomy are _allowed_; all others are not. A will, whose maxims necessarily accord with the laws of Autonomy, is holy, or absolutely good; the dependence of a will not thus absolutely good is _Obligation_. The objective necessity of an action from obligation is _Duty. Subjection to law_ is not the only element in duty; the fact of the law being self-imposed gives _Dignity_.

The Autonomy of the will is its being a law to itself, without respect to the objects of volition; the principle of autonomy is to choose only in such a way as that the maxims of choice are conceived at the same time as a universal law. This rule cannot be proved analytically to be an Imperative, absolutely binding on every will; as a synthetic proposition it requires, besides a knowledge of the objects, a critique of the subject, _i.e._, pure practical Reason, before, in its apodeictic character, it can be proved completely _à priori_. Still the mere analysis of moral conceptions has sufficed to prove it the sole principle of morals, because this principle is seen to be a categorical Imperative, and a categorical Imperative enjoins neither more nor less than this Autonomy. If, then, Autonomy of Will is the supreme principle, Heteronomy is the source of all ungenuine principles, of Morality. Heteronomy is whenever the Will does not give itself laws, but some object, in relation to the Will, gives them. There is then never more than a hypothetical Imperative: I am to do something because I wish something else.

There follows a division and criticism of the various possible principles of morality that can be set up on the assumption of Heteronomy, and that have been put forward by human Reason in default of the required Critique of its pure use. Such, are either _Empirical_ or _Rational_. The Empirical, embodying the principle of _Happiness_, are founded on (1) _physical_ or (2) _moral feeling_; the Rational, embodying the principle of _perfection_, on (1) the rational conception of it as a possible result, or (2) the conception of an independent perfection (the Will of God), as the determining cause of the will. The Empirical principles are altogether to be rejected, because they can give no universal law for all rational beings; of the Rational principles, the first, though setting up an empty and indefinite conception, has the merit of at least making an appeal from sense to pure reason. But the fatal objection to all four is their implying Heteronomy; no imperative founded on them can utter moral, _i.e._, categorical commands.

That the absolutely good Will must be autonomous--_i.e._, without any kind of motive or interest, lay Commands on itself that are at the same time fit to be laws for all rational beings, appears, then, from a deeper consideration of even the popular conceptions of morality. But now the question can no longer be put off: Is Morality, of which this is the only conception, a reality or a phantom? All the different expressions given to the Categorical Imperatives are synthetic practical propositions _a priori_; they postulate a possible synthetic use of the pure practical reason. Is there, and how is there, such a possible synthetic use? This is the question (the same as the other) that Kant proceeds to answer in the Third Section, by giving, in default of a complete Critique of the faculty, as much as is necessary for the purpose. But here, since he afterwards undertook the full Critique, it is better to stop the analysis of the earlier work, and summarily draw upon both for the remainder of the argument, and the rather because some important points have to be added that occur only in the later treatise. The foregoing is a sufficient example of his method of treatment.

The synthetic use of the pure practical reason, in the Categorical Imperative, is legitimized; Autonomy of the Will is explained; Duty is shown to be no phantom--through the conception of Freedom of Will, properly understood. Theoretically (speculatively), Freedom is undemonstrable; being eternally met, in one of the (cosmological) Antinomies of the Pure Reason, by the counter-assertion that everything in the universe takes place according to unchanging laws of nature. Even theoretically, however, Freedom is not inconceivable, and morally we become certain of it; for we are conscious of the 'ought' of duty, and with the 'ought' there must go a 'can.' It is not, however, as Phenomenon or Sensible Ens that a man 'can,' is free, has an absolute initiative; all phenomena or Sensible Entia, being in space and time, are subject to the Natural Law of Causality. But man is also Noumenon, Thing-in-self, Intelligible Ens; and as such, being free from conditions of time and space, stands outside of the sequence of Nature. Now, the Noumenon or Ens of the Reason (he assumes) stands higher than, or has a value above, the Phenomenon or Sensible Ens (as much as Reason stands higher than Sense and Inclination); accordingly, while it is only man as Noumenon that 'can,' it is to man as Phenomenon that the 'ought' is properly addressed; it is upon man as Phenomenon that the law of Duty, prescribed, with perfect freedom from motive, by Man as Noumenon, is laid.

_Freedom of Will_ in Man as Rational End or Thing-in-self is thus the great Postulate of the pure Practical Reason; we can be sure of the fact (although it must always remain speculatively undemonstrable), because else there could be no explanation of the Categorical Imperative of Duty. But inasmuch as the Practical Reason, besides enjoining a law of Duty, must provide also a final end of action in the idea of an unconditioned Supreme Good, it contains also two other Postulates: Man being a sentient as well as a rational being, Happiness as well as Perfect Virtue or Moral Perfection must enter into the Summum Bonum (not, one of them to the exclusion of the other, as the Stoics and Epicureans, in different senses, declared). Now, since there is no such necessary conjunction of the two in nature, it must be sought otherwise. It is found in postulating _Immortality_ and _God_.

_Immortality_ is required to render possible the attainment of moral perfection. Virtue out of _respect_ for law, with a constant tendency to fall away, is all that is attainable in life. The _Holiness_, or complete accommodation of the will to the Moral Law, implied in the Summum Bonum, can be attained to only in the course of an infinite progression; which means personal Immortality. [As in the former case, the _speculative_ impossibility of proving the immateriality, &c., of the supernatural soul is not here overcome; but Immortality is _morally_ certain, being demanded by the Practical Reason.]

Moral perfection thus provided for, _God_ must be postulated in order to find the ground of the required conjunction of Felicity. Happiness is the condition of the rational being in whose whole existence everything goes according to wish and will; and this is not the condition of man, for in him observance of the moral law is not conjoined with power of disposal over the laws of nature. But, as Practical Reason demands the conjunction, it is to be found only in a being who is the author at once of Nature and of the Moral Law; and this is God. [The same remark once more applies, that here what is obtained is a _moral_ certainty of the existence of the Deity: the negative result of the Critique of the Pure _(speculative)_ Reason abides what it was.]

We may now attempt to summarize this abstruse Ethical theory of Kant.

I---The STANDARD of morally good action (or rather Will), as expressed in the different forms of the Categorical Imperative, is the possibility of its being universally extended as a law for all rational beings. His meaning comes out still better in the obverse statement: The action is bad that _cannot be_, or at least _cannot be wished to lie_, turned unto a universal law.

II.--Kant would expressly demur to being questioned as to his PSYCHOLOGY of Ethics; since he puts his own theory in express opposition to every other founded upon any empirical view of the mental constitution. Nevertheless, we may extract some kind of answers to the usual queries.

The Faculty is the (pure Practical) Reason. The apprehension of what is morally right is entirely an affair of Reason; the only element of Feeling is an added Sentiment of Awe or Respect for the law that Reason imposes, this being a law, not only for me who impose it on myself, but at the same time for every rational agent. The Pure Reason, which means with Kant the Faculty of Principles, is _Speculative_ or _Practical_. As _Speculative_, it _requires_ us to bring our knowledge (of the understanding) to certain higher unconditioned unities (Soul, Cosmos, God); but there is error if these are themselves regarded as facts of knowledge. As _Practical_, it sets up an unconditional law of Duty in Action (unconditioned by motives); and in this and in the related conception of the Summum Bonum is contained a moral certainty of the Immortality (of the soul), Freedom (in the midst of Natural Necessity), and of God as existent.

As to the point of Free-will, nothing more need be said.

Disinterested Sentiment, as _sentiment_, is very little regarded: disinterested _action_ is required with such rigour that every act or disposition is made to lose its character as moral, according as any element of interested feeling of any kind enters into it. Kant obliterates the line between Duty and Virtue, by making a duty of every virtue; at least he conceives clearly that there is no Virtue in doing what we are strongly prompted to by inclination--that virtue must involve self-sacrifice.

III.--His position with respect to Happiness is peculiar. Happiness is not the end of action: the end of action is rather the self-assertion of the rational faculty over the lower man.

If the constituents of Happiness could be known--and they cannot be--there would be no _morality_, but only _prudence_ in the pursuit of them. To promote our own happiness is indeed a duty, but in order to keep us from neglecting our other duties.

Nevertheless, he conceives it necessary that there should be an ultimate equation of Virtue and Happiness; and the need of Happiness he then expressly connects with the sensuous side of our being.

IV.--His MORAL CODE may here be shortly presented from the second part of his latest work, where it is fully given. Distinguishing _Moral_ Duties or (as he calls them) '_Virtue-duties,'_ left to be enforced internally by Conscience, from _Legal_ Duties _(Rechtspflichten)_, externally enforced, he divides them into two classes--(A) Duties to _Self_; (B) Duties to _Others_.

(A) Duties to _Self_. These have regard to the one _private_ Aim or End that a man can make a duty of, viz., his own _Perfection_; for his own _Happiness_, being provided for by a natural propensity or inclination, is to himself no duty. They are (a) _perfect_ (negative or restrictive) as directed to mere Self-Conservation; (b) _imperfect_ (positive or extensive) as directed to the Advancement or Perfecting of one's being. The _perfect_ are concerned about Self (a), as an _Animal_ creature, and then are directed against--(1) _Self-destruction_, (2) _Sexual Excess_, (3) _Intemperance in Eating and Drinking_; (B) as a _Moral_ creature, and then are directed against--(1) _Lying_, (2) _Avarice_, (3) _Servility_. The _imperfect_ have reference to (a) _physical_, (B) _moral_ advancement or perfection (subjectively. _Purity_ or _Holiness_).

(B) Duties to _Others_. These have regard to the only Aim or End of others that a man can make a duty of, viz., their _Happiness_; for their _Perfection_ can be promoted only by themselves. Duties to others _as men_ are metaphysically deducible; and application to _special conditions_ of men is to be made empirically. They include (a) Duties of LOVE, involving _Merit_ or _Desert (i.e._, return from the objects of them) in the performance: (1) _Beneficence_, (2) _Gratitude_, (3) _Fellow-feeling_; (b) Duties of RESPECT, absolutely _due_ to others as men; the opposites are the _vices_: (1) _Haughtiness_, (2) _Slander_, (3) _Scornfulness_. In _Friendship_, Love and Respect are combined in the highest degree. Lastly, he notes _Social_ duties in human intercourse _(Affability_, &c.)--these being _outworks_ of morality.

He allows no special Duties to God, or Inferior Creatures, beyond what is contained in Moral Perfection as Duty to Self.

V.--The conception of Law enters largely into Kant's theory of morals, but in a sense purely transcendental, and not as subjecting or assimilating morality to positive political institution. The _Legality_ of external _actions_, as well as the _Morality_ of internal _dispositions_, is determined by reference to the one universal moral Imperative. The principle underlying all _legal_ or _jural_ (as opposed to moral or ethical) provisions, is the necessity of uniting in a universal law of freedom the spontaneity of each with the spontaneity of all the others: individual freedom and freedom of all must be made to subsist together in a universal law.

VI.--With Kant, Religion and Morality are very closely connected, or, in a sense, even identified; but the alliance is not at the expense of Morality. So far from making this dependent on Religion, he can find nothing but the moral conviction whereon to establish the religious doctrines of Immortality and the Existence of God; while, in a special work, he declares further that Religion consists merely in the practice of Morality as a system of divine commands, and claims to judge of all religious institutions and dogmas by the moral consciousness. Besides, the Postulates themselves, in which the passage to Religion is made, are not all equally imperative,--Freedom, as the ground of the fact of Duty, being more urgently demanded than others; and he even goes so far as to make the allowance, that whoever has sufficient moral strength to fulfil the Law of Reason without them, is not required to subscribe to them.

The modern French school, that has arisen in this century under the combined influence of the Scotch and the German philosophy, has bestowed some attention on Ethics. We end by noticing under it Cousin and Jouffroy.

VICTOR COUSIN. [1792-1867.]

The analysis of Cousin's ethical views is made upon his historical lectures _Sur les Idees du Vrai, du Beau et du Bien_, as delivered in 1817-18. They contain a dogmatic exposition of his own opinions, beginning at the 20th lecture; the three preceding lectures, in the section of the whole course devoted to the Good, being taken up with the preliminary review of other opinions required for his eclectical purpose.

He determines to consider, by way of psychological analysis, the ideas and sentiments of every kind called up by the spectacle of human actions; and first he notes actions that please and displease the senses, or in some way affect our interest: those that are agreeable and useful we naturally choose, avoiding the opposites, and in this we are _prudent_. But there is another set of actions, having no reference to our own personal interest, which yet we qualify as good or bad. When an armed robber kills and spoils a defenceless man, we, though beholding the sight in safety, are at once stirred up to disinterested horror and indignation. This is no mere passing sentiment, but includes a two-fold judgment, pronounced then and ever after; that the action is in itself bad, and that it ought not to be committed. Still farther, our anger implies that the object of it is conscious of the evil and the obligation, and is therefore responsible; wherein again is implied that he is a free agent. And, finally, demanding as we do that he should be punished, we pass what has been called a judgment of merit and demerit, which is built upon an idea in our minds of a supreme law, joining happiness to virtue and misfortune to crime.

The analysis thus far he claims to be strictly scientific; he now proceeds to vary the case, taking actions of our own. I am supposed entrusted by a dying friend with a deposit for another, and a struggle ensues between interest and probity as to whether I should pay it. If interest conquers, remorse ensues. He paints the state of remorse, and analyzes it into the same elements as before, the idea of _good_ and _evil_, of an _obligatory law_, of _liberty_, of _merit_ and _demerit_; it thus includes the whole phenomenon of morality. The exactly opposite state that follows upon the victory of probity, is proved to imply the same facts.

The Moral Sentiment, so striking in its character, has by some been supposed the foundation of all morality, but in point of fact it is itself constituted by these various judgments. Now that they are known to stand as its elements, he goes on to subject each to a stricter analysis, taking first the judgment of _good_ and _evil_, which is at the bottom of all the rest. It lies in the original constitution of human nature, being simple and indecomposable, like the judgment of the True and the Beautiful. It is absolute, and cannot be withheld in presence of certain acts; but it only declares, and does not constitute, good and evil, these being real and independent qualities of actions. Applied at first to special cases, the judgment of good gives birth to general principles that become rules for judging other actions. Like other sciences, morality has its axioms, justly called moral truths; if it is good to keep an oath, it is also true, the oath being made with no other purpose than to be kept. Faithful guarding as much belongs to the idea of a deposit, as the equality between its three angles and two right angles to the idea of a triangle. By no caprice or effort of will can a moral verity be made in the smallest degree other than it is.

But, he goes on, a moral verity is not simply to be believed; it must also be practised, and this is _obligation_, the second of the elements of moral sentiment. Obligation, like moral truth, on which it rests, is absolute, immutable, universal. Kant even went so far as to make it the principle of our morality; but this was subjectivizing good, as he had subjectivized truth. Before there is an obligation to act, there must be an intrinsic goodness in the action; the real first truth of morality is justics, _i.e._, the essential distinction of good and evil. It is justice, therefore, and not duty, that strictly deserves the name of a principle.

The next element is _liberty_. Obligation implies the faculty of resisting desire, passion, &c., else there would be a contradiction in human nature. But the truest proof of liberty is to be sought in the constant testimony of consciousness, that, in wishing this or that, I am equally able to will the contrary. He distinguishes between the power of willing and the power of executing; also between will and desire, or passion. In the conflict between will and the tyranny of desire lies liberty; and the aim of the conflict is the fulfilment of duty. For the will is never so free, never so much itself, as when yielding to the law of duty. Persons are distinguished from Things in having responsibility, dignity, intrinsic value. Because there is in me a being worthy of respect, I am bound in duty to respect myself, and I have the _right_ to be respected by you. My duty (he means, of course, what I owe to self) is the exact measure of my right. The character of being a _person_ is inviolable, is the foundation of property, is inalienable by self or others, and so forth.

He passes to the last element of the phenomenon of morality, the judgement of _merit_ and _demerit_. The judgement follows, as the agent is supposed free, and it is not affected by lapse of time. It depends also essentially on the idea that the agent knows good from evil. Upon itself follow the notions of reward and punishment. Merit is the natural right to be rewarded; demerit, paradox as it may appear, is the _right_ to be punished. A criminal would claim to be punished, if he could comprehend the absolute necessity of expiation; and are there not real cases of such criminals? But as there can be merit without actual reward, so to be rewarded does not constitute merit.

If good, he continues, is good in itself, and ought to be done without regard to consequences, it is no less true that the consequences of good cannot fail to be happy. Virtue without happiness and crime without misfortune are a contradiction, a disorder; which are hardly met with in the world, even as it is, or, where in a few cases they are found, are sure to be righted in the end by eternal justice. The sacrifice supposed in virtue, if generously accepted and courageously undergone, has to be recompensed in respect of the amount of happiness sacrificed.

Once more, he takes up the _Sentiment_, which is the general echo of all the elements of the phenomenon. Its end is to make the mind sensible of the bond between virtue and happiness; it is the direct and vivid application of the law of merit. Again, he touches the states of moral satisfaction and remorse, speaks of our sympathy with the moral goodness of others and our benevolent feeling that arises towards them--emotions all, but covering up judgments; and this is the end of his detailed analysis of the actual facts of the case. But he still goes on to sum up in exact expressions the foregoing results, and he claims especially to have overlooked neither the part played by Reason, nor the function of Sentiment. The rational character of the idea of good gives morality its firm foundation; the lively sentiment helps to lighten the often heavy burden of duty, and stirs up to the most heroic deeds. Self-interest too is not denied its place. In this connexion, led again to allude to the happiness appointed to virtue here or at least hereafter, he allows that God may be regarded as the fountain of morality, but only in the sense that his will is the expression of his eternal wisdom and justice. Religion crowns morality, but morality is based upon itself. The rest of the lecture is in praise of Eclecticism, and advocates consideration of all the facts involved in morality, as against exclusive theories founded upon only some of the facts.

Lectures 21st and 22nd, compressed into one (Ed. 1846) contain the application of the foregoing principles, and the answer to the question, what our duties are. Duty being absolute, truth becomes obligatory, and absolute truth being known by the reason only, to obey the law of duty is to obey reason. But what actions are conformable to reason? The characteristic of reason he takes to be Universality, and this will appear in the motives of actions, since it is these that confer on actions their morality. Accordingly, the sign whereby to discover whether an action is duty, is, if its motive when generalized appear to the reason to be a maxim of universal legislation for all free and intelligent beings. This, the norm set up by Kant, as certainly discovers what is and is not duty, as the syllogism detects the error and truth of an argument.

To obey reason is, then, the first duty, at the root of all others, and itself resting directly upon the relation between liberty and reason; in a sense, to remain reasonable is the sole duty. But it assumes special forms amid the diversity of human relations. He first considers the relations wherein we stand to ourselves and the corresponding duties. That there should be any such duties is at first sight strange, seeing we belong to ourselves; but this is not the same as having complete power over ourselves. Possessing liberty, we must not abdicate it by yielding to passions, and treat ourselves as if there were nothing in us that merits respect. We are to distinguish between what is peculiar to each of us, and what we share with humanity. Individual peculiarities are things indifferent, but the liberty and intelligence that constitute us persons, rather than individuals, demand to be respected even by ourselves. There is an obligation of self-respect imposed upon us as moral persons that was not established, and is not to be destroyed, by us. As special cases of this respect of the moral person in us, he cites (1) the duty of _self-control_ against anger or melancholy, not for their pernicious consequences, but as trenching upon the moral dignity of liberty and intelligence; (2) the duty of _prudence_, meaning providence in all things, which regulates courage, enjoins temperance, is, as the ancients said, the mother of all the virtues,--in short, the government of liberty by reason; (3) _veracity_; (4) duty towards the _body_; (5) duty of _perfecting_ (and not merely keeping intact) the intelligence, liberty, and sensibility that constitute us moral beings.

But the same liberty and intelligence that constitute me a moral person, and need thus to be respected even by myself, exist also in others, conferring rights on them, and imposing new duties of respect on me relatively to them. To their intelligence I owe _Truth_; their liberty I am bound to respect, sometimes even to the extent of not hindering them from making a wrong use of it. I must respect also their affections (family, &c.) which form part of themselves; their bodies; their goods, whether acquired by labour or heritage. All these duties are summed up in the one great duty of _Justice_ or respect for the rights of others; of which the greatest violation is slavery.

The whole of duty towards others is not however comprehended in justice. Conscience complains, if we have only not done injustice to one in suffering. There is a new class of duties--_consolation, charity, sacrifice_--to which indeed correspond no rights, and which therefore are not so obligatory as justice, but which cannot be said not to be obligatory. From their nature, they cannot be reduced to an exact formula; their beauty lies in liberty. But in charity, he adds, there is also a danger, from its effacing, to a certain extent, the moral personality of the object of it. In acting upon others, we risk interfering with their natural rights; charity is therefore to be proportioned to the liberty and reason of the person benefited, and is never to be made the means of usurping power over another.

Justice and Charity are the two elements composing social morality. But what is social? and on what is Society founded, existing as it does everywhere, and making man to be what he is? Into the hopeless question of its origin he refuses to enter; its present state is to be studied by the light of the knowledge of human nature. Its invariable foundations are (1) the need we have of each other, and our social instincts, (2) the lasting and indestructible idea and sentiment of right and justice. The need and instinct, of which he finds many proofs, begin society; justice crowns the work. The least consideration of the relations of man to man, suggest the essential principles of Society--justice, liberty, equality, government, punishment. Into each of these he enters. Liberty is made out to be assured and developed in society, instead of diminished. Equality is established upon the character of moral personality, which admits of no degree. The need of some repression upon liberty, where the liberty of others is trenched upon, conducts to the idea of Government--a disinterested third party armed with the necessary power to assure and defend the liberty of all. To government is to be ascribed, first its inseparable function of protecting the common liberty (without unnecessary repression), and next, beneficent action, corresponding to the duty of charity. It requires, for its guidance, a rule superior to itself, i.e., law, the expression of universal and absolute justice. Here follows the usual distinction of positive and natural law. The sanction of law is punishment; the right of punishing, as was seen, depending on the idea of demerit. Punishment is not mere vengeance, but the expiation by the criminal of violated justice; it is to be measured therefore chiefly by the demerit and not by the injury only. Whether, in punishing, allowance should be made for correction and amelioration, is to put the same case over again of charity coming in after justice.

Here the philosopher stops on the threshold of the special science of politics. But already the fixed and invariable principles of society and government have been given, and, even in the relative sphere of politics, the rule still holds that all forms and institutions are to be moulded as far as possible on the eternal principles supplied by philosophy. The following is a summary of Cousin's views:--

I.--The Standard is the judgment of good or evil in actions. Cousin holds that good and evil are qualities of actions independent of our judgment, and having a sort of objective existence.

II.--The Moral Faculty he analyzes into four judgments: (1) good and evil; (2) obligation; (3) freedom of the will; and (4) merit and demerit. The moral sentiment is the emotions connected with those judgments, and chiefly the feeling connected with the idea of merit. [This analysis is obviously redundant. 'Good' and 'evil' apply to many things outside ethics, and to be at all appropriate, they must be qualified as _moral_ (i.e., _obligatory_) good and evil. The connexion between obligation and demerit has been previously explained.]

III.--In regard to the Summum Bonum, Cousin considers that virtue must bring happiness here or hereafter, and vice, misery.

IV.--He accepts the criterion of duties set forth by Kant. He argues for the existence of duties towards ourselves.

V. and VI. require no remark.

THÉODORE SIMON JOUFFROY. [1796-1842.]

In the Second Lecture of his unfinished _Cours de Droit Naturel_, Jouffroy gives a condensed exposition of the Moral Facts of human nature from his own point of view.

What distinguishes, he says, one being from another, is its Organization; and as having a special nature, every creature has a special end. Its end or destination is its good, or its good consists in the accomplishment of its end. Further, to have an end implies the possession of faculties wherewith to attain it; and all this is applicable also to man. In man, as in other creatures, from the very first, his nature tends to its end, by means of purely instinctive movements, which may be called primitive and instinctive tendencies of human nature; later they are called passions. Along with these tendencies, and under their influence, the intellectual faculties also awake and seek to procure for them satisfaction. The faculties work, however, at first, in an indeterminate fashion, and only by meeting obstacles are driven to the concentration necessary to attain the ends. He illustrates this by the case of the intellectual faculty seeking to satisfy the desire of knowledge, and not succeeding until it concentrates on a single point its scattered energies. This spontaneous concentration is the first manifestation of Will, but is proved to be not natural from the feeling of constraint always experienced, and the glad rebound, after effort, to tho indeterminate condition. One fact, too, remains even after every thing possible has been done, viz., that the satisfaction of the primitive tendencies is never quite complete.

When, however, such satisfaction as may be, has been attained, there arises pleasure; and pain, when our faculties fail to attain the good or end they sought. There could be action, successful and unsuccessful, and so good and evil, without any sensibility, wherefore good and evil are not to be confounded with pain and pleasure; but constituted as we are, there is a sensible echo that varies according as the result of action is attained or not. Pleasure is, then, the consequence, and, as it were, the sign of the realization of good, and pain of its privation.

He next distinguishes Secondary passions from the great primary tendencies and passions. These arise _apropos_ of external objects, as they are found to further or oppose the satisfaction of the fundamental tendencies. Such objects are then called _useful_ or _pernicious_. Finally, he completes his account of the infantile or primitive condition of man, by remarking that some of our natural tendencies, like Sympathy, are entirely disinterested in seeking the good of others. The main feature of the whole primitive state is the exclusive domination of passion. The will already exists, but there is no liberty; the present passion triumphs over the future, the stronger over the weaker.

He now passes to consider the double transformation of this original state, that takes place when reason appears. Reason is the faculty of _comprehending_, which is different from knowing, and is peculiar to man. As soon as it awakes in man, it comprehends, and penetrates to the meaning of, the whole spectacle of human activity. It first forms the general idea of _Good_ as the resultant of the satisfaction of all the primary tendencies, and as the true End of man. Then, comprehending the actual situation of man, it resolves this idea into the idea of the _greatest possible_ good. All that conduces to the attainment of this good, it includes under the general idea of the _Useful_; and finally, it constructs the general idea of _Happiness_ out of all that is common to the agreeable sensations that follow upon the satisfaction of the primary tendencies.

But besides forming these three perfectly distinct ideas, and exploring the secret of what has been passing within, the reason also comprehends the necessity of subjecting to control the faculties and forces that are the condition of the greatest satisfaction of human nature. In the place of the merely mechanical impulsion of passion, which is coupled with grave disadvantages, it puts forward, as a new principle of action, the rational calculation of interest. The faculties are brought into the service of this idea of the reason, by the same process of concentration as was needful in satisfying the passions; only now voluntarily instead of spontaneously. Being an idea instead of a passion, the new principle supplies a real _motive_, under whose guidance our natural power over our faculties is developed and strengthened. All partial ends are merged in the one great End of Interest, to which the means is self-control. The first great change thus wrought by reason is, that it takes the direction of the human forces into its own hand, and although, even when by a natural transformation the new system of conduct acquires all the force of a passion, it is not able steadily to procure for the idea of interest the victory over the single passions, the change nevertheless abides. To the state of Passion has succeeded the state of Egoism.

Reason must, however, he thinks, make another discovery before there is a truly moral state--must from general ideas rise to ideas that are universal and absolute. There is no real equation, he holds, between Good and the satisfaction of the primitive tendencies, which is the good of egoism. Not till the special ends of all creatures are regarded as elements of one great End of creation, of Universal Order, do we obtain an idea whose equivalence to the idea of the Good requires no proof. The special ends are good, because, through their realization, the end of creation, which is the absolute Good, is realized; hence they acquire the sacred character that it has in the eye of reason.

No sooner is the idea of Universal Order present to the reason, than it is recognized as an absolute law; and, in consequence, the special end of our being, by participation in its character of goodness and sacredness, is henceforth pursued as a duty, and its satisfaction claimed as a right. Also every creature assumes the same position, and we no longer merely concede that others have tendencies to be satisfied, and consent from Sympathy or Egoism to promote their good; but the idea of Universal Order makes it as much our duty to respect and contribute to the accomplishment of their good as to accomplish our own. From the idea of good-in-itself, i.e., Order, flow all duty, right, obligation, morality, and natural legislation.

He carries the idea of Order still farther back to the Deity, making it the expression of the divine thought, and opening up the religious side of morality; but he does not mean that its obligatoriness as regards the reason is thereby increased. He also identifies it, in the last resort, with the ideas of the Beautiful and the True.

We have now reached the truly moral condition, a state perfectly distinct from either of the foregoing. Even when the egoistic and the moral determination prescribe the same conduct, the one only counsels, while the other obliges. The one, having in view only the greatest satisfaction of our nature, is personal even when counselling benefits to others; the other regarding only the law of Order, something distinct from self, is impersonal, even when prescribing our own good. Hence there is in the latter case _dévouement_ of self to something else, and it is exactly the _dévouement_ to a something that is not self, but is regarded as good, that gets the name of virtue or moral good. Moral good is voluntary and intelligent obedience to the law that is the rule of our conduct. As an additional distinction between the egoistic and the moral determination, he mentions the judgment of merit or demerit that ensues upon actions when, and only when, they have a moral character. No remorse follows an act of mere imprudence involving no violation of universal order.

He denies that there is any real contradiction among the three different determinations. Nothing is prescribed in the moral law that is not also in accordance with some primitive tendency, and with self-interest rightly understood; if it were not so, it would go hard with virtue. On the other hand, if everything not done from regard to duty were opposed to moral law and order, society could not only not subsist, but would never have been formed. When a struggle does ensue between passion and self-interest, passion is blind; when between egoism and the moral determination, egoism is at fault. It is in the true interest of Passion to be sacrificed to Egoism, and of Egoism to be sacrificed to Order.

He closes the review of the various moral facts by explaining in what sense the succession of the three states is to be understood. The state of Passion is historically first, but the Egoistic and the Moral states are not so sharply defined. As soon as reason dawns it introduces the moral motive as well as the egoistic, and to this extent the two states are contemporaneous. Only, so far is the moral law from being at this stage fully conceived, that, in the majority of men, it is never conceived in its full clearness at all. Their confused idea of moral law is the so-called moral _conscience_, which works more like a sense or an instinct, and is inferior to the clear rational conception in everything except that it conveys the full force of obligation. In its grades of guilt human justice rightly makes allowance for different degrees of intelligence. The Egoistic determination and the Moral state, such as it is, once developed, passion is not to be supposed abolished, but henceforth what really takes place in all is a perpetual alternation of the various states. Yet though no man is able exclusively to follow the moral determination, and no man will constantly be under the influence of any one of the motives, there is one motive commonly uppermost whereby each can be characterized. Thus men, according to their habitual conduct, are known as passionate, egoistic, or virtuous.

We now summarize the opinions of Jouffroy:--

I.--The Standard is the Idea of Absolute Good or Universal Order in the sense explained by the author. Like Cousin, he identifies the 'good' with the 'true.' What, then, is the criterion that distinguishes moral from other truths? If _obligation_ be selected as the _differentia_, it is in effect to give up the attempt to determine what truths are obligatory. The idea of 'good' is obviously too vague to be a _differentia_. How far the idea of 'Universal Order' gets us out of the difficulty may be doubted, especially after the candid admission of the author, that it is an idea of which the majority of men have never any very clear notions.

II.--The moral faculty is Reason; Conscience is hardly more than a confused feeling of obligatoriness.

Sympathy is one of the primitive tendencies of our nature. Jouffroy's opinion on the subject is open to the objections urged against Butler's psychology.

He upholds the freedom of the Will, but embarrasses his argument by admitting, like Reid, that there is a stage in our existence when we are ruled by the passions, and are destitute of liberty.

III.--The Summum Bonum is the _end_ of every creature; the passions ought to be subordinated to self-interest, and self-interest to morality.

In regard to the other points, it is unnecessary to continue the summary.

NOTES

[Footnote 1: Duties strictly so called, the department of obligatory morality, enforced by punishment, may be exemplified in the following classified summary:--

Under the Legal Sanction, are included; (A) Forbearance from (specified) injuries; as (a) Intentional injury--crimes, (b) Injury not intentional--wrongs, repaired by Damages or Compensation. (B) The rendering of services; (a) Fulfilling contracts or agreements; (b) Reciprocating anterior services rendered, though, not requested, as in filial duty; (c) Cases of extreme or superior need, as parental duty, relief of destitution.

Under the Popular Sanction are created duties on such points as the following:--(1) The Etiquette of small societies or coteries. (2) Religious orthodoxy; Sabbath observance. (3) Unchastity; violations of the etiquette of the sexes, Immodesty, and whatever endangers chastity, especially in women. (4) Duties of parents to children, and of children to parents, beyond the requirements of the law. (5) Suicide: when only attempted, the individual is punished, when carried out, the relatives. (6) Drunkenness, and neglect of the means of self-support. (7) Gross Inhumanity. In all these cases the sanction, or punishment, is social; and is either mere disapprobation or dislike, not issuing in overt acts, or exclusion from fellowship and the good offices consequent thereon.]

[Footnote 2: Optional Morality, the Morality of Reward, is exemplified as follows:--

(A) A liberal performance of duties properly so called. (_a_) The support of aged parents; this, though to a certain extent a legal duty, is still more a virtue, being stimulated by the approbation of one's fellows. The performance of the family duties generally is the subject of commendation. (_b_) The payment of debts that cannot be legally recovered, as in the case of bankrupts after receiving their discharge.