Chapter IV: Metaphysical Ethics (2)

It seems to be owing to this confusion, that the question ‘What is good?’ is thought to be identical with the question ‘What is preferred?’ It is said, with sufficient truth, that you would never know a thing was good unless you preferred it, just as you would never know a thing existed unless you perceived it. But it is added, and this is false, that you would never know a thing was good unless you _knew_ that you preferred it, or that it existed unless you _knew_ that you perceived it. And it is finally added, and this is utterly false, that you cannot distinguish the fact that a thing is good from the fact that you prefer it, or the fact that it exists from the fact that you perceive it. It is often pointed out that I cannot at any given moment distinguish what is true from what I think so: and this is true. But though I cannot distinguish _what_ is true from _what_ I think so, I always can distinguish what I mean by saying _that_ it is true from what I mean by saying _that_ I think so. For I understand the meaning of the supposition that what I think true may nevertheless be false. When, therefore, I assert that it is true I mean to assert something different from the fact that I think so. _What_ I think, namely _that_ something is true, is always quite distinct from the fact that I think it. The assertion that it is true does not even _include_ the assertion that I think it so; although, of course, whenever I do think a thing true, it is, as a matter of fact, also true that I do think it. This tautologous proposition that for a thing to be thought true it is necessary that it should be thought, is, however, commonly identified with the proposition that for a thing to _be_ true it is necessary that it should be thought. A very little reflection should suffice to convince anyone that this identification is erroneous; and a very little more will shew that, if so, we must mean by ‘true’ something which includes no reference to thinking or to any other psychical fact. It may be difficult to discover precisely _what_ we mean--to hold the object in question before us, so as to compare it with other objects: but that we do mean something distinct and unique can no longer be matter of doubt. That ‘to be true’ _means_ to be thought in a certain way is, therefore, certainly false. Yet this assertion plays the most essential part in Kant’s ‘Copernican revolution’ of philosophy, and renders worthless the whole mass of modern literature, to which that revolution has given rise, and which is called Epistemology. Kant held that what was unified in a certain manner by the synthetic activity of thought was _ipso facto_ true: that this was the very meaning of the word. Whereas it is plain that the only connection which can possibly hold between being true and being thought in a certain way, is that the latter should be a _criterion_ or test of the former. In order, however, to establish that it is so, it would be necessary to establish by the methods of induction that what was true was always thought in a certain way. Modern Epistemology dispenses with this long and difficult investigation at the cost of the self-contradictory assumption that ‘truth’ and the criterion of truth are one and the same thing.

=81.= It is, then, a very natural, though an utterly false supposition that for a thing to _be_ true is the same thing as for it to be perceived or thought of in a certain way. And since, for the reasons given above, the fact of preference seems roughly to stand in the same relation to thinking things good, in which the fact of perception stands to thinking that they are true or exist, it is very natural that for a thing to _be_ good should be supposed identical with its being preferred in a certain way. But once this coordination of Volition and Cognition has been accepted, it is again very natural that every fact which seems to support the conclusion that being true is identical with being cognised should confirm the corresponding conclusion that being good is identical with being willed. It will, therefore, be in place to point out another confusion, which seems to have had great influence in causing acceptance of the view that to be true is the same thing as to be cognised.

This confusion is due to a failure to observe that when we say we have a _sensation_ or _perception_ or that we _know_ a thing, we mean to assert not only that our mind is cognitive, but _also_ that that which it cognises is true. It is not observed that the usage of these words is such that, if a thing be untrue, that fact alone is sufficient to justify us in saying that the person who says he perceives or knows it, does not _perceive_ or _know_ it, without our either enquiring whether, or assuming that, his state of mind differs in any respect from what it would have been had he perceived or known. By this denial we do not accuse him of an error in introspection, even if there was such an error: we do not deny that he was aware of a certain object, nor even that his state of mind was exactly such as he took it to be: we merely deny that the object, of which he was aware, had a certain property. It is, however, commonly supposed that when we assert a thing to be perceived or known, we are asserting one fact only; and since of the two facts which we really assert, the existence of a psychical state is by far the easier to distinguish, it is supposed that this is the only one which we do assert. Thus perception and sensation have come to be regarded as if they denoted certain states of mind and nothing more; a mistake which was the easier to make since the commonest state of mind, to which we give a name which does not imply that its object is true, namely imagination, may, with some plausibility, be supposed to differ from sensation and perception not only in the property possessed by its object, but also in its character as a state of mind. It has thus come to be supposed that the only difference between perception and imagination, by which they can be defined, must be a merely psychical difference: and, if this were the case, it would follow at once that to _be_ true was identical with being cognised in a certain way; since the assertion that a thing is perceived does certainly _include_ the assertion that it is true, and if, nevertheless, that it is perceived means _only_ that the mind has a certain attitude towards it, then its truth must be identical with the fact that it is regarded in this way. We may, then, attribute the view that to be true _means_ to be cognised in a certain way partly to the failure to perceive that certain words, which are commonly supposed to stand for nothing more than a certain kind of cognitive state, do, in fact, _also_ include a reference to the truth of the object of such states.

=82.= I will now sum up my account of the apparent connections between will and ethical propositions, which seem to support the vague conviction that ‘This is good’ is somehow identical with ‘This is willed in a certain way.’ (1) It may be maintained, with sufficient show of truth, that it is only because certain things were originally willed, that we ever came to have ethical convictions at all. And it has been too commonly assumed that to shew what was the cause of a thing is the same thing as to shew what the thing itself is. It is, however, hardly necessary to point out that this is not the case. (2) It may be further maintained, with some plausibility, that to think a thing good and to will it in a certain way are _now_ as a matter of fact identical. We must, however, distinguish certain possible meanings of this assertion. It may be admitted that when we think a thing good, we _generally_ have a special attitude of will or feeling towards it; and that, perhaps, when we will it in a certain way, we do always think it good. But the very fact that we can thus distinguish the question whether, though the one is always accompanied by the other, yet this other may not always be accompanied by the first, shews that the two things are not, in the strict sense, identical. The fact is that, whatever we mean by will, or by any form of will, the fact we mean by it certainly always includes something else _beside_ the thinking a thing good: and hence that, when willing and thinking good are asserted to be identical, the most that can be meant is that this other element in will always both accompanies and is accompanied by the thinking good; and this, as has been said, is of very doubtful truth. Even, however, if it were strictly true, the fact that the two things can be distinguished is fatal to the assumed coordination between will and cognition, in one of the senses in which that assumption is commonly made. For it is only in respect of the _other_ element in will, that volition differs from cognition; whereas it is only in respect of the fact that volition, or some form of volition, _includes_ a _cognition_ of goodness, that will can have the same relation to ethical, which cognition has to metaphysical, propositions. Accordingly the fact of volition, _as a whole_, that is, if we include in it the element which makes it volition and distinguishes it from cognition, has _not_ the same relation to ethical propositions which cognition has to those which are metaphysical. Volition and cognition are _not_ coordinate ways of experiencing, since it is only in so far as volition denotes a _complex_ fact, which includes in it the one identical simple fact, which is meant by _cognition_, that volition is a way of experiencing at all.

But, (3) if we allow the terms ‘volition’ or ‘will’ to stand for ‘thinking good,’ although they certainly do not commonly stand for this, there still remains the question: What connection would this fact establish between volition and Ethics? Could the enquiry into what was willed be identical with the ethical enquiry into what was good? It is plain enough that they could not be identical; though it is also plain why they should be thought so. The question ‘What is good?’ is confused with the question ‘What is thought good?’ and the question ‘What is true?’ with the question ‘What is thought true?’ for two main reasons. (1) One of these is the general difficulty that is found in distinguishing what is cognised from the cognition of it. It is observed that I certainly cannot cognise anything that is true without cognising it. Since, therefore, whenever I know a thing that is true, the thing is certainly cognised, it is assumed that for a thing to _be_ true at all is the same thing as for it to be cognised. And (2) it is not observed that certain words, which are supposed to denote only peculiar species of cognition, do as a matter of fact _also_ denote that the object cognised is true. Thus if ‘perception’ be taken to denote only a certain kind of mental fact, then, since the object of it is always true, it becomes easy to suppose that to be true means only to be object to a mental state of that kind. And similarly it is easy to suppose that to be truly good differs from being falsely thought so, solely in respect of the fact that to be the former is to be the object of a volition differing from that of which an apparent good is the object, in the same way in which a perception (on this supposition) differs from an illusion.

=83.= Being good, then, is not identical with being willed or felt in any kind of way, any more than being true is identical with being thought in any kind of way. But let us suppose this to be admitted: Is it still possible that an enquiry into the nature of will or feeling should be a necessary step to the proof of ethical conclusions? If being good and being willed are _not_ identical, then the most that can be maintained with regard to the connection of goodness with will is that what is good is always _also_ willed in a certain way, and that what is willed in a certain way is always _also_ good. And it may be said that this is all that is meant by those metaphysical writers who profess to base Ethics upon the Metaphysics of Will. What would follow from this supposition?

It is plain that if what is willed in a certain way were always _also_ good, then the fact that a thing was so willed would be a _criterion_ of its goodness. But in order to establish that will is a criterion of goodness, we must be able to shew first and separately that in a great number of the instances in which we find a certain kind of will we also find that the objects of that will are good. We might, then, perhaps, be entitled to infer that in a few instances, where it was not obvious whether a thing was good or not but was obvious that it was willed in the way required, the thing was really good, since it had the property which in all other instances we had found to be accompanied by goodness. A reference to will might thus, just conceivably, become of use towards the end of our ethical investigations, when we had already been able to shew, independently, of a vast number of different objects that they were really good and in what degree they were so. And against even this conceivable utility it may be urged (1) That it is impossible to see why it should not be as easy (and it would certainly be the more secure way) to prove that the thing in question was good, by the same methods which we had used in proving that other things were good, as by reference to our criterion; and (2) That, if we set ourselves seriously to find out what things are good, we shall see reason to think (as will appear in Chapter VI.) that they have _no_ other property, both common and peculiar to them, beside their goodness--that, in fact, there is no criterion of goodness.

=84.= But to consider whether any form of will is or is not a criterion of goodness is quite unnecessary for our purpose here; since none of those writers who profess to base their Ethics on an investigation of will have ever recognised the need of proving directly and independently that all the things which are willed in a certain way are good. They make no attempt to shew that will is a _criterion_ of goodness; and no stronger evidence could be given that they do not recognise that this, at most, is all it can be. As has been just pointed out, if we are to maintain that whatever is willed in a certain way is also good, we must in the first place be able to shew that certain things have one property ‘goodness,’ and that the same things _also_ have the other property that they are willed in a certain way. And secondly we must be able to shew this in a very large number of instances, if we are to be entitled to claim any assent for the proposition that these two properties _always_ accompany one another: even when this was shewn it would still be doubtful whether the inference from ‘generally’ to ‘always’ would be valid, and almost certain that this doubtful principle would be useless. But the very question which it is the business of Ethics to answer is this question what things are good; and, so long as Hedonism retains its present popularity, it must be admitted that it is a question upon which there is scarcely any agreement and which therefore requires the most careful examination. The greatest and most difficult part of the business of Ethics would therefore require to have been already accomplished before we could be entitled to claim that anything was a _criterion_ of goodness. If, on the other hand, to be willed in a certain way was _identical_ with being good, then indeed we should be entitled to start our ethical investigations by enquiring what was willed in the way required. That this is the way in which metaphysical writers start their investigations seems to shew conclusively that they are influenced by the idea that ‘goodness’ is _identical_ with ‘being willed.’ They do not recognise that the question ‘What is good?’ is a _different_ one from the question ‘What is willed in a certain way?’ Thus we find Green explicitly stating that ‘_the_ common characteristic of the good is that it satisfies some desire[22].’ If we are to take this statement strictly, it obviously asserts that good things have no characteristic in common, except that they satisfy some desire--not even, therefore, that they are good. And this can only be the case, if being good is _identical_ with satisfying desire: if ‘good’ is merely another name for ‘desire-satisfying.’ There could be no plainer instance of the naturalistic fallacy. And we cannot take the statement as a mere verbal slip, which does not affect the validity of Green’s main argument. For he nowhere either gives or pretends to give any reason for believing anything to be good in any sense, except that it is what would satisfy a particular kind of desire--the kind of desire which he tries to shew to be that of a moral agent. An unhappy alternative is before us. Such reasoning would give valid reasons for his conclusions, if, and only if, being good and being desired in a particular way were identical: and in this case, as we have seen in