Chapter III: Relation of Utilitarianism to the Morality of Common Sense (2)

If, however, in any distribution of pleasures and privileges, or of pains and burdens, considerations of desert do not properly come in (_i.e._ if the good or evil to be distributed have no relation to any conduct on the part of the persons who are to receive either)--or if it is practically impossible to take such considerations into account--then Common Sense seems to fall back on simple equality as the principle of just apportionment.[346] And we have seen that the Utilitarian, in the case supposed, will reasonably accept Equality as the only mode of distribution that is not arbitrary; and it may be observed that this mode of apportioning the means of happiness is likely to produce more happiness on the whole, not only because men have a disinterested aversion to unreason, but still more because they have an aversion to any kind of inferiority to others (which is much intensified when the inferiority seems unreasonable). This latter feeling is so strong that it often prevails in spite of obvious claims of desert; and it may even be sometimes expedient that it should so prevail.

For, finally, it must be observed that Utilitarianism furnishes us with a common standard to which the different elements included in the notion of Justice may be reduced. Such a standard is imperatively required: as these different elements are continually liable to conflict with each other. The issue, for example, in practical politics between Conservatives and Reformers often represents such a conflict: the question is, whether we ought to do a certain violence to expectations arising naturally out of the existing social order, with the view of bringing about a distribution of the means of happiness more in accordance with ideal justice. Here, if my analysis of the common notion of Justice be sound, the attempt to extract from it a clear decision of such an issue must necessarily fail: as the conflict is, so to say, permanently latent in the very core of Common Sense. But the Utilitarian will merely use this notion of Justice as a guide to different kinds of utilities; and in so far as these are incompatible, he will balance one set of advantages against the other, and decide according to the preponderance.

§ 5. The duty of Truth-speaking is sometimes taken as a striking instance of a moral rule not resting on a Utilitarian basis. But a careful study of the qualifications with which the common opinion of mankind actually inculcates this duty seems to lead us to an opposite result: for not only is the general utility of truth-speaking so manifest as to need no proof, but wherever this utility seems to be absent, or outweighed by particular bad consequences, we find that Common Sense at least hesitates to enforce the rule. For example, if a man be pursuing criminal ends, it is _prima facie_ injurious to the community that he should be aided in his pursuit by being able to rely on the assertions of others. Here, then, deception is _prima facie_ legitimate as a protection against crime: though when we consider the bad effects on habit, and through example, of even a single act of unveracity, the case is seen to be, on Utilitarian principles, doubtful: and this is just the view of Common Sense. Again, though it is generally a man’s interest to know the truth, there are exceptional cases in which it is injurious to him--as when an invalid hears bad news--and here, too, Common Sense is disposed to suspend the rule. Again, we found it difficult to define exactly wherein Veracity consists; for we may either require truth in the spoken words, or in the inferences which the speaker foresees will be drawn from them, or in both. Perfect Candour, no doubt, would require it in both: but in the various circumstances where this seems inexpedient, we often find Common Sense at least half-willing to dispense with one or other part of the double obligation. Thus we found a respectable school of thinkers maintaining that a religious truth may properly be communicated by means of a historical fiction: and, on the other hand, the unsuitability of perfect frankness to our existing social relations is recognised in the common rules of politeness, which impose on us not unfrequently the necessity of suppressing truths and suggesting falsehoods. I would not say that in any of these cases Common Sense pronounces quite decidedly in favour of unveracity: but then neither is Utilitarianism decided, as the utility of maintaining a general habit of truth-speaking is so great, that it is not easy to prove it to be clearly outweighed by even strong special reasons for violating the rule.

Yet it may be worth while to point out how the different views as to the legitimacy of Malevolent impulses, out of which we found it hard to frame a consistent doctrine for Common Sense, exactly correspond to different forecasts of the consequences of gratifying such impulses. _Prima facie_, the desire to injure any one in particular is inconsistent with a deliberate purpose of benefiting as much as possible people in general; accordingly, we find that what I may call Superficial Common Sense passes a sweeping condemnation on such desires. But a study of the actual facts of society shows that resentment plays an important part in that repression of injuries which is necessary to social wellbeing; accordingly, the reflective moralist shrinks from excluding it altogether. It is evident, however, that personal ill-will is a very dangerous means to the general happiness: for its direct end is the exact opposite of happiness; and though the realisation of this end may in certain cases be the least of two evils, still the impulse if encouraged is likely to prompt to the infliction of pain beyond the limits of just punishment, and to have an injurious reaction on the character of the angry person. Accordingly, the moralist is disposed to prescribe that indignation be directed always against acts, and not against persons; and if indignation so restricted would be efficient in repressing injuries, this would seem to be the state of mind most conducive to the general happiness. But it is doubtful whether average human nature is capable of maintaining this distinction, and whether, if it could be maintained, the more refined aversion would by itself be sufficiently efficacious: accordingly, Common Sense hesitates to condemn personal ill-will against wrong-doers--even if it includes a desire of malevolent satisfaction.

Finally, it is easy to show that Temperance, Self-control, and what are called the Self-regarding virtues generally, are ‘useful’ to the individual who possesses them: and if it is not quite clear, in the view of Common Sense, to what end that regulation and government of appetites and passions, which moralists have so much inculcated and admired, is to be directed; at least there seems no obstacle in the way of our defining this end as Happiness. And even in the ascetic extreme of Self-control, which has sometimes led to the repudiation of sensual pleasures as radically bad, we may trace an unconscious Utilitarianism. For the ascetic condemnation has always been chiefly directed against those pleasures, in respect of which men are especially liable to commit excesses dangerous to health; and free indulgence in which, even when it keeps clear of injury to health, is thought to interfere with the development of other faculties and susceptibilities which are important sources of happiness.

§ 6. An apparent exception to this statement may seem to be constituted in the case of the sexual appetite, by the regulation prescribed under the notion of Purity or Chastity. And there is no doubt that under this head we find condemned, with special vehemence and severity, acts of which the immediate effect is pleasure not obviously outweighed by subsequent pain. But a closer examination of this exception transforms it into an important contribution to the present argument: as it shows a specially complex and delicate correspondence between moral sentiments and social utilities.

In the first place, the peculiar intensity and delicacy of the moral sentiments that govern the relations of the sexes are thoroughly justified by the vast importance to society of the end to which they are obviously a means,--the maintenance, namely, of the permanent unions which are held to be necessary for the proper rearing and training of children. Hence the first and fundamental rule in this department is that which directly secures conjugal fidelity: and the utilitarian grounds for protecting marriage indirectly, by condemning all extra-nuptial intercourse of the sexes, are obvious: for to remove the moral censure that rests on such intercourse would seriously diminish men’s motives for incurring the restraints and burdens which marriage entails; and the youth of both sexes would form habits of feeling and conduct tending to unfit them for marriage; and, if such intercourse were fertile, it would be attended with that imperfect care of the succeeding generation, which it seems the object of permanent unions to prevent; while if it were sterile, the future of the human race would, as far as we can see, be still more profoundly imperilled.

But, further, it is only on Utilitarian principles that we can account for the anomalous difference which the morality of Common Sense has always made between the two sexes as regards the simple offence of unchastity. For the offence is commonly more deliberate in the man, who has the additional guilt of soliciting and persuading the woman; in the latter, again, it is far more often prompted by some motive that we rank higher than mere lust: so that, according to the ordinary canons of intuitional morality, it ought to be more severely condemned in the man. The actual inversion of this result can only be justified by taking into account the greater interest that society has in maintaining a high standard of female chastity. For the degradation of this standard must strike at the root of family life, by impairing men’s security in the exercise of their parental affections: but there is no corresponding consequence of male unchastity, which may therefore prevail to a considerable extent without imperilling the very existence of the family, though it impairs its wellbeing.

At the same time, the condemnation of unchastity in men by the common moral sense of Christian countries at the present day, is sufficiently clear and explicit: though we recognise the existence of a laxer code--the morality, as it is called, of ‘the world’--which treats it as indifferent, or very venial. But the very difference between the two codes gives a kind of support to the present argument; as it corresponds to easily explained differences of insight into the consequences of maintaining certain moral sanctions. For partly, it is thought by ‘men of the world’ that men cannot practically be restrained from sexual indulgence, at least at the period of life when the passions are strongest: and hence that it is expedient to tolerate such kind and degree of illicit sexual intercourse as is not directly dangerous to the wellbeing of families. Partly, again, it is maintained by some, in bolder antagonism to Common Sense, that the existence of a certain limited amount of such intercourse (with a special class of women, carefully separated, as at present, from the rest of society) is scarcely a real evil, and may even be a positive gain in respect of general happiness; for continence is perhaps somewhat dangerous to health, and in any case involves a loss of pleasure considerable in intensity; while at the same time the maintenance of as numerous a population as is desirable in an old society does not require that more than a certain proportion of the women in each generation should become mothers of families; and if some of the surplus make it their profession to enter into casual and temporary sexual relations with men, there is no necessity that their lives should compare disadvantageously in respect of happiness with those of other women in the less favoured classes of society.

This view has perhaps a superficial plausibility: but it ignores the essential fact that it is only by the present severe enforcement against unchaste women of the penalties of social contempt and exclusion, resting on moral disapprobation, that the class of courtesans is kept sufficiently separate from the rest of female society to prevent the contagion of unchastity from spreading; and that the illicit intercourse of the sexes is restrained within such limits as not to interfere materially with the due development of the race. This consideration is sufficient to decide a Utilitarian to support generally the established rule against this kind of conduct, and therefore to condemn violations of the rule as on the whole infelicific, even though they may perhaps appear to have this quality only in consequence of the moral censure attached to them.[347] Further, the ‘man of the world’ ignores the vast importance to the human race of maintaining that higher type of sexual relations which is not, generally speaking, possible, except where a high value is set upon chastity in both sexes. From this point of view the Virtue of Purity may be regarded as providing a necessary shelter under which that intense and elevated affection between the sexes, which is most conducive both to the happiness of the individual and to the wellbeing of the family, may grow and flourish.

And in this way we are able to explain what must have perplexed many reflective minds in contemplating the common-sense regulation of conduct under the head of Purity: viz. that on the one hand the sentiment that supports these rules is very intense, so that the subjective difference between right and wrong in this department is marked with peculiar strength: while on the other hand it is found impossible to give a clear definition of the conduct condemned under this notion. For the impulse to be restrained is so powerful and so sensitive to stimulants of all kinds, that, in order that the sentiment of purity may adequately perform its protective function, it is required to be very keen and vivid; and the aversion to impurity must extend far beyond the acts that primarily need to be prohibited, and include in its scope everything (in dress, language, social customs, etc.) which may tend to excite lascivious ideas. At the same time it is not necessary that the line between right and wrong in such matters should be drawn with theoretical precision: it is sufficient for practical purposes if the main central portion of the region of duty be strongly illuminated, while the margin is left somewhat obscure. And, in fact, the detailed regulations which it is important to society to maintain depend so much upon habit and association of ideas, that they must vary to a great extent from age to age and from country to country.

§ 7. The preceding survey has supplied us with several illustrations of the manner in which Utilitarianism is normally introduced as a method for deciding between different conflicting claims, in cases where common sense leaves their relative importance obscure,--as (_e.g._) between the different duties of the affections, and the different principles which analysis shows to be involved in our common conception of Justice--: and we have also noticed how, when a dispute is raised as to the precise scope and definition of any current moral rule, the effects of different acceptations of the rule on general happiness or social wellbeing are commonly regarded as the ultimate grounds on which the dispute is to be decided. In fact these two arguments practically run into one; for it is generally a conflict between maxims that impresses men with the need of giving each a precise definition. It may be urged that the consequences to which reference is commonly made in such cases are rather effects on ‘social wellbeing’ than on ‘general happiness’ as understood by Utilitarians; and that the two notions ought not to be identified. I grant this: but in the last chapter of the preceding Book I have tried to show that Common Sense is unconsciously utilitarian in its practical determination of those very elements in the notion of Ultimate Good or Wellbeing which at first sight least admit of a hedonistic interpretation. We may now observe that this hypothesis of ‘Unconscious Utilitarianism’ explains the different relative importance attached to particular virtues by different classes of human beings, and the different emphasis with which the same virtue is inculcated on these different classes by mankind generally. For such differences ordinarily correspond to variations--real or apparent--in the Utilitarian importance of the virtues under different circumstances. Thus we have noticed the greater stress laid on chastity in women than in men: courage, on the other hand, is more valued in the latter, as they are more called upon to cope energetically with sudden and severe dangers. And for similar reasons a soldier is expected to show a higher degree of courage than (_e.g._) a priest. Again, though we esteem candour and scrupulous sincerity in most persons, we scarcely look for them in a diplomatist who has to conceal secrets, nor do we expect that a tradesman in describing his goods should frankly point out their defects to his customers.

Finally, when we compare the different moral codes of different ages and countries, we see that the discrepancies among them correspond, at least to a great extent, to differences either in the actual effects of actions on happiness, or in the extent to which such effects are generally foreseen--or regarded as important--by the men among whom the codes are maintained. Several instances of this have already been noticed: and the general fact, which has been much dwelt upon by Utilitarian writers, is also admitted and even emphasised by their opponents. Thus Dugald Stewart[348] lays stress on the extent to which the moral judgments of mankind have been modified by “the diversity in their physical circumstances,” the “unequal degrees of civilisation which they have attained,” and “their unequal measures of knowledge or of capacity.” He points out, for instance, that theft is regarded as a very venial offence in the South Sea Islanders, because little or no labour is there required to support life; that the lending of money for interest is commonly reprehended in societies where commerce is imperfectly developed, because the ‘usurer’ in such communities is commonly in the odious position of wringing a gain out of the hard necessities of his fellows; and that where the legal arrangements for punishing crime are imperfect, private murder is either justified or regarded very leniently. Many other examples might be added to these if it were needful. But I conceive that few persons who have studied the subject will deny that there is a certain degree of correlation between the variations in the moral code from age to age, and the variations in the real or perceived effects on general happiness of actions prescribed or forbidden by the code. And in proportion as the apprehension of consequences becomes more comprehensive and exact, we may trace not only change in the moral code handed down from age to age, but progress in the direction of a closer approximation to a perfectly enlightened Utilitarianism. Only we must distinctly notice another important factor in the progress, which Stewart has not mentioned: the extension, namely, of the capacity for sympathy in an average member of the community. The imperfection of earlier moral codes is at least as much due to defectiveness of sympathy as of intelligence; often, no doubt, the ruder man did not perceive the effects of his conduct on others; but often, again, he perceived them more or less, but felt little or no concern about them. Thus it happens that changes in the conscience of a community often correspond to changes in the extent and degree of the sensitiveness of an average member of it to the feelings of others. Of this the moral development historically worked out under the influence of Christianity affords familiar illustrations.[349]

I am not maintaining that this correlation between the development of current morality and the changes in the consequences of conduct as sympathetically forecast, is perfect and exact. On the contrary,--as I shall have occasion to point out in the next chapter--the history of morality shows us many evidences of what, from the Utilitarian point of view, appear to be partial aberrations of the moral sense. But even in these instances we can often discover a germ of unconscious Utilitarianism; the aberration is often only an exaggeration of an obviously useful sentiment, or the extension of it by mistaken analogy to cases to which it does not properly apply, or perhaps the survival of a sentiment which once was useful but has now ceased to be so.

Further, it must be observed that I have carefully abstained from asserting that the perception of the rightness of any kind of conduct has always--or even ordinarily--been derived by conscious inference from a perception of consequent advantages. This hypothesis is naturally suggested by such a survey as the preceding; but the evidence of history hardly seems to me to support it: since, as we retrace the development of ethical thought, the Utilitarian basis of current morality, which I have endeavoured to exhibit in the present chapter, seems to be rather less than more distinctly apprehended by the common moral consciousness. Thus (_e.g._) Aristotle sees that the sphere of the Virtue of Courage (ἀνδρεία), as recognised by the Common Sense of Greece, is restricted to dangers in war: and we can now explain this limitation by a reference to the utilitarian importance of this kind of courage, at a period of history when the individual’s happiness was bound up more completely than it now is with the welfare of his state, while the very existence of the latter was more frequently imperilled by hostile invasions: but this explanation lies quite beyond the range of Aristotle’s own reflection. The origin of our moral notions and sentiments lies hid in those obscure regions of hypothetical history where conjecture has free scope: but we do not find that, as our retrospect approaches the borders of this realm, the conscious connexion in men’s minds between accepted moral rules and foreseen effects on general happiness becomes more clearly traceable. The admiration felt by early man for beauties or excellences of character seems to have been as direct and unreflective as his admiration of any other beauty: and the stringency of law and custom in primitive times presents itself as sanctioned by the evils which divine displeasure will supernaturally inflict on their violators, rather than by even a rude and vague forecast of the natural bad consequences of non-observance. It is therefore not as the mode of regulating conduct with which mankind began, but rather as that to which we can now see that human development has been always tending, as the adult and not the germinal form of Morality, that Utilitarianism may most reasonably claim the acceptance of Common Sense.

* * * * *

[350]If we consider the relation of Ethics to Politics from a Utilitarian point of view, the question, what rules of conduct for the governed should be fixed by legislators and applied by judges, will be determined by the same kind of forecast of consequences as will be used in settling all questions of private morality: we shall endeavour to estimate and balance against each other the effects of such rules on the general happiness. In so far, however, as we divide the Utilitarian theory of private conduct from that of legislation, and ask which is prior, the answer would seem to be different in respect of different parts of the legal code.

1. To a great extent the rules laid down in a utilitarian code of law will be such as any man sincerely desirous of promoting the general happiness would generally endeavour to observe, even if they were not legally binding. Of this kind is the rule of not inflicting any bodily harm or gratuitous annoyance on any one, except in self-defence or as retribution for wrong; the rule of not interfering with another’s pursuit of the means of happiness, or with his enjoyment of wealth acquired by his own labour or the free consent of others; the rule of fulfilling all engagements freely entered into with any one,--at any rate unless the fulfilment were harmful to others, or much more harmful to oneself than beneficial to him, or unless there were good grounds for supposing that the other party would not perform his share of a bilateral contract--; and the rule of supporting one’s children while helpless, and one’s parents if decrepit, and of educating one’s children suitably to their future life. As regards such rules as these, Utilitarian Ethics seems independent of Politics, and naturally prior to it; we first consider what conduct is right for private individuals, and then to how much of this they can advantageously be compelled by legal penalties.

2. There are other rules again which it is clearly for the general happiness to observe, if only their observance is enforced on others; _e.g._ abstinence from personal retaliation of injuries, and a more general and unhesitating fulfilment of contracts than would perhaps be expedient if they were not legally enforced.

3. But again, in the complete determination of the mutual claims of members of society to services and forbearances, there are many points on which the utilitarian theory of right private conduct apart from law would lead to a considerable variety of conclusions, from the great difference in the force of the relevant considerations under different circumstances; while at the same time uniformity is either indispensable, to prevent disputes and disappointments, or at least highly desirable, in order to maintain effectively such rules of conduct as are _generally_--though not _universally_--expedient. Under this head would come the exacter definition of the limits of appropriation,--_e.g._ as regards property in literary compositions and technical inventions,--and a large part of the law of inheritance, and of the law regulating the family relations. In such cases, in so far as they are capable of being theoretically determined, Utilitarian Ethics seems to blend with Utilitarian Politics in a rather complicated way; since we cannot determine the right conduct for a private individual in any particular case, without first considering what rule (if any) it would be on the whole expedient to maintain, in the society of which he is a member, by legal penalties, as well as by the weaker and less definite sanctions of moral opinion. This problem, moreover, in any concrete case is necessarily further complicated by the consideration of the delicate mutual relations of Positive Law and Positive Morality--as we may call the actual moral opinions generally held in a given society at a given time. For on the one hand it is dangerous in legislation to advance beyond Positive Morality, by prohibiting actions (or inactions) that are generally approved or tolerated; on the other hand, up to the point at which this danger becomes serious, legislation is a most effective instrument for modifying or intensifying public opinion, in the direction in which it is desirable that it should progress. Leaving this difficult question of social dynamics, we may say that normally in a well-organised society the most important and indispensable rules of social behaviour will be legally enforced and the less important left to be maintained by Positive Morality. Law will constitute, as it were, the skeleton of social order, clothed upon by the flesh and blood of Morality.

FOOTNOTES:

[322] It ought to be observed that Cumberland does not adopt a hedonistic interpretation of Good. Still, I have followed Hallam in regarding him as the founder of English Utilitarianism: since it seems to have been by a gradual and half-unconscious process that ‘Good’ came to have the definitely hedonistic meaning which it has implicitly in Shaftesbury’s system, and explicitly in that of Hume.

[323] I should point out that Hume uses “utility” in a narrower sense than that which Bentham gave it, and one more in accordance with the usage of ordinary language. He distinguishes the “useful” from the “immediately agreeable”: so that while recognising “utility” as the main ground of our moral approbation of the more important virtues, he holds that there are other elements of personal merit which we approve because they are “immediately agreeable,” either to the person possessed of them or to others. It appears, however, more convenient to use the word in the wider sense in which it has been current since Bentham.

[324] Lecky, _Hist. of Eur. Mor._ chap. i, pp. 37, 40 _seqq_. (13th impression).

[325] Book iii. chap. x.

[326] Book iii. chap. iv. § 1.

[327] It will be seen that I do not here assume in their full breadth the conclusions of chap. xiv. of the preceding Book.

[328] Cf. J. Grote, _An Examination of the Utilitarian Philosophy_, chap. v.

[329] Book iii. chap. iv. § 1.

[330] Strictly speaking, of course, the Law of modern states does not enforce this, but only refuses to recognise connubial contracts of any other kind: but the social effect is substantially the same.

[331] Sometimes such unbargained requital is even legally obligatory: as when children are bound to repay the care spent on them by supporting their parents in decrepitude.

[332] Further discussion of the method of dealing with these difficulties, in their utilitarian form, will be found in the two following chapters.

[333] _Utilitarianism_, chap. v.

[334] Cf. Book iii. chap. vi. §§ 2, 3.

[335] Cf. Book iii. chap. v.

[336] Book iii. chap. xiii. § 3.

[337] Cf. _ante_, p. 268 note.

[338] Book iii. chap. vi.

[339] Cf. _ante_, Book iii. chap. vi. § 8.

[340] In the case of force, however, there is the counterbalancing consideration that the unlawful aggressor may be led to inflict worse injury on his victim, if he is unable to rely on the latter’s promise.

[341] Cf. Book iii. chap. vi. § 8.

[342] Book iii. chap. v. § 4.

[343] In another work (_Principles of Political Economy_, Book iii. chap. ii.) I have tried to show that complete _laisser faire_, in the organisation of industry, tends in various ways to fall short of the most economic production of wealth.

[344] The quotations are from my _Principles of Political Economy_, Book iii. chap. ix.; where these questions are discussed at somewhat greater length.

[345] Cf. _ante_, § 2, and Book iii. chap. ii. § 1.

[346] I have before observed that it is quite in harmony with Utilitarian principles to recognise a sphere of private conduct within which each individual may distribute his wealth and kind services as unequally as he chooses, without incurring censure as unjust.

[347] It is obvious that so long as the social sanction is enforced, the lives of the women against whom society thus issues its ban must tend to be unhappy from disorder and shame, and the source of unhappiness to others; and also that the breach by men of a recognised and necessary moral rule must tend to have injurious effects on their moral habits generally.

[348] _Active and Moral Powers_, Book ii. chap. iii.

[349] Among definite changes in the current morality of the Græco-Roman civilised world, which are to be attributed mainly if not entirely to the extension and intensification of sympathy due to Christianity, the following may be especially noted: (1) the severe condemnation and final suppression of the practice of exposing infants; (2) effective abhorrence of the barbarism of gladiatorial combats; (3) immediate moral mitigation of slavery, and a strong encouragement of emancipation; (4) great extension of the eleemosynary provision made for the sick and poor.

[350] This passage, which in the second and subsequent editions occurred in chap. ii. of Book i., was omitted by Professor Sidgwick from that chapter in the sixth edition, with the intention of incorporating it in Book iv., which he did not live to revise.