Philebus

But whence comes this common inheritance or stock of moral ideas? Their beginning, like all other beginnings of human things, is obscure, and is the least important part of them. Imagine, if you will, that Society originated in the herding of brutes, in their parental instincts, in their rude attempts at self-preservation: – Man is not man in that he resembles, but in that he differs from them. We must pass into another cycle of existence, before we can discover in him by any evidence accessible to us even the germs of our moral ideas. In the history of the world, which viewed from within is the history of the human mind, they have been slowly created by religion, by poetry, by law, having their foundation in the natural affections and in the necessity of some degree of truth and justice in a social state; they have been deepened and enlarged by the efforts of great thinkers who have idealized and connected them – by the lives of saints and prophets who have taught and exemplified them. The schools of ancient philosophy which seem so far from us – Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics, the Epicureans, and a few modern teachers, such as Kant and Bentham, have each of them supplied 'moments' of thought to the world. The life of Christ has embodied a divine love, wisdom, patience, reasonableness. For his image, however imperfectly handed down to us, the modern world has received a standard more perfect in idea than the societies of ancient times, but also further removed from practice. For there is certainly a greater interval between the theory and practice of Christians than between the theory and practice of the Greeks and Romans; the ideal is more above us, and the aspiration after good has often lent a strange power to evil. And sometimes, as at the Reformation, or French Revolution, when the upper classes of a so-called Christian country have become corrupted by priestcraft, by casuistry, by licentiousness, by despotism, the lower have risen up and re-asserted the natural sense of religion and right.

We may further remark that our moral ideas, as the world grows older, perhaps as we grow older ourselves, unless they have been undermined in us by false philosophy or the practice of mental analysis, or infected by the corruption of society or by some moral disorder in the individual, are constantly assuming a more natural and necessary character. The habit of the mind, the opinion of the world, familiarizes them to us; and they take more and more the form of immediate intuition. The moral sense comes last and not first in the order of their development, and is the instinct which we have inherited or acquired, not the nobler effort of reflection which created them and which keeps them alive. We do not stop to reason about common honesty. Whenever we are not blinded by self-deceit, as for example in judging the actions of others, we have no hesitation in determining what is right and wrong. The principles of morality, when not at variance with some desire or worldly interest of our own, or with the opinion of the public, are hardly perceived by us; but in the conflict of reason and passion they assert their authority and are not overcome without remorse.

Such is a brief outline of the history of our moral ideas. We have to distinguish, first of all, the manner in which they have grown up in the world from the manner in which they have been communicated to each of us. We may represent them to ourselves as flowing out of the boundless ocean of language and thought in little rills, which convey them to the heart and brain of each individual. But neither must we confound the theories or aspects of morality with the origin of our moral ideas. These are not the roots or 'origines' of morals, but the latest efforts of reflection, the lights in which the whole moral world has been regarded by different thinkers and successive generations of men. If we ask: Which of these many theories is the true one? we may answer: All of them – moral sense, innate ideas, a priori, a posteriori notions, the philosophy of experience, the philosophy of intuition – all of them have added something to our conception of Ethics; no one of them is the whole truth. But to decide how far our ideas of morality are derived from one source or another; to determine what history, what philosophy has contributed to them; to distinguish the original, simple elements from the manifold and complex applications of them, would be a long enquiry too far removed from the question which we are now pursuing.

Bearing in mind the distinction which we have been seeking to establish between our earliest and our most mature ideas of morality, we may now proceed to state the theory of Utility, not exactly in the words, but in the spirit of one of its ablest and most moderate supporters (Mill's Utilitarianism): – 'That which alone makes actions either right or desirable is their utility, or tendency to promote the happiness of mankind, or, in other words, to increase the sum of pleasure in the world. But all pleasures are not the same: they differ in quality as well as in quantity, and the pleasure which is superior in quality is incommensurable with the inferior. Neither is the pleasure or happiness, which we seek, our own pleasure, but that of others, – of our family, of our country, of mankind. The desire of this, and even the sacrifice of our own interest to that of other men, may become a passion to a rightly educated nature. The Utilitarian finds a place in his system for this virtue and for every other.'

Good or happiness or pleasure is thus regarded as the true and only end of human life. To this all our desires will be found to tend, and in accordance with this all the virtues, including justice, may be explained. Admitting that men rest for a time in inferior ends, and do not cast their eyes beyond them, these ends are really dependent on the greater end of happiness, and would not be pursued, unless in general they had been found to lead to it. The existence of such an end is proved, as in Aristotle's time, so in our own, by the universal fact that men desire it. The obligation to promote it is based upon the social nature of man; this sense of duty is shared by all of us in some degree, and is capable of being greatly fostered and strengthened. So far from being inconsistent with religion, the greatest happiness principle is in the highest degree agreeable to it. For what can be more reasonable than that God should will the happiness of all his creatures? and in working out their happiness we may be said to be 'working together with him.' Nor is it inconceivable that a new enthusiasm of the future, far stronger than any old religion, may be based upon such a conception.

But then for the familiar phrase of the 'greatest happiness principle,' it seems as if we ought now to read 'the noblest happiness principle,' 'the happiness of others principle' – the principle not of the greatest, but of the highest pleasure, pursued with no more regard to our own immediate interest than is required by the law of self-preservation. Transfer the thought of happiness to another life, dropping the external circumstances which form so large a part of our idea of happiness in this, and the meaning of the word becomes indistinguishable from holiness, harmony, wisdom, love. By the slight addition 'of others,' all the associations of the word are altered; we seem to have passed over from one theory of morals to the opposite. For allowing that the happiness of others is reflected on ourselves, and also that every man must live before he can do good to others, still the last limitation is a very trifling exception, and the happiness of another is very far from compensating for the loss of our own. According to Mr. Mill, he would best carry out the principle of utility who sacrificed his own pleasure most to that of his fellow-men. But if so, Hobbes and Butler, Shaftesbury and Hume, are not so far apart as they and their followers imagine. The thought of self and the thought of others are alike superseded in the more general notion of the happiness of mankind at large. But in this composite good, until society becomes perfected, the friend of man himself has generally the least share, and may be a great sufferer.

And now what objection have we to urge against a system of moral philosophy so beneficent, so enlightened, so ideal, and at the same time so practical, – so Christian, as we may say without exaggeration, – and which has the further advantage of resting morality on a principle intelligible to all capacities? Have we not found that which Socrates and Plato 'grew old in seeking'? Are we not desirous of happiness, at any rate for ourselves and our friends, if not for all mankind? If, as is natural, we begin by thinking of ourselves first, we are easily led on to think of others; for we cannot help acknowledging that what is right for us is the right and inheritance of others. We feel the advantage of an abstract principle wide enough and strong enough to override all the particularisms of mankind; which acknowledges a universal good, truth, right; which is capable of inspiring men like a passion, and is the symbol of a cause for which they are ready to contend to their life's end.

And if we test this principle by the lives of its professors, it would certainly appear inferior to none as a rule of action. From the days of Eudoxus (Arist. Ethics) and Epicurus to our own, the votaries of pleasure have gained belief for their principles by their practice. Two of the noblest and most disinterested men who have lived in this century, Bentham and J. S. Mill, whose lives were a long devotion to the service of their fellows, have been among the most enthusiastic supporters of utility; while among their contemporaries, some who were of a more mystical turn of mind, have ended rather in aspiration than in action, and have been found unequal to the duties of life. Looking back on them now that they are removed from the scene, we feel that mankind has been the better for them. The world was against them while they lived; but this is rather a reason for admiring than for depreciating them. Nor can any one doubt that the influence of their philosophy on politics – especially on foreign politics, on law, on social life, has been upon the whole beneficial. Nevertheless, they will never have justice done to them, for they do not agree either with the better feeling of the multitude or with the idealism of more refined thinkers. Without Bentham, a great word in the history of philosophy would have remained unspoken. Yet to this day it is rare to hear his name received with any mark of respect such as would be freely granted to the ambiguous memory of some father of the Church. The odium which attached to him when alive has not been removed by his death. For he shocked his contemporaries by egotism and want of taste; and this generation which has reaped the benefit of his labours has inherited the feeling of the last. He was before his own age, and is hardly remembered in this.

While acknowledging the benefits which the greatest happiness principle has conferred upon mankind, the time appears to have arrived, not for denying its claims, but for criticizing them and comparing them with other principles which equally claim to lie at the foundation of ethics. Any one who adds a general principle to knowledge has been a benefactor to the world. But there is a danger that, in his first enthusiasm, he may not recognize the proportions or limitations to which his truth is subjected; he does not see how far he has given birth to a truism, or how that which is a truth to him is a truism to the rest of the world; or may degenerate in the next generation. He believes that to be the whole which is only a part, – to be the necessary foundation which is really only a valuable aspect of the truth. The systems of all philosophers require the criticism of 'the morrow,' when the heat of imagination which forged them has cooled, and they are seen in the temperate light of day. All of them have contributed to enrich the mind of the civilized world; none of them occupy that supreme or exclusive place which their authors would have assigned to them.

We may preface the criticism with a few preliminary remarks: —

Mr. Mill, Mr. Austin, and others, in their eagerness to maintain the doctrine of utility, are fond of repeating that we are in a lamentable state of uncertainty about morals. While other branches of knowledge have made extraordinary progress, in moral philosophy we are supposed by them to be no better than children, and with few exceptions – that is to say, Bentham and his followers – to be no further advanced than men were in the age of Socrates and Plato, who, in their turn, are deemed to be as backward in ethics as they necessarily were in physics. But this, though often asserted, is recanted almost in a breath by the same writers who speak thus depreciatingly of our modern ethical philosophy. For they are the first to acknowledge that we have not now to begin classifying actions under the head of utility; they would not deny that about the general conceptions of morals there is a practical agreement. There is no more doubt that falsehood is wrong than that a stone falls to the ground, although the first does not admit of the same ocular proof as the second. There is no greater uncertainty about the duty of obedience to parents and to the law of the land than about the properties of triangles. Unless we are looking for a new moral world which has no marrying and giving in marriage, there is no greater disagreement in theory about the right relations of the sexes than about the composition of water. These and a few other simple principles, as they have endless applications in practice, so also may be developed in theory into counsels of perfection.

To what then is to be attributed this opinion which has been often entertained about the uncertainty of morals? Chiefly to this, – that philosophers have not always distinguished the theoretical and the casuistical uncertainty of morals from the practical certainty. There is an uncertainty about details, – whether, for example, under given circumstances such and such a moral principle is to be enforced, or whether in some cases there may not be a conflict of duties: these are the exceptions to the ordinary rules of morality, important, indeed, but not extending to the one thousandth or one ten-thousandth part of human actions. This is the domain of casuistry. Secondly, the aspects under which the most general principles of morals may be presented to us are many and various. The mind of man has been more than usually active in thinking about man. The conceptions of harmony, happiness, right, freedom, benevolence, self-love, have all of them seemed to some philosopher or other the truest and most comprehensive expression of morality. There is no difference, or at any rate no great difference, of opinion about the right and wrong of actions, but only about the general notion which furnishes the best explanation or gives the most comprehensive view of them. This, in the language of Kant, is the sphere of the metaphysic of ethics. But these two uncertainties at either end, en tois malista katholou and en tois kath ekasta, leave space enough for an intermediate principle which is practically certain.

The rule of human life is not dependent on the theories of philosophers: we know what our duties are for the most part before we speculate about them. And the use of speculation is not to teach us what we already know, but to inspire in our minds an interest about morals in general, to strengthen our conception of the virtues by showing that they confirm one another, to prove to us, as Socrates would have said, that they are not many, but one. There is the same kind of pleasure and use in reducing morals, as in reducing physics, to a few very simple truths. And not unfrequently the more general principle may correct prejudices and misconceptions, and enable us to regard our fellow-men in a larger and more generous spirit.

The two qualities which seem to be most required in first principles of ethics are, (1) that they should afford a real explanation of the facts, (2) that they should inspire the mind, – should harmonize, strengthen, settle us. We can hardly estimate the influence which a simple principle such as 'Act so as to promote the happiness of mankind,' or 'Act so that the rule on which thou actest may be adopted as a law by all rational beings,' may exercise on the mind of an individual. They will often seem to open a new world to him, like the religious conceptions of faith or the spirit of God. The difficulties of ethics disappear when we do not suffer ourselves to be distracted between different points of view. But to maintain their hold on us, the general principles must also be psychologically true – they must agree with our experience, they must accord with the habits of our minds.

When we are told that actions are right or wrong only in so far as they tend towards happiness, we naturally ask what is meant by 'happiness.' For the term in the common use of language is only to a certain extent commensurate with moral good and evil. We should hardly say that a good man could be utterly miserable (Arist. Ethics), or place a bad man in the first rank of happiness. But yet, from various circumstances, the measure of a man's happiness may be out of all proportion to his desert. And if we insist on calling the good man alone happy, we shall be using the term in some new and transcendental sense, as synonymous with well-being. We have already seen that happiness includes the happiness of others as well as our own; we must now comprehend unconscious as well as conscious happiness under the same word. There is no harm in this extension of the meaning, but a word which admits of such an extension can hardly be made the basis of a philosophical system. The exactness which is required in philosophy will not allow us to comprehend under the same term two ideas so different as the subjective feeling of pleasure or happiness and the objective reality of a state which receives our moral approval.

Like Protarchus in the Philebus, we can give no answer to the question, 'What is that common quality which in all states of human life we call happiness? which includes the lower and the higher kind of happiness, and is the aim of the noblest, as well as of the meanest of mankind?' If we say 'Not pleasure, not virtue, not wisdom, nor yet any quality which we can abstract from these' – what then? After seeming to hover for a time on the verge of a great truth, we have gained only a truism.

Let us ask the question in another form. What is that which constitutes happiness, over and above the several ingredients of health, wealth, pleasure, virtue, knowledge, which are included under it? Perhaps we answer, 'The subjective feeling of them.' But this is very far from being coextensive with right. Or we may reply that happiness is the whole of which the above-mentioned are the parts. Still the question recurs, 'In what does the whole differ from all the parts?' And if we are unable to distinguish them, happiness will be the mere aggregate of the goods of life.

Again, while admitting that in all right action there is an element of happiness, we cannot help seeing that the utilitarian theory supplies a much easier explanation of some virtues than of others. Of many patriotic or benevolent actions we can give a straightforward account by their tendency to promote happiness. For the explanation of justice, on the other hand, we have to go a long way round. No man is indignant with a thief because he has not promoted the greatest happiness of the greatest number, but because he has done him a wrong. There is an immeasurable interval between a crime against property or life, and the omission of an act of charity or benevolence. Yet of this interval the utilitarian theory takes no cognizance. The greatest happiness principle strengthens our sense of positive duties towards others, but weakens our recognition of their rights. To promote in every way possible the happiness of others may be a counsel of perfection, but hardly seems to offer any ground for a theory of obligation. For admitting that our ideas of obligation are partly derived from religion and custom, yet they seem also to contain other essential elements which cannot be explained by the tendency of actions to promote happiness. Whence comes the necessity of them? Why are some actions rather than others which equally tend to the happiness of mankind imposed upon us with the authority of law? 'You ought' and 'you had better' are fundamental distinctions in human thought; and having such distinctions, why should we seek to efface and unsettle them?

Bentham and Mr. Mill are earnest in maintaining that happiness includes the happiness of others as well as of ourselves. But what two notions can be more opposed in many cases than these? Granting that in a perfect state of the world my own happiness and that of all other men would coincide, in the imperfect state they often diverge, and I cannot truly bridge over the difficulty by saying that men will always find pleasure in sacrificing themselves or in suffering for others. Upon the greatest happiness principle it is admitted that I am to have a share, and in consistency I should pursue my own happiness as impartially as that of my neighbour. But who can decide what proportion should be mine and what his, except on the principle that I am most likely to be deceived in my own favour, and had therefore better give the larger share, if not all, to him?

Further, it is admitted that utility and right coincide, not in particular instances, but in classes of actions. But is it not distracting to the conscience of a man to be told that in the particular case they are opposed? Happiness is said to be the ground of moral obligation, yet he must not do what clearly conduces to his own happiness if it is at variance with the good of the whole. Nay, further, he will be taught that when utility and right are in apparent conflict any amount of utility does not alter by a hair's-breadth the morality of actions, which cannot be allowed to deviate from established law or usage; and that the non-detection of an immoral act, say of telling a lie, which may often make the greatest difference in the consequences, not only to himself, but to all the world, makes none whatever in the act itself.

Again, if we are concerned not with particular actions but with classes of actions, is the tendency of actions to happiness a principle upon which we can classify them? There is a universal law which imperatively declares certain acts to be right or wrong: – can there be any universality in the law which measures actions by their tendencies towards happiness? For an act which is the cause of happiness to one person may be the cause of unhappiness to another; or an act which if performed by one person may increase the happiness of mankind may have the opposite effect if performed by another. Right can never be wrong, or wrong right, that there are no actions which tend to the happiness of mankind which may not under other circumstances tend to their unhappiness. Unless we say not only that all right actions tend to happiness, but that they tend to happiness in the same degree in which they are right (and in that case the word 'right' is plainer), we weaken the absoluteness of our moral standard; we reduce differences in kind to differences in degree; we obliterate the stamp which the authority of ages has set upon vice and crime.

Once more: turning from theory to practice we feel the importance of retaining the received distinctions of morality. Words such as truth, justice, honesty, virtue, love, have a simple meaning; they have become sacred to us, – 'the word of God' written on the human heart: to no other words can the same associations be attached. We cannot explain them adequately on principles of utility; in attempting to do so we rob them of their true character. We give them a meaning often paradoxical and distorted, and generally weaker than their signification in common language. And as words influence men's thoughts, we fear that the hold of morality may also be weakened, and the sense of duty impaired, if virtue and vice are explained only as the qualities which do or do not contribute to the pleasure of the world. In that very expression we seem to detect a false ring, for pleasure is individual not universal; we speak of eternal and immutable justice, but not of eternal and immutable pleasure; nor by any refinement can we avoid some taint of bodily sense adhering to the meaning of the word.