The tyranny of circumstance: Conscience, will, and the burden of responsibility

“ It is plain that what deserves reverence in us is that which approaches most nearly to the moral law in character. The appetites, the affections, the passions, have each their own separate objects. They may be useful in the highest degree, but they cannot in themselves deserve reverence, for their objects are not the moral law; they must therefore be absolutely subordinated to the will and the conscience which have for their objects the very law itself. Holiness consists in the subjection of the whole being, not in act alone, but in feeling and desire as well, to the authority of conscience. ”

“ And, if such be the state of religion among us, who will wonder, that the MORAL VIRTUES, which have no firm abode in the Godless mind, are deserting us so fast? Who can think it strange, that oaths have lost their power? And that the most solemn engagements, even those contracted at the altar itself, are falling apace, or rather are fallen with many, into contempt?
Our natural appetites, indeed, are impatient for their respective gratifications; and the lower classes of men, uneducated and undisciplined, are, at all times, too generally enslaved by12 them. ”

“ We have come to assume that liberalism is the absence of authority because we can no longer distinguish between authority and tyranny. We have forgotten that the mind that denies the authority of reason falls under the tyranny of caprice. We have forgotten that he who will not answer to the rudder must answer to the rock. We have therefore allowed totalitarian dictators to take out a copyright on words like authority and discipline, although their tyranny is a caricature of authority and their terrorism is a caricature of discipline. ”

“ The definition of the will, given commonly by the Schools, that it is a rational appetite, is not good. For if it were, then could there be no voluntary act against reason. For a voluntary act is that, which proceedeth from the will, and no other. But if instead of a rational appetite, we shall say an 49appetite resulting from a precedent deliberation, then the definition is the same that I have given here. Will therefore is the last appetite in deliberating. And though we say in common discourse, a man had a will once to do a thing, that nevertheless he forbore to do ”

“ What you need is right perception and a good conscience to back it; a willingness, not only, but a thorough will to do right. In you is ample vital force to set your liver right, make your bowels work, make your skin carry on its insensible perspiration, your blood circulate healthfully, and have everything done according to law. All that is necessary is that you put your spirit, your responsible consciousness on the throne, and make your body its servant. When you resolve to do this and begin to do it, you will begin to get well. You do not need medicine ”

“ Put away your evil habits, one after another, because they are evil, not simply because they hurt you. Get up a rebellion in your spirit against wrong ways of living. Resolve that you will not live wrongly; characterize that way as it should be characterized, as an improper, unmanly, mean, or274 unbefitting way for you. Say: I will not smoke; I will not drink; I will not make my body an instrument of gluttony; and so go through your whole round of habits, putting away all those that you can get along without. Reduce your artificial wants to a minimum. ”

“ Live like a man; get a little self-respect from somewhere; give up being an ape. Treat your body properly and it will treat you properly. That's the only prescription that will do you any good.'”
He laughed again. “'Tell the truth, you shame the Devil.' But the Devil replies by starving you. It's a fairly effective retort. I am not the stuff successful family physicians are made of. In the City I may manage to rub along. One doesn't see so much of one's patients; they come and go. ”

“ Of the real power of the bodily appetites for food, and the sway they may attain over the moral nature of the mind, we, who are protected by our place among the arrangements of civil society from greatly [Pg 325] suffering under it, can indeed form no adequate conception. Let us not now speak of those dreadful enormities which, in the midst of dismal famine, are recorded to have been perpetrated by civilised men, when the whole moral soul, with all its strongest affections and instinctive abhorrences, has sunk prostrate under the force of that animal suffering. ”

“ Next, we must help parents protect their children from the gravest health threat that they face — an epidemic of teen smoking, spread by multimillion dollar marketing campaigns.
I challenge Congress — let's pass bipartisan, comprehensive legislation that will improve public health, protect our tobacco farmers and change the way tobacco companies do business forever. Let's do what it takes to bring teen smoking down.
Let's raise the price of cigarettes by up to $1.50 a pack over the next 10 years with penalties on the tobacco industry if it keeps marketing to our children. ”

“ Tyranny is a habit capable of being developed, and at last becomes a disease. I declare that the best man in the world can become hardened and brutified to such a point, that nothing will distinguish him from a wild beast. Blood and power intoxicate; they aid the development of callousness and debauchery; the mind then becomes capable of the most abnormal cruelty in the form of pleasure; the man and the citizen disappear for ever in the tyrant; and then a return to human dignity, repentance, moral resurrection, becomes almost impossible. ”

“ Accordingly for a man to do a good deed, it is requisite not only that his reason be well disposed by means of a habit of intellectual virtue; but also that his appetite be well disposed by means of a habit of moral virtue. And so moral differs from intellectual virtue, even as the appetite differs from the reason. Hence just as the appetite is the principle of human acts, in so far as it partakes of reason, so are moral habits to be considered virtues in so far as they are in conformity with reason. ”

“ Because the Stoics, through not discriminating between the intellective appetite, i.e. the will, and the sensitive appetite, which is divided into irascible and concupiscible, did not, as the Peripatetics did, distinguish the passions from the other affections of the human soul, in the point of their being movements of the sensitive appetite, whereas the other emotions of the soul, which are not passions, are movements of the intellective appetite or will ”

“ But the will regards good according to the common notion of good, and therefore in the will, which is the intellectual appetite, there is no differentiation of appetitive powers, so that there be in the intellectual appetite an irascible power distinct from a concupiscible power: just as neither on the part of the intellect are the apprehensive powers multiplied, although they are on the part of the senses. ”

“ Therefore, since the sensitive appetite is an inclination following sensitive apprehension, as natural appetite is an inclination following the natural form, there must needs be in the sensitive part two appetitive powers---one through which the soul is simply inclined to seek what is suitable, according to the senses, and to fly from what is hurtful, and this is called the concupiscible: and another, whereby an animal resists these attacks that hinder what is suitable, and inflict harm, and this is called the irascible. ”

“ Thirdly, because, granted that some passions are, in some way, referable to good only, or to evil only; even then the movement of passion, as passion, begins in the appetite, and ends in the reason, since the appetite tends to conformity with reason. On the other hand, the movement of virtue is the reverse, for it begins in the reason and ends in the appetite, inasmuch as the latter is moved by reason. ”

“ The reason for this is that otherwise it would follow that moral virtue makes the sensitive appetite altogether idle: whereas it is not the function of virtue to deprive the powers subordinate to reason of their proper activities, but to make them execute the commands of reason, by exercising their proper acts. ”

“ Therefore, besides the habits in the intellect that bear the name of intellectual virtues, the virtuous man must possess other habits, as well in the will, that this power may readily embrace what the understanding points out to be good, as in the sensitive appetite in both its parts, concupiscible and irascible, so far forth as appetite is amenable to the control of the will, that it may be so controlled and promptly obey the better guidance. These habits in the will and in the sensitive appetite are called moral virtues, and to them the name of virtue is usually confined. ”

“ The will, on the contrary, does not, of necessity, follow the inclination of the inferior appetite; for although the passions in the irascible and concupiscible have a certain force in inclining the will; nevertheless the will retains the power of following the passions or repressing them. ”

“ And yet even weakness of soul is called weakness of the flesh, in so far as it is owing to a condition of the flesh that the passions of the soul arise in us through the sensitive appetite being a power using a corporeal organ.
Reply to Objection 3: It is in the will's power to give or refuse its consent to what passion inclines us to do, and it is in this sense that our appetite is said to be under us; and yet this consent or dissent of the will is hindered in the way already explained (A [1] ) .
Whether self-love is the source of every sin? ”

“ Now the concupiscible appetite in every man, of its own nature, leans to its proper object of delectable good. No virtue is requisite to secure it from too little inclination that way: but to restrain the appetite from going out excessively to delight is the function, and the sole function, of Temperance. The measure of restraint is relative, as the golden mean is relative, and varies with different persons and in view of different ends. The training of the athlete is not the training of the saint. ”

“ I answer that, A passion of the sensitive appetite cannot draw or move the will directly; but it can do so indirectly, and this in two ways. First, by a kind of distraction: because, since all the soul's powers are rooted in the one essence of the soul, it follows of necessity that, when one power is intent in its act, another power becomes remiss, or is even altogether impeded, in its act, both because all energy is weakened through being divided, so that, on the contrary, through being centered on one thing, it is less able to be directed to several ”

“ It would seem that the will is moved of necessity by a passion of the lower appetite. For the Apostle says (Rom. 7:19) : "The good which I will I do not; but the evil which I will not, that I do": and this is said by reason of concupiscence, which is a passion. Therefore the will is moved of necessity by a passion.
Obj. 2: Further, as stated in Ethic. iii, 5, "according as a man is, such does the end seem to him." But it is not in man's power to cast aside a passion at once. Therefore it is not in man's power not to will that to which the passion inclines him. ”

“ But if the Appetite in any way at all forestalls the Judgment and guides it, then the Judgment cannot be free: it is not its own: it is captive to another power. Therefore the brute beasts cannot have freedom of Judgment; for in them the Appetite always forestalls the Judgment. Therefore, too, it is that intellectual beings whose wills are unchangeable, and souls which are separate from the body, which have gone hence in peace, do not lose the freedom of their wills, because their wishes cannot change; nay, it is in full strength and completeness that their wills are free. ”

“ The view which gives the right of moral control to the conscience is thus vindicated by the plain fact that there is no other faculty or spring of action in the human constitution adapted to this function, so unquestionably requisite for the order and welfare of life. ”

“ Or, to use another simile, conscience is the compass by which we steer aright our moral lives towards the haven of our souls' destination in eternity. But just as behind the mariner's compass is the great unseen power, called attraction, under whose influence the needle points to the star; so does the will or Law of God control the action of the conscience, and direct it faithfully towards what is good. ”

“ As Conscience is a gift of God we are responsible to Him for the use we make of it. Conscience is the moral faculty; as the eyes are organs of the faculty of sight, the ears of the faculty of hearing, so has Conscience the faculty of seeing and knowing and distinguishing right from wrong. As God has given us sight and hearing we exercise these faculties, and, what is more, cultivate them. So, as God has given us the moral faculty, we exercise it, and cultivate it, if we desire to fulfil the ends for which God has created us. ”

“ Conscience, when certain as to the moral right of a course of action, utters its peremptory command that it shall be done. We often are satisfied with a negative obedience, and consider ourselves discharged from all obligation to render positive obedience. ”

“ In a very real sense, then, morality is objective; it is valid whether we recognize its validity and want it or not. It represents our needs more truly than our own wills, and thus has a greater authority, just as the rules of dietetics are not a matter of appetite or whim, but have a rational authority over our caprices. Morality is not, like imagination, something we can shape at will; it is imposed upon us from without, like sensation. Its development is predetermined by the structure of human nature and its environment; we do not invent it, we accept it. ”

“ but what physic, what chirurgery, what wealth, favour, authority can relieve, bear out, assuage, or expel a troubled conscience? A quiet mind cureth all them, but all they cannot comfort a distressed soul: who can put to silence the voice of desperation? ”

“ A subjective and emotional standard of right and wrong is as treacherous and untrustworthy as the emotional justification of those good people, who come of a sudden to "feel converted."
9. It would be unnecessary, except for the wrong-headedness of philosophers, to observe that conscience requires educating. As moral virtue is a habit of appetite, rational or irrational, a formation resulting from frequent acts ”

“ Lax public opinion, which sets up a low moral standard, and brings Consciences to sleep, so long as they conform to public opinion, and make that the rule instead of the law of God. This is a great means of blunting and deadening Conscience, for it sets up man as a supreme authority in morals in the place of God, it makes the judgments of the world override the revealed Will of God. ”

“ After all, this talk of conscience and sincere convictions is but the canting phrase of the day, according to which conscience means mere wild humour and headstrong self-will. Such teachings as those which we would have the State to suppress, e.g.: An oath is a folly: There is no law of purity: There is no harm in doing anything that does not annoy your neighbour: are not the teachings of men sincerely convinced: they deserve no respect, consideration, or tenderness on that score. ”

“ What is an authority, said Paley, merely felt in the individual consciousness: a personal whim, the mere accident of individuality. What, he asks, is the authority of another’s conscience to me? What, indeed, is my conscience, and why is it an authority to myself? We can never know whether it is “a real angel with flaming sword, or a scare-crow dressed up by the moral philosophers.” Did the “moral sense” exist, should we not see a universal evidence of its influence? Would not men exhibit a more manifest obedience to its supposed dictates than they do? ”

“ And the man, who by a perverted conscience, is led to refuse obedience to a righteous law, stands without excuse at the bar of God. The moral sanction of civil laws, which gives them their chief power, and without which they must ultimately become inoperative, cannot possibly extend further than this. For what is that moral sanction? It is a conviction that our duty to God requires our obedience; but how can we feel that duty to God requires us to do what God forbids? In other words, a law which we regard as immoral, can not present itself to the conscience as having divine authority. ”

“ There was a chorus of anger from the gentlemen, and one of them called up something that Anthony could not hear. Campion raised his eyebrows.
“Well, my lord,” he cried aloud, and his voice instantly silenced again the noisy buzz of talk, “I am a Catholic man and a priest: in that faith have I lived, and in that faith do I intend to die. If you esteem my religion treason, then am I guilty; as for other treason, I never committed any, God is my judge. But you have now what you desire. ”

“ Thus in the moral world, everything is classed, adapted, decided, and foreseen; in the political world everything is agitated, uncertain, and disputed: in the one is a passive, though a voluntary obedience; in the other an independence, scornful of experience and jealous of authority. ”

“ The constitution of man possesses a number of powers and propensities, each of which has its own distinctive kind of enjoyment suited to it by nature. The appetite of hunger seeks food which preserves our body and the attainment of which is the delight of it, and so with every passion and propensity when their particular objects are attained. Similarly the moral faculty-call it inward sight, light of faith or reason-any name will do provided the object signified by it is rightly understood-delights in the attainment of its desideratum. ”

“ But your appetite for kingship seems to have gained in strength while it lost in delicacy and moral significance, till it has become an insatiable craving, which disdains not to batten on very vile garbage. If one rule, and another be ruled, and if the domination be open, frank, and vigorous, you seem to feast on the fact, be this domination as selfish in its nature and as brutal in its form as it may. ”

“ The mere possession, indeed, of such vast authority, is calculated to vitiate the heart, and to engender tyranny; nor are examples wanting in history of persons, who though models of virtue and moderation in private stations, yet became the most bloody and atrocious tyrants on their elevation to supreme power. So great, indeed, is the fallibility of human nature, that the very best of us are apt to deviate from that just mean, in the adherence to which consists virtue. ”

“ Why, you do not mean to say that the tyrant will use violence? What! beat his father if he opposes him?
Yes, he will, having first disarmed him.
Then he is a parricide, and a cruel guardian of an aged parent; and this is real tyranny, about which there can be no longer a mistake: as the saying is, the people who would escape the smoke which is the slavery of freemen, has fallen Cinto the fire which is the tyranny of slaves. Thus liberty, getting out of all order and reason, passes into the harshest and bitterest form of slavery. ”

“ The dinners you do not eat, the bed you don’t sleep in, the fresh air you do not breathe, all will have their revenge upon you for your studied neglect. Look here! you say you want to do another two years’ work; I say your health will not stand the strain if you do. ”

“ The girl’s smile vanished, and her face grew bitter.
“What’s the use of working,” she demanded, “when it doesn’t mean anything? You can never do the thing you want to do. You can only do what somebody else wants to do. I am tired of succeeding in other people’s ambitions.”
“You haven’t had a great deal of experience of that kind, have you?” asked the Doctor.
She did not listen. “The world is buttoned up wrong,” she said, “just one hole wrong. I get what you want, and somebody else wants what you get. I believe that hopes were given to us simply in order to hurt. ”

“ Mendacity, slander, sensationalism, inanity, vapid triviality, all are potent factors for the debauchery of the public mind and conscience. The excuse advanced for vicious writing, that the public demands it and that the demand must be supplied, can no more be admitted than if it were advanced by the purveyors of food who sell poisonous adulterations. ”

“ It is mere folly to try to dig up the dead past, and scant is the good that comes from asceticism and retirement from the world. But let us make sure that our progress is in the essentials as well as in the incidentals. Material prosperity without the moral lift toward righteousness means a diminishing capacity for happiness and a debased character. The worth of a civilization is the worth of the man at its centre. When this man lacks moral rectitude, material progress only makes bad worse, and social problems still darker and more complex. ”