Timothy Brosnahan

“ The love due to oneself is the exemplar of the love due to others, though not the measure of it. Disinterested love of others, or the love of benevolence, the outward expression of which is beneficence, implies a union proximately based on likeness. ”

“ This reconciliation can only be reached when society is perfectly evolved; when namely we are so constituted that our spontaneous activities are congruous with conditions imposed by our social environments and social relations are so complete in their adjustments that altruism will not be associated with self-sacrifice, nor egoism with disregard for others. ”

“ In certain circumstances it may be obligatory, or at least a counsel of perfection, to love others more than self. Apart from cases in which one's profession or state of life, or justice imposes duties, these circumstances are determined by comparing the relative needs of self and others. ”

“ Comte, however, is the founder of the Social Eudæmonism, based on Positivism, to which the name of Altruism is given. Comte's system is both ethical and religious. Not only is the happiness to be found in living for others the supreme end of conduct, but a disinterested devotion to Humanity as a whole is the highest form of religious service. His ethical theory may be epitomized in the following propositions. (1) The dominion of feeling over thought is the normative principle of human conduct, for it is the affective impulses that govern the individual and the race. ”

“ Littré found the origin of morality in two primary physiological needs, nutrition, and reproduction, and in their transformation into the conflicting impulses of egoism and altruism. Both rejected the evolutionary hypothesis, and looked with disfavour on psychology. The representative exponent of English altruism is Herbert Spencer. The leading features of his system are these: (1) Conduct becomes ethical in the latest stages of evolution, when it assumes social aspects, when namely its tendency is to raise the aggregate happiness of the community. ”

“ The Positivist can only give counsel, and in his effort by emphasis and appeal to sentiment to make it imperative, he destroys all ethical proportion. Because the Catholic doctrine does not confound moral obligations with the perfection of moral goodness it is often charged with laxity by those whose teaching undermines all moral obligation. ”

“ The sense of duty originates in egoistic feelings of utility. But these in the process of evolution are modified by experience which associates personal happiness with social, political, and religious well-being and their sanctions. ”

“ All men are alike in this that they partake of the same rational nature made to the image and likeness of their Creator; have by nature the same social aptitudes, inclinations, and needs; and are destined for the same final union with God by which the likeness received through creation is perfected. By supernatural grace the natural likeness of man to man is exalted, changing fellowship into brotherhood. All likeness of whatever grade is founded ultimately in likeness with God. ”

“ The first principle of morality, therefore, is the regulative supremacy of social sympathy over the self-regarding instincts. To bring about the reign of altruism Comte invented a religion which substituted for God an abstraction called Humanity. ”

“ Man is under the influence of two affective impulses, the personal or egoistic, and the social or altruistic. (3) A just balance between these two is not possible, one or other must preponderate. (4) The first condition of individual and social well-being is the subordination of self-love to the benevolent impulses. ”

“ They do not inhere in the duties themselves. The general rules for determining the prevailing duty given by Catholic moralists are these: (1) Absolutely speaking there is no obligation to love others more than self. (2) There is an obligation which admits of no exceptions, to love self more than others, whenever beneficence to others entails moral guilt. ”

“ It confounds physical law with moral law, the fact that the affective faculty moves to action sufficing to make it also the norm of action. It, moreover, contracts the field of morality, and immorality as well, by making purely personal virtue or vice non-ethical. The English school of Altruists differs from the French in appealing to psychology for their facts, and in interpreting them by the principles of evolution. ”

“ These needs may be spiritual or temporal; the need of the community or of the individual; the need of one in extreme, serious or ordinary want; the need of those who are near to us by natural or social ties, and of those whose claims are only union in a common humanity. The first class in each group has precedence over the second. ”