Moral causality

“ But the important truth to observe is not the particular details of their haphazard origin but the causes of their survival. Overlaying the countless originating causes of moral ideals are two main preservation—causes, two constant factors which retain certain of the innumerable impulses for one reason or other momentarily dominant. These are of extreme significance for a comprehension of the function of morality in life. ”

“ But the question, 'Why should I be moral?' means, most naturally and usually, What inducements are there to me to do right?" The answer is that motives differ for different individuals. With some, outer social inducements, with others, the approbation and disapprobation of conscience are stronger. ”

“ But, may it not be said, that every system of ethics must, or ought, to terminate, in plain and general maxims for the use of life? and, though in such anxioms no discovery is made, does not the beauty of the moral theory consist in the premises, and the chain of reasoning that leads to the conclusion? ”

“ But if seen under strong light and with their supreme import, the intuition impresses with greater force. So, too, the state of the whole moral75 nature is a reason of higher or lower moral sensibility. The more unblighted is the condition of personal life, the more is it responsive to the ethical discernment. Habitual refusal of duty, easy and indifferent familiarity with wrong-doing, or any continued enslavement of the higher nature to the lower, necessarily blunts the delicateness of the sensibilities and lowers the strength of the moral feelings. ”

“ In cases of doubt, we need to appeal to our highest criterion. Often such doubt may be caused by selfishness, by the hidden desire to act, after all, for our own benefit; we need, therefore, to put to ourselves the question: How would we judge the action of another in our own position? Thus we arrive at the highest moral commandment, which is: So act that thy conduct, if made general, would be for the good of mankind. And the force of example is here one of the factors to be considered. ”

“ Out of this strife morality is breathed up like a rainbow between the sun and storm. Moreover, by adopting these views, we get rid of the necessity of postulating a moral sense, and of all the other hypothetical subsidies to which an erroneous philosophy has recourse in explaining the phenomena of man. ”

“ For if the objective and transcendent character of the ethical distinction be denied, morality necessarily drops down into, at best, a temporary biological provision for the utilities of this ephemeral life, or, at worst, into a deep fraud of our faculties, estopping the use of our freedom by a phantom bugbear of moral distinctions. ”

“ But first (the only one of many difficulties we can notice) there forces itself on us the problem, ‘How is the non-moral to pass into the moral?’ Apart from the question how the self-feeling, with its merely objective consciousness, passes into consciousness of self as an object, how is the genesis of the moral consciousness explicable? Have we not fallen into a vicious circle? do we not require knowledge of good as a prius for the knowledge of evil, and knowledge of evil as a prius for the knowledge of good? How is any beginning of morality possible? ”

“ Which developments are truly realisations of "the moral capability of man," and so tend to the attainment of ultimate good, and which developments are expressions of those capacities which seek an apparent good only and are to be classed as evil, as impediments to the realisation of the good,—these have to be discriminated; and is it so clear that from the mere record of human deeds we are able to draw the distinction? Do we not need some criterion of goodness to guide our judgment? ”

“ Why, for example, do we not regard a lunatic as responsible? Because we are in possession of information about his character derived not only from his one offense but from other facts, whereby we know that even if he had a conscience left, his mind is so diseased that it is impossible by moral reprobation alone to change his character so that it may be subsequently relied upon. With his cure from disease and the restored validity of this condition, responsibility returns. ”

“ But the view for which I contend is, that Morality properly so-called—the science of right conduct—has for its object to determine how and why certain modes of conduct are detrimental, and certain other modes beneficial. These good and bad results cannot be accidental, but must be necessary consequences of the constitution of things, and I conceive it to be the business of Moral Science to deduce from the laws of life and the conditions of existence what kinds of action necessarily tend to produce happiness and what kinds to produce unhappiness. ”

“ That as personal morality becomes more and more complex, and hence knowledge by others less and less possible, we leave the judgment of an act more to the conscience of the individual, as vicegerent of the moral law. "Acts which are wrong when nobody knows them have come to be so by a process beginning with simple acts which are known, that is, known in their outward appearance." The act, known or unknown, leaves its impress upon character, raising or lowering the efficiency of the agent; and hence is judged good or bad. ”

“ Is it possible that any man of common sense can believe, that moral principles which are so important to the best interests of human society, should be placed upon such an immoral and vindictive foundation? Can any one imagine that a being, so destitute of moral justice and benevolence himself, could serve as a solid basis on which to rest these qualities in human nature? ”

“ You will see men who, so far as theory is concerned, will discourse eloquently concerning human justice and morality, yet they utterly disregard and ignore all moral restraints in their private character and practices. ”

“ The objection against the conscience from its fallibility, which is but another name for this diversity in its applicatory judgments, if applied to all the psychical faculties, would discredit the reality of the aggregate complex of the psychical powers and overthrow the basis of all our knowledge, even of that which is employed to effect such overthrow. No diversity occurs in the primary judgment of distinction between moral good and evil. ”

“ Caught as we are by the irresistible flux of existence, we find ourselves able so to steer our lives as to change the proportion of light and shade, to give greater value to a life that might have had less. This possibility makes our moral problem. What shall we choose and from what refrain? To what aims shall we give our allegiance? What shall we fight for and what against? ”

“ Might we not carry the analogy into morals, and ask, is it safe or prudent in us to investigate too deeply? are we wise in dissecting motives? or would it not be better to enjoy our moral as we do our material health, without seeking to assure ourselves further? ”

“ For it not only accepts and makes its own all the right or wrong that appears elsewhere, but it also remains true or becomes false to its own supreme duty and obligation to moral law, when, under the behests of conscience, it directs life and character either up the heights of moral excellence and happiness, or into the wrong and guilt and miseries of immorality. Where the will is moral the man is moral; for the will is the zenith of personality. Where it is immoral the man is immoral. ”

“ When we come to deal with the special problems of moral and social life, we shall have to face further questions as to the connection of causal determination with moral freedom and responsibility, and again with conscious purposive action for ends. Our previous discussion will then be found to have cleared the way for these more complex questions, by removing the difficulties which arise when the causal postulate is mistaken for an axiomatic principle of the interpretation of the systematic nature of Reality. ”

“ And it may be admitted that, in some cases at least, it is right and proper that a man’s motives should thus influence our judgment. But the question is: What sort of moral judgment is it right and proper that they should influence? ”

“ Of what may we justly affirm moral quality? Where does the conscience apply the distinctions of right and wrong? What are properly the objects, and the only objects, of moral approval or condemnation? Or, to put it in a way possibly more easily understood, to what human activities or features of life does moral quality belong?
It has already been noted in general that only personal beings can be moral agents or become, in what they are and do, objects of moral judgment. Apart from personality, no place for virtue or vice can be found. ”

“ The true doctrine of the causation of human actions maintains ... that not only our conduct, but our character, is, in part, amenable to our will; that we can by employing the proper means, improve our character; and that if our character is such that while it remains what it is, it necessitates us to do wrong, it will be just to apply motives which will necessitate us to strive for its improvement, and so emancipate ourselves from the other necessity; in other words, we are under a moral obligation to seek the improvement of our moral character. ”

“ For in their relation to the law of moral rectitude, and to the feeling of moral responsibility, what difference is there, and what difference can there be, between what are called natural and those which are called moral powers and affections, if they are all under the control of the same universal law of cause and effect? If it still be a mere nature, and the determinations of our will be controlled by causes out of the will, according to our nature, then I maintain that a moral nature has no more to do with the feeling of responsibility than any other nature. ”

“ At all events the mere fact that motives are and ought to be taken account of in some moral judgments does not constitute such a reason. And hence this fact cannot be urged as an objection to the view that right and wrong depend solely on consequences. ”

“ The conscience discerns and affirms this reality of good and evil-desert.
Here is reached the psychological source of the great fact of responsibility in the world. It emerges into consciousness and into actual force in human life from this point in the disclosures and affirmations of the moral sense. Hence arises the unspeakably varied but ever persistent human necessity under which men are compelled to regard themselves and others as justly amenable to the law of moral consequences. Its application is seen in every sphere of life, personal, domestic, social, and national. ”

“ A further difficulty has to be met by the theory of the development of morality, which is in a sense complementary of the initial difficulty encountered in differentiating the moral from the non-moral. ”

“ Action supposes a 'motive,' a 'volition,' and an 'external act' or muscular contraction. So far there is nothing moral. But then an act has consequences, good or bad, to human beings, which constitute its utility. To make it moral, the agent must anticipate 'beneficial consequences,' and must have no reason to anticipate a balance of evil consequences. Intention means the calculation of consequences, and without that calculation there can be no morality. ”

“ Instead of analyzing the moral sense into its components and describing the mental stuff of which it is composed, instead of tracing its genesis and studying the forces that have produced it, they wax eloquent over its importance and universality. As preachers they are admirable. But the foundation they provide for morality is slippery. ”

“ We believe that a correct appreciation of psychology makes it abundantly clear that although there are many impulsive, instinctive and emotional factors totally unconnected with any rational or intellectual process which do, indeed, affect our moral judgments and give rise to ethical conventions, these factors can give no validity to moral codes ”

“ We have with full consciousness identified ourselves with good and evil; and from that twofold identification of the will, which begins a new life, and is no transitory accident but a standing self, we are bound to conclude that our particular acts now proceed. The burden of proving the contrary lies in all cases upon ourselves; and, to escape imputation of evil or good, we must show, by establishing compulsion or ignorance, the absence of real connection between the act and a will morally intelligent, or the standing embodiment of moral intelligence. ”

“ As to moral philosophy, they have the same disputes among them as we have here. They examine what are properly good, both for the body and the mind; and whether any outward thing can be called truly good, or if that term belong only to the endowments of the soul. ”

“ None but those committed to a preconceived theory can fail to recognize the workings of such a faculty as the moral sense. It is clear that the perceptions of propriety or impropriety of conduct do not originate with the intellect but with the emotional faculties. ”

“ We are aware of the attempts which have been made to invest our emotions with the stamp and attribute of morality: but, in addition to the testimony of our own experience, we have the highest authority for holding that none of the natural feelings or modifications of the human heart partake in any degree of a moral character. ”

“ The essential element in the problem is that we are contemplating, not physical movement only, like spasms or waves, but personal deeds, as acts of moral agents.185 Of course, moral quality does not attach to the action of non-moral beings, as the striking of clocks or the barking of dogs, but to deeds of self-directing personality. ”

“ For now let us observe that the ethical sentiment and idea, properly so-called, are independent of the ideas and sentiments above described as derived from external authorities, and coercions, and approbations—religious, political, or social. The true moral consciousness which we name conscience does not refer to those extrinsic results of conduct which take the shape of praise or blame, reward or punishment, externally awarded ”