Moral intuition

“ Thus he grounds his entire philosophy upon a moral imperative which presents itself to the ego in an inner vision. He also tells us that we can become immediately aware of the pure activity of the ego, of our free action, in a similar act of intellectual intuition. ”

“ Reference must be made to other parts of the mind, from which counter-motives may be furnished; and the intuition in favour of Truth, not being able to support itself, has to repose on the general foundation of all virtue, the instituted recognition of the claims of others.
8. Fourthly, Intuition is incapable of settling the debated questions of Practical Morality.
If we recall some of the great questions of practical life that have divided the opinions of mankind, we shall find that mere Intuition is helpless to decide them. ”

“ Even the treating, and the elucidation, of the relation in which the senses, as the third element of the human mind, stands to the other two, and the place which it holds among them, will hereafter come more appropriately before us. And this is especially true of a question which, however, has an important bearing on the matter before us—the question, viz., whether or not some particular faculty, either of soul or spirit, is to be regarded as an internal sense, a moral instinct, or an immediate perception and intuition of the highest and best. ”

“ It is through these feelings that the conscience becomes a motive power for moral life. The perception of duty alone, as purely intellectual, would be, as said, "like a mirror accurately reflecting the ethical reality passing before it, but as indifferent as the mirror." But upon the perception the emotional nature springs into action. Knowledge, if at all, always goes into effect mediately through the sensibilities in which the soul is stirred by affections and desires. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Shall ethics be founded on feeling, which to-day is and tomorrow is cast into the oven?
The traditional answer of the advocates of conscience, when these facts are urged against them, is well known. They say, various less dignified mental tendencies may at times be mistaken for conscience; but the moral sense is real and trustworthy notwithstanding all these mistakes. Shame, or love of praise, or sense of propriety may pass themselves off as conscience; but the genuine conscience, when you find it, is infallible. ”

“ Our understandings are so darkened, our wills so perverted, our affections so carnal, that we can depend upon no suggestions of external nature, or of reason and conscience, for the regulation of our moral conduct. ”

“ Both the intellectual and emotional action of the soul are, therefore, included in what is named the conscience—the perceptive action, here as everywhere else, being primary and conditional for the emotional. If there were no ethical distinction perceived, none would be felt. The conscience, taken in its totality, thus includes both sides of the human psychology, the intellect and the sensibility, and it addresses its behests of duty to the will in its own peculiar way of moral law for conduct. ”

“ The one has no aim beyond a knowledge of the phenomena and laws of the mind as mind. The other studies it with a view to the light which this knowledge sheds on the problems of virtue and duty. There are, indeed, some questions in ethics that transcend the province of psychology, and belong to the further realm of metaphysics—as, for instance, the validity and ground of the distinction between right and wrong—yet, so far as it is the science of conscience or of man's moral nature, it is thoroughly psychological. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is this truth that goodness and approbation are identical that Intuitionism builds upon. Intuitionism, however, regards goodness as some new quality of action, peculiar and inexplicable; while a true analysis looks upon goodness as no new quality, the moral judgment merely placing a mark upon any action as conforming to a certain order or equilibrated system wanted. ”

“ 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 thing discerned by the conscience is generically different from the things discerned by the sense-perception or consciousness. Through our senses we know the whole world of objective existences, events and their relations; through consciousness the states, acts and experiences of the subjective personal self are given. But the conscience does not furnish us with a knowledge of any of the substances, events or relations which constitute the world about us or the world within us, but solely of the moral quality of conduct and sentiment, as duty is developed in these relations. ”

“ 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? ”

“ VI Let me add a word concerning the part played by the imagination in enforcing the logic of morality. An enlightened conscience, or a rational conviction of duty, will consist essentially in the viewing of life with a certain remove from its local incidents. In conduct, as in all matters where validity or truth is concerned, the critical consciousness must disengage itself and view the course of things in its due proportions, allowing one's dearest interests to lie where they lie among the rest. ”

“ The general end is self-realization, the making real of the ideal self; and for morality, in particular, the ideal self is the good will, the identification of my will with the ideal as an universal will. The end for morals is a will, and my will, and an universal will, and one will. Let us briefly refer on these heads to the moral consciousness.
Nothing, we have seen, is good but a good will. The end for morals is not the mere existence of any sort of ideal indifferently, but it is the realization of an ideal will in my will. ”

“ In just the same proportion as we recognise the law of causality, we shall also recognise the moral law. Reason itself is compelled to arouse in us conscience,—theoretical consciousness awakens ethical consciousness. ”

“ 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. ”

“ As I consider virtue and vice to consist in action, and not in opinion, and as this action has its seat in the will, and not in the conscience, I shall confine my inquiries chiefly to the influence of physical causes upon that moral power of the mind, which is connected with volition, although many of these causes act likewise upon the conscience, as I shall show hereafter. The state of the moral faculty is visible in actions, which affect the well-being of society. ”

“ Is not every moral theory dependent in truth on a theory of things? Is it possible for us to make for ourselves our ideal, and only afterwards to go to the real world and to see if our ideal is realized? ”

“ When I attempt to convince any one that certain conduct which he considers right is wrong, by showing him that it is opposed to the general welfare, my final appeal is to his conscience. And in the same manner, when I correct some of my own moral conceptions, it is my conscience which determines me to the proof of them, and my conscience which is the standard that determines my decision. Conscience is the principle underlying my moral convictions. ”

“ Let us then dismiss the moral consciousness, and not trouble ourselves about what we think we ought to do; let us try to show that what we do do, is, perfectly or imperfectly, to realize ourselves, and that we can not possibly do anything else; that all we can realize is (accident apart) our ends, or the objects we desire; and that all we can desire is, in a word, self. ”

“ In the same way no one will wish to deny that the moral feeling, as the natural expression of the inner voice of conscience, constitutes in social life the fundamental condition and the surest foundation for all lofty and noble sentiments. ”

“ And this accords with the best cosmic philosophy.172 For this holds all these relations as parts of a rationally designed system of world-order for universal well-being, and the moral reason as capacitated to discern, with more or less clearness and fulness, the moral requirement which they involve and present for observance. We know of no morality that exists, or can exist, in human life, apart from them. Strike them all away, and all duties disappear. Take, as illustration, the most generic virtue of all the virtues recognized by the ethical judgments, that of good-will or love. ”

“ But, as far as I can discover, the emotion with which a conscientious man views a real or imaginary right action, contains, as an essential element, the same emotion with which he views a wrong one: it seems, indeed, that this element is necessary to make his emotion specifically moral. ”

“ That the intuitions of a moral faculty should guide our conduct is a proposition in which a truth is contained, for these intuitions are the slowly organized results of experiences received by the race while living in presence of these conditions. And that happiness as the supreme end is beyond question true, for this is the concomitant of that highest life which every theory of moral guidance has distinctly or vaguely in view. ”

“ It is, moreover, equally absurd to look upon moral values as ultimate and irreducible categories of good and evil, irrevocably codified by an omniscient Deity for the conduct of humanity for all time, and supposedly accessible to the intelligence of all who consult their conscience. ”

“ The moral faculty is to the conscience, what taste is to the judgment, and sensation to perception. It is quick in its operations, and, like the sensitive plant, acts without reflection, while conscience follows with deliberate steps, and measures all her actions, by the unerring square of right and wrong. The moral faculty exercises itself upon the actions of others. ”

“ For unquestionably the essential trait in the moral consciousness is the control of some feeling or feelings by some other feeling or feelings. ”

“ Whatever is existent for us must be existent in us, in our consciousness. Our states of consciousness are either painful, or indifferent, or pleasant. We must turn, therefore, in the last analysis, not to things, but to the mind, if we wish to distinguish what is good and what is bad; and according to the differing constitution of different minds, the same things may be good or bad. There is good and bad with respect to our body or senses, and good and bad with respect to our mind. A moral good is one which causes conscious states of moral satisfaction. ”

“ But to illustrate by example: we could not, for instance, have the ideas of good and evil without their objective realities, nor of right and wrong, in any intelligible form, without the moral law to which they refer,--which law we call the Conscience; nor could we have the idea of a moral law without a moral lawgiver, and, if moral, then intelligent, and, if intelligent, then personal; in a word, we could not now have, as we know we have, the idea of conscience, without an objective, personal God. ”

“ The internal side of conduct is represented by the moral sentiments. These are to be distinguished from the mere motives, which, defined as something that has propulsive force, whether a feeling or a passion, does not enter into moral action except as absorbed into volition. No emotion is, in itself, right or wrong, but is only indirectly judged as such as it makes a difference to the action—as an aptitude of mind which tends to this or that predominating form of conduct. Moral sentiments, on the other hand, as moral aptitudes effective for particular conduct, contain an additional element. ”

“ All the facts of our moral consciousness, therefore,—the knowledge of right and wrong, the judgments of conscience, the recognition of duty and responsibility, the feelings of reverence, remorse, and moral indignation,—all these could be traced, they thought, to an origin in experience, to an origin which in the last resort was sensuous, that is, due to the perceptions of the senses and the feelings of pleasure and pain which accompany or follow them. ”

“ 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 ”