Morality

“ Whenever we say, ‘So and so is a good man,’ or ‘That fellow is a villain’; whenever we ask, ‘What ought I to do?’ or ‘Is it wrong for me to do like this?’; whenever we hazard such remarks as ‘Temperance is a virtue and drunkenness a vice’—it is undoubtedly the business of Ethics to discuss such questions and such statements; to argue what is the true answer when we ask what it is right to do, and to give reasons for thinking that our statements about the character of persons or the morality of actions are true or false. ”

“ We have seen even the most general and obvious principle of individual morality, the subordination of the passions to the reason, flatly contradicted by certain would be reformers, who, without stopping to consider the teachings of universal experience, rationally sanctioned as they are by the scientific study of human nature, have tried to establish, as the fundamental doctrine of their improved morality, the systematic domination of the passions! ”

“ Our morality, we shall hear, ‘is a practical matter.’ And I should have thought it indeed a practical consideration, whether our chief good be realizable or no, whether it be πρακτὸν καὶ κτητὸν ἀνθρώπῳ, or exist only in the heads of certain theorists. ”

“ It means traversing with new clamorous questions, and at the same time with new eyes, the immense, distant, and completely unexplored land of morality—of a morality which has actually existed and been actually lived! ”

“ The world of empirical morality consists for the most part of nothing but ill-will and envy. ”

“ And the moral of the book—ponder it well, all young men who have the chance or the hope of exercising authority among your fellow-men, the noble and most Christian moral of that heathen book is this: that the path to solid and beneficent influence over our fellow-men lies, not through brute force, not through cupidity, but through the highest morality; through justice, truthfulness, humanity, self-denial, modesty, courtesy, and all which makes man or woman lovely in the eyes of mortals or of God. ”

“ Morality, Sittlichkeit, a word of broader meaning than "morality," for it comprehends not only matters of ethical right and wrong, but the general temper and habit of mind of a people as expressed in social life. ”

“ The essence of morality is the subjugation of nature in obedience to social needs. ”

“ As long as morality is regarded as a Divinely implanted principle, subject to no laws beyond the caprice and changing mood of a personal Deity, the essentials which underlie our conduct are lost sight of. Morality, that is to say those moral codes which are observed and recognized, consists of the imposition of values ”

“ For though, while in obeying our fallible conscience, we have thus failed to bring our whole outward action in the case into harmony with full duty, or have even done what to others about us or to God above us was wrong, we have maintained our own subjective personal moral integrity, in maintaining that which is the fundamental and essential element of all morality, the right intention and effort. ”

“ The ultimate question, then, as regards the abstract morality of any act or class of acts must be, Does it make for life? Does it tend to help man towards the maximum development of all his faculties and capacities? ”

“ Morality is the custom of one’s country and the current feeling of one’s peers. ”

“ I may here, in passing, and for the sake of illustration merely, express the fundamental principle of morality in the following formula: “So act that thou mayest look upon the dictate of thy will as an eternal law to thyself.”
The ultimate vocation of every finite, rational being is thus absolute unity, constant identity, perfect harmony with himself. ”

“ 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. ”

“ We are here, of course, purposely considering, not actual and arbitrary morality, but the essentials upon which all moralities are based. We shall deal more fully as we proceed with those psychic and emotional factors which do, in fact, colour and distort all moral values. To return to our analogy—we may say then, that a conventional moral rule stands for the credit of national morality, much as a five-pound note stands for the credit of national wealth. ”

“ We then admit that something else—call it ‘morality’ or ‘decent behaviour’, or ‘the good of society’—has claims on this self: claims which interfere with its own desires. What we mean by ‘being good’ is giving in to those claims. Some of the things the ordinary self wanted to do turn out to be what we call ‘wrong’: well, we must give them up. Other things, which the self did not want to do, turn out to be what we call ‘right’: well, we shall have to do them. ”

“ BY morals, or the science of morality, is meant that body of principles and laws, relating to conduct, which are conducive to the well-being of humanity. Morality, or, more accurately, the art of morality, is the carrying out in practice the laws which the science has established. ”

“ The realization of the good in personal morality is the habituated will, the moral character of individuals. It is actual in the virtues of the heart, and those virtues are the habits which, embodying good acts of will, have become part of the man’s self, and which answer to the various sides of his station, or more generally to his various relations to the ideal. ”

“ In place of a partial and reserved morality for a small number of men, let us substitute a universal morality, intelligible to all the inhabitants of the earth, and of which all can find the principles in nature. ”

“ 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. ”

“ But we need no special moral faculty to teach us morality; it is prompted by thoughts and feelings that, as the result of a process of compromise, are thoughts and feelings adjusted to a social order. ”

“ Besides, independently of their intrinsic merits, whether intellectual or moral, the necessities of their daily life serve to impress them with respect for the great rules of morality, which in most cases were framed for their own protection. ”

“ The mistake is often made of describing morality, not by institutions, but in terms of virtues, and while the name applied to different virtues remains the same, their content changes from age to age. ”

“ On them morality of any kind has no hold but through the external sanctions. Meanwhile the feelings exist, a fact in human nature, the reality of which, and the great power with which they are capable of acting on those in whom they have been duly cultivated, are proved by experience. ”

“ It further includes the willing of psychical changes in the self, in the way of systematization, since these are means to the assertion of the ideal, and the negation of the bad self. And the ground and result of morality is habit or state, which answers to process as its psychical embodiment and basis, and which, as standing will in a man for good, is virtue, just as the habitual will for bad is vice. ”

“ From one of these perceptions of man's relationship to the infinite universe or its first cause proceeds the true, sincere morality of every man, in spite of what he nominally professes or preaches as morality or the appearance he desires to convey. ”

“ We have had the morality of submission, and the morality of chivalry and generosity; the time is now come for the morality of justice. ”

“ Morality is the best of all devices for leading mankind by the nose!—The fact is that the conscious conceit of the chosen here disguises itself as modesty: it is in this way that they, the “community,” the “good and just,” range themselves, once and for always, on one side, the side of “the truth”—and the rest of mankind, “the world,” on the other.... ”

“ And the habit of laying aside upon occasion one's instinctive or habitual moral preferences and discussing with open mind their justification and rationality is of great value to the individual and to society. Hence the first two Parts of this volume take up, as simply as is consonant with the really intricate questions involved, the history of the development of human morality and the psychological foundation of moral obligations and ideals. ”

“ All those instances to be found in history, whether real or fabulous, of a doubtful public spirit, at which morality is perplexed, reason is staggered, and from which affrighted Nature recoils, are their chosen and almost sole examples for the instruction of their youth. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In the case of every thing that belongs to the realm of sentiment—religion, politics, morality, the affections and antipathies, &c.—the most eminent men seldom surpass the standard of the most ordinary individuals. ”

“ 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. ”

“ There were morality plays in which the seven deadly sins: pride, covetousness, lust, anger, gluttony, envy, and sloth, fought the seven cardinal virtues: faith, hope, charity, prudence, temperance, justice, and strength, respectively, for the human soul. ”

“ Among these points are the exaltation of reason; the depreciation of the affections; the unwillingness of both authors to regard the ‘partial and accidental structure of humanity,’ the ‘mere make and constitution of man,’ as the basis of morality—in other words, to recognise ethical distinctions as relative to human nature ”

“ Looking Beyond our Neighbour.—What? Ought the nature of true morality to consist for us in fixing our eyes upon the most direct and immediate consequences of our action for other people, and in our coming to a decision accordingly? ”

“ MACKINTOSH. Universality of Moral Distinctions. Antithesis or Reason and Passion. It is not virtuous acts but virtuous dispositions that outweigh the pains of self-sacrifice. The moral sentiments have for their objects Dispositions. Utility. Development of Conscience through Association; the constituents are Gratitude, Sympathy, Resentment and Shame, together with Education. Religion must presuppose Morality. Objections to Utility criticised. Duties to ourselves, an improper expression. Reference of moral sentiments to the Will. ”

“ Nowadays, with our modern mania for morality, everyone has to pose as a paragon of purity, incorruptibility, and all the other seven deadly virtues. And what is the result? You all go over like ninepins—one after the other. ”

“ The truth about certain new theories of morality, taught in some modern novels, assumed in others, and to some extent already put in practice by young readers, frankly and carefully examined, with an exposure of their probable evil influence. ”

“ They are to be left entirely to the tender mercies of those who will try upon them this experiment of moral philosophy or philosophical morality. Morality without sentiment; benevolence towards man, without a sense of responsibility towards God ”

“ But these supplementary explanations do not affect the theory of life on which this theory of morality is grounded—namely, that pleasure, and freedom from pain, are the only things desirable as ends; ”

“ Most startling diversities and contrasts are continually appearing. Hence it has often been said that our moral judgments rest, in fact, on no original and permanent principles discerned by a distinct and universal faculty of the soul, but are a purely adventitious and accidental product, shaped in ideas that come of circumstances,48 education or the shifting spirit of the age.13 The law of morality is reduced to the dictates of expediency or to sentiment and caprice born of our changeful desires. ”

“ To those, on the other hand, who have long been wistfully looking for an exposition of the natural laws and sanctions of morality, it will be a word spoken with power, and in many ways a help toward higher life. ”

“ A chief part of our remaining task will be to make plain how the new intellectual life born in the revival of the fifteenth century, and expressing itself since in every department of human life, thought, and activity, has reacted upon the moral feelings and judgments of men and taught321 them to seek the ultimate sanctions of a true morality in the deep universal intuitions of the human heart and conscience. ”

“ This element of obvious usefulness is all the more to be counted on in sweetening tasks otherwise irksome, since social morality, the responsibility of man towards the life of man, will, in the new order of things, take the place of theological morality, or the responsibility of man to some abstract idea. ”

“ According to the answer which may be given to this question, several divers kinds of morals evolve. Yet the most important distinction is that which separates the morality of the most frequent from that of the rarest fulfilment. ”

“ Shall I not render a service to men in speaking to them only of morality? This morality is so pure, so holy, so universal, so clear, so ancient, that it seems to come from God himself, like the light which we regard as the first of his works. Has he not given men self-love to secure their preservation; benevolence, beneficence, and virtue to control their self-love; the natural need to form a society; pleasure to enjoy, pain to warn us to enjoy in moderation, passions to spur us to great deeds, and wisdom to curb our passions? ”