Right

“ What, after all, is it that we mean to say of an action when we say that it is right or ought to be done? And what is it that we mean to say of a state of things when we say that it is good or bad? Can we discover any general characteristic, which belongs in common to absolutely all right actions, no matter how different they may be in other respects? ”

“ Those on the right perceive, and pursue, the good, and leave the evil: those in the centre, the greatest, perceive and pursue the good and evil together, the whole thing as it verily is: those on the left perceive and pursue the evil, and leave the good. ”

“ That element is the eternal distinction, speaking broadly, between good and evil—between right and wrong—between the secret consciousness of having done right, and the consciousness of mere strength and force in certain other ways. ”

“ But right is something moral, and implies inward recognition, free assent of the will; we are not ready for right,—right, so far as we are concerned, is not ready,—until we have attained this sense of seeing it and willing it. ”

“ We all think we are right, or we should not believe as we do. ”

“ But most of those who hold that an action can be both right and wrong are, I think, in fact influenced by certain considerations, which do admit of argument. They hold certain views, from which this conclusion follows; and it is only because they hold these views, that they adopt the conclusion. ”

“ In the one case it presents love of the right as right; in the other a love of the more agreeable consequences of right. Unquestionably, indeed, a desire of the better consequences is a proper motive for choices. ”

“ 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? ”

“ So assured are we that out of apparent evil only good, or what is the same, higher conditions must result, that in all sincerity, unitedly we declare that not only do we believe, but we realize, that whatever is is right. ”

“ If the qualities of right and wrong be not in very truth real, if they be not verities of conduct in the constituted relations of human life, if the ideas answer not to a true distinction set before us for our recognition and conformity, then virtue is a dream, obligation an illusion, and conscience a fraud. ”

“ But if the Ought to be be independent of the Is, how does discussion about the power of God, or his goodness, about the universality of conscience, or its inner strength as a feeling, affect our judgment of the ideal distinction between right and wrong? ”

“ It will be seen that, on these assumptions, we can raise many questions about right and wrong, which seem obviously not to be absurd; and which yet would be quite absurd—would be questions about which we could not hesitate for a moment—if assertions about right and wrong were merely assertions about men’s feelings and opinions, or if the same action could be both right and wrong. ”

“ Can any man have a higher notion of the rule of right, and the eternal fitness of things? ”

“ But truth and right, founded in the eternal and, is what every man can judge of, when laid before him. 'T is necessarily one and the same to every man's understanding, just as light is the same, to every man's eyes. ”

“ The conscience with which he is endowed enables him to appreciate the distinction between right and wrong; to understand the meaning of "ought," and "ought not"; to love and revere whatever is great and excellent in character, to abhor the mean and base ”

“ Here are hundreds and thousands of people hearing weekly and daily what is right, and how many do what is right?—much less love what is right? What can be the reason of this, that men should know the better and choose the worse? What motive can one find out?—what reason or argument can one put before people, to make them do their duty? ”

“ For the clearing of which let the word of truth be rightly divided, and a right distinction of things applied, there will appear nothing contradictory, but clear and satisfactory to each man’s conscience. ”

“ "I am a man. I claim the right of expressing my feelings." ”

“ In the vast majority of cases, where we make statements involving any of the terms ‘virtue,’ ‘vice,’ ‘duty,’ ‘right,’ ‘ought,’ ‘good,’ ‘bad,’ we are making ethical judgments; and if we wish to discuss their truth, we shall be discussing a point of Ethics. ”

“ But to men truly initiated and rightly taught, these ruling and master principles, which, in the opinion of such men as I have mentioned, have no substantial existence, are in truth everything and all in all. ”

“ Hence, human Reason must always receive its particular Cast and Colour from the pre-established Passions, Habits, and Principles; will ever form its ruling Ideas of Good and Evil, Right and Wrong, Just and Unjust, from these great Fountains of human Action. ”

“ I have tried to show in lectures on morals that the conception expressed by the 'should be' is not identical with the conception of a right possessed by some man or men, but one from which the latter conception is derived. ”

“ “If you want to be right, I can give you that satisfaction. You’re in the right; but I’m going all the same.” ”

“ First, it is a voice forever sounding across the centuries the laws of right and wrong. Opinions alter, manners change, creeds rise and fall, but the moral law is written on the tablets of eternity. ”

“ We know the law of human nature: acts produce habits, habits breed dispositions, dispositions form the will, and the rightly-formed will is character. ”

“ There is no other distinction between right and wrong save what the dogmatic systems on the one hand give as their capricious determinations, and what the moral insight on the other hand shows as the expression of what it involves. ”

“ The proof of a thing's being right is, that it has power over the heart; that it excites us, wins us, or helps us. ”

“ This being so, a mind that is controlled by a ruling purpose to act right finds those persons and places the most congenial and agreeable who can lend the most aid in pointing out all that is wrong in thought, word, {257} or deed, and in helping, by instruction, sympathy, and example, to do right. ”

“ So that, for this reason alone, and quite apart from differences of feeling between different men, we shall have to admit, according to our theory, that it is often now true of an action that it was right, although it was formerly true of the same action that it was wrong. ”

“ It is, on the contrary, a doctrine of the first moral and sociological importance that truth, wisdom, and righteousness come only by painstaking, study, and striving. These things are so hard that it is only the few who attain to them. ”

“ For, ultimately, how do we know that right is right, and wrong is wrong? People in general accept it on authority; but authority itself must repose on some ulterior basis; and what is that? Are we to say that in morals there is a system of primary axioms, out of which we develope our conclusions, and apply them, as they are needed, to life? ”

“ When we see an eager assailant of one of these wrongs, a special reformer, we feel like asking him, What right have you, sir, to your one virtue? ”

“ It is a remarkable fact that the testimonies from literature and life to the phenomenon of moral distinctions everywhere maintain the difference between the idea of right and that of the pleasurable or profitable. ”

“ In the moral sphere, with which alone we are concerned, right means always the relation of the universal to the particular will. The emphasis is on the universal. Possibility of discrepancy with a conscious subject makes law here command. ”

“ Upon the whole, all persons ought to endeavour to follow what is right, and not what is established; ”

“ Right is that which accords with the moral system of the universe. Righteousness is right incarnated in action. In a more limited sense, right may be used of what one may rightly claim, and so be the converse of duty. ”

“ It may be held, namely, that, whenever we assert that an action or class of actions is right or wrong, we must be merely making an assertion about somebody’s feelings towards the action or class of actions in question. ”

“ But on many questions, even of this kind, there is great diversity of opinion. Actions which some philosophers hold to be generally wrong, others hold to be generally right, and occurrences which some hold to be evils, others hold to be goods. ”

“ It only requires the claim to be made with the recognition that by the Law of Being it is bound to be answered, and the right feeling, the right seeing, and the right working for the particular matter we have in hand will flow in quite naturally. ”

“ While the foregoing illustration brings clearly home the fact, that in opinions seeming to be absolutely and supremely wrong something right is yet to be found; it also indicates the method we should pursue in seeking the something right. ”

“ We experience the useful and the agreeable, but the right, the ethical idea, must be perceived or rationally seen, as a super-sensible reality in the ideal realm of the demands of duty. It is not a perception of relations themselves,64 but of a distinction as to something due in human relations and life. ”

“ Reason, our reasoning power, therefore, enables us to see in moral relations only the definable properties and qualities, the mores, the morality, as it is rightly called, the outward manner and dead form, the body, so to speak, of right and wrong, or justice. ”

“ He believes, to be sure, in a “power not ourselves that makes for righteousness”; but his interest in this power and his comments upon it confine themselves almost wholly to its plain and palpable influence upon human conduct. ”

“ So you find a great many people on every hand in society who are choosing to draw these lines purely artificial, purely conventional in regard to matters of supposed right or wrong, while they are not as careful to look down deeply into the essential principles of that which is inherently right or wrong. ”

“ But at bottom rights are equivalent to that which really is, to facts; and the recognition of his rights therefore, the justice he requires of our hands, or our thoughts, is the recognition of that which the person, in his inmost nature, really is; and as sympathy alone can discover that which really is in matters of feeling and thought, true justice is in its essence a finer knowledge through love. ”