CHAPTER XII

TYPES OF MORAL THEORY

§ 1. TYPICAL DIVISIONS OF THEORIES

=Problems and Theories.=--We were concerned in the last chapter with the typical _problems_ of moral theory. But it was evident that theories themselves developed and altered as now this, now that, problem was uppermost. To regard the question of how to know the good as the central problem of moral inquiry is already to have one type of theory; to consider the fundamental problem to be either the subordination or the satisfaction of desire is to have other types. A classification of types of theory is rendered difficult, a thoroughly satisfactory classification almost impossible, by the fact that the problems arrange themselves about separate principles leading to cross-divisions. All that we may expect to do is somewhat arbitrarily to select that principle which seems most likely to be useful in conducting inquiry.

=(1) Teleological and Jural.=--One of the fundamental divisions arises from taking either Value or Duty, Good or Right, as the fundamental idea. Ethics of the first type is concerned above all with _ends_; hence it is frequently called _teleological_ theory (Greek [Greek: telos], end). To the other type of theory, obligations, imperatives, commands, law, and authority, are the controlling ideas. By this emphasis, arise the _jural_ theories (Latin, _jus_, law). At some point, of course, each theory has to deal with the factor emphasized by its rival. If we start with Law as central, the good resides in these acts which conform to its obligations. The good is obedience to law, submission to its moral authority. If we start from the Good, laws, rules, are concerned with the means of defining or achieving it.

=(2) Individual and Institutional.=--This fundamental division is at once cut across by another, arising from emphasizing the problem of the individual and the social. This problem may become so urgent as to force into the background the conflict between teleological and jural theories, while in any case it complicates and subdivides them. We have individualistic and institutional types of theory. Consider, for example, the following representative quotations: "No school can avoid taking for the ultimate moral aim a desirable _state of feeling_ called by whatever name--gratification, enjoyment, happiness. Pleasure somewhere, at some time, _to some being or beings_, is an element of the conception";[110] and again,[110] "the good is universally the pleasurable." And while the emphasis is here upon the good, the desirable, the same type of statement, _as respects emphasis upon the individual_, may be made from the side of duty. For example, "it is the very essence of moral duty to be imposed by a man on himself."[111] Contrast both of these statements with the following: "What a man ought to do, or what duties he should fulfill in order to be virtuous, is in an ethical community not hard to say. He has to do nothing except what is presented, expressed, and recognized in his established relations."[112] "The individual has his truth, real existence, and ethical status only in being a member of the State. His particular satisfactions, activities, and way of life have in this authenticated, substantive principle, their origin and result."[113] And in another connection: "The striving for a morality of one's own is futile and by its very nature impossible of attainment. In respect to morality the saying of one of the wisest men of antiquity is the true one. To be moral is to live in accord with the moral tradition of one's country."[114] Here both the good and the law of the individual are placed on a strictly institutional basis.

=(3) Empirical and Intuitional.=--Another cross-division arises from consideration of the method of ascertaining and determining the nature of moral distinctions: the method of knowledge. From this standpoint, the distinction of ethical theories into the _empirical_ ([Greek: empeirikos]) and the _intuitional_ (Latin, _intueor_, to look at or upon) represents their most fundamental cleavage. One view makes knowledge of the good and the right dependent upon recollection of prior experiences and their conditions and effects. The other view makes it an immediate apprehension of the quality of an act or motive, a trait so intrinsic and characteristic it cannot escape being seen. While in general the empirical school has laid stress upon the consequences, the consequences to be searched for were considered as either individual or social. Some, like Hobbes, have held that it was directed upon law; to knowledge of the commands of the state. And similarly the direct perception or intuition of moral quality was by some thought to apply to recognition of differences of value, and by others to acknowledgment of law and authority, which again might be divine, social, or personal. This division cleaves straight across our other bases of classification. To describe a theory definitely, it would then be necessary to state just where it stood with reference to each possible combination or permutation of elements of all three divisions. Moreover, there are theories which attempt to find a deeper principle which will bridge the gulf between the two opposites.

=Complexity of Subject-matter and Voluntary Activity.=--This brief survey should at least warn us of the complexity of the attempt to discriminate types of theory, and put us on our guard against undue simplification. It may also serve to remind us that various types of theory are not arbitrary personal devices and constructions, but arise because, in the complexity of the subject-matter, one element or another is especially emphasized, and the other elements arranged in different perspectives. As a rule, all the elements are recognized in some form or other by all theories; but they are differently placed and accounted for. In any case, it is voluntary activity with which we are concerned. The problem of analyzing voluntary activity into its proper elements, and rightly arranging them, must coincide finally with the problem of the relation of good and law of control to each other, with the problem of the nature of moral knowledge, and with that of the relation of the individual and social aspects of conduct.

§ 2. DIVISION OF VOLUNTARY ACTIVITY INTO INNER AND OUTER

=The What and How of Activity.=--Starting from the side of the voluntary act, we find in it one distinction which when forced into an extreme separation throws light upon all three divisions in theory which have been noted. This is the relation between desire and deliberation as mental or private, and the deed, the doing, as overt and public. Is there any intrinsic moral connection between the _mental_ and the _overt_ in activity? We may analyze an act which has been accomplished into two factors, one of which is said to exist within the agent's own consciousness; while the other, the external execution, carries the mental into operation, affects the world, and is appreciable by others. Now on the face of the matter, these two things, while capable of intellectual discrimination, are incapable of real separation. The "mental" side, the desire and the deliberation, is for the sake of determining what shall be _done_; the overt side is for the sake of making real certain precedent mental processes, which are partial and inadequate till carried into effect, and which occur for the sake of that effect. The "inner" and "outer" are really only the "how" and the "what" of activity, neither being real or significant apart from the other. (See _ante_, p. 6).

=Separation into Attitude and Consequences.=--But under the strain of various theories, this organic unity has been denied; the inner and the outer side of activity have been severed from one another. When thus divided, the "inner" side is connected exclusively with the will, the disposition, the character of the person; the "outer" side is connected wholly with the consequences which flow from it, the changes it brings about. Theories will then vary radically according as the so-called inner or the so-called outer is selected as the bearer and carrier of moral distinctions. One theory will locate the moral quality of an act in that _from_ which it issues; the other in that _into_ which it issues.

The following quotations put the contrast in a nutshell, though unfortunately the exact meaning of the second is not very apparent apart from its context.

"A motive is substantially nothing more than pleasure or pain operating in a certain manner. Now pleasure is in itself a good; nay, even setting aside immunity from pain, the only good.... It follows, therefore, immediately and incontestably that there is no such thing as any sort of motive that is in itself a bad one. If motives are good or bad, it is only on account of their effects" (Bentham, _Principles of Morals and Legislation_, ch. x., § 2). Over against this, place the following from Kant: "Pure reason is practical of itself alone, and gives to man a universal law which we call the Moral Law.... If this law determines the will directly [without any reference to objects and to pleasure or pain] the action conformed to it is good in itself; a will whose principle always conforms to this law is good absolutely in every respect and is the supreme condition of all good."

If now we recur to the distinction between the "what" and the "how" of action in the light of these quotations, we get a striking result. "What" one does is to pay money, or speak words, or strike blows, and so on. The "how" of this action is the spirit, the temper in which it is done. One pays money with a hope of getting it back, or to avoid arrest for fraud, or because one wishes to discharge an obligation; one strikes in anger, or in self-defense, or in love of country, and so on. Now the view of Bentham says in effect that the "what" is significant, and that the "what" consists ultimately only of the pleasures it produces; the "how" is unimportant save as it incidentally affects resulting feelings. The view of Kant is that the moral core of every act is in its "how," that is in its spirit, its actuating motive; and that the law of reason is the only right motive. _What_ is aimed at is a secondary and (except as determined by the inner spirit, the "how" of the action) an irrelevant matter. In short the separation of the mental and the overt aspects of an act has led to an equally complete separation of its initial spirit and motive from its final content and consequence. And in this separation, one type of theory, illustrated by Kant, takes its stand on the actuating source of the act; the other, that of Bentham, on its outcome. For convenience, we shall frequently refer to these types of theories as respectively the "attitude" and the "content"; the formal and the material; the disposition and the consequences theory. The fundamental thing is that _both_ theories separate character and conduct, disposition and behavior; which of the two is most emphasized being a secondary matter.

=Different Ways of Emphasizing Results.=--There are, however, different forms of the consequences or "content" theory--as we shall, for convenience, term it. Some writers, like Spencer as quoted, say the only consequences that are good are simply pleasures, and that pleasures differ only in _intensity_, being alike in everything but degree. Others say, pleasure is the good, but pleasures differ in quality as well as intensity and that a certain _kind_ of pleasure is the morally good. Others say that natural satisfaction is not found in any one pleasure, or in any number of them, but in a more permanent mood of experience, which is termed _happiness_. Happiness is different from a pleasure or from a collection of pleasures, in being an abiding consequence or result, which is not destroyed even by the presence of pains (while a pain ejects a pleasure). The pleasure view is called Hedonism; the happiness view, Eudaimonism.[115]

=Different Forms of the "Attitude" Theory.=--The opposite school of theory holds that the peculiar character of "moral" good is precisely that it is _not_ found in consequences of action. In this negative feature of the definition many different writers agree; there is less harmony in the positive statement of just what the moral good is. It is an attribute or disposition of character, or the self, not a trait of results experienced, and in general such an attribute is called _Virtue_. But there are as many differences of opinion as to what constitutes virtue as there are on the other side as to what pleasure and happiness are. In one view, it merges, in its outcome at least, very closely with one form of eudaimonism. If happiness be defined as the fulfillment of satisfaction of the characteristic functions of a human being, while a certain function, that of reason, is regarded as _the_ characteristic human trait whose exercise is _the_ virtue or supreme excellence, it becomes impossible to maintain any sharp line of distinction. Kant, however, attempted to cut under this union of happiness and virtue, which under the form of _perfectionism_ has been attempted by many writers, by raising the question of _motivation_. Why does the person aim at perfection? Is it for the sake of the resulting happiness? Then we have only Hedonism. Is it because the moral law, the law of reason, requires it? Then we have law morally deeper than the end aimed at.

We may now consider the bearing of this discussion upon theories of moral knowledge and (2) of moral authority.[116]

=I. Characteristic Theories of Moral Knowledge.=--(1) Those who set chief store by the goods naturally experienced, find that past experiences supply all the data required for moral knowledge. Pleasures and pains, satisfactions and miseries, are recurrent familiar experiences. All we have to do is to note them and their occasions (or, put the other way, to observe the tendency of some of our impulses and acts to bring pleasure as a consequence, of others to effect misery), and to make up our ends and aims accordingly. As a theory of moral knowledge, Hedonism is thus almost always allied with _empiricism_, understanding by empiricism the theory that particular past experiences furnish the method of all ideas and beliefs.

(2) The theory that the good is some type of virtuous character requires a special organ to give moral knowledge. Virtue is none the less the Good, even when it is not attained, when it is not experienced, that is, as we experience a pleasure. In any case, it is not good because it is experienced, but because it _is_ virtue. Thus the "attitude" theory tends to connect itself with some form of Intuitionalism, Rationalism, or Transcendentalism, all of these terms meaning that there is something in knowledge going beyond the particular experiences. Intuitionalism holds there is a certain special faculty which reveals truths beyond the scope of experience; Rationalism, that beside the particular elements of experience there are universal and necessary conceptions which regulate it; Transcendentalism, that within experience there is a factor derived from a source transcending experience.[117]

=II. Characteristic Theories of Moral Control.=--The result school tends to view authority, control, law, obligation from the standpoint of _means to an end_; the moralistic, or virtue, school to regard the idea of _law_ as more fundamental than that of the good. From the first standpoint, the authority of a given rule lies in its power to regulate desires so that after all pleasures--or a maximum of them, and a minimum of pains--may be had. At bottom, it is a principle of expediency, of practical wisdom, of adjustment of means to end. Thus Hume said: "Reason is, and ought only to be, the slave of the passions"--that is, the principles and rules made known by reason are, at last, only instruments for securing the fullest satisfaction of desires. But according to the point of view of the other school, no satisfaction is _really_ (i.e., morally) good unless it is acquired in accordance with a law existing independently of pleasurable satisfaction. Thus the good depends upon the law, not the law upon the desirable end.

§ 3. GENERAL INTERPRETATION OF THESE THEORIES

=The Opposition in Ordinary Life.=--To some extent, similar oppositions are latent in our ordinary moral convictions, without regard to theory. Indeed, we tend, at different times, to pass from one point of view to the other, without being aware of it. Thus, as against the identification of goodness with a _mere_ attitude of will; we say, "It is not enough for a man to be good; he must be good for something." It is not enough to mean well; one must mean to do well; to excuse a man by saying "he _means_ well," conveys a shade of depreciation. "Hell is paved with good intentions." Good "resolutions," in general, are ridiculed as not modifying overt action. A tree is to be judged by its fruits. "Faith without works is dead." A man is said "to be too good for this world" when his motives are not effective. Sometimes we say, "So and so is a _good_ man," meaning to say that that is about all that can be said for him--he does not count, or amount to anything, practically. The objection to identifying goodness with inefficiency also tends to render suspected a theory which seems to lead logically to such identification. More positively we dwell upon goodness as involving _service_; "love is the fulfilling of the law," and while love is a trait of character, it is one which takes immediate action in order to bring about certain definite consequences. We call a man Pharisaical who cherishes his own good character as an end distinct from the common good for which it may be serviceable.

On the other hand, indicating the supremacy of the voluntary attitude over consequences, we have, "What shall a man give in exchange for his soul?" "What shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own life?" "Let us do evil that good may come, whose damnation is just." The deep-seated objection to the maxim that the end justifies the means is hard to account for, except upon the basis that it is possible to attain ends otherwise worthy and desirable at the expense of conduct which is immoral. Again, compare Shakspere's "There's nothing right or wrong, but thinking makes it so" with the Biblical "As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he." And finally we have such sayings as, "Take the will for the deed"; "His heart is in the right place"; _Pereat mundus, fiat justitia_.

Passing from this popular aspect of the matter, we find the following grounds for the "content" theory:

=1. It Makes Morality Really Important.=--Would there be any use or sense in moral acts if they did not tend to promote welfare, individual and social? If theft uniformly resulted in great happiness and security of life, if truth-telling introduced confusion and inefficiency into men's relations, would we not consider the first a virtue, and the latter a vice?[118] So far as the identification of goodness with mere motive (apart from results effected by acts) reduces morality to nullity, there seems to be furnished a _reductio ad absurdum_ of the theory that results are not the decisive thing.

=(2) It Makes Morality a Definite, Concrete Thing.=--Morality is found in consequences; and consequences are definite, observable facts which the individual can be made responsible for noting and for employing in the direction of his further behavior. The theory gives morality an objective, a tangible guarantee and sanction. Moreover, results are something objective, common to different individuals because outside them all. But the doctrine that goodness consists in motives formed by and within the individual without reference to obvious, overt results, makes goodness something vague or else whimsical and arbitrary. The latter view makes virtue either something unattainable, or else attained by merely cultivating certain internal states having no outward results at all, or even results that are socially harmful. It encourages fanaticism, moral crankiness, moral isolation or pride; obstinate persistence in a bad course in spite of its demonstrable evil results. It makes morality non-progressive, since by its assumption no amount of experience of consequences can throw any light upon essential moral elements.

=(3) The Content Theory Not Only Puts Morality Itself upon a Basis of Facts, but Also Puts the Theory of Morality upon a Solid Basis.=--We know what we mean by goodness and evil when we discuss them in terms of results achieved or missed, and can therefore discuss them intelligibly. We can formulate concrete ends and lay down rules for their attainment. Thus there can be a science of morals just as there can be a science of any body of observable facts having a common principle. But if morality depends upon purely subjective, personal motives, no objective observation and common interpretation are possible. We are thrown back upon the capricious individual _ipse dixit_, which by this theory is made final. Ethical theory is rendered impossible. Thus Bentham, who brings these charges (and others) against the "virtue" theory of goodness, says at the close of the preface to his _Principles of Morals and Legislation_ (ed. of 1823):

"Truths that form the basis of political and moral science are not to be discovered but by investigations as severe as mathematical ones, and beyond all comparison more intricate and extensive.... They are not to be forced into detached and general propositions, unincumbered with explanations and exceptions. They will not compress themselves into epigrams. They recoil from the tongue and the pen of the declaimer. They flourish not in the same soil with sentiment. They grow among thorns; and are not to be plucked, like daisies, by infants as they run.... There is no _King's Road_ ... to legislative, any more than to mathematical science."[119]

Arguments not unlike, however, may be adduced in favor of the attitude theory.

=1. It, and It Alone, Places Morality in the High and Authoritative Place Which by Right Characterizes It.=--Morality is not just a means of reaching other ends; it is an end in itself. To reduce virtue to a tool or instrumentality for securing pleasure is to prostitute and destroy it. Unsophisticated common sense is shocked at putting morality upon the same level with prudence, policy, and expediency. Morality is morality, just because it possesses an absolute authoritativeness which they lack.

=2. The Morally Good Must be Within the Power of the Individual to Achieve.=--The amount of pleasure and pain the individual experiences, his share of satisfaction, depends upon outward circumstances which are beyond his control, and which accordingly have no moral significance. Only the beginning, the willing, of an act lies with the man; its conclusion, its outcome in the way of consequences, lies with the gods. Accident, misfortune, unfavorable circumstance, may shut the individual within a life of sickness, misery, and discomfort. They may deprive him of external goods; but they cannot modify the moral good, for that resides in the attitude with which one faces these conditions and results. Conditions hostile to prosperity may be only the means of calling forth virtues of bravery, patience, and amiability. Only consequences within character itself, the tendency of an act to form a habit or to cultivate a disposition, are really of moral significance.

=3. Motives Furnish a Settled and Workable Criterion by Which to Measure the Rightness or Wrongness of Specific Acts.=--Consequences are indefinitely varied; they are too much at the mercy of the unforeseen to serve as basis of measurement. One and the same act may turn out in a hundred different ways according to accidental circumstances. If the individual had to calculate consequences before entering upon action, he would engage in trying to solve a problem where each new term introduced more factors. No conclusion would ever be reached; or, if reached, would be so uncertain that the agent would be paralyzed by doubt. But since the motives are within the person's own breast, the problem of knowing the right is comparatively simple: the data for the judgment are always at hand and always accessible to the one who sincerely wishes to know the right.

=Conclusion.=--The fact that common life recognizes, under certain conditions, both theories as correct, and that substantially the same claims may be made for both, suggests that the controversy depends upon some underlying misapprehension. Their common error, as we shall attempt to show in the sequel, lies in trying to split a voluntary act which is single and entire into two unrelated parts, the one termed "inner," the other, "outer"; the one called "motive," the other, "end." A voluntary act is always a disposition, or habit of the agent _passing into an overt act_, which, so far as it can, produces certain consequences. A "mere" motive which does not do anything, which makes nothing different, is not a genuine motive at all, and hence is not a voluntary act. On the other hand, consequences which are not intended, which are not personally wanted and chosen and striven for, are no part of a voluntary act. _Neither the inner apart from the outer, nor the outer apart from the inner, has any voluntary or moral quality at all. The former is mere passing sentimentality or reverie; the latter is mere accident or luck._

=Tendency of Each Theory to Pass into the Other.=--Hence each theory, realizing its own onesidedness, tends inevitably to make concessions, and to borrow factors from its competitor, and thus insensibly to bridge the gap between them. Consequences are emphasized, but only _foreseen_ consequences; while to _foresee_ is a mental act whose exercise depends upon character. It is disposition, interest, which leads an agent to estimate the consequences at their true worth; thus an upholder of the "content" theory ends by falling back upon the _attitude_ taken in forecasting and weighing results. In like fashion, the representative of the motive theory dwells upon the tendency of the motive to bring about certain effects. The man with a truly benevolent disposition is not the one who indulges in indiscriminate charity, but the one who considers the effect of his gift upon its recipient and upon society. While lauding the motive as the sole bearer of moral worth, the motive is regarded as a force working towards the production of certain _results_. When the "content" theory recognizes disposition as an inherent factor in bringing about consequences, and the "attitude" theory views motives as forces tending to effect consequences, an approximation of each to the other has taken place which almost cancels the original opposition. It is realized that a complete view of the place of motive in a voluntary act will conceive motive as a motor force; as inspiring to action which will inevitably produce certain results unless this is prevented by superior external force. It is also realized that only _those_ consequences are any part of voluntary behavior which are so congenial to character as to appeal to it as good and stir it to effort to realize them. _We may begin the analysis of a voluntary act at whichever end we please, but we are always carried to the other end in order to complete the analysis._ The so-called distinction between the "inner" and "outer" parts of an act is in reality a distinction between the _earlier_ and the _later_ period of its development.

In the following chapter we shall enter upon a direct discussion of the relation of conduct and character to one another; we shall then apply the results of the discussion, in successive chapters, to the problems already raised: The Nature of Good; of Knowledge; of Moral Authority; The Relation of the Self to Others and Society; The Characteristics of the Virtuous Self.

LITERATURE

Many of the references in ch. xi. trench upon this ground. Compare, also, Lecky, _History of European Morals_, Vol. I., pp. 1-2, and 122-130; Sidgwick, _Methods of Ethics_, pp. 6-11, 77-88 and 494-507; Wundt, _Ethics_, Vol. II., ch. iv.; Mackenzie, _Manual of Ethics_, Book II., ch. ii.; Murray, _Introduction to Ethics_, p. 143; Paulsen, _System of Ethics_, Introduction, and Book II., ch. i.

FOOTNOTES:

[110] Spencer, _Principles of Ethics_, Vol. I., p. 46, and p. 30. (Italics not in original.)

[111] Green, _Prolegomena to Ethics_, p. 354.

[112] Hegel's _Philosophy of Right_, translated by Dyde, Part III., 150 (p. 159).

[113] Hegel's _Philosophy of Right_, translated by Dyde, Part III., 258 (p. 241).

[114] _Werke_, Book I., 389.

[115] The Greek words [Greek: êdonê], pleasure, and [Greek: eudaimonia], happiness. The latter conception is due chiefly to Aristotle. Happiness is, however, a good translation only when taken very vaguely. The Greek term has a peculiar origin which influenced its meaning.

[116] The differences as regards self and society will be considered in later chapters.

[117] For similar reasons, the "content" theories tend to ally themselves with the positive sciences; the "attitude" theories with philosophy as distinct from sciences.

[118] "Suppose that picking a man's pocket excited in him joyful emotions, by brightening his prospects, would theft be counted among crimes?"--SPENCER.

[119] Mill in his _Autobiography_ has given a striking account of how this phase of Utilitarianism appealed to him. (See pp. 65-67 of London edition of 1874; see also his _Dissertations and Discussions_, Vol. I., Essay on Bentham, especially pp. 339 and ff.) Bentham "introduced into morals and politics those habits of thought, and modes of investigation, which are essential to the idea of science; and the absence of which made these departments of inquiry, as physics had been before Bacon, a field of interminable discussion, leading to no result. It was not his _opinions_, in short, but his _method_, that constituted the novelty and value of what he did.... Bentham's method may be shortly described as the method of _detail_.... Error lurks in generalities."

Mill finally says: "He has thus, it is not too much to say, for the first time introduced precision of thought in moral and political philosophy. Instead of taking up their opinions by intuition, or by ratiocination from premises adopted on a mere rough view, and couched in language so vague that it is impossible to say exactly whether they are true or false, philosophers are now forced to understand one another, to break down the generality of their propositions, and join a precise issue in every dispute. This is nothing less than a revolution in philosophy." In view of the character of the larger amount of discussions in moral and political philosophy still current, Mill perhaps took a too optimistic view of the extent to which this "revolution" had been accomplished.