The Methods of Ethics

§ 1. If, then, we are to regard the morality of Common Sense as a machinery of rules, habits, and sentiments, roughly and generally but not precisely or completely adapted to th...

§ 1. It has been before observed (Book i. chap. vi.) that the two sides of the double relation in which Utilitarianism stands to the Morality of Common Sense have been respectiv...

§ 1. We have seen that in delineating the outline of duty, as intuitively recognised, we have to attempt to give to common terms a definite and precise meaning. This process of...

§ 1. We have seen that the virtue of Practical Wisdom comprehends all others, so far as virtuous conduct in each department necessarily results from a clear knowledge and choice...

§ 1. We have now concluded such detailed examination of the morality of Common Sense as, on the plan laid down in chap. i. of this Book, it seemed desirable to undertake. We hav...

§ 1. In the preceding chapters I have treated first of rational, and secondly of disinterested action, without introducing the vexed question of the Freedom of the Will. The dif...

§ 1. Let, then, pleasure be defined as feeling which the sentient individual at the time of feeling it implicitly or explicitly apprehends to be desirable;--desirable, that is,...

§ 1. In the preceding chapter we have seen reason to conclude that, while obedience to recognised rules of duty tends, under ordinary circumstances, to promote the happiness of...

§ 1. Is there, then, no possibility of attaining, by a more profound and discriminating examination of our common moral thought, to real ethical axioms--intuitive propositions o...

§ 1. The effort to examine, closely but quite neutrally, the system of Egoistic Hedonism, with which we have been engaged in the last Book, may not improbably have produced on t...

§ 1. In the preceding chapter I have left undetermined the emotional characteristics of the impulse that prompts us to obey the dictates of Reason. I have done so because these...

§ 1. In the discussion of Justice the moral obligations of obedience to Law and observance of Contract have been included, and have, indeed, appeared to be the most definite par...

§ 1. At the outset of this treatise[300] I noticed that there are two forms in which the object of ethical inquiry is considered; it is sometimes regarded as a Rule or Rules of...

§ 1. In the first chapter I spoke of actions that we judge to be right and what ought to be done as being “reasonable,” or “rational,” and similarly of ultimate ends as “prescri...

§ 1. If the view maintained in the preceding chapter as to the general Utilitarian basis of the Morality of Common Sense may be regarded as sufficiently established, we are now...

§ 1. The belief in the connexion of Happiness with Duty is one to which we find a general tendency among civilised men, at least after a certain stage in civilisation has been r...

§ 1. The boundaries of the study called Ethics are variously and often vaguely conceived: but they will perhaps be sufficiently defined, at the outset, for the purposes of the p...

§ 1. Before, however, we attempt to define particular virtues or departments of duty, it will be well to examine further the notions of Duty and Virtue in general, and the relat...

The aim of Ethics is to systematise and free from error the apparent cognitions that most men have of the rightness or reasonableness of conduct, whether the conduct be consider...

§ 1. In the first chapter of this third Book I was careful to point out that motives, as well as intentions, form part of the subject-matter of our common moral judgments: and i...

§ 1. We have hitherto spoken of the quality of conduct discerned by our moral faculty as ‘rightness,’ which is the term commonly used by English moralists. We have regarded this...

§ 1. Before we examine those methods of seeking one’s own happiness which are more remote from the empirical, it will be well to consider how far we may reasonably avoid the dif...

§ 1. I have used the term ‘Intuitional’ to denote the view of ethics which regards as the practically ultimate end of moral actions their conformity to certain rules or dictates...

My thanks are again due to Miss Jones, of Girton College, for reading through the proofs of this edition and making most useful corrections and suggestions: as well as for revis...

§ 1. In the last chapter I have spoken of Ethics and Politics as being both Practical Studies, including in the scope of their investigation somewhat that lies outside the spher...

§ 1. It may easily seem that when we have discussed Benevolence, Justice, and the observance of Law and Contract, we have included in our view the whole sphere of social duty, a...

§ 1. The first and most fundamental assumption, involved not only in the empirical method of Egoistic Hedonism, but in the very conception of ‘Greatest Happiness’ as an end of a...

§ 1. When we proceed to inquire how far the minor social duties and virtues recognised by Common Sense appear on examination to be anything more than special applications of the...

§ 1. Wisdom was always placed by the Greek philosophers first in the list of virtues, and regarded as in a manner comprehending all the others: in fact in the post-Aristotelian...

§ 1. The term Utilitarianism is, at the present day, in common use, and is supposed to designate a doctrine or method with which we are all familiar. But on closer examination,...

§ 1. In the preceding chapters I have used the term “Egoism,” as it is most commonly used, to denote a system which prescribes actions as means to the end of the individual’s ha...

§ 1. I conceive that according to the morality of Common Sense, an ultimate harmony between (1) Self-interest and (2) Virtue is assumed or postulated; so that the performance of...

§ 1. Besides the Virtue of Purity, which we found it convenient to discuss in the last chapter, there remain one or two prominent excellences of character which do not seem to b...

In Book ii., where we discussed the method of Egoistic Hedonism, we did not take occasion to examine any proof of its first principle: and in the case of Universalistic Hedonism...

account than my first edition contained of the mutual relations of Ethics and Politics. Again, even before the appearance of Mr. Leslie Stephen’s interesting review in _Fraser_...

§ 1. The object of the present Book is to examine the method of determining reasonable conduct which has been already defined in outline under the name of Egoism: taking this te...

desire, urges that the so-called “pleasures of pursuit” are really pleasures of “progressive attainment”; what causes pleasure being the series of partial attainments that prece...

1. It is, then, a Utilitarian’s duty at once to support generally, and to rectify in detail, the morality of Common Sense: and the method of pure empirical Hedonism seems to be...

1. Taking as our basis Hume’s exhibition of the Virtues as Felicific qualities of character, we can trace a complex coincidence between Utilitarianism and Common Sense. It is no...

moralists ... the whole of ethics was reduced to this question ... What is most conducive on the whole to our happiness?” the remark, if not exactly false, is certain to mislead...

[346] I have before observed that it is quite in harmony with Utilitarian principles to recognise a sphere of private conduct within which each individual may distribute his wea...

in _Mind_ (April 1885). (4) I have somewhat altered the concluding chapter, in consequence of an important criticism by Prof. v. Gizycki (_Vierteljahrsschrift für Wissenschaftli...

2. We require of an Axiom that it should be (1) stated in clear and precise terms, (2) really self-evident, (3) not conflicting with any other truth, (4) supported by an adequat...

1. The duty of obeying Laws, though it may to a great extent be included under Justice, still requires a separate treatment. We can, however, obtain no _consensus_ for any preci...

2. Though many actions are commonly judged to be made better or worse through the presence of certain _motives_, our common judgments of right and wrong relate, strictly speakin...

1. Justice is especially difficult to define. The Just cannot be identified with the Legal, as laws may be unjust. Again, the Justice of laws does not consist merely in the abse...

[5] I must here acknowledge the advantage that I have received from the remarks and questions of my pupils, and from criticisms privately communicated to me by others; among the...

edition; but here again the alteration has no material importance. In my exposition of the Utilitarian principle (Book iv. chap. i.) I have shortened the cumbrous phrase ‘greate...

1. By ‘Reasonable’ conduct--whether morally or prudentially reasonable--we mean that of which we judge that it ‘ought’ to be done. Such a judgment cannot be legitimately interpr...

1. To get a clearer view of this method, let us consider objections tending to show its inherent impracticability: as, first, that “pleasure as feeling cannot be conceived,” and...

4. There are two _prima facie_ rational Ends, Excellence or Perfection and Happiness: of which the latter at least may be sought for oneself or universally. It is also commonly...

1. I have not adopted the classification of duties into Social and Self-regarding: as it seems inappropriate to the Intuitional method, of which the characteristic is, that it l...

2. on sentient, chiefly human, beings; especially in certain circumstances and relations, in which affections--which are hardly virtues--prompt to kind services. Rules for the d...

2. When, by definition and analysis of voluntary action, the issue in the Free Will Controversy has been made clear, it appears that the cumulative argument for Determinism is a...

3. Still there are certain abstract moral principles of real importance, intuitively known; though they are not sufficient by themselves to give complete practical guidance. Thu...

5. When these alternatives are fairly presented, Common Sense seems disposed to choose the former: especially as we can now explain its instinctive disinclination to admit Pleas...

1. Duties are Right acts, for the adequate performance of which a moral motive is at least occasionally necessary. Virtuous conduct includes the performance of duties as well as...

1. The psychological doctrine, that the object of Desire is always Pleasure, is liable to collide with the view of Ethical judgments just given: and in any case deserves careful...

2. If, however, we include the Moral Sentiments among these motives, this latter view involves all the difficulties and perplexities of the former, yet it is paradoxical to omit...

1. I apply the term Intuitional--in the narrower of two legitimate senses--to distinguish a method in which the rightness of some kinds of action is assumed to be known without...

1. Ought a Utilitarian, then, to accept the Morality of Common Sense provisionally as a body of Utilitarian doctrine? Not quite; for even accepting the theory that the Moral Sen...

3. “Good” = “desirable” or “reasonably desired”: as applied to conduct, the term does not convey so definite a dictate as “right,” and it is not confined to the strictly volunta...

1. The ethical theory called Utilitarianism, or Universalistic Hedonism, is to be carefully distinguished from Egoistic Hedonism: and also from any psychological theory as to th...

4. Nor can the principle of ‘increasing life,’ or that of ‘aiming at self-development,’ or that of ‘giving free play to impulse,’ be so defined as to afford us any practical gui...

2. This as specially applied to the control of bodily appetites is called Temperance: but under this notion a more rigid restraint is sometimes thought to be prescribed: though...

1. The common conception of Wisdom assumes a harmony of the ends of different ethical methods: all of which--and not one rather than another--the wise man is commonly thought to...

1. The Methods indicated in chap. i. have a _prima facie_ claim to proceed on reasonable principles: other principles seem, in so far as they can be made precise, to reduce them...

Common Sense demands a Proof of the first Principle of this method, more clearly than in the case of Egoism and Intuitionism. Such a proof, addressed to the Egoistic Hedonist, w...

1. It may seem that the judgments of Common Sense respecting the Sources of Happiness offer a refuge from the uncertainties of Empirical Hedonism: but there are several fundamen...

2. But at any rate the primary object of Ethics is not to determine what ought to be done in an ideal society: it therefore does not necessarily require as a preliminary the the...

1. Common opinion sometimes condemns sweepingly malevolent feelings and volitions: but Reflective Common Sense seems to admit some as legitimate, determining the limits of this...

1. The Principle of Egoistic Hedonism is the widely accepted proposition that the rational end of conduct for each individual is the Maximum of his own Happiness or Pleasure. 11...

1. The Duty of Courage is subordinate to those already discussed: and in drawing the line between the Excellence of Courage and the Fault of Foolhardiness we seem forced to have...