CHAPTER XII

MOTIVES OR SPRINGS OF ACTION CONSIDERED AS SUBJECTS OF MORAL JUDGMENT

§ 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 indeed in our notion of ‘conscientiousness’ the habit of reflecting on motives, and judging them to be good or bad, is a prominent element. It is necessary, therefore, in order to complete our examination of the Intuitional Method, to consider this comparison of motives, and ascertain how far it can be made systematic, and pursued to conclusions of scientific value. And this seems a convenient place for treating of this part of the subject: since it has been maintained by an important school of English moralists that Desires and Affections rather than Acts are the proper subjects of the ethical judgment: and it is natural to fall back upon this view when systematic reflection on the morality of Common Sense has shown us the difficulty of obtaining a precise and satisfactory determination of rightness and wrongness in external conduct.

To avoid confusion, it should be observed that the term ‘motive’ is commonly used in two ways. It is sometimes applied to those among the foreseen consequences of any act which the agent desired in willing: and sometimes to the desire, or conscious impulse itself. The two meanings are in a manner correspondent, as, where impulses are different, there must always be some sort of difference in their respective objects. But for our present purpose it is more convenient to take the latter meaning: as it is our own impulsive nature that we have practically to deal with, in the way of controlling, resisting, indulging the different impulses; and therefore it is the ethical value of these that we are primarily concerned to estimate: and we often find that two impulses, which would be placed very far apart in any psychological list, are directed towards an end materially identical, though regarded from a different point of view in each case. As (_e.g._) both appetite and Rational self-love may impel a man to seek a particular sensual gratification; though in the latter case it is regarded under the general notion of pleasure, and as forming part of a sum called Happiness. In this chapter, then, I shall use the term Motive to denote the desires of particular results, believed to be attainable as consequences of our voluntary acts, by which desires we are stimulated to will those acts.[271]

The first point to notice in considering the ethical result of a comprehensive comparison of motives is, that the issue in any internal conflict is not usually thought to be between positively good and bad, but between better and less good, more or less estimable or elevated motives. The only kind of motive which (if any) we commonly judge to be _intrinsically_ bad, apart from the circumstances under which it operates, is malevolent affection; that is, the desire, however aroused, to inflict pain or harm on some other sentient being. And reflection shows (as we saw in chap. viii. of this Book) that Common Sense does not pronounce even this kind of impulse absolutely bad: since we commonly recognise the existence of ‘legitimate resentment’ and ‘righteous indignation’; and though moralists try to distinguish between anger directed ‘against the act’ and ‘against the agent,’ and between the impulse to inflict pain and the desire of the antipathetic pleasure that the agent will reap from this infliction, it may be fairly doubted whether it is within the capacity of ordinary human nature to maintain these distinctions in practice. At any rate there is no other motive except deliberate malevolence which Common Sense condemns as absolutely bad. The other motives that are commonly spoken of in ‘dyslogistic’ terms seem to be most properly called (in Bentham’s language) ‘Seductive’ rather than bad. That is, they prompt to forbidden conduct with conspicuous force and frequency: but when we consider them carefully we find that there are certain limits, however narrow, within which their operation is legitimate.

The question, then, is how far the intuitive knowledge that our common judgments seem to imply of the relative goodness of different kinds of motives is found on reflection to satisfy the conditions laid down in the preceding chapter. I have before[272] argued that it is incorrect to regard this comparison of _motives_ as the normal form of our common moral judgments, nor do I see any ground for holding it to be the original form. I think that in the normal development of man’s moral consciousness, both in the individual and in the race, moral judgments are first passed on outward acts, and that motives do not come to be definitely considered till later; just as external perception of physical objects precedes introspection. At the same time, in my view, it does not therefore follow that the comparison of motives is not the final and most perfect form of the moral judgment. It might approve itself as such by the systematic clearness and mutual consistency of the results to which it led, when pursued by different thinkers independently: and by its freedom from the puzzles and difficulties to which other developments of the Intuitional Method seem to be exposed.

It appears, however, on examination that, on the one hand, many (if not all) of the difficulties which have emerged in the preceding discussion of the commonly received principles of conduct are reproduced in a different form when we try to arrange Motives in order of excellence: and on the other hand, such a construction presents difficulties peculiar to itself, and the attempt to solve these exhibits greater and more fundamental differences among Intuitive moralists, as regards Rank of Motive, than we found to exist as regards Rightness of outward acts.

§ 2. In the first place, it has to be decided whether we are to include in our list of motives the Moral Sentiments, or impulses towards particular kinds of virtuous conduct as such, _e.g._ Candour, Veracity, Fortitude. It seems unwarrantable to exclude them, as such sentiments are observable as distinct and independent impulses in most well-trained minds, and we sometimes recognise their existence in considerable intensity, as when we speak of a man being ‘enthusiastically brave,’ or ‘intensely veracious,’ or as ‘having a passion for justice.’ At the same time their admission places us in the following dilemma. Either the objects of these impulses are represented by the very notions that we have been examining--in which case, after we have decided that any impulse is better than its rival, all the perplexities set forth in the previous chapters will recur, before we can act on our decision; for what avails it to recognise the superiority of the impulse to do justice, if we do not know what it is just to do?--or if in any case the object which a moral sentiment prompts us to realise is conceived more simply, without the qualifications which a complete reflection on Common Sense forced us to recognise; then, as the previous investigation shows, we shall certainly not find agreement as to the relation between this and other impulses. For example, a dispute, whether the impulse to speak the truth ought or ought not to be followed, will inevitably arise when Veracity seems opposed either to the general good, or to the interests of some particular person; that is, when it conflicts with ‘particular’ or ‘universal’ benevolence. Hutcheson expressly places these latter impulses in a higher rank than “candour, veracity, fortitude”; reserving the highest moral approbation for “the most extensive benevolence” or “calm, stable, universal goodwill to all.”[273] But this view, which coincides practically with Utilitarianism, would certainly be disputed by most Intuitional moralists. Again, some of these moralists (as Kant) regard all actions as bad--or not good--which are not done from pure regard for duty or choice of Right as Right: while Hutcheson, who represents the opposite pole of Intuitional Ethics, equally distinguishes the love of Virtue as a separate impulse; but treats it as at once co-ordinate in rank and coincident in its effects with universal Benevolence.

So, again, moralists diverge widely in estimating the ethical value of Self-love. For Butler seems to regard it as one of two superior and naturally authoritative impulses, the other being Conscience: nay, in a passage before quoted, he even concedes that it would be reasonable for Conscience to yield to it, if the two could possibly conflict. Other moralists (and Butler elsewhere)[274] appear to place Self-love among virtuous impulses under the name of Prudence: though among these they often rank it rather low, and would have it yield in case of conflict, to nobler virtues. Others, again, exclude it from Virtue altogether: _e.g._ Kant, in one of his treatises,[275] says that the end of Self-love, one’s own happiness, cannot be an end for the Moral Reason; that the force of the reasonable will, in which Virtue consists, is always exhibited in resistance to natural egoistic impulses.

Dr. Martineau, whose system is framed on the basis that I am now examining, attempts to avoid some of the difficulties just pointed out by refusing to admit the existence of any virtuous impulses except the “preference for the superior of the competing springs of action in each case” of a conflict of motives. “I cannot admit,” he says, “either the _loves of Virtues_--of candour, veracity, fortitude--or the virtues themselves, as so many additional impulses over and above those from the conflict of which they are formed. I do not confess my fault _in order to be candid_ ... unless I am a prig, I never think of candour, as predicable, or going to be predicable, of me at all.”[276] I am not, however, sure whether Dr. Martineau really means to _deny_ the existence of persons who act from a conscious desire to realise an ideal of Candour or Fortitude, or whether he merely means to express _disapproval_ of such persons: in the former sense his statement seems to me a psychological paradox, in conflict with ordinary experience: in the latter sense it seems an ethical paradox, affording a striking example of that diversity of judgments as to the rank of motives, to which I am now drawing attention.

§ 3. But even if we put out of sight the Moral sentiments and Self-love, it is still scarcely possible to frame a scale of motives arranged in order of merit, for which we could claim anything like a clear consent, even of cultivated and thoughtful persons. On one or two points, indeed, we seem to be generally agreed; _e.g._ that the bodily appetites are inferior to the benevolent affections and the intellectual desires; and perhaps that impulses tending primarily to the well-being of the individual are lower in rank than those which we class as extra-regarding or disinterested. But beyond a few vague statements of this kind, it is very difficult to proceed. For example, when we compare personal affections with the love of knowledge or of beauty, or the passion for the ideal in any form, much doubt and divergence of opinion become manifest. Indeed, we should hardly agree on the relative rank of the benevolent affections taken by themselves; for some would prefer the more intense, though narrower, while others would place the calmer and wider feelings in the highest rank. Or again, since Love, as we saw,[277] is a complex emotion, and commonly includes, besides the desire of the good or happiness of the beloved, a desire for union or intimacy of some kind; some would consider an affection more elevated in proportion as the former element predominated, while others would regard the latter as at least equally essential to the highest kind of affection.

Again, we may notice the love of Fame as an important and widely operative motive, which would be ranked very differently by different persons: for some would place the former “spur that the clear spirit doth raise” among the most elevated impulses after the moral sentiments; while others think it degrading to depend for one’s happiness on the breath of popular favour.

Further, the more we contemplate the actual promptings that precede any volition, the more we seem to find complexity of motive the rule rather than the exception, at least in the case of educated persons: and from this composition of impulses there results a fundamental perplexity as to the principles on which our decision is to be made, even supposing that we have a clear view of the relative worth of the elementary impulses. For the compound will generally contain nobler and baser elements, and we can hardly get rid of the latter; since--as I have before said--though we may frequently suppress and expel a motive by firmly resisting it, it does not seem possible to exclude it if we do the act to which it prompts. Suppose, then, that we are impelled in one direction by a combination of high and low motives, and in another by an impulse that ranks between the two in the scale, how shall we decide which course to follow? Such a case is by no means uncommon: _e.g._ an injured man may be moved by an impulse of pity to spare his injurer, while a regard for justice and a desire of revenge combined impel him to inflict punishment. Or, again, a Jew of liberal views might be restrained from eating pork by a desire not to shock the feelings of his friends, and might be moved to eat it by the desire to vindicate true religious liberty combined with a liking for pork. How are we to deal with such a case as this? For it will hardly be suggested that we should estimate the relative proportions of the different motives and decide accordingly;--qualitative analysis of our motives is to some extent possible to us, but the quantitative analysis that this would require is not in our power.

But even apart from this difficulty arising from complexity of motives, I think it impossible to assign a definite and constant ethical value to each different kind of motive, without reference to the particular circumstances under which it has arisen, the extent of indulgence that it demands, and the consequences to which this indulgence would lead in any particular case. I may conveniently illustrate this by reference to the table, drawn up by Dr. Martineau,[278] of springs of action arranged in order of merit.

LOWEST.

1. Secondary Passions:--Censoriousness, Vindictiveness, Suspiciousness.

2. Secondary Organic Propensions:--Love of Ease and Sensual Pleasure.

3. Primary Organic Propensions:--Appetites.

4. Primary Animal Propension:--Spontaneous Activity (unselective).

5. Love of Gain (reflective derivative from Appetite).

6. Secondary Affections (sentimental indulgence of sympathetic feelings).

7. Primary Passions:--Antipathy, Fear, Resentment.

8. Causal energy:--Love of Power, or Ambition; Love of Liberty.

9. Secondary Sentiments:--Love of Culture.

10. Primary Sentiments of Wonder and Admiration.

11. Primary Affections, Parental and Social; with (approximately) Generosity and Gratitude.

12. Primary Affection of Compassion.

13. Primary Sentiment of Reverence.

HIGHEST.

This scale seems to me open to much criticism, both from a psychological and from an ethical point of view:[279] but, granting that it corresponds broadly to the judgments that men commonly pass as to the different elevation of different motives, it seems to me in the highest degree paradoxical to lay down that each class of motives is always to be preferred to the class below it, without regard to circumstances and consequences. So far as it is true that “the conscience says to every one, ‘Do not eat till you are hungry and stop when you are hungry no more,’” it is not, I venture to think, because a “regulative right is clearly vested in primary instinctive needs, relatively to their secondaries,” but because experience has shown that to seek the gratification of the palate apart from the satisfaction of hunger is generally dangerous to physical well-being; and it is in view of this danger that the conscience operates. If we condemn “a ship captain,” who, “caught in a fog off a lee shore, neglects, through indolence and love of ease, to slacken speed and take cautious soundings and open his steam-whistle,” it is not because we intuitively discern Fear to be a higher motive than Love of Ease, but because the consequences disregarded are judged to be indefinitely more important than the gratification obtained: if we took a case in which fear was not similarly sustained by prudence, our judgment would certainly be different.

The view of Common Sense appears rather to be that most natural impulses have their proper spheres, within which they should be normally operative, and therefore the question whether in any case a higher motive should yield to a lower one cannot be answered decisively in the general way in which Dr. Martineau answers it: the answer must depend on the particular conditions and circumstances of the conflict. We recognise it as possible that a motive which we commonly rank as higher may wrongly intrude into the proper sphere of one which we rank as lower, just as the lower is liable to encroach on the higher; only since there is very much less danger of the former intrusion, it naturally falls into the background in ethical discussions and exhortations that have a practical aim. The matter is complicated by the further consideration that as the character of a moral agent becomes better, the motives that we rank as “higher” tend to be developed, so that their normal sphere of operation is enlarged at the expense of the lower. Hence there are two distinct aims in moral regulation and culture, so far as they relate to motives: (1) to keep the “lower” motive within the limits within which its operation is considered to be legitimate and good on the whole, so long as we cannot substitute for it the equally effective operation of a higher motive; and at the same time (2) to effect this substitution of “higher” for “lower” gradually, as far as can be done without danger,--up to a limit which we cannot definitely fix, but which we certainly conceive, for the most part, as falling short of complete exclusion of the lower motive.

I may illustrate by reference to the passion of resentment of which I before spoke. The view of reflective common sense is, I think, that the malevolent impulse so designated, as long as it is strictly limited to resentment against wrong and operates in aid of justice, has a legitimate sphere of action in the social life of human beings as actually constituted: that, indeed, its suppression would be gravely mischievous, unless we could at the same time intensify the ordinary man’s regard for justice or for social well-being so that the total strength of motives prompting to the punishment of crime should not be diminished. It is, no doubt, “to be wished,” as Butler says, that men would repress wrong from these higher motives rather than from passionate resentment; but we cannot hope to effect this change in human beings generally except by a slow and gradual process of elevation of character: therefore supposing a conflict between “Compassion,” which is highest but one in Dr. Martineau’s scale, and “Resentment,” which he places about the middle, it is by no means to be laid down as a general rule that compassion ought to prevail. We ought rather--with Butler--to regard resentment as a salutary “balance to the weakness of pity,” which would be liable to prevent the execution of justice if resentment were excluded.

Or we might similarly take the impulse which comes lowest (among those not condemned altogether) in Dr. Martineau’s scale--the “Love of Ease and Sensual Pleasure.” No doubt this impulse, or group of impulses, is continually leading men to shirk or scamp their strict duty, or to fall in some less definite way below their own ideal of conduct; hence the attitude habitually maintained towards it by preachers and practical moralists is that of repression. Still, common sense surely recognises that there are cases in which even this impulse ought to prevail over impulses ranked above it in Dr. Martineau’s scale; we often find men prompted--say by “love of gain”--to shorten unduly their hours of recreation; and in the case of a conflict of motives under such circumstances we should judge it best that victory should remain on the side of the “love of ease and pleasure,” and that the encroachment of “love of gain” should be repelled.

I do not, however, think that in either of these instances the conflict of motives would remain such as I have just described: I think that though the struggle might begin as a duel between resentment and compassion, or between love of ease and love of gain, it would not be fought out in the lists so drawn; since higher motives would inevitably be called in as the conflict went on, regard for justice and social well-being on the side of resentment, regard for health and ultimate efficiency for work on the side of love of ease; and it would be the intervention of these higher motives that would decide the struggle, so far as it was decided rightly and as we should approve. This certainly is what would happen in my own case, if the supposed conflict were at all serious and its decision deliberate; and this constitutes my final reason for holding that such a scale as Dr. Martineau has drawn up, of motives arranged according to their moral rank, can never have more than a very subordinate ethical importance. I admit that it may serve to indicate in a rough and general way the kinds of desires which it is ordinarily best to encourage and indulge, in comparison with other kinds which are ordinarily likely to compete and collide with them; and we might thus settle summarily some of the comparatively trifling conflicts of motive which the varying and complex play of needs, habits, interests, and their accompanying emotions, continually stirs in our daily life. But if a serious question of conduct is raised, I cannot conceive myself deciding it morally by any comparison of motives below the highest: it seems to me that the question must inevitably be carried up for decision into the court of whatever motive we regard as supremely regulative: so that the comparison ultimately decisive would be not between the lower motives primarily conflicting, but between the effects of the different lines of conduct to which these lower motives respectively prompt, considered in relation to whatever we regard as the ultimate end or ends of reasonable action. And this, I conceive, will be the course naturally taken by the moral reflection not only of utilitarians, but of all who follow Butler in regarding our passions and propensions as forming naturally a “system or constitution,” in which the ends of lower impulses are subordinate as means to the ends of certain governing motives, or are comprehended as parts in these larger ends.

FOOTNOTES:

[271] In Green’s _Prolegomena to Ethics_, Book ii. chaps. i. and ii. a peculiar view is taken of “motives, of that kind by which it is the characteristic of moral or human action, to be determined.” Such motives, it is maintained, must be distinguished from desires in the sense of “mere solicitations of which a man is conscious”; they are “constituted by the reaction of the man’s self upon these, and its identification of itself with one of them.” In fact the “direction of the self-conscious self to the realisation of an object” which I should call an act of will, is the phenomenon to which Green would restrict the term “desire in that sense in which desire is the principle and notion of an imputable human action.”

The use of terms here suggested appears to me inconvenient, and the psychological analysis implied in it to a great extent erroneous. I admit that in certain simple cases of choice, where the alternatives suggested are each prompted by a single definite desire, there is no psychological inaccuracy in saying that in willing the act to which he is stimulated by any such desire the agent “identifies himself with the desire.” But in more complex cases the phrase appears to me incorrect, as obliterating important distinctions between the two kinds of psychical phenomena which are usually and conveniently distinguished as “desires” and volitions. In the first place, as I have before pointed out (chap. i. § 2 of this Book), it often happens that certain foreseen consequences of volition, which as foreseen are undoubtedly _willed_ and--in a sense--_chosen_ by the agents, are not objects of desire to him at all, but even possibly of aversion--aversion, of course, overcome by his desire of other consequences of the same act. In the second place, it is specially important, from an ethical point of view, to notice that, among the various desires or aversions aroused in us by the complex foreseen consequences of a contemplated act, there are often impulses with which we do not identify ourselves, but which we even try to suppress as far as possible: though as it is not possible to suppress them completely--especially if we do the act to which they prompt--we cannot say that they do not operate as motives.

[272] Cf. _ante_, chap. i. § 2 of this Book.

[273] Hutcheson, _System of Moral Philosophy_, Book i. chap. iv. § 10.

[274] See the Dissertation _Of the Nature of Virtue_ appended to the _Analogy_.

[275] The _Metaphysische Anfangsgründe der Tugendlehre_: but it ought to be observed that the ethical view briefly expounded in the _Kritik der reinen Vernunft_ appears to have much more affinity with Butler’s.

[276] _Types of Ethical Theory_, Vol. ii. p. 284, 2nd edition.

[277] Cf. _ante_, chap. iv. § 2 of this Book.

[278] _Types of Ethical Theory_, vol. ii. p. 266. Dr. Martineau explains that the chief composite springs are inserted in their approximate place, subject to the variations of which their composition renders them susceptible.

[279] Thus we might ask why the class of “passions” is so strangely restricted, why conjugal affection is omitted, whether wonder can properly be regarded as a definite motive, whether “censoriousness” is properly ranked with “vindictiveness” as one of the “lowest passions,” etc.