CHAPTER XIII

PHILOSOPHICAL INTUITIONISM

§ 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 of real clearness and certainty?

This question leads us to the examination of that third phase of the intuitive method, which was called Philosophical Intuitionism.[280] For we conceive it as the aim of a philosopher, as such, to do somewhat more than define and formulate the common moral opinions of mankind. His function is to tell men what they ought to think, rather than what they do think: he is expected to transcend Common Sense in his premises, and is allowed a certain divergence from Common Sense in his conclusions. It is true that the limits of this deviation are firmly, though indefinitely, fixed: the truth of a philosopher’s premises will always be tested by the acceptability of his conclusions: if in any important point he be found in flagrant conflict with common opinion, his method is likely to be declared invalid. Still, though he is expected to establish and concatenate at least the main part of the commonly accepted moral rules, he is not necessarily bound to take them as the basis on which his own system is constructed. Rather, we should expect that the history of Moral Philosophy--so far at least as those whom we may call orthodox thinkers are concerned--would be a history of attempts to enunciate, in full breadth and clearness, those primary intuitions of Reason, by the scientific application of which the common moral thought of mankind may be at once systematised and corrected.

And this is to some extent the case. But Moral Philosophy, or philosophy as applied to Morality, has had other tasks to occupy it, even more profoundly difficult than that of penetrating to the fundamental principles of Duty. In modern times especially, it has admitted the necessity of demonstrating the harmony of Duty with Interest; that is, with the Happiness or Welfare of the agent on whom the duty in each case is imposed. It has also undertaken to determine the relation of Right or Good generally to the world of actual existence: a task which could hardly be satisfactorily accomplished without an adequate explanation of the existence of Evil. It has further been distracted by questions which, in my view, are of psychological rather than ethical importance, as to the ‘innateness’ of our notions of Duty, and the origin of the faculty that furnishes them. With their attention concentrated on these difficult subjects, each of which has been mixed up in various ways with the discussion of fundamental moral intuitions, philosophers have too easily been led to satisfy themselves with ethical formulæ which implicitly accept the morality of Common Sense _en bloc_, ignoring its defects; and merely express a certain view of the relation of this morality to the individual mind or to the universe of actual existence. Perhaps also they have been hampered by the fear (not, as we have seen, unfounded) of losing the support given by ‘general assent’ if they set before themselves and their readers too rigid a standard of scientific precision. Still, in spite of all these drawbacks, we find that philosophers have provided us with a considerable number of comprehensive moral propositions, put forward as certain and self-evident, and such as at first sight may seem well adapted to serve as the first principles of scientific morality.

§ 2. But here a word of caution seems required, which has been somewhat anticipated in earlier chapters, but on which it is particularly needful to lay stress at this point of our discussion: against a certain class of sham-axioms, which are very apt to offer themselves to the mind that is earnestly seeking for a philosophical synthesis of practical rules, and to delude the unwary with a tempting aspect of clear self-evidence. These are principles which appear certain and self-evident because they are substantially tautological: because, when examined, they are found to affirm no more than that it is right to do that which is--in a certain department of life, under certain circumstances and conditions--right to be done. One important lesson which the history of moral philosophy teaches is that, in this region, even powerful intellects are liable to acquiesce in tautologies of this kind; sometimes expanded into circular reasonings, sometimes hidden in the recesses of an obscure notion, often lying so near the surface that, when once they have been exposed, it is hard to understand how they could ever have presented themselves as important.

Let us turn, for illustration’s sake, to the time-honoured Cardinal Virtues. If we are told that the dictates of Wisdom and Temperance may be summed up in clear and certain principles, and that these are respectively,

(1) It is right to act rationally,

(2) It is right that the Lower parts of our nature should be governed by the Higher,

we do not at first feel that we are not obtaining valuable information. But when we find (cf. _ante_, chap. xi. § 3) that “acting rationally” is merely another phrase for “doing what we see to be right,” and, again, that the “higher part” of our nature to which the rest are to submit is explained to be Reason, so that “acting temperately” is only “acting rationally” under the condition of special non-rational impulses needing to be resisted, the tautology of our “principles” is obvious. Similarly when we are asked to accept as the principle of Justice “that we ought to give every man his own,” the definition seems plausible--until it appears that we cannot define “his own” except as equivalent to “that which it is right he should have.”

The definitions quoted may be found in modern writers: but it seems worthy of remark that throughout the ethical speculation of Greece,[281] such universal affirmations as are presented to us concerning Virtue or Good conduct seem almost always to be propositions which can only be defended from the charge of tautology, if they are understood as definitions of the problem to be solved, and not as attempts at its solution. For example, Plato and Aristotle appear to offer as constructive moralists the scientific knowledge on ethical matters of which Socrates proclaimed the absence; knowledge, that is, of the Good and Bad in human life. And they seem to be agreed that such Good as can be realised in the concrete life of men and communities is chiefly Virtue,--or (as Aristotle more precisely puts it) the _exercise_ of Virtue: so that the practical part of ethical science must consist mainly in the knowledge of Virtue. If, however, we ask how we are to ascertain the kind of conduct which is properly to be called Virtuous, it does not seem that Plato can tell us more of each virtue in turn than that it consists in (1) the knowledge of what is Good in certain circumstances and relations, and (2) such a harmony of the different elements of man’s appetitive nature, that their resultant impulse may be always in accordance with this knowledge. But it is just this knowledge (or at least its principles and method) that we are expecting him to give us: and to explain to us instead the different exigencies under which we need it, in no way satisfies our expectation. Nor, again, does Aristotle bring us much nearer such knowledge by telling us that the Good in conduct is to be found somewhere between different kinds of Bad. This at best only indicates the _whereabouts_ of Virtue: it does not give us a method for finding it.

On the Stoic system,[282] as constructed by Zeno and Chrysippus, it is perhaps unfair to pronounce decisively, from the accounts given of it by adversaries like Plutarch, and such semi-intelligent expositors as Cicero, Diogenes Laertius, and Stobæus. But, as far as we can judge of it, we must pronounce the exposition of its general principles a complicated enchainment of circular reasonings, by which the inquirer is continually deluded with an apparent approach to practical conclusions, and continually led back to the point from which he set out.

The most characteristic formula of Stoicism seems to have been that declaring ‘Life according to Nature’ to be the ultimate end of action. The spring of the motion that sustained this life was in the vegetable creation a mere unfelt impulse: in animals it was impulse accompanied with sensation: in man it was the direction of Reason, which in him was naturally supreme over all merely blind irrational impulses. What then does Reason direct? ‘To live according to Nature’ is one answer: and thus we get the circular exposition of ethical doctrine in its simplest form. Sometimes, however, we are told that it is ‘Life according to Virtue’: which leads us into the circle already noticed in the Platonic-Aristotelian philosophy; as Virtue, by the Stoics also, is only defined as knowledge of Good and Bad in different circumstances and relations. Indeed, this latter circle is given by the Stoics more neatly and perfectly: for with Plato and Aristotle Virtue was not the _sole_, but only the _chief_ content of the notion Good, in its application to human life: but in the view of Stoicism the two notions are absolutely coincident. The result, then, is that Virtue is knowledge of what is good and ought to be sought or chosen, and of what is bad and ought to be shunned or rejected: while at the same time there is nothing good or properly choice-worthy, nothing bad or truly formidable, except Virtue and Vice respectively. But if Virtue is thus declared to be a science that has no object except itself, the notion is inevitably emptied of all practical content. In order, therefore, to avoid this result and to reconcile their system with common sense, the Stoics explained that there were other things in human life which were in a manner preferable, though not strictly good, including in this class the primary objects of men’s normal impulses. On what principle then are we to select these objects when our impulses are conflicting or ambiguous? If we can get an answer to this question, we shall at length have come to something practical. But here again the Stoic could find no other general answer except either that we were to choose what was Reasonable, or that we were to act in accordance with Nature: each of which answers obviously brings us back into the original circle at a different point.[283]

In Butler’s use of the Stoic formula, this circular reasoning seems to be avoided: but it is so only so long as the intrinsic reasonableness of right conduct is ignored or suppressed. Butler assumes with his opponents that it is reasonable to live according to Nature, and argues that Conscience or the faculty that imposes moral rules is naturally supreme in man. It is therefore reasonable to obey Conscience. But are the rules that Conscience lays down merely known to us as the dictates of arbitrary authority, and not as in themselves reasonable? This would give a surely dangerous absoluteness of authority to the possibly unenlightened conscience of any individual: and Butler is much too cautious to do this: in fact, in more than one passage of the _Analogy_[284] he expressly adopts the doctrine of Clarke, that the true rules of morality are essentially reasonable. But if Conscience is, after all, Reason applied to Practice, then Butler’s argument seems to bend itself into the old circle: ‘it is reasonable to live according to Nature, and it is natural to live according to Reason.’

In the next chapter I shall have to call attention to another logical circle into which we are liable to slide, if we refer to the Good or Perfection, whether of the agent or of others, in giving an account of any special virtue; if we allow ourselves, in explaining Good or Perfection, to use the general notion of virtue (which is commonly regarded as an important element of either). Meanwhile I have already given, perhaps, more than sufficient illustration of one of the most important dangers that beset the students of Ethics. In the laudable attempt to escape from the doubtfulness, disputableness, and apparent arbitrariness of current moral opinions, he is liable to take refuge in principles that are incontrovertible but tautological and insignificant.

§ 3. Can we then, between this Scylla and Charybdis of ethical inquiry, avoiding on the one hand doctrines that merely bring us back to common opinion with all its imperfections, and on the other hand doctrines that lead us round in a circle, find any way of obtaining self-evident moral principles of real significance? It would be disheartening to have to regard as altogether illusory the strong instinct of Common Sense that points to the existence of such principles, and the deliberate convictions of the long line of moralists who have enunciated them. At the same time, the more we extend our knowledge of man and his environment, the more we realise the vast variety of human natures and circumstances that have existed in different ages and countries, the less disposed we are to believe that there is any definite code of absolute rules, applicable to all human beings without exception. And we shall find, I think, that the truth lies between these two conclusions. There are certain absolute practical principles, the truth of which, when they are explicitly stated, is manifest; but they are of too abstract a nature, and too universal in their scope, to enable us to ascertain by immediate application of them what we ought to do in any particular case; particular duties have still to be determined by some other method.

One such principle was given in chap. i. § 3 of this Book; where I pointed out that whatever action any of us judges to be right for himself, he implicitly judges to be right for all similar persons in similar circumstances. Or, as we may otherwise put it, ‘if a kind of conduct that is right (or wrong) for me is not right (or wrong) for some one else, it must be on the ground of some difference between the two cases, other than the fact that I and he are different persons.’ A corresponding proposition may be stated with equal truth in respect of what ought to be done _to_--not _by_--different individuals. These principles have been most widely recognised, not in their most abstract and universal form, but in their special application to the situation of two (or more) individuals similarly related to each other: as so applied, they appear in what is popularly known as the Golden Rule, ‘Do to others as you would have them do to you.’ This formula is obviously unprecise in statement; for one might wish for another’s co-operation in sin, and be willing to reciprocate it. Nor is it even true to say that we ought to do to others only what we think it right for them to do to us; for no one will deny that there may be differences in the circumstances--and even in the natures--of two individuals, _A_ and _B_, which would make it wrong for _A_ to treat _B_ in the way in which it is right for _B_ to treat _A_. In short the self-evident principle strictly stated must take some such negative form as this; ‘it cannot be right for _A_ to treat _B_ in a manner in which it would be wrong for _B_ to treat _A_, merely on the ground that they are two different individuals, and without there being any difference between the natures or circumstances of the two which can be stated as a reasonable ground for difference of treatment.’ Such a principle manifestly does not give complete guidance--indeed its effect, strictly speaking, is merely to throw a definite _onus probandi_ on the man who applies to another a treatment of which he would complain if applied to himself; but Common Sense has amply recognised the practical importance of the maxim: and its truth, so far as it goes, appears to me self-evident.

A somewhat different application of the same fundamental principle that individuals in similar conditions should be treated similarly finds its sphere in the ordinary administration of Law, or (as we say) of ‘Justice.’ Accordingly in § 1 of chap. v. of this Book I drew attention to ‘impartiality in the application of general rules,’ as an important element in the common notion of Justice; indeed, there ultimately appeared to be no other element which could be intuitively known with perfect clearness and certainty. Here again it must be plain that this precept of impartiality is insufficient for the complete determination of just conduct, as it does not help us to decide what kind of rules should be thus impartially applied; though all admit the importance of excluding from government, and human conduct generally, all conscious partiality and ‘respect of persons.’

The principle just discussed, which seems to be more or less clearly implied in the common notion of ‘fairness’ or ‘equity,’ is obtained by considering the similarity of the individuals that make up a Logical Whole or Genus. There are others, no less important, which emerge in the consideration of the similar parts of a Mathematical or Quantitative Whole. Such a Whole is presented in the common notion of the Good--or, as is sometimes said, ‘good on the whole’--of any individual human being. The proposition ‘that one ought to aim at one’s own good’ is sometimes given as the maxim of Rational Self-love or Prudence: but as so stated it does not clearly avoid tautology; since we may define ‘good’ as ‘what one ought to aim at.’ If, however, we say ‘one’s good on the whole,’ the addition suggests a principle which, when explicitly stated, is, at any rate, not tautological. I have already referred to this principle[285] as that ‘of impartial concern for all parts of our conscious life’:--we might express it concisely by saying ‘that Hereafter _as such_ is to be regarded neither less nor more than Now.’ It is not, of course, meant that the good of the present may not reasonably be preferred to that of the future on account of its greater certainty: or again, that a week ten years hence may not be more important to us than a week now, through an increase in our means or capacities of happiness. All that the principle affirms is that the mere difference of priority and posteriority in time is not a reasonable ground for having more regard to the consciousness of one moment that to that of another. The form in which it practically presents itself to most men is ‘that a smaller present good is not to be preferred to a greater future good’ (allowing for difference of certainty): since Prudence is generally exercised in restraining a present desire (the object or satisfaction of which we commonly regard as _pro tanto_ ‘a good’), on account of the remoter consequences of gratifying it. The commonest view of the principle would no doubt be that the present _pleasure_ or _happiness_ is reasonably to be foregone with the view of obtaining greater pleasure or happiness hereafter: but the principle need not be restricted to a hedonistic application; it is equally applicable to any other interpretation of ‘one’s own good,’ in which good is conceived as a mathematical whole, of which the integrant parts are realised in different parts or moments of a lifetime. And therefore it is perhaps better to distinguish it here from the principle ‘that Pleasure is the sole Ultimate Good,’ which does not seem to have any logical connexion with it.

So far we have only been considering the ‘Good on the Whole’ of a single individual: but just as this notion is constructed by comparison and integration of the different ‘goods’ that succeed one another in the series of our conscious states, so we have formed the notion of Universal Good by comparison and integration of the goods of all individual human--or sentient--existences. And here again, just as in the former case, by considering the relation of the integrant parts to the whole and to each other, I obtain the self-evident principle that the good of any one individual is of no more importance, from the point of view (if I may say so) of the Universe, than the good of any other; unless, that is, there are special grounds for believing that more good is likely to be realised in the one case than in the other. And it is evident to me that as a rational being I am bound to aim at good generally,--so far as it is attainable by my efforts,--not merely at a particular part of it.

From these two rational intuitions we may deduce, as a necessary inference, the maxim of Benevolence in an abstract form: viz. that each one is morally bound to regard the good of any other individual as much as his own, except in so far as he judges it to be less, when impartially viewed, or less certainly knowable or attainable by him. I before observed that the duty of Benevolence as recognised by common sense seems to fall somewhat short of this. But I think it may be fairly urged in explanation of this that _practically_ each man, even with a view to universal Good, ought chiefly to concern himself with promoting the good of a limited number of human beings, and that generally in proportion to the closeness of their connexion with him. I think that a ‘plain man,’ in a modern civilised society, if his conscience were fairly brought to consider the hypothetical question, whether it would be morally right for him to seek his own happiness on any occasion if it involved a certain sacrifice of the greater happiness of some other human being,--without any counterbalancing gain to any one else,--would answer unhesitatingly in the negative.

I have tried to show how in the principles of Justice, Prudence, and Rational Benevolence as commonly recognised there is at least a self-evident element, immediately cognisable by abstract intuition; depending in each case on the relation which individuals and their particular ends bear as parts to their wholes, and to other parts of these wholes. I regard the apprehension, with more or less distinctness, of these abstract truths, as the permanent basis of the common conviction that the fundamental precepts of morality are essentially reasonable. No doubt these principles are often placed side by side with other precepts to which custom and general consent have given a merely illusory air of self-evidence: but the distinction between the two kinds of maxims appears to me to become manifest by merely reflecting upon them. I know by direct reflection that the propositions, ‘I ought to speak the truth,’ ‘I ought to keep my promises’--however true they may be--are not self-evident to me; they present themselves as propositions requiring rational justification of some kind. On the other hand, the propositions, ‘I ought not to prefer a present lesser good to a future greater good,’ and ‘I ought not to prefer my own lesser good to the greater good of another,’[286] do present themselves as self-evident; as much (_e.g._) as the mathematical axiom that ‘if equals be added to equals the wholes are equal.’

It is on account of the fundamental and manifest importance, in my view, of the distinction above drawn between (1) the moral maxims which reflection shows not to possess ultimate validity, and (2) the moral maxims which are or involve genuine ethical axioms, that I refrained at the outset of this investigation from entering at length into the psychogonical question as to the origin of apparent moral intuitions. For no psychogonical theory has ever been put forward professing to discredit the propositions that I regard as really axiomatic, by showing that the causes which produced them were such as had a tendency to make them false: while as regards the former class of maxims, a psychogonical proof that they are untrustworthy when taken as absolutely and without qualification true is in my view, superfluous: since direct reflection shows me they have no claim to be so taken. On the other hand, so far as psychogonical theory represents moral rules as, speaking broadly and generally, means to the ends of individual and social good or well-being, it obviously tends to give a general support to the conclusions to which the preceding discussion has brought us by a different method: since it leads us to regard other moral rules as subordinate to the principles of Prudence and Benevolence.[287]

§ 4. I should, however, rely less confidently on the conclusions set forth in the preceding section, if they did not appear to me to be in substantial agreement--in spite of superficial differences--with the doctrines of those moralists who have been most in earnest in seeking among commonly received moral rules for genuine intuitions of the Practical Reason. I have already pointed out[288] that in the history of English Ethics the earlier intuitional school show, in this respect, a turn of thought on the whole more philosophical than that which the reaction against Hume rendered prevalent. Among the writers of this school there is no one who shows more earnestness in the effort to penetrate to really self-evident principles than Clarke.[289] Accordingly, I find that Clarke lays down, in respect of our behaviour towards our fellow-men, two fundamental “rules of righteousness”:[290] the first of which he terms Equity, and the second Love or Benevolence. The Rule of Equity he states thus: “Whatever I judge reasonable or unreasonable that another should do for me: that by the same judgment I declare reasonable or unreasonable that I should _in the like case_ do for him”[291]--which is of course, the ‘Golden Rule’ precisely stated. The obligation to “Universal Love or Benevolence” he exhibits as follows:--

“If there be a natural and necessary difference between Good and Evil: and that which is Good is fit and reasonable, and that which is Evil is unreasonable, to be done: and that which is the Greatest Good is always the most fit and reasonable to be chosen: then ... every rational creature ought in its sphere and station, according to its respective powers and faculties, to do all the Good it can to its fellow-creatures: to which end, universal Love and Benevolence is plainly the most certain, direct, and effectual means.”[292]

Here the mere statement that a rational agent is bound to aim at universal good is open to the charge of tautology, since Clarke defines ‘Good’ as ’that which is fit and reasonable to be done.’ But Clarke obviously holds that each individual ‘rational creature’ is capable of receiving good in a greater or less degree, such good being an integrant part of universal good. This indeed is implied in the common notion, which he uses, of ‘doing Good to one’s fellow-creatures,’ or, as he otherwise expresses it, ‘promoting their welfare and happiness.’ And thus his principle is implicitly what was stated above, that the good or welfare of any one individual must as such be an object of rational aim to any other reasonable individual no less than his own similar good or welfare.

(It should be observed, however, that the proposition that Universal Benevolence is the right means to the attainment of universal good, is not quite self-evident; since the end may not always be best attained by directly aiming at it. Thus Rational Benevolence, like Rational Self-Love, may be self-limiting; may direct its own partial suppression in favour of other impulses.)

Among later moralists, Kant is especially noted for his rigour in separating the purely rational element of the moral code: and his ethical view also appears to me to coincide to a considerable extent, if not completely, with that set forth in the preceding section. I have already noticed that his fundamental principle of duty is the ‘formal’ rule of “acting on a maxim that one can will to be law universal”; which, duly restricted,[293] is an immediate practical corollary from the principle that I first noticed in the preceding section. And we find that when he comes to consider the ends at which virtuous action is aimed, the only really ultimate end which he lays down is the object of Rational Benevolence as commonly conceived--the happiness of other men.[294] He regards it as evident _a priori_ that each man as a rational agent is bound to aim at the happiness of other men: indeed, in his view, it can only be stated as a _duty_ for me to seek my own happiness so far as I consider it as a part of the happiness of mankind in general. I disagree with the negative side of this statement, as I hold with Butler that “one’s own happiness is a manifest obligation” independently of one’s relation to other men; but, regarded on its positive side, Kant’s conclusion appears to agree to a great extent with the view of the duty of Rational Benevolence that I have given:--though I am not altogether able to assent to the arguments by which Kant arrives at his conclusion.[295]

§ 5. I must now point out--if it has not long been apparent to the reader--that the self-evident principles laid down in § 3 do not specially belong to Intuitionism in the restricted sense which, for clear distinction of methods, I gave to this term at the outset of our investigation. The axiom of Prudence, as I have given it, is a self-evident principle, implied in Rational Egoism as commonly accepted.[296] Again, the axiom of Justice or Equity as above stated--‘that similar cases ought to be treated similarly’--belongs in all its applications to Utilitarianism as much as to any system commonly called Intuitional: while the axiom of Rational Benevolence is, in my view, required as a rational basis for the Utilitarian system.

Accordingly, I find that I arrive, in my search for really clear and certain ethical intuitions, at the fundamental principle of Utilitarianism. I must, however, admit that the thinkers who in recent times have taught this latter system, have not, for the most part, expressly tried to exhibit the truth of their first principle by means of any such procedure as that above given. Still, when I examine the “proof” of the “principle of Utility” presented by the most persuasive and probably the most influential among English expositors of Utilitarianism,--J. S. Mill,--I find the need of some such procedure to complete the argument very plain and palpable.

Mill begins by explaining[297] that though “questions of ultimate ends are not amenable” to “proof in the ordinary and popular meaning of the term,” there is a “larger meaning of the word proof” in which they are amenable to it. “The subject,” he says, is “within the cognisance of the rational faculty.... Considerations may be presented capable of determining the intellect to” accept “the Utilitarian formula.” He subsequently makes clear that by “acceptance of the Utilitarian formula” he means the acceptance, not of the agent’s own greatest happiness, but of “the greatest amount of happiness altogether” as the ultimate “end of human action” and “standard of morality”: to promote which is, in the Utilitarian view, the supreme “directive rule of human conduct.” Then when he comes to give the “proof”--in the larger sense before explained--of this rule or formula, he offers the following argument. “The sole evidence it is possible to produce that anything is desirable, is that people do actually desire it.... No reason can be given why the general happiness is desirable, except that each person, so far as he believes it to be attainable, desires his own happiness. This, however, being a fact, we have not only all the proof which the case admits of, but all which it is possible to require, that happiness is a good: that each person’s happiness is a good to that person, and the general happiness, therefore, a good to the aggregate of persons.”[298] He then goes on to argue that pleasure, and pleasure alone, is what all men actually do desire.

Now, as we have seen, it is as a “standard of right and wrong,” or “directive rule of conduct,” that the utilitarian principle is put forward by Mill: hence, in giving as a statement of this principle that “the general happiness is _desirable_,” he must be understood to mean (and his whole treatise shows that he does mean) that it is what each individual _ought_ to desire, or at least--in the stricter sense of ‘ought’--to aim at realising in action.[299] But this proposition is not established by Mill’s reasoning, even if we grant that what is actually desired may be legitimately inferred to be in this sense desirable. For an aggregate of actual desires, each directed towards a different part of the general happiness, does not constitute an actual desire for the general happiness, existing in any individual; and Mill would certainly not contend that a desire which does not exist in any individual can possibly exist in an aggregate of individuals. There being therefore no actual desire--so far as this reasoning goes--for the general happiness, the proposition that the general happiness is desirable cannot be in this way established: so that there is a gap in the expressed argument, which can, I think, only be filled by some such proposition as that which I have above tried to exhibit as the intuition of Rational Benevolence.

Utilitarianism is thus presented as the final form into which Intuitionism tends to pass, when the demand for really self-evident first principles is rigorously pressed. In order, however, to make this transition logically complete, we require to interpret ‘Universal Good’ as ‘Universal Happiness.’ And this interpretation cannot, in my view, be justified by arguing, as Mill does, from the psychological fact that Happiness is the sole object of men’s actual desires, to the ethical conclusion that it alone is desirable or good; because in Book i. chap. iv. of this treatise I have attempted to show that Happiness or Pleasure is not the only object that each for himself actually desires. The identification of Ultimate Good with Happiness is properly to be reached, I think, by a more indirect mode of reasoning; which I will endeavour to explain in the next Chapter.

NOTE.--The great influence at present exercised by Kant’s teaching makes it worth while to state briefly the arguments by which he attempts to establish the duty of promoting the happiness of others, and the reasons why I am unable to regard these arguments as cogent. In some passages he attempts to exhibit this duty as an immediate deduction from his fundamental formula--“act from a maxim that thou canst will to be universal law”--when considered in combination with the desire for the kind services of others which (as he assumes) the exigencies of life must arouse in every man. The maxim, he says, “that each should be left to take care of himself without either aid or interference,” is one that we might indeed _conceive_ existing as a universal law: but it would be impossible for us to _will_ it to be such. “A will that resolved this would be inconsistent with itself, for many cases may arise in which the individual thus willing needs the benevolence and sympathy of others” (_Grundlegung_, p. 50 [Rosenkrantz]). Similarly elsewhere (_Metaph. Anfangsgr. d. Tugendlehre_, Einleit. § 8 and § 30) he explains at more length that the Self-love which necessarily exists in every one involves the desire of being loved by others and receiving aid from them in case of need. We thus necessarily constitute ourselves an end for others, and claim that they shall contribute to our happiness: and so, according to Kant’s fundamental principle, we must recognise the duty of making _their_ happiness _our_ end.

Now I cannot regard this reasoning as strictly cogent. In the first place, that every man in need wishes for the aid of others is an empirical proposition which Kant cannot know _a priori_. We can certainly conceive a man in whom the spirit of independence and the distaste for incurring obligations would be so strong that he would choose to endure any privations rather than receive aid from others. But even granting that every one, in the actual moment of distress, must necessarily wish for the assistance of others; still a strong man, after balancing the chances of life, may easily think that he and such as he have more to gain, on the whole, by the general adoption of the egoistic maxim; benevolence being likely to bring them more trouble than profit.

In other passages, however, Kant reaches the same conclusion by an apparently different line of argument. He lays down that, as all action of rational beings is done for some end, there must be some absolute end, corresponding to the absolute rule before given, that imposes on our maxims the form of universal law. This absolute end, prescribed by Reason necessarily and _a priori_ for all rational beings as such, can be nothing but Reason itself, or the Universe of Rationals; for what the rule inculcates is, in fact, that we should act as rational units in a universe of rational beings (and therefore on principles conceived and embraced as universally applicable). Or again, we may reach the same result negatively. For all particular ends at which men aim are constituted such by the existence of impulses directed towards some particular objects. Now we cannot tell _a priori_ that any one of these special impulses forms part of the constitution of all men: and therefore we cannot state it as an absolute dictate of Reason that we should aim at any such special object. If, then, we thus exclude all particular empirical ends, there remains only the principle that “all Rational beings as such are ends to each”: or, as Kant sometimes puts it, that “humanity exists as an end in itself.”

Now, says Kant, so long as I confine myself to mere non-interference with others, I do not positively make Humanity my end; my aims remain selfish, though restricted by this condition of non-interference with others. My action, therefore, is not truly virtuous; for Virtue is exhibited and consists in the effort to realise the end of Reason in opposition to mere selfish impulses. Therefore “the ends of the subject, which is itself an end, must of necessity be my ends, if the representation of Humanity as an end in itself is to have its full weight with me” (_Grundlegung_, p. 59), and my action is to be truly rational and virtuous.

Here, again, I cannot accept the form of Kant’s argument. The conception of “humanity as an end in itself” is perplexing: because by an End we commonly mean something to be realised, whereas “humanity” is, as Kant says, “a self-subsistent end”: moreover, there seems to be a sort of paralogism in the deduction of the principle of Benevolence by means of this conception. For the humanity which Kant maintains to be an end in itself is Man (or the aggregate of men) _in so far as rational_. But the subjective ends of other men, which Benevolence directs us to take as our own ends, would seem, according to Kant’s own view, to depend upon and correspond to their _non-rational_ impulses--their empirical desires and aversions. It is hard to see why, if man _as a rational being_ is an absolute end to other rational beings, they must therefore adopt his subjective aims as determined by his non-rational impulses.

FOOTNOTES:

[280] Cf. _ante_, Book i. chap. viii. § 4.

[281] I am fully sensible of the peculiar interest and value of the ethical thought of ancient Greece. Indeed through a large part of the present work the influence of Plato and Aristotle on my treatment of this subject has been greater than that of any modern writer. But I am here only considering the value of the general principles for determining what ought to be done, which the ancient systems profess to supply.

[282] The following remarks apply less to _later_ Stoicism--especially the Roman Stoicism which we know at first hand in the writings of Seneca and Marcus Aurelius; in which the relation of the individual man to Humanity generally is more prominent than it is in the earlier form of the system.

[283] It should be observed that in determining the particulars of external duty the Stoics to some extent used the notion ‘nature’ in a different way: they tried to derive guidance from the complex adaptation of means to ends exhibited in the organic world. But since in their view the whole course of the Universe was both perfect and completely predetermined, it was impossible for them to obtain from any observation of actual existence a clear and consistent principle for preferring and rejecting alternatives of conduct: and in fact their most characteristic practical precepts show a curious conflict between the tendency to accept what was customary as ‘natural,’ and the tendency to reject what seemed arbitrary as unreasonable.

[284] Cf. _Analogy_, Part ii. chap. i. and chap. viii.

[285] Cf. _ante_, note to p. 124.

[286] To avoid misapprehension I should state that in these propositions the consideration of the different degrees of _certainty_ of Present and Future Good, Own and Others’ Good respectively, is supposed to have been fully taken into account _before_ the future or alien Good is judged to be greater.

[287] It may, however, be thought that in exhibiting this aspect of the morality of Common Sense, psychogonical theory leads us to define in a particular way the general notion of ‘good’ or ‘well-being,’ regarded as a result which morality has a demonstrable natural tendency to produce. This point will be considered subsequently (chap. xiv. § 1 of this Book: and Book iv. chap. iv.).

[288] Cf. _ante_, Book i. chap. viii. Note, pp. 103, 104.

[289] In drawing attention to Clarke’s system, I ought perhaps to remark that his anxiety to exhibit the parallelism between ethical and mathematical truth (on which Locke before him had insisted) renders his general terminology inappropriate, and occasionally leads him into downright extravagances. _E.g._ it is patently absurd to say that “a man who wilfully acts contrary to Justice wills things to be what they are not and cannot be”: nor are “Relations and Proportions” or “fitnesses and unfitnesses of things” very suitable designations for the matter of moral intuition. But for the present purpose there is no reason to dwell on these defects.

[290] Clarke’s statement of the “Rule of Righteousness with respect to ourselves” I pass over, because it is, as he states it, a derivative and subordinate rule. It is that we should preserve our being, be temperate, industrious, etc., _with a view to the performance of Duty_: which of course supposes Duty (_i.e._ the ultimate and absolute rules of Duty) already determined. I may observe that the reasonableness of Prudence or Self-love is only recognised by Clarke indirectly; in a passage which I quoted before (p. 120).

[291] _Boyle Lectures_ (1705), etc., pp. 86, 87.

[292] _l.c._ p. 92.

[293] I think that Kant, in applying this axiom, does not take due account of certain restrictive considerations. Cf. chap. vii. § 3 of this Book, and also Book iv. chap. v. § 3.

[294] Kant no doubt gives the agent’s own Perfection as another absolute end; but when we come to examine his notion of perfection, we find that it is not really determinate without the statement of other ends of reason, for the accomplishment of which we are to perfect ourselves. See _Met. Anfangsgr. d. Tugendlehre_, I. Theil, § v. “The perfection that belongs to men generally ... can be nothing else than the cultivation of one’s power, and also of one’s will, to satisfy the requirements of duty in general.”

[295] See note at the end of the chapter.

[296] On the relation of Rational Egoism to Rational Benevolence--which I regard as the profoundest problem of Ethics--my final view is given in the last chapter of this treatise.

[297] _Utilitarianism_, chap. i. pp. 6, 7, and chap. ii. pp. 16, 17.

[298] _l.c._ chap. iv. pp. 52, 53.

[299] It has been suggested that I have overlooked a confusion in Mill’s mind between two possible meanings of the term ‘desirable,’ (1) what can be desired and (2) what ought to be desired. I intended to show by the two first sentences of this paragraph that I was aware of this confusion, but thought it unnecessary for my present purpose to discuss it.