ELEMENTS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY. PRELIMINARY PRINCIPLES AND DISCUSSIONS. MAN may be viewed under several aspects, he consists of body and soul, he has both an animal and a rational nature, he is both an intellectual and a moral being, — he requires an education suited to his circumstances in this life, and to his destiny and prospects in the life to come. On these several parts of human nature, several sciences have been founded, having for their object to investigate and explain the structure of the human body, and the faculties of the human understanding. These several branches of human nature, the animal, intellectual, and moral, have been recognised at all times and by all nations; and the distinctions on which they rest, are even seen in the structure of every language.* It is the object * "Words are signs of thought; and from words themselves (without following them through all their inflexions and combinations in the finished structure of a language) we may see into the natural feelings and judgments of men, before they become warped by the prejudices of sect, or the subtilties of system. If, in reading the ancient writers, we meet with words describing virtue and vice, honor and dishonor, guilt and shame, coupled with the strongest epithets of praise or condemnation; then we are certain that those things existed as realities before they became words; or at least, that in the minds of those, who, during the early progress of society, built up the ancient languages, they were considered as realities; and on that account (and that account only) had their representatives among the symbols of thought. I believe we might in this way make a near approach to a true system of moral philosophy; and our progress would at every step record a series of judgments, not derived of Moral Philosophy, to investigate the moral constitution of man and the appropriate sphere of his duties; to determine the standard by which the various branches of duty may be measured; and to prescribe rules for our guidance in the principal employments and situations in which men may be called to act, and in the chief relations of life which they are accustomed to sustain. In moral philosophy, as in most other sciences, there is a practical part, and a part which may be called theoretical or speculative; and, in respect to the last of these, we shall perceive, by adverting to the history of Ethics, that there has been quite the usual diversity of sentiment which we are accustomed to see among men. Socrates, usually called among the ancients the Prince of Philosophers, maintained, that an action, to be good, must be both useful and honorable (utile et honestum); and he was accustomed to express the strongest disapprobation of those, who, holding that an action might be useful without being honorable, first drew a distinction between the usefulness and the rectitude of an action.* According to Plato, virtue consists in that state of mind in which every faculty confines itself within its proper sphere, without encroaching upon that of any other, and performs its proper office with that precise degree of strength and vigor which belongs to it. In the view of Aristotle, each particular virtue lies in a kind of medium between two opposite vices, of which the one offends by being too much, the other by being too little, affected by a particular species of objects. Thus the virtue of fortitude or courage lies in the medium between the opposite vices of cowardice and of presumptuous rashness, of which the one offends from being too much, and from any doubtful train of reasoning, but forced on men by the very condition of their existence." Again, "The judgment of conscience, declaring to us that we are responsible for our deeds, is recorded in the language and institutions of every civilized nation in the history of the world. If this does not satisfy the metaphysician, it is at least enough for the Christian moralist, whose rule of life is simple, and whose light is clear."— PROFESSOR SEDGWICK, on the Studies of the University of Cambridge, pp. 33, 70. * Cic. De Off. Lib. III. c. 3. + Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments, Vol. II. p. 69. the other from being too little, affected by objects of fear. Thus, too, the virtue of frugality lies half way between avarice and profusion, of which the one consists in an excess, the other in a defect, of the proper attention to the objects of selfinterest. Magnanimity, in the same manner, consists in a medium between the excess of arrogance and the defect of pusillanimity, of which the one consists in too extravagant, the other in too weak, a sentiment of our own worth and dignity. This view is well expressed by Horace, Est modus in rebus; sunt certi denique fines, Aristotle also made virtue to consist in practical habits; and, in doing this, he probably designed to oppose the doctrine of Plato, who seems to have been of the opinion, that just sentiments and reasonable judgments, concerning what was fit to be done or to be avoided, were alone sufficient to constitute the most perfect virtue. Virtue, according to Plato, might be considered as a species of science; and no man, he supposed, could see clearly and demonstratively what was right and what was wrong, without acting accordingly. Passion might make us act contrary to doubtful and uncertain opinions, not to plain and evident judgments. Aristotle, on the contrary, was of opinion, that no conviction of the understanding merely, was capable of insuring a control over inveterate habits, and that good morals consisted not so much in knowledge, as in action.† According to Zeno, the founder of the Stoical doctrines, virtue consisted in choosing and rejecting all different objects and circumstances, according as they were by nature rendered more or less the objects of choice or rejection; in selecting always, from among the several objects of choice presented to us, those which were most to be chosen, when we could not obtain them all; and in selecting too, out of the several objects of rejection offered to us, those which were least to be avoided, when it was not in our power to avoid them all. By choosing and rejecting with this just and accurate discernment, by thus bestowing upon every object the precise degree of attention it de * Sat. I. i. 106, 107. + Smith's Moral Sentiments, Vol. II. p. 70. served, according to the place which it held in this natural scale of things, was maintained, in the view of the Stoics, that perfect rectitude of conduct, which constituted the essence of virtue. This was what they called living consistently, living according to nature (convenienter naturæ vivere), and obeying those laws and directions which nature, or the author of nature, has prescribed for our conduct.* The system of Epicurus agreed with those of Plato, Aristotle, and Zeno, in making virtue to consist in acting in the most suitable manner to obtain the primary objects (prima natura) of natural desire. It differed from them all in two respects; 1. in the account which it gave of those primary objects of natural desire, and, 2. in the account which it gave of the excellence of virtue, or of the reason why that quality ought to be esteemed. The primary objects of natural desire consisted, according to Epicurus, in bodily pleasure and pain, and in nothing else; whereas, according to the other abovenamed philosophers, there were many other objects, such as knowledge, such as the happiness of our relations, of our friends and of our country, which were ultimately desirable for their own sakes. Virtue, moreover, according to Epicurus, did not deserve to be pursued for its own sake, nor was itself one of the ultimate objects of natural appetite, but was eligible only upon account of its tendency to prevent pain and to procure ease and pleasure. In the opinion of the other philosophers, on the contrary, virtue was desirable, not merely as the means of procuring the other primary objects of natural desire, but as something which was in itself more valuable than all of them.† Nor has this diversity of sentiment on the theory of morals been confined to the ancient philosophers. Modern writers have not concurred in their views on the theoretical part of the subject. The opinion of Dr. Samuel Clarke is, that moral obligation is to be referred to the eternal and necessary differences of things; and he makes virtue to consist in acting suitably to the different relations in which we stand. Wollaston's theory is, that moral good and evil consist in a conformity or disagreement Smith's Moral Sentiments, Vol. II. p. 71. + Idem, p. 93. with truth, in treating every thing as being what it is. Lord Shaftesbury makes virtue to consist in maintaining a proper balance of the affections, and in allowing no passion to go beyond its proper sphere. Dr. Paley teaches, that it is the utility of any action alone, which constitutes the obligation of it.* Dr. Adam Smith resolves moral obligation into propriety, arising from feelings of sympathy. Mr. Bush considers the communicated will of God the grand expositor of human duty; while Dymond says, that this will not merely declares the distinction between right and wrong in regard to moral conduct, but also is itself the constituting cause of moral good and evil. The immutable principles of morality necessarily result, says Dr. Appleton, from the nature of things, and from the relations which they have to one another. As God is the author of all things, the relations subsisting between them may be considered as depending on him. But, while objects continue in all respects as they are, no change can be produced in their relations. It is absurd, continues he, to ascribe to Deity the power of changing vice into virtue, or virtue into vice. Right and wrong, says Dr. Price, denote what actions are. Now whatever any thing is, that it is, not by will, or decree, or power, but by nature and necessity. Again, the natures of things being immutable, whatever we suppose the natures of actions to be, that they must be immutably. If they are indifferent, this indifference is itself immutable. The same is to be said of right and wrong, moral good and evil, as far as they express real characters of actions. They must immutably and necessarily belong to those actions, of which they are truly affirmed.§ "God hath given us," says Bishop Butler, "a moral faculty, by which we distinguish between actions, and approve some as virtuous and of good desert, and disapprove others as vicious and of ill desert. This moral discernment," continues he, "implies a rule of action, and a rule of a very peculiar kind; for it carries in it authority and a right of decision; authority in such a sense, that we cannot * Ipsa utilitas, justi prope mater et æqui. - Hor. Sat. I. iii. 98. + See Editor's Preface to Dymond's Essays, p. 7. § Review of Questions on Morals, p. 37. Addresses, p. 103. |