03 Virtue, Right, and Good

CHAPTER III. VIRTUE, RIGHT AND GOOD. IN the preceding chapter something was said about man’s instincts. These he has in common with the beasts, though of course his instincts go far beyond theirs. Still instincts they are, even though man has the power to ascend in character to the dignity of God Himself. It seems necessary to say something more about instincts in order to elucidate the notion of virtue.

Some of the instincts that man has in common with the brutes are the instinct of self-preservation, the instinct to feed, the instinct to sleep, the sexual instinct, and there are sundry altruistic instincts, such as love of children, and other social instincts, including the instinct of sympathy. Of course it is not only man that is a social being; the social instincts are well developed in the lower animals. But there are many instincts that men have which are not shared by the beasts, and there are two which seem to belong to all men as men, namely, the instinct of reverence or worship or holiness (but care must be taken not to attach an ethical meaning to this word at this stage) and the instinct of self- respect. The instinct of awe or reverence or worship, or by whatever name we call it, would seem to follow upon the development of reason. Reason demanded a cause of the various phenomena of which men had experience; and to men in that stage there were very many causes or spirits or gods. Unseen beings, or beings resident in what was seen, presented themselves to the human imagination at this stage. Mysterious beings, some beneficent and some malevolent, were invented by reason to account for what was otherwise unaccountable. And with this invention of the reason came possibly the instinct of awe, reverence, worship, holiness. But while we may suppose that one was an accompaniment of the other, we must not confuse reason and instinct. The one is thought, the other is feeling. There must be an accompanying feeling, or reason could not determine action. This point has, I think, been very clearly set forth by Mr. Leslie Stephen in his Science of Ethics, to which reference may be made.

Then we have in man the instinct of self-respect, the instinct to care what others think of him. It is the possession of this instinct which gives meaning to virtue. To practise virtue is to give evidence of self- respect. Self-respect is indeed virtue, and the virtues are the evidence of it. Moral duty passes into conduct through the operation of the instinct of self-respect or virtue. And it is the conscience, which, as we keep saying, is the moral reason becoming imperative, that prescribes the moral duty. The instinct of self-respect then is associated with the moral reason, which gives man a knowledge of the worth or dignity of being, and so of himself. The virtues are those qualities, or, shall we say? those items of conduct which men recognise as proceeding from self-respect, the respect of man for himself as man. A virtue, such as fortitude, may be to some extent selfish, that is to say it may proceed from a desire to be thought well of by others, yet still there is the thought of our own worth involved in it. The instinct of self-respect must be most carefully distinguished foom the altruistic instincts, the former being moral, the latter not. For the instinct of self- respect operates to carry out the dictates of the conscience which define our moral duty. It is not self-respect that makes a hen brood over her eggs. Nor is it self-respect that makes a mother care for her young. Yet in a degree both these sights may arouse in us respect, and through the moral reason make their demand upon us; so that, if a mother had lost the instinct to care for her children, she might yet know that she ought to care for them.

It may be permissible perhaps to hazard a guess that the altruistic instincts served the end in the evolution of creation, according to the purpose of God, of forming material for the exercise of the moral reason, which had before been latent. Though altruism is non-moral, the sight of it is yet beautiful. The moral reason sees in it the possibility of some- thing more than instinctive altruism; the conscience makes an imperative demand, and self-respect operates to induce men to do acts of kindness. Kindness is a virtue if it proceeds from self-respect. But again the instinct of sympathy must be distinguished from that of self-respect. Sympathy cannot be accounted a virtue. Sympathy is found in the lower animals, but we do not think of them as virtuous. Indeed virtue is that which distinguishes man as man, and depends on the fact that man is a moral being. If a man relieves pain because it is more painful to him to witness it than to remove it, he is not acting virtuously. But if a man relieves pain, when he might get away from the sight of it by going away altogether to another place, because he knows that he ought to relieve it, and because his instinct of self-respect operates to make him fulfil this duty, then he acts virtuously. To act virtuously then, as I understand it, is to act from a motive of self-respect, though it must be allowed that there are degrees of self-respect.

Next I think a distinction should be made between virtuous instinct and the instinct of virtue or self- respect. And this is the distinction I should make. A virtuous instinct is an instinct which has been acquired through the habits of former generations in the practice of virtue. It is thus an altruistic instinct which has been, if we may so say, morally acquired, and while it is not in any way antagonistic to self- respect, yet is it not dependent on it. A man may acquire virtuous instincts for himself by the steady practice of virtue, so that it becomes comparatively easy for him to do what once he did with difficulty.

It is a mistake, I think, to suppose that the virtues and the practice of virtue are not dictated to us by the conscience, and to regard them as something supererogatory. In his Lectures and Essays on Natural Theology and Ethics, posthumously published, the late Professor W. Wallace says : [P. 325.] " One of the greatest defects noticeable in certain philosophers’ books on Morals is that they confound the duties (devoirs) with the virtues, or that they give names of virtues to simple duties : so that though, properly speaking, there is only one virtue, the love of order, they produce an infinity of them. This puts confusion everywhere and so embarrasses the science of ethics that it is hard enough to see clearly what one ought to do to be a good man (homme be Men)." But surely it is all a matter of definition, and it is exactly here that confusion has arisen in the science of ethics. Writers do not clearly define their terms and oftentimes the reader is carried from one meaning to another of words until he hardly knows whether or not he agrees with his author. Imagine the confusion that would result in mathematics and the physical sciences if words were allowed to pass from one meaning to another ! Yet such is the state of ethical science; though some writers, notably Professor Sidgwick, have done excellent work in clearing it of equivocation. The question is : What do we mean by ’ duty ’ and what do we mean by ’ virtue ’? When Wallace says a few lines further on " Some of them imagine they follow virtue, though they only follow the natural inclination they have to perform certain duties," it is clear that he is using the word ’ duties ’ in a sense different from that for instance in which I have ventured to define ’ moral duty’ (which is capable of subdivision into moral duties).

It seems likely that by ’ duties ’ in this passage Wallace meant what I have called ’ virtuous instincts,’ for he speaks of there being a natural inclination to perform them.

Some writers mean by ’ duty ’ and ’ duties ’ what your fellowmen expect of you. Of course you cannot include all the virtues under the category of duty if you thus define duty. It seems to me to be a fatal mistake in ethics to restrict the term ’duty’ to the claims of society upon us. If ’duty’ be what our fellowmen expect of us, and if ethics be the science of duty, then to pursue it we must investigate what our fellowmen do expect of us. Clearly this would vary according to the community in which we happened to live.

I have not chosen this passage from Wallace through love of criticising. My one desire just now is to make clear the meaning of the terms I use. I cannot see that the virtues are other than moral duties, though what I do fully recognise is that Virtue, as a quality, might remain, when moral duty has ceased through the instinct of virtue becoming supreme. When a man acts from a motive of fear he does not act virtuously, unless indeed the fear be based on self-respect. The fear of losing the good opinion of your fellowmen I should call a fear proceeding from self-respect. The fear of being put into prison, I should say, did not proceed from self-respect, but from dislike of discomfort. The notion of virtue serves, as it seems to me, to make objective what if looked at from the point of view of moral duty might appear but subjective. For moral duty is that which is dictated in the individual conscience, and no science of any value could be made of this unless individual consciences had some agreement one with another. And there has been, I think, this advantage in considering virtue, as we have done, as distinct in idea from moral duty, that it has given the opportunity to draw attention to the use of both moral reason and instinct in the determining of conduct.

Lest it should seem to some that I am treating too much of instinct and saying too little about will, it is well to remind ourselves that, according to Christian teaching, it is God who makes us both ’ to will ’ and ’ to do.’ God enables us to act by the instincts He has given us. Unless there were appropriate instincts the will would not pass into conduct. It must not, however, be assumed that man’s instincts are all a manifestation of divine character even though they be a divine gift. And if it seems to be inappropriate to speak of evil instincts as a divine gift, we must at least recognise that they proceed according to a divine law whereby evil begets evil for the setting forth of its own hideousness.

We pass next to the notion of Right. I am not proposing to speak of what are called ’ rights ’ regarded as correlatives of duties, duties being regarded as what we owe to others, who in consequence of our debt have ’ rights.’ I am treating of what we call right in regard to conduct. It will, I think, conduce to clearness if we define as right in human conduct that which is not contrary to the dictates of con- science. It will be seen from this definition that the notion of ’ right ’ is different from that of duty. For it is right to satisfy instincts which are not opposed by moral duty, and of which we should not say that it Was our moral duty to satisfy them if they were unopposed by other and stronger instincts. Thus it is not often my moral duty to eat my dinner, but it is right so to do. The distinction between right and wrong has no meaning as applied to the action of the brutes, who have no conscience or moral reason. But the distinction is of the greatest importance for moral beings. But the definition of what is right, given above, is really insufficient; for it seems to make what is right a matter for the individual conscience. The relation of individual consciences one to another is a question we have not yet investigated, nor will the limits of this chapter permit of its investigation. All that we can now say is that what is not forbidden by any individual’s conscience seems to that individual right. In other words, it is subjectively right. It is a fact that will have to be taken account of in the next chapter that the dictates of conscience are not always the same, that morality is, as we say, progressive. It is also a fact that disobedience to the dictates of conscience tends to deaden the conscience, so that it becomes not a perfect instrument for determining what is right. That the notion of right differs from that of duty is further clear from the fact that we think and speak of God acting rightly, though we could not conceive of Him acting according to duty. This would be impious, and contrary to the idea we have of an absolutely perfect Being, conditioned by nothing but His own perfection.

We finite beings have not the faculty to judge of right action save so far as that is determined for us by our cognition of moral duty. We do not know why particular instincts are right in the same way that we know why moral duty is right. This we discern in our moral reason. God alone can know the appropriateness of each instinct implanted by Him in His creatures; and while we can guess at and probably form a true opinion as to the " reason " of many instincts, we are not yet able to perceive the perfect wisdom and love which has formed them all. For my own part I cannot conceive that there can be any instinct implanted by God in any creature that He has made which has not its root in the divine love and wisdom. By assuming that God acts rightly, we assume that if we could perfectly know the whole plan and purpose of creation, we should find in it nothing contrary to our moral reason. I do not mean by this that we should need a different moral reason. It is my pro- found conviction that the moral reason we have is true, and that, if we were to suppose, as some have tried to do, that God’s ways are not to be judged by ordinary canons of moral reason, we should be lodged in the most hopeless contradictions, and well-nigh reduced to despair. I am further convinced that unless the more we come to know of God the more we shall find we can love Him as well as reverence Him, then religion is a hopeless concern, and there is no gospel for the world. When we speak of a good God we must mean to include in the divine attributes those qualities which we count good in man. There cannot be one standard of goodness in the moral reason of man and another standard of goodness for God Himself. We cannot call that good in God which we call evil in man. But we must be careful to guard against judging what we have not the ability to judge. We should say that it was in general wrong to take the life of a fellowman. But we cannot say that it is revolting to our moral reason that God should take away life as He has Himself given it. We can only believe that when we know all, we shall find that even in death God’s love and wisdom extend to man.

We now pass to speak of the Good. This word is used both adjectivally and as a substantive. We find it applied as an epithet to persons and things. We speak of a good horse, a good poem, a good joke, and we speak also of a good man. But we should not apply the epithet ’ good ’ to man except in reference to his moral qualities, whereas these have nothing to do with the application of ’ good ’ to a horse, or a poem, or a joke. We want then if possible to come at some common conception which shall explain the very wide application of the term, and shall connect naturally the epithet ’ good ’ with the substantive Good.

"Every art and every scientific enquiry (meqodoj)" says Aristotle in the introduction to his Ethics, "and similarly every action and purpose may be said to aim at some good. Hence the good has been well defined as that at which all things aim (ou pant efietai)." [Nic. Ethics, I. i., Welldon’s translation.]

It seems to me that we have here in a nutshell a definition which is sufficient to cover the use of the epithet ’ good ’ in its various applications, as well as of the substantive ’ Good.’

It will be observed that the underlying notion in this definition is essentially teleological, and things will be ’ good ’ which attain their end. Thus we form ideals of what things should be, and we judge of these things as good in proportion as they approach the ideal we have formed of them. Some writers seem to assume that things are good if and because they give us pleasure. But this appears to me an insufficient account to give of the epithet ’good,’ as Professor Sidgwick has clearly shown in his Methods of Ethics. [Book I., Chapter ix.] It is true that we do call things good which are pleasant to us; but this is not necessarily because they are pleasant, but because our ideal of those things is that they should be pleasant. If we speak of ’good wine,’ meaning that it is wine which is pleasant to the taste, the epithet ’ good ’ is only properly applicable, if it be a property of ideal wine that it should be pleasant to the taste. If our ideal of wine is that it should be wholesome as well as pleasant to the taste, then we shall withhold the epithet ’good’ from any wine that has injurious effects, however pleasant it may be at the time we drink it.

I am aware that we teach children to speak of things as ’ good ’ which are pleasant to the taste; but this is capable of explanation in accordance with what has been said above. In speaking to them of anything as ’ good ’ which is pleasant to the taste, we are not really limiting the application of the epithet to that which gives pleasure, but only acquiescing in what is perfectly obvious, that it is a property of our ideal of food that it should be pleasant to the taste. But we should be ready enough to instil into young minds that this was not the only property of the ideal, even of food. Indeed we speak commonly of things being good to eat when we mean no more than that they are suitable for food. If a traveller enquires whether water that he finds springing up by the roadside is. ’Good,’ he does not seek to know what the taste of it may be, but whether it is fit to drink. Water that is good for one purpose is not fit for another. Our ideal of water for drinking is not the same as that of water that may be used for washing. It is worth while to observe that ’ ideal ’ is some- times applied as an epithet to things when ’good’ might be equally well used. Strictly speaking, nothing that exists is ideal, for the Ideal can exist only in imagination. When anything actually existing is called ideal, it is meant that it is perfectly good of its kind. The epithet ’ good ’ then is applicable to that which, if it does not come up to, at least approaches our ideal of it. And when ’ good ’ is used of man (and chiefly in regard to his ethical qualities this is the case) we must, consistently with what has been said, under- stand the epithet to mean that the person to whom it is applied approximates to our ideal of what a man should be. That the term is chiefly applicable to man for his ethical qualities is in itself a witness that the common sense or reason of mankind regards those qualities as the distinguishing characteristic of man, and that without them there is no ideal man. We might call a man a good runner or a good athlete, because he had in a pre-eminent degree the qualities and powers necessary to a runner or an athlete; but we should not call such an one a good man because he had these qualities. The qualities of a ’good man ’ distinguish him as a man, as an ethical or moral being. But it may be well to enquire what would be the bearing of this definition of ’ good ’ on the application of the epithet to God. It may seem at first that the definition breaks down at this point.

It must be remembered that we do not speak of a good God as distinguished from a God who is not good. Such a way of speaking might be possible where a belief in polytheism was prevalent. But when once we have grasped the thought of one Supreme Being, the notion of Goodness as applied to Him is that of Absolute Perfection. But this notion we could never have had but for the fact that we are moral beings, endowed with moral reason. It is this which enables us to form any conception of God worthy of Him, and to judge whether or not a Revelation purporting to come from Him really does so. Our moral reason gives us then in some degree our idea of God, or supports us in it when it is given.

Man can become good because he is a moral being. But we cannot speak of God as a moral being, in the sense in which this was defined in the last chapter. ’God cannot be tempted of evil.’ He is and does not become Good. It is because we conceive of God as the very Ideal of Being that we call Him Good -- Good absolutely and perfectly.

God then must be conceived of as Good acting always rightly, so that of no act of His can it be said that it is a denial of His Goodness.

Having now considered the notion implied in the use of the epithet good as applied to things, persons and to God Himself, we go on to speak of the Good. The ancients introduced their science of ethics with an enquiry into the end of human conduct, and this it was that they meant by ’ the Good.’ Aristotle opens his treatise on ethics with the following words, some of which have been already quoted above:

"Every art and every scientific enquiry, and similarly every action and purpose may be said to aim at some good. Hence the good has been well defined as that at which all things aim. But it is clear that there is a difference in the ends; for the ends are sometimes activities (energeiai), and sometimes results (erga) beyond the mere activities. Also where there are certain ends (telh) beyond the actions, the results are naturally superior to the activities." [Welldon’s translation.]

Again: " If it is true that in the sphere of action there is an end which we wish for its own sake, and for the sake of which we wish everything else, and that we do not desire all things for the sake of something else (for so the process will go on ad infinitum and our desire will be idle and futile), it is clear that this will be the good or the supreme good (tagaqon kai to ariston). Does it not follow then that the knowledge of this supreme good is of great importance for the conduct of life (proj ton bion) and that [if we know it] we shall be like archers who have a mark (skopon) at which to aim, we shall have a better chance of attaining what we want (tou deontoj)? "

Man then idealises human life; he knows that it must have an end (teloj) which must yield him perfect satisfaction. Happiness is therefore an element or factor in the summum bonum. But the question is : Wherein does his happiness consist? We want to define the nature of happiness for man. And for this we need to ascertain the function of man (to ergon tou anqrwpou). " For as with a flute player, a statuary, or any artisan, or in fact any body who has a definite function and action, his goodness or excellence seems to lie in his function, so it would seem to be with Man, if indeed he has a definite function. Can it be said then that, while a carpenter and a cobbler have definite functions and actions, Man unlike them is naturally functionless (argon)? The reasonable view is that as the eye, the hand, the foot, and similarly each several part of the body has a definite function, so Man may be regarded as having a definite function apart from all these. What then can this function be? It is not life (to zhn); for life is apparently something which man shares with the plants; and it is something peculiar to him (to idion) that we are looking for. We must exclude therefore the life of nutrition and increase. There is next what may be called the life of sensation (aisqhtikh). But this, too, is apparently shared by Man with horses, cattle, and all other animals. There remains what I may call the practical life of the rational part of Man’s being (praktikh tis tou logon econtoj)." Aristotle’s point then is that man is meant or designed for some end, and that if he can only find out what it is, and after striving to reach it find it, he will find Happiness.

I cannot but think that there is some confusion of thought among writers on ethics in the use they make of the term Happiness. It is not always clear whether they mean by this a state or an activity. That the state can only be realised by an activity can well be imagined. But in investigating the summum bonum there must be perfect clearness as to what is meant.

It is clear from Aristotle that when he spoke of Happiness he meant something that was not capable of realisation by the lower animals. He did not mean simply a state of contentment and satisfaction. Everyone would agree that it was better to be a discontented man than a contented pig. And so, when Happiness is set forth as the summum bonum of human effort, it must surely be meant that the Happiness, regarded as a state of satisfaction, a state of pleasurable feeling, is to result from the realisation of true manhood. When Happiness is set forth as the end of human life then, unless some clear definition is given of the term, we are left in uncertainty whether it is meant that the reasonable thing for man is to seek for pleasurable feelings.

It is a fairly obvious criticism to make on Aristotle that he assumes Happiness to be the supreme good before he has defined what Happiness is. It is according to him that which is sought for as an end in itself, and not for the sake of something else. If it be the case that Happiness is sought for its own sake, why is there .any uncertainty as to what Happiness is? That there may be doubt what will produce it, is intelligible. But there cannot be any doubt what a thing is which is sought for its own sake. I take it that what is needed to make this point clear is to carefully discriminate the two factors of the summum bonum. These we may call its active and passive factors. As when we speak of a man as a ’good man,’ we mean that in him the qualities which make our ideal man are conspicuous, and that these qualities are displayed in action, so when we speak of the ’ supreme good ’ of human life we must include in this term a perfect human activity. But reason demands that this should be in a state of perfect happiness.