Principia Ethica 26

Principia Ethica 26

68.= In what way can the nature of supersensible reality possibly have

a bearing upon Ethics?

 

I have distinguished two kinds of ethical questions, which are far too

commonly confused with one another. Ethics, as commonly understood, has

to answer both the question ‘What ought to be?’ and the question ‘What

ought we to do?’ The second of these questions can only be answered

by considering what effects our actions will have. A complete answer

to it would give us that department of Ethics which may be called the

doctrine of _means_ or practical Ethics. And upon this department of

ethical enquiry it is plain that the nature of a supersensible reality

may have a bearing. If, for instance, Metaphysics could tell us not

only that we are immortal, but also, in any degree, what effects our

actions in this life will have upon our condition in a future one,

such information would have an undoubted bearing upon the question

what we ought to do. The Christian doctrines of heaven and hell are

in this way highly relevant to practical Ethics. But it is worthy

of notice that the most characteristic doctrines of Metaphysics are

such as either have no such bearing upon practical Ethics or have

a purely negative bearing--involving the conclusion that there is

nothing which we ought to do at all. They profess to tell us the

nature not of a future reality, but of one that is eternal and which

therefore no actions of ours can have power to alter. Such information

_may_ indeed have relevance to practical Ethics, but it must be of a

purely negative kind. For, if it holds, not only that such an eternal

reality exists, but also, as is commonly the case, that nothing else

is real--that nothing either has been, is now, or will be real in

time--then truly it will follow that nothing we can do will ever bring

any good to pass. For it is certain that our actions can only affect

the future; and if nothing can be real in the future, we can certainly

not hope ever to make any good thing real. It would follow, then,

that there can be nothing which we ought to do. We cannot possibly do

any good; for neither our efforts, nor any result which they may seem

to effect, have any real existence. But this consequence, though it

follows strictly from many metaphysical doctrines, is rarely drawn.

Although a metaphysician may say that nothing is real but that which

is eternal, he will generally allow that there is some reality also in

the temporal: and his doctrine of an eternal reality need not interfere

with practical Ethics, if he allows that, however good the eternal

reality may be, yet some things will also exist in time, and that the

existence of some will be better than that of others. It is, however,

worth while to insist upon this point, because it is rarely fully

realised.

 

If it is maintained that there is any validity at all in practical

Ethics--that any proposition which asserts ‘We ought to do so and

so’ can have any truth--this contention can only be consistent with

the Metaphysics of an eternal reality, under two conditions. One of

these is, (1) that the true eternal reality, which is to be our guide,

cannot, as is implied by calling it true, be the _only_ true reality.

For a moral rule, bidding us realise a certain end, can only be

justified, if it is possible that that end should, at least partially,

be realised. Unless our efforts can effect the _real_ existence of some

good, however little, we certainly have no reason for making them.

And if the eternal reality is the sole reality, then nothing good

can possibly exist in time: we can only be told to try to bring into

existence something which we know beforehand cannot possibly exist. If

it is said that what exists in time can only be a manifestation of the

true reality, it must at least be allowed that that manifestation is

another true reality--a good which we really can cause to exist; for

the production of something quite unreal, even if it were possible,

cannot be a reasonable end of action. But if the manifestation of that

which eternally exists is real, then that which eternally exists is not

the sole reality.

 

And the second condition which follows from such a metaphysical

principle of Ethics, is (2) that the eternal reality cannot be

perfect--cannot be the sole good. For just as a reasonable rule of

conduct requires that what we are told to realise should be capable of

being truly real, so it requires that the realisation of this ideal

shall be truly good. It is just that which _can_ be realised by our

efforts--the appearance of the eternal in time, or whatsoever else is

allowed to be attainable--which must be truly good, if it is to be

worth our efforts. That the eternal reality is good, will by no means

justify us in aiming at its manifestation, unless that manifestation

itself be also good. For the manifestation is different from the

reality: its difference is allowed, when we are told that it can be

made to exist, whereas the reality itself exists unalterably. And the

existence of this manifestation is the only thing which we can hope to

effect: that also is admitted. If, therefore, the moral maxim is to be

justified, it is the existence of this manifestation, as distinguished

from the existence of its corresponding reality, which must be truly

good. The reality may be good too: but to justify the statement that we

ought to produce anything, it must be maintained, that just that thing

itself, and not something else which may be like it, is truly good.

If it is not true that the existence of the manifestation will add

something to the sum of good in the Universe, then we have no reason to

aim at making it exist; and if it is true that it will add something to

the sum of good, then the existence of that which is eternal cannot be

perfect by itself--it cannot include the whole of possible goods.

 

Metaphysics, then, will have a bearing upon practical Ethics--upon the

question what we ought to do--if it can tell us anything about the

future consequences of our actions beyond what can be established by

ordinary inductive reasoning. But the most characteristic metaphysical

doctrines, those which profess to tell us not about the future but

about the nature of an eternal reality, can either have no bearing upon

this practical question or else must have a purely destructive bearing.

For it is plain that what exists eternally cannot be affected by our

actions; and only what is affected by our actions can have a bearing

on their value as means. But the nature of an eternal reality either

admits no inference as to the results of our actions, except in so far

as it can _also_ give us information about the future (and how it can

do this is not plain), or else, if, as is usual, it is maintained to

be the sole reality and the sole good, it shews that no results of our

actions can have any value whatever.

 

 

=69.= But this bearing upon practical Ethics, such as it is, is not

what is commonly meant when it is maintained that Ethics must be based

on Metaphysics. It is not the assertion of this relation which I have

taken to be characteristic of Metaphysical Ethics. What metaphysical

writers commonly maintain is not merely that Metaphysics can help us to

decide what the effects of our actions will be, but that it can tell us

which among possible effects will be good and which will be bad. They

profess that Metaphysics is a necessary basis for an answer to that

other and primary ethical question: What ought to be? What is good in

itself? That no truth about what is real can have any logical bearing

upon the answer to this question has been proved in Chapter I. To

suppose that it has, implies the naturalistic fallacy. All that remains

for us to do is, therefore, to expose the main errors which seem to

have lent plausibility to this fallacy in its metaphysical form. If

we ask: What bearing can Metaphysics have upon the question, What is

good? the only possible answer is: Obviously and absolutely none. We

can only hope to enforce conviction that this answer is the only true

one by answering the question: Why has it been supposed to have such a

bearing? We shall find that metaphysical writers seem to have failed to

distinguish this primary ethical question: What is good? from various

other questions; and to point out these distinctions will serve to

confirm the view that their profession to base Ethics on Metaphysics is

solely due to confusion.

 

 

=70.= And, first of all, there is an ambiguity in the very question:

What is good? to which it seems some influence must be attributed.

The question may mean either: Which among existing things are good?

or else: What _sort of_ things are good, what are the things which,

whether they _are_ real or not, ought to be real? And of these two

questions it is plain that to answer the first, we must know both

the answer to the second and also the answer to the question: What

is real? It asks us for a catalogue of all the good things in the

Universe; and to answer it we must know both what things there are in

the Universe and also which of them are good. Upon this question then

our Metaphysics would have a bearing, if it can tell us what is real.

It would help us to complete the list of things which are both real

and good. But to make such a list is not the business of Ethics. So

far as it enquires What is good? its business is finished when it has

completed the list of things which ought to exist, whether they do

exist or not. And if our Metaphysics is to have any bearing upon this

part of the ethical problem, it must be because the fact that something

is real gives a reason for thinking that it or something else is good,

whether it be real or not. That any such fact can give any such reason

is impossible; but it may be suspected that the contrary supposition

has been encouraged by the failure to distinguish between the assertion

‘This is good,’ when it means ‘_This sort of thing_ is good,’ or ‘This

would be good, if it existed,’ and the assertion ‘This existing thing

is good.’ The latter proposition obviously cannot be true, unless

the thing exists; and hence the proof of the thing’s existence is a

necessary step to its proof. Both propositions, however, in spite

of this immense difference between them, are commonly expressed in

the same terms. We use the same words, when we assert an ethical

proposition about a subject that is actually real, and when we assert

it about a subject considered as merely possible.

 

In this ambiguity of language we have, then, a possible source of error

with regard to the bearing of truths that assert reality upon truths

that assert goodness. And that this ambiguity is actually neglected by

those metaphysical writers who profess that the Supreme Good consists

in an eternal reality may be shewn in the following way. We have seen,

in considering the possible bearing of Metaphysics upon Practical

Ethics, that, since what exists eternally cannot possibly be affected

by our actions, no practical maxim can possibly be true, if the sole

reality is eternal. This fact, as I said, is commonly neglected by

metaphysical writers: they assert both of the two contradictory

propositions that the sole reality is eternal and that its realisation

in the future is a good too. Prof. Mackenzie, we saw, asserts that we

ought to aim at the realisation of ‘the true self’ or ‘the rational

universe’: and yet Prof. Mackenzie holds, as the word ‘true’ plainly

implies, that both ‘the true self’ and ‘the rational universe’ are

eternally real. Here we have already a contradiction in the supposition

that what is eternally real can be realised in the future; and it is

comparatively unimportant whether or not we add to this the further

contradiction involved in the supposition that the eternal