Principia Ethica 29

Principia Ethica 29

It seems to be owing to this confusion, that the question ‘What

is good?’ is thought to be identical with the question ‘What is

preferred?’ It is said, with sufficient truth, that you would never

know a thing was good unless you preferred it, just as you would never

know a thing existed unless you perceived it. But it is added, and this

is false, that you would never know a thing was good unless you _knew_

that you preferred it, or that it existed unless you _knew_ that you

perceived it. And it is finally added, and this is utterly false, that

you cannot distinguish the fact that a thing is good from the fact

that you prefer it, or the fact that it exists from the fact that you

perceive it. It is often pointed out that I cannot at any given moment

distinguish what is true from what I think so: and this is true. But

though I cannot distinguish _what_ is true from _what_ I think so, I

always can distinguish what I mean by saying _that_ it is true from

what I mean by saying _that_ I think so. For I understand the meaning

of the supposition that what I think true may nevertheless be false.

When, therefore, I assert that it is true I mean to assert something

different from the fact that I think so. _What_ I think, namely _that_

something is true, is always quite distinct from the fact that I think

it. The assertion that it is true does not even _include_ the assertion

that I think it so; although, of course, whenever I do think a thing

true, it is, as a matter of fact, also true that I do think it. This

tautologous proposition that for a thing to be thought true it is

necessary that it should be thought, is, however, commonly identified

with the proposition that for a thing to _be_ true it is necessary

that it should be thought. A very little reflection should suffice to

convince anyone that this identification is erroneous; and a very

little more will shew that, if so, we must mean by ‘true’ something

which includes no reference to thinking or to any other psychical fact.

It may be difficult to discover precisely _what_ we mean--to hold the

object in question before us, so as to compare it with other objects:

but that we do mean something distinct and unique can no longer be

matter of doubt. That ‘to be true’ _means_ to be thought in a certain

way is, therefore, certainly false. Yet this assertion plays the most

essential part in Kant’s ‘Copernican revolution’ of philosophy, and

renders worthless the whole mass of modern literature, to which that

revolution has given rise, and which is called Epistemology. Kant held

that what was unified in a certain manner by the synthetic activity of

thought was _ipso facto_ true: that this was the very meaning of the

word. Whereas it is plain that the only connection which can possibly

hold between being true and being thought in a certain way, is that

the latter should be a _criterion_ or test of the former. In order,

however, to establish that it is so, it would be necessary to establish

by the methods of induction that what was true was always thought in a

certain way. Modern Epistemology dispenses with this long and difficult

investigation at the cost of the self-contradictory assumption that

‘truth’ and the criterion of truth are one and the same thing.

 

 

=81.= It is, then, a very natural, though an utterly false supposition

that for a thing to _be_ true is the same thing as for it to be

perceived or thought of in a certain way. And since, for the reasons

given above, the fact of preference seems roughly to stand in the same

relation to thinking things good, in which the fact of perception

stands to thinking that they are true or exist, it is very natural that

for a thing to _be_ good should be supposed identical with its being

preferred in a certain way. But once this coordination of Volition and

Cognition has been accepted, it is again very natural that every fact

which seems to support the conclusion that being true is identical with

being cognised should confirm the corresponding conclusion that being

good is identical with being willed. It will, therefore, be in place to

point out another confusion, which seems to have had great influence

in causing acceptance of the view that to be true is the same thing as

to be cognised.

 

This confusion is due to a failure to observe that when we say we have

a _sensation_ or _perception_ or that we _know_ a thing, we mean to

assert not only that our mind is cognitive, but _also_ that that which

it cognises is true. It is not observed that the usage of these words

is such that, if a thing be untrue, that fact alone is sufficient to

justify us in saying that the person who says he perceives or knows it,

does not _perceive_ or _know_ it, without our either enquiring whether,

or assuming that, his state of mind differs in any respect from what

it would have been had he perceived or known. By this denial we do not

accuse him of an error in introspection, even if there was such an

error: we do not deny that he was aware of a certain object, nor even

that his state of mind was exactly such as he took it to be: we merely

deny that the object, of which he was aware, had a certain property.

It is, however, commonly supposed that when we assert a thing to be

perceived or known, we are asserting one fact only; and since of the

two facts which we really assert, the existence of a psychical state is

by far the easier to distinguish, it is supposed that this is the only

one which we do assert. Thus perception and sensation have come to be

regarded as if they denoted certain states of mind and nothing more; a

mistake which was the easier to make since the commonest state of mind,

to which we give a name which does not imply that its object is true,

namely imagination, may, with some plausibility, be supposed to differ

from sensation and perception not only in the property possessed by

its object, but also in its character as a state of mind. It has thus

come to be supposed that the only difference between perception and

imagination, by which they can be defined, must be a merely psychical

difference: and, if this were the case, it would follow at once that

to _be_ true was identical with being cognised in a certain way; since

the assertion that a thing is perceived does certainly _include_ the

assertion that it is true, and if, nevertheless, that it is perceived

means _only_ that the mind has a certain attitude towards it, then

its truth must be identical with the fact that it is regarded in this

way. We may, then, attribute the view that to be true _means_ to

be cognised in a certain way partly to the failure to perceive that

certain words, which are commonly supposed to stand for nothing more

than a certain kind of cognitive state, do, in fact, _also_ include a

reference to the truth of the object of such states.

 

 

=82.= I will now sum up my account of the apparent connections between

will and ethical propositions, which seem to support the vague

conviction that ‘This is good’ is somehow identical with ‘This is

willed in a certain way.’ (1) It may be maintained, with sufficient

show of truth, that it is only because certain things were originally

willed, that we ever came to have ethical convictions at all. And it

has been too commonly assumed that to shew what was the cause of a

thing is the same thing as to shew what the thing itself is. It is,

however, hardly necessary to point out that this is not the case. (2)

It may be further maintained, with some plausibility, that to think a

thing good and to will it in a certain way are _now_ as a matter of

fact identical. We must, however, distinguish certain possible meanings

of this assertion. It may be admitted that when we think a thing good,

we _generally_ have a special attitude of will or feeling towards it;

and that, perhaps, when we will it in a certain way, we do always think

it good. But the very fact that we can thus distinguish the question

whether, though the one is always accompanied by the other, yet this

other may not always be accompanied by the first, shews that the two

things are not, in the strict sense, identical. The fact is that,

whatever we mean by will, or by any form of will, the fact we mean by

it certainly always includes something else _beside_ the thinking a

thing good: and hence that, when willing and thinking good are asserted

to be identical, the most that can be meant is that this other element

in will always both accompanies and is accompanied by the thinking

good; and this, as has been said, is of very doubtful truth. Even,

however, if it were strictly true, the fact that the two things can be

distinguished is fatal to the assumed coordination between will and

cognition, in one of the senses in which that assumption is commonly

made. For it is only in respect of the _other_ element in will, that

volition differs from cognition; whereas it is only in respect of the

fact that volition, or some form of volition, _includes_ a _cognition_

of goodness, that will can have the same relation to ethical, which

cognition has to metaphysical, propositions. Accordingly the fact of

volition, _as a whole_, that is, if we include in it the element which

makes it volition and distinguishes it from cognition, has _not_ the

same relation to ethical propositions which cognition has to those

which are metaphysical. Volition and cognition are _not_ coordinate

ways of experiencing, since it is only in so far as volition denotes

a _complex_ fact, which includes in it the one identical simple fact,

which is meant by _cognition_, that volition is a way of experiencing

at all.

 

But, (3) if we allow the terms ‘volition’ or ‘will’ to stand for

‘thinking good,’ although they certainly do not commonly stand for

this, there still remains the question: What connection would this fact

establish between volition and Ethics? Could the enquiry into what was

willed be identical with the ethical enquiry into what was good? It

is plain enough that they could not be identical; though it is also

plain why they should be thought so. The question ‘What is good?’ is

confused with the question ‘What is thought good?’ and the question

‘What is true?’ with the question ‘What is thought true?’ for two main

reasons. (1) One of these is the general difficulty that is found

in distinguishing what is cognised from the cognition of it. It is

observed that I certainly cannot cognise anything that is true without

cognising it. Since, therefore, whenever I know a thing that is true,

the thing is certainly cognised, it is assumed that for a thing to _be_

true at all is the same thing as for it to be cognised. And (2) it is

not observed that certain words, which are supposed to denote only

peculiar species of cognition, do as a matter of fact _also_ denote

that the object cognised is true. Thus if ‘perception’ be taken to

denote only a certain kind of mental fact, then, since the object of it

is always true, it becomes easy to suppose that to be true means only

to be object to a mental state of that kind. And similarly it is easy

to suppose that to be truly good differs from being falsely thought

so, solely in respect of the fact that to be the former is to be the

object of a volition differing from that of which an apparent good is

the object, in the same way in which a perception (on this supposition)

differs from an illusion.

 

 

=83.= Being good, then, is not identical with being willed or felt

in any kind of way, any more than being true is identical with being

thought in any kind of way. But let us suppose this to be admitted: Is

it still possible that an enquiry into the nature of will or feeling

should be a necessary step to the proof of ethical conclusions? If

being good and being willed are _not_ identical, then the most that can

be maintained with regard to the connection of goodness with will is

that what is good is always _also_ willed in a certain way, and that