Principia Ethica 30

Principia Ethica 30

84.= But to consider whether any form of will is or is not a

criterion of goodness is quite unnecessary for our purpose here;

since none of those writers who profess to base their Ethics on

an investigation of will have ever recognised the need of proving

directly and independently that all the things which are willed in

a certain way are good. They make no attempt to shew that will is a

_criterion_ of goodness; and no stronger evidence could be given that

they do not recognise that this, at most, is all it can be. As has

been just pointed out, if we are to maintain that whatever is willed

in a certain way is also good, we must in the first place be able to

shew that certain things have one property ‘goodness,’ and that the

same things _also_ have the other property that they are willed in a

certain way. And secondly we must be able to shew this in a very large

number of instances, if we are to be entitled to claim any assent

for the proposition that these two properties _always_ accompany one

another: even when this was shewn it would still be doubtful whether

the inference from ‘generally’ to ‘always’ would be valid, and almost

certain that this doubtful principle would be useless. But the very

question which it is the business of Ethics to answer is this question

what things are good; and, so long as Hedonism retains its present

popularity, it must be admitted that it is a question upon which there

is scarcely any agreement and which therefore requires the most careful

examination. The greatest and most difficult part of the business

of Ethics would therefore require to have been already accomplished

before we could be entitled to claim that anything was a _criterion_

of goodness. If, on the other hand, to be willed in a certain way

was _identical_ with being good, then indeed we should be entitled

to start our ethical investigations by enquiring what was willed in

the way required. That this is the way in which metaphysical writers

start their investigations seems to shew conclusively that they are

influenced by the idea that ‘goodness’ is _identical_ with ‘being

willed.’ They do not recognise that the question ‘What is good?’ is a

_different_ one from the question ‘What is willed in a certain way?’

Thus we find Green explicitly stating that ‘_the_ common characteristic

of the good is that it satisfies some desire[22].’ If we are to take

this statement strictly, it obviously asserts that good things have no

characteristic in common, except that they satisfy some desire--not

even, therefore, that they are good. And this can only be the case,

if being good is _identical_ with satisfying desire: if ‘good’ is

merely another name for ‘desire-satisfying.’ There could be no plainer

instance of the naturalistic fallacy. And we cannot take the statement

as a mere verbal slip, which does not affect the validity of Green’s

main argument. For he nowhere either gives or pretends to give any

reason for believing anything to be good in any sense, except that

it is what would satisfy a particular kind of desire--the kind of

desire which he tries to shew to be that of a moral agent. An unhappy

alternative is before us. Such reasoning would give valid reasons for

his conclusions, if, and only if, being good and being desired in a

particular way were identical: and in this case, as we have seen in

Chapter I., his conclusions would not be ethical. On the other hand,

if the two are not identical, his conclusions may be ethical and may

even be right, but he has not given us a single reason for believing

them. The thing which a scientific Ethics is required to shew, namely

that certain things are really good, he has assumed to begin with, in

assuming that things which are willed in a certain way are always good.

We may, therefore, have as much respect for Green’s conclusions as for

those of any other man who details to us his ethical convictions: but

that any of his arguments are such as to give us any reason for holding

that Green’s convictions are more likely to be true than those of any

other man, must be clearly denied. The _Prolegomena to Ethics_ is quite

as far as Mr Spencer’s _Data of Ethics_, from making the smallest

contribution to the solution of ethical problems.

 

[22] _Prolegomena to Ethics_, p. 178.

 

 

=85.= The main object of this chapter has been to shew that

Metaphysics, understood as the investigation of a supposed

supersensible reality, can have no logical bearing whatever upon the

answer to the fundamental ethical question ‘What is good in itself?’

That this is so, follows at once from the conclusion of Chapter I.,

that ‘good’ denotes an ultimate, unanalysable predicate; but this truth

has been so systematically ignored, that it seemed worth while to

discuss and distinguish, in detail, the principal relations, which do

hold, or have been supposed to hold, between Metaphysics and Ethics.

With this view I pointed out:--(1) That Metaphysics may have a bearing

on _practical_ Ethics--on the question ‘What ought we to do?’--so far

as it may be able to tell us what the future effects of our action

will be: what it can _not_ tell us is whether those effects are good

or bad in themselves. One particular type of metaphysical doctrine,

which is very frequently held, undoubtedly has such a bearing on

_practical_ Ethics: for, if it is true that the sole reality is an

eternal, immutable Absolute, then it follows that no actions of ours

can have any real effect, and hence that no _practical_ proposition

can be true. The same conclusion follows from the ethical proposition,

commonly combined with this metaphysical one--namely that this eternal

Reality is also the sole good (68). (2) That metaphysical writers,

as where they fail to notice the contradiction just noticed between

any _practical_ proposition and the assertion that an eternal reality

is the sole good, seem frequently to confuse the proposition that

one particular existing thing is good, with the proposition that the

existence of that kind of thing _would_ be good, wherever it might

occur. To the proof of the former proposition Metaphysics might be

relevant, by shewing that the thing existed; to the proof of the latter

it is wholly irrelevant: it can only serve the _psychological_ function

of suggesting things which may be valuable--a function which would be

still better performed by pure fiction (69-71).

 

But the most important source of the supposition that Metaphysics is

relevant to Ethics, seems to be the assumption that ‘good’ _must_

denote some _real_ property of things--an assumption which is mainly

due to two erroneous doctrines, the first _logical_, the second

_epistemological_. Hence (3) I discussed the _logical_ doctrine that

all propositions assert a relation between existents; and pointed

out that the assimilation of ethical propositions either to natural

laws or to commands are instances of this _logical_ fallacy (72-76).

And finally (4) I discussed the _epistemological_ doctrine that to be

good is equivalent to being willed or felt in some particular way; a

doctrine which derives support from the analogous error, which Kant

regarded as the cardinal point of his system and which has received

immensely wide acceptance--the erroneous view that to be ‘true’ or

‘real’ is equivalent to being thought in a particular way. In this

discussion the main points to which I desire to direct attention

are these: (_a_) That Volition and Feeling are _not_ analogous to

Cognition in the manner assumed; since in so far as these words denote

an attitude of the mind towards an object, they are themselves merely

instances of Cognition: they differ only in respect of the kind of

object of which they take cognisance, and in respect of the other

mental accompaniments of such cognitions: (_b_) That universally the

_object_ of a cognition must be distinguished from the cognition of

which it is the object; and hence that in no case can the question

whether the object is _true_ be identical with the question how it is

cognised or whether it is cognised at all: it follows that even if the

proposition ‘This is good’ were always the object of certain kinds of

will or feeling, the _truth_ of that proposition could in no case be

established by proving that it was their object; far less can that

proposition itself be identical with the proposition that its subject

is the object of a volition or a feeling (77-84).

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER V.

 

ETHICS IN RELATION TO CONDUCT.

 

 

=86.= In the present chapter we have again to take a great step in

ethical method. My discussion hitherto has fallen under two main

heads. Under the first, I tried to shew what ‘good’--the adjective

‘good’--_means_. This appeared to be the first point to be settled in

any treatment of Ethics, that should aim at being systematic. It is

necessary we should know this, should know what good means, before we

can go on to consider what is good--what things or qualities are good.

It is necessary we should know it for two reasons. The first reason

is that ‘good’ is the notion upon which all Ethics depends. We cannot

hope to understand what we mean, when we say that this is good or that

is good, until we understand quite clearly, not only what ‘this’ is or

‘that’ is (which the natural sciences and philosophy can tell us) but

also what is meant by calling them good, a matter which is reserved

for Ethics only. Unless we are quite clear on this point, our ethical

reasoning will be always apt to be fallacious. We shall think that we

are proving that a thing is ‘good,’ when we are really only proving

that it is something else; since unless we know what ‘good’ means,

unless we know what is meant by that notion in itself, as distinct from

what is meant by any other notion, we shall not be able to tell when

we are dealing with it and when we are dealing with something else,

which is perhaps like it, but yet not the same. And the second reason

why we should settle first of all this question ‘What good means?’

is a reason of method. It is this, that we can never know on what

_evidence_ an ethical proposition rests, until we know the nature of

the notion which makes the proposition ethical. We cannot tell what

is possible, by way of proof, in favour of one judgment that ‘This or

that is good,’ or against another judgment ‘That this or that is bad,’

until we have recognised what the nature of such propositions must

always be. In fact, it follows from the meaning of good and bad, that

such propositions are all of them, in Kant’s phrase, ‘synthetic’: they

all must rest in the end upon some proposition which must be simply

accepted or rejected, which cannot be logically deduced from any other

proposition. This result, which follows from our first investigation,

may be otherwise expressed by saying that the fundamental principles

of Ethics must be self-evident. But I am anxious that this __EXPRESSION__

should not be misunderstood. The __EXPRESSION__ ‘self-evident’ means

properly that the proposition so called is evident or true, _by itself_

alone; that it is not an inference from some proposition other than

_itself_. The __EXPRESSION__ does _not_ mean that the proposition is

true, because it is evident to you or me or all mankind, because in

other words it appears to us to be true. That a proposition appears

to be true can never be a valid argument that true it really is. By

saying that a proposition is self-evident, we mean emphatically that

its appearing so to us, is _not_ the reason why it is true: for we

mean that it has absolutely no reason. It would not be a self-evident

proposition, if we could say of it: I cannot think otherwise and