Principia Ethica 31

Principia Ethica 31

87.= So much, then, for the first step in our ethical method, the

step which established that good is good and nothing else whatever,

and that Naturalism was a fallacy. A second step was taken when we

began to consider proposed self-evident principles of Ethics. In this

second division, resting on our result that good means good, we began

the discussion of propositions asserting that such and such a thing

or quality or concept was good. Of such a kind was the principle of

Intuitionistic or Ethical Hedonism--the principle that ‘Pleasure alone

is good.’ Following the method established by our first discussion,

I claimed that the untruth of this proposition was self-evident. I

could do nothing to _prove_ that it was untrue; I could only point

out as clearly as possible what it means, and how it contradicts other

propositions which appear to be equally true. My only object in all

this was, necessarily, to convince. But even if I did convince, that

does not prove that we are right. It justifies us in _holding_ that

we are so; but nevertheless we may be wrong. On one thing, however,

we may justly pride ourselves. It is that we have had a better chance

of answering our question rightly, than Bentham or Mill or Sidgwick

or others who have contradicted us. For we have _proved_ that these

have never even asked themselves the question which they professed to

answer. They have confused it with another question: small wonder,

therefore, if their answer is different from ours. We must be quite

sure that the same question has been put, before we trouble ourselves

at the different answers that are given to it. For all we know, the

whole world would agree with us, if they could once clearly understand

the question upon which we want their votes. Certain it is, that in

all those cases where we found a difference of opinion, we found also

that the question had _not_ been clearly understood. Though, therefore,

we cannot prove that we are right, yet we have reason to believe that

everybody, unless he is mistaken as to what he thinks, will think the

same as we. It is as with a sum in mathematics. If we find a gross and

palpable error in the calculations, we are not surprised or troubled

that the person who made this mistake has reached a different result

from ours. We think he will admit that his result is wrong, if his

mistake is pointed out to him. For instance if a man has to add up 5

+ 7 + 9, we should not wonder that he made the result to be 34, if he

started by making 5 + 7 = 25. And so in Ethics, if we find, as we did,

that ‘desirable’ is confused with ‘desired,’ or that ‘end’ is confused

with ‘means,’ we need not be disconcerted that those who have committed

these mistakes do not agree with us. The only difference is that in

Ethics, owing to the intricacy of its subject-matter, it is far more

difficult to persuade anyone either that he has made a mistake or that

that mistake affects his result.

 

In this second division of my subject--the division which is occupied

with the question, ‘What is good in itself?’--I have hitherto only

tried to establish one definite result, and that a negative one: namely

that pleasure is _not_ the sole good. This result, if true, refutes

half, or more than half, of the ethical theories which have ever been

held, and is, therefore, not without importance. It will, however, be

necessary presently to deal positively with the question: What things

are good and in what degrees?

 

 

=88.= But before proceeding to this discussion I propose, first, to

deal with the _third_ kind of ethical question--the question: What

ought we to do?

 

The answering of this question constitutes the third great division

of ethical enquiry; and its nature was briefly explained in Chap. I.

(§§ 15-17). It introduces into Ethics, as was there pointed out, an

entirely new question--the question what things are related as _causes_

to that which is good in itself; and this question can only be answered

by an entirely new method--the method of empirical investigation; by

means of which causes are discovered in the other sciences. To ask what

kind of actions we ought to perform, or what kind of conduct is right,

is to ask what kind of effects such action and conduct will produce.

Not a single question in practical Ethics can be answered except by a

causal generalisation. All such questions do, indeed, _also_ involve

an ethical judgment proper--the judgment that certain effects are

better, in themselves, than others. But they _do_ assert that these

better things are effects--are causally connected with the actions in

question. Every judgment in practical Ethics may be reduced to the

form: This is a cause of that good thing.

 

 

=89.= That this is the case, that the questions, What is right? what is

my duty? what ought I to do? belong exclusively to this third branch of

ethical enquiry, is the first point to which I wish to call attention.

All moral laws, I wish to shew, are merely statements that certain

kinds of actions will have good effects. The very opposite of this view

has been generally prevalent in Ethics. ‘The right’ and ‘the useful’

have been supposed to be at least _capable_ of conflicting with one

another, and, at all events, to be essentially distinct. It has been

characteristic of a certain school of moralists, as of moral common

sense, to declare that the end will never justify the means. What I

wish first to point out is that ‘right’ does and can mean nothing but

‘cause of a good result,’ and is thus identical with ‘useful’; whence

it follows that the end always will justify the means, and that no

action which is not justified by its results can be right. That there

may be a true proposition, meant to be conveyed by the assertion ‘The

end will not justify the means,’ I fully admit: but that, in another

sense, and a sense far more fundamental for ethical theory, it is

utterly false, must first be shewn.

 

That the assertion ‘I am morally bound to perform this action’ is

identical with the assertion ‘This action will produce the greatest

possible amount of good in the Universe’ has already been briefly shewn

in Chap. I. (§ 17); but it is important to insist that this fundamental

point is demonstrably certain. This may, perhaps, be best made evident

in the following way. It is plain that when we assert that a certain

action is our absolute duty, we are asserting that the performance of

that action at that time is unique in respect of value. But no dutiful

action can possibly have unique value in the sense that it is the sole

thing of value in the world; since, in that case, _every_ such action

would be the _sole_ good thing, which is a manifest contradiction.

And for the same reason its value cannot be unique in the sense that

it has more intrinsic value than anything else in the world; since

_every_ act of duty would then be the _best_ thing in the world, which

is also a contradiction. It can, therefore, be unique only in the sense

that the whole world will be better, if it be performed, than if any

possible alternative were taken. And the question whether this is so

cannot possibly depend solely on the question of its own intrinsic

value. For any action will also have effects different from those of

any other action; and if any of these have intrinsic value, their value

is exactly as relevant to the total goodness of the Universe as that of

their cause. It is, in fact, evident that, however valuable an action

may be in itself, yet, owing to its existence, the sum of good in the

Universe may conceivably be made less than if some other action, less

valuable in itself, had been performed. But to say that this is the

case is to say that it would have been better that the action should

not have been done; and this again is obviously equivalent to the

statement that it ought not to have been done--that it was not what

duty required. ‘Fiat iustitia, ruat caelum’ can only be justified on

the ground that by the doing of justice the Universe gains more than it

loses by the falling of the heavens. It is, of course, possible that

this is the case: but, at all events, to assert that justice _is_ a

duty, in spite of such consequences, is to assert that it is the case.

 

Our ‘duty,’ therefore, can only be defined as that action, which will

cause more good to exist in the Universe than any possible alternative.

And what is ‘right’ or ‘morally permissible’ only differs from this, as

what will _not_ cause _less_ good than any possible alternative. When,

therefore, Ethics presumes to assert that certain ways of acting are

‘duties’ it presumes to assert that to act in those ways will always

produce the greatest possible sum of good. If we are told that to ‘do

no murder’ is a duty, we are told that the action, whatever it may be,

which is called murder, will under no circumstances cause so much good

to exist in the Universe as its avoidance.

 

 

=90.= But, if this be recognised, several most important consequences

follow, with regard to the relation of Ethics to conduct.

 

(1) It is plain that no moral law is self-evident, as has commonly been

held by the Intuitional school of moralists. The Intuitional view of

Ethics consists in the supposition that certain rules, stating that

certain actions are always to be done or to be omitted, may be taken as

self-evident premisses. I have shewn with regard to judgments of what

is _good in itself_, that this is the case; no reason can be given for

them. But it is the essence of Intuitionism to suppose that rules of

action--statements not of what ought to _be_, but of what we ought to

do--are in the same sense intuitively certain. Plausibility has been

lent to this view by the fact that we do undoubtedly make immediate

judgments that certain actions are obligatory or wrong: we are thus

often intuitively certain of our duty, _in a psychological sense_. But,

nevertheless, these judgments are not self-evident and cannot be taken

as ethical premisses, since, as has now been shewn, they are capable of

being confirmed or refuted by an investigation of causes and effects.

It is, indeed, possible that some of our immediate intuitions are true;

but since _what_ we intuit, _what_ conscience tells us, is that certain

actions will always produce the greatest sum of good possible under the

circumstances, it is plain that reasons can be given, which will shew

the deliverances of conscience to be true or false.

 

 

=91.= (2) In order to shew that any action is a duty, it is necessary

to know both what are the other conditions, which will, conjointly with

it, determine its effects; to know exactly what will be the effects of

these conditions; and to know all the events which will be in any way

affected by our action throughout an infinite future. We must have all

this causal knowledge, and further we must know accurately the degree

of value both of the action itself and of all these effects; and must

be able to determine how, in conjunction with the other things in the

Universe, they will affect its value as an organic whole. And not

only this: we must also possess all this knowledge with regard to the

effects of every possible alternative; and must then be able to see by

comparison that the total value due to the existence of the action in

question will be greater than that which would be produced by any of

these alternatives. But it is obvious that our causal knowledge alone

is far too incomplete for us ever to assure ourselves of this result.

Accordingly it follows that we never have any reason to suppose that an

action is our duty: we can never be sure that any action will produce

the greatest value possible.