Principia Ethica 44

Principia Ethica 44

consists_ in the control of passion by reason. Accordingly, the truth

seems to be that, whenever a strong moral emotion is excited by the

idea of rightness, this emotion is accompanied by a vague cognition of

the kind of evils usually suppressed or avoided by the actions which

most frequently occur to us as instances of duty; and that the emotion

is directed towards this evil quality. We may, then, conclude that the

specific moral emotion owes almost all its intrinsic value to the fact

that it includes a cognition of evils accompanied by a hatred of them:

mere rightness, whether truly or untruly attributed to an action, seems

incapable of forming the object of an emotional contemplation, which

shall be any great good.

 

 

=132.= If this be so, then we have, in many prominent instances of

virtue, cases of a whole, greatly good in itself, which yet contains

the cognition of something, whereof the existence would be a great

evil: a great good is absolutely dependent for its value, upon its

inclusion of something evil or ugly, although it does not owe its

value _solely_ to this element in it. And, in the case of virtues,

this evil object does, in general, actually exist. But there seems no

reason to think that, when it does exist, the whole state of things

thus constituted is therefore the better _on the whole_. What seems

indubitable, is only that the feeling contemplation of an object, whose

existence _would_ be a great evil, or which is ugly, may be essential

to a valuable whole. We have another undoubted instance of this in the

appreciation of tragedy. But, in tragedy, the sufferings of Lear, and

the vice of Iago may be purely imaginary. And it seems certain that,

if they really existed, the evil thus existing, while it must detract

from the good consisting in a proper feeling towards them, will add

no positive value to that good great enough to counterbalance such a

loss. It does, indeed, seem that the existence of a true belief in the

object of these mixed goods does add _some_ value to the whole in which

it is combined with them: a conscious compassion for real suffering

seems to be better, _as a whole_, than a compassion for sufferings

merely imaginary; and this may well be the case, even though the evil

involved in the actual suffering makes the total state of things bad

_on the whole_. And it certainly seems to be true that a _false_ belief

in the actual existence of its object makes a worse mixed good than

if our state of mind were that with which we normally regard pure

fiction. Accordingly we may conclude that the only mixed goods, which

are positively good _on the whole_, are those in which the object is

something which _would_ be a great evil, if it existed, or which _is_

ugly.

 

 

=133.= With regard, then, to those mixed goods, which consist in an

appropriate attitude of the mind towards things evil or ugly, and which

include among their number the greater part of such virtues as have any

intrinsic value whatever, the following three conclusions seem to be

those chiefly requiring to be emphasized:--

 

(1) There seems no reason to think that where the object is a thing

evil in itself, which _actually exists_, the total state of things is

ever positively _good on the whole_. The appropriate mental attitude

towards a really existing evil contains, of course, an element which

is absolutely identical with the same attitude towards the same evil,

where it is purely imaginary. And this element, which is common to

the two cases, may be a great positive good, on the whole. But there

seems no reason to doubt that, where the evil is _real_, the amount of

this real evil is always sufficient to reduce the total sum of value

to a negative quantity. Accordingly we have no reason to maintain the

paradox that an ideal world would be one in which vice and suffering

must exist in order that it may contain the goods consisting in the

appropriate emotion towards them. It is not a positive good that

suffering should exist, in order that we may compassionate it; or

wickedness, that we may hate it. There is no reason to think that any

actual evil whatsoever would be contained in the Ideal. It follows that

we cannot admit the actual validity of any of the arguments commonly

used in Theodicies; no such argument succeeds in justifying the fact

that there does exist even the smallest of the many evils which this

world contains. The most that can be said for such arguments is that,

when they make appeal to the principle of organic unity, their appeal

is valid _in principle_. It _might_ be the case that the existence of

evil was necessary, not merely as a means, but analytically, to the

existence of the greatest good. But we have no reason to think that

this _is_ the case in any instance whatsoever.

 

But (2) there _is_ reason to think that the cognition of things evil

or ugly, which are purely imaginary, is essential to the Ideal. In this

case the burden of proof lies the other way. It cannot be doubted that

the appreciation of tragedy is a great positive good; and it seems

almost equally certain that the virtues of compassion, courage, and

self-control contain such goods. And to all these the cognition of

things which would be evil, if they existed, is analytically necessary.

Here then we have things of which the existence must add value to

any whole in which they are contained; nor is it possible to assure

ourselves that any whole, from which they were omitted, would thereby

gain more in its value _as a whole_, than it would lose by their

omission. We have no reason to think that any whole, which did not

contain them, would be so good _on the whole_ as some whole in which

they were obtained. The case for their inclusion in the Ideal is as

strong as that for the inclusion of material qualities (§ 123, above).

_Against_ the inclusion of these goods nothing can be urged except a

bare possibility.

 

Finally (3) it is important to insist that, as was said above, these

mixed virtues have a great practical value, in addition to that which

they possess either in themselves or as mere means. Where evils do

exist, as in this world they do, the fact that they are known and

properly appreciated, constitutes a state of things having greater

value _as a whole_ even than the same appreciation of purely imaginary

evils. This state of things, it has been said, is never positively

good _on the whole_; but where the evil, which reduces its total value

to a negative quantity, already unavoidably exists, to obtain the

intrinsic value which belongs to it _as a whole_ will obviously produce

a better state of things than if the evil had existed by itself,

quite apart from the good element in it which is identical with the

appreciation of imaginary evils, and from any ulterior consequences

which its existence may bring about. The case is here the same as with

retributive punishment. Where an evil already exists, it is well that

it should be pitied or hated or endured, according to its nature; just

as it may be well that some evils should be punished. Of course, as in

all practical cases, it often happens that the attainment of this good

is incompatible with the attainment of another and a greater one. But

it is important to insist that we have here a real intrinsic value,

which must be taken into account in calculating that greatest possible

balance of intrinsic value, which it is always our duty to produce.

 

 

=134.= I have now completed such remarks as seemed most necessary to

be made concerning intrinsic values. It is obvious that for the proper

answering of this, the fundamental question of Ethics, there remains

a field of investigation as wide and as difficult, as was assigned

to Practical Ethics in my last chapter. There is as much to be said

concerning what results are intrinsically good, and in what degrees,

as concerning what results it is possible for us to bring about: both

questions demand, and will repay, an equally patient enquiry. Many of

the judgments, which I have made in this chapter, will, no doubt, seem

unduly arbitrary: it must be confessed that some of the attributions

of intrinsic value, which have seemed to me to be true, do not display

that symmetry and system which is wont to be required of philosophers.

But if this be urged as an objection, I may respectfully point out

that it is none. We have no title whatever to assume that the truth on

any subject-matter will display such symmetry as we desire to see--or

(to use the common vague phrase) that it will possess any particular

form of ‘unity.’ To search for ‘unity’ and ‘system,’ at the expense

of truth, is not, I take it, the proper business of philosophy,

however universally it may have been the practice of philosophers.

And that all truths about the Universe possess to one another all

the various relations, which may be meant by ‘unity,’ can only be

legitimately asserted, when we have carefully distinguished those

various relations and discovered what those truths are. In particular,

we can have no title to assert that ethical truths are ‘unified’ in

any particular manner, except in virtue of an enquiry conducted by

the method which I have endeavoured to follow and to illustrate. The

study of Ethics would, no doubt, be far more simple, and its results

far more ‘systematic,’ if, for instance, pain were an evil of exactly

the same magnitude as pleasure is a good; but we have no reason

whatever to assume that the Universe is such that ethical truths must

display this kind of symmetry: no argument against my conclusion,

that pleasure and pain do _not_ thus correspond, can have any weight

whatever, failing a careful examination of the instances which have

led me to form it. Nevertheless I am content that the results of this

chapter should be taken rather as illustrating the method which must

be pursued in answering the fundamental question of Ethics, and the

principles which must be observed, than as giving the correct answer

to that question. That things intrinsically good or bad are many and

various; that most of them are ‘organic unities,’ in the peculiar and

definite sense to which I have confined the term; and that our only

means of deciding upon their intrinsic value and its degree, is by

carefully distinguishing exactly what the thing is, about which we ask

the question, and then looking to see whether it has or has not the

unique predicate ‘good’ in any of its various degrees: these are the

conclusions, upon the truth of which I desire to insist. Similarly, in

my last chapter, with regard to the question ‘What ought we to do?’

I have endeavoured rather to shew exactly what is the meaning of the

question, and what difficulties must consequently be faced in answering

it, than to prove that any particular answers are true. And that these

two questions, having precisely the nature which I have assigned to

them, are _the_ questions which it is the object of Ethics to answer,

may be regarded as the main result of the preceding chapters. These

are the questions which ethical philosophers have always been mainly

concerned to answer, although they have not recognised what their

question was--what predicate they were asserting to attach to things.

The practice of asking what things are virtues or duties, without

distinguishing what these terms mean; the practice of asking what ought

to be here and now, without distinguishing whether as means or end--for

its own sake or for that of its results; the search for one single

_criterion_ of right or wrong, without the recognition that in order

to discover a criterion we must first know what things _are_ right or

wrong; and the neglect of the principle of ‘organic unities’--these

sources of error have hitherto been almost universally prevalent in

Ethics. The conscious endeavour to avoid them all, and to apply to

all the ordinary objects of ethical judgment these two questions and

these only: Has it intrinsic value? and Is it a means to the best

possible?--this attempt, so far as I know, is entirely new; and its

results, when compared with those habitual to moral philosophers, are

certainly sufficiently surprising: that to Common Sense they will not

appear so strange, I venture to hope and believe. It is, I think,

much to be desired that the labour commonly devoted to answering such

questions as whether certain ‘ends’ are more or less ‘comprehensive’

or more or less ‘consistent’ with one another--questions, which, even

if a precise meaning were given to them, are wholly irrelevant to the

proof of any ethical conclusion--should be diverted to the separate

investigation of these two clear problems.