Principia Ethica 6

Principia Ethica 6

=3.= But this is a question which may have many meanings. If, for

example, each of us were to say ‘I am doing good now’ or ‘I had a

good dinner yesterday,’ these statements would each of them be some

sort of answer to our question, although perhaps a false one. So, too,

when A asks B what school he ought to send his son to, B’s answer

will certainly be an ethical judgment. And similarly all distribution

of praise or blame to any personage or thing that has existed, now

exists, or will exist, does give some answer to the question ‘What is

good?’ In all such cases some particular thing is judged to be good or

bad: the question ‘What?’ is answered by ‘This.’ But this is not the

sense in which a scientific Ethics asks the question. Not one, of all

the many million answers of this kind, which must be true, can form a

part of an ethical system; although that science must contain reasons

and principles sufficient for deciding on the truth of all of them.

There are far too many persons, things and events in the world, past,

present, or to come, for a discussion of their individual merits to be

embraced in any science. Ethics, therefore, does not deal at all with

facts of this nature, facts that are unique, individual, absolutely

particular; facts with which such studies as history, geography,

astronomy, are compelled, in part at least, to deal. And, for this

reason, it is not the business of the ethical philosopher to give

personal advice or exhortation.

 

 

=4.= But there is another meaning which may be given to the question

‘What is good?’ ‘Books are good’ would be an answer to it, though

an answer obviously false; for some books are very bad indeed. And

ethical judgments of this kind do indeed belong to Ethics; though

I shall not deal with many of them. Such is the judgment ‘Pleasure

is good’--a judgment, of which Ethics should discuss the truth,

although it is not nearly as important as that other judgment, with

which we shall be much occupied presently--‘Pleasure _alone_ is

good.’ It is judgments of this sort, which are made in such books on

Ethics as contain a list of ‘virtues’--in Aristotle’s ‘Ethics’ for

example. But it is judgments of precisely the same kind, which form

the substance of what is commonly supposed to be a study different

from Ethics, and one much less respectable--the study of Casuistry.

We may be told that Casuistry differs from Ethics, in that it is much

more detailed and particular, Ethics much more general. But it is

most important to notice that Casuistry does not deal with anything

that is absolutely particular--particular in the only sense in which

a perfectly precise line can be drawn between it and what is general.

It is not particular in the sense just noticed, the sense in which

this book is a particular book, and A’s friend’s advice particular

advice. Casuistry may indeed be _more_ particular and Ethics _more_

general; but that means that they differ only in degree and not in

kind. And this is universally true of ‘particular’ and ‘general,’ when

used in this common, but inaccurate, sense. So far as Ethics allows

itself to give lists of virtues or even to name constituents of the

Ideal, it is indistinguishable from Casuistry. Both alike deal with

what is general, in the sense in which physics and chemistry deal with

what is general. Just as chemistry aims at discovering what are the

properties of oxygen, _wherever it occurs_, and not only of this or

that particular specimen of oxygen; so Casuistry aims at discovering

what actions are good, _whenever they occur_. In this respect Ethics

and Casuistry alike are to be classed with such sciences as physics,

chemistry and physiology, in their absolute distinction from those of

which history and geography are instances. And it is to be noted that,

owing to their detailed nature, casuistical investigations are actually

nearer to physics and to chemistry than are the investigations usually

assigned to Ethics. For just as physics cannot rest content with the

discovery that light is propagated by waves of ether, but must go on

to discover the particular nature of the ether-waves corresponding to

each several colour; so Casuistry, not content with the general law

that charity is a virtue, must attempt to discover the relative merits

of every different form of charity. Casuistry forms, therefore, part

of the ideal of ethical science: Ethics cannot be complete without it.

The defects of Casuistry are not defects of principle; no objection can

be taken to its aim and object. It has failed only because it is far

too difficult a subject to be treated adequately in our present state

of knowledge. The casuist has been unable to distinguish, in the cases

which he treats, those elements upon which their value depends. Hence

he often thinks two cases to be alike in respect of value, when in

reality they are alike only in some other respect. It is to mistakes of

this kind that the pernicious influence of such investigations has been

due. For Casuistry is the goal of ethical investigation. It cannot be

safely attempted at the beginning of our studies, but only at the end.

 

 

=5.= But our question ‘What is good?’ may have still another meaning.

We may, in the third place, mean to ask, not what thing or things are

good, but how ‘good’ is to be defined. This is an enquiry which belongs

only to Ethics, not to Casuistry; and this is the enquiry which will

occupy us first.

 

It is an enquiry to which most special attention should be directed;

since this question, how ‘good’ is to be defined, is the most

fundamental question in all Ethics. That which is meant by ‘good’

is, in fact, except its converse ‘bad,’ the _only_ simple object of

thought which is peculiar to Ethics. Its definition is, therefore,

the most essential point in the definition of Ethics; and moreover a

mistake with regard to it entails a far larger number of erroneous

ethical judgments than any other. Unless this first question be fully

understood, and its true answer clearly recognised, the rest of Ethics

is as good as useless from the point of view of systematic knowledge.

True ethical judgments, of the two kinds last dealt with, may indeed

be made by those who do not know the answer to this question as well

as by those who do; and it goes without saying that the two classes

of people may lead equally good lives. But it is extremely unlikely

that the _most general_ ethical judgments will be equally valid, in

the absence of a true answer to this question: I shall presently try

to shew that the gravest errors have been largely due to beliefs in a

false answer. And, in any case, it is impossible that, till the answer

to this question be known, any one should know _what is the evidence_

for any ethical judgment whatsoever. But the main object of Ethics,

as a systematic science, is to give correct _reasons_ for thinking

that this or that is good; and, unless this question be answered, such

reasons cannot be given. Even, therefore, apart from the fact that a

false answer leads to false conclusions, the present enquiry is a most

necessary and important part of the science of Ethics.

 

 

=6.= What, then, is good? How is good to be defined? Now, it may be

thought that this is a verbal question. A definition does indeed often

mean the expressing of one word’s meaning in other words. But this

is not the sort of definition I am asking for. Such a definition can

never be of ultimate importance in any study except lexicography. If I

wanted that kind of definition I should have to consider in the first

place how people generally used the word ‘good’; but my business is not

with its proper usage, as established by custom. I should, indeed, be

foolish, if I tried to use it for something which it did not usually

denote: if, for instance, I were to announce that, whenever I used the

word ‘good,’ I must be understood to be thinking of that object which

is usually denoted by the word ‘table.’ I shall, therefore, use the

word in the sense in which I think it is ordinarily used; but at the

same time I am not anxious to discuss whether I am right in thinking

that it is so used. My business is solely with that object or idea,

which I hold, rightly or wrongly, that the word is generally used to

stand for. What I want to discover is the nature of that object or

idea, and about this I am extremely anxious to arrive at an agreement.

 

But, if we understand the question in this sense, my answer to it

may seem a very disappointing one. If I am asked ‘What is good?’ my

answer is that good is good, and that is the end of the matter. Or if

I am asked ‘How is good to be defined?’ my answer is that it cannot

be defined, and that is all I have to say about it. But disappointing

as these answers may appear, they are of the very last importance. To

readers who are familiar with philosophic terminology, I can express

their importance by saying that they amount to this: That propositions

about the good are all of them synthetic and never analytic; and that

is plainly no trivial matter. And the same thing may be expressed more

popularly, by saying that, if I am right, then nobody can foist upon

us such an axiom as that ‘Pleasure is the only good’ or that ‘The good

is the desired’ on the pretence that this is ‘the very meaning of the

word.’

 

 

=7.= Let us, then, consider this position. My point is that ‘good’

is a simple notion, just as ‘yellow’ is a simple notion; that, just

as you cannot, by any manner of means, explain to any one who does

not already know it, what yellow is, so you cannot explain what good

is. Definitions of the kind that I was asking for, definitions which

describe the real nature of the object or notion denoted by a word,

and which do not merely tell us what the word is used to mean, are

only possible when the object or notion in question is something

complex. You can give a definition of a horse, because a horse has many

different properties and qualities, all of which you can enumerate.

But when you have enumerated them all, when you have reduced a horse

to his simplest terms, then you can no longer define those terms. They

are simply something which you think of or perceive, and to any one who

cannot think of or perceive them, you can never, by any definition,

make their nature known. It may perhaps be objected to this that we

are able to describe to others, objects which they have never seen or

thought of. We can, for instance, make a man understand what a chimaera

is, although he has never heard of one or seen one. You can tell him

that it is an animal with a lioness’s head and body, with a goat’s head

growing from the middle of its back, and with a snake in place of a

tail. But here the object which you are describing is a complex object;

it is entirely composed of parts, with which we are all perfectly

familiar--a snake, a goat, a lioness; and we know, too, the manner

in which those parts are to be put together, because we know what is

meant by the middle of a lioness’s back, and where her tail is wont to

grow. And so it is with all objects, not previously known, which we are

able to define: they are all complex; all composed of parts, which may

themselves, in the first instance, be capable of similar definition,

but which must in the end be reducible to simplest parts, which can no

longer be defined. But yellow and good, we say, are not complex: they

are notions of that simple kind, out of which definitions are composed

and with which the power of further defining ceases.