APPENDIX.

THE "OBJECT OF MORAL JUDGMENT.”

It is well known that the question whether the object of moral judgment generally is and always ought to be the 'motive,' or the 'intention,' has been debated, for the most part with much ambiguity of terms, between 'Intuitionists and Utilitarians.' A little reflection is sufficient to show that the kernel of the question is this: Is ethical action — the action which properly comes within the sphere of ethical valuation—the action of a person, as such, or can we attribute praise and blame to conduct considered merely as a succession of so many events in the external world, without regard to the character of the agent?

Those who think, with Professor Sidgwick, that the goodness or badness of an act depends on its 'intention,' that is, on all of its consequences which were foreseen, take the second view. They omit the reference to character: for them the question is, Were these consequences foreseen? But they cannot entirely ignore the personal reference, for it would sometimes be necessary to ask, Can we reasonably say that these consequences ought to have been foreseen?

We cannot be satisfied with this. In estimating the ethical worth of an act, we must ask, Which of these consequences did the agent desire, and why did he desire them? This question "Why did he desire them?" introduces the reference to personal character; for the desire, to satisfy which the action. was carried out, is the offspring of the character. The agent's character was such that on this particular occasion this thing appeared to him desirable. We may therefore say that the worth of an act depends on its motive, if by 'motive' we mean a desire for a certain object. A motive in this sense is not a mere feeling of want, but a feeling together with the idea of the object which satisfies it. It is evident that

the feeling of want alone, in abstraction from its object, cannot be called good or bad: we should scarcely pass moral judgment upon a man for wanting merely, until we found out what he wanted and in what circumstances. Some writers have used the word 'motive' in this sense of a feeling in abstraction from its object. But if we must use this term at all-this 'fossilised confusion' as Sir A. Grant well called it— it seems best to make it include both the ideational and the affective elements, as being the idea of the consequences for which the act is done.

In the constructive part of Dr Martineau's Types of Ethical Theory, the word 'motive' wavers between these two senses : so does each of the terms that he uses as synonymous with it, -'spring of action,' 'impulse,'' tendency,' ' incentive,' 'impelling principle,' 'inner propulsion,' 'inner suggestion.' This ambiguity is specially unfortunate for his theory, because his fundamental contention is that the moral quality of the act depends on its 'motive' and on nothing else. The ambiguity that I speak of has two forms. Dr Martineau frequently allows himself to speak of motives, or springs of action, as if they were independent forces playing in the theatre of the mind; but at the same time he explicitly states that each spring is "issued by the mind," and has its "dynamic source" there. In other words, it is the offspring of character in relation to present circumstances. This is quite inconsistent with the language of personification; but this language is resorted to so frequently as to make the reader feel that it is not intended to be purely figurative. Again, the place he assigns to the "primary springs of action" is open to much question. A primary spring is defined as a mere spontaneity, a tendency urging us in the way of unreflecting instinct to the attainment of objects not foreseen by ourselves. With regard to this, Professor Sidgwick has justly observed that though in the adult human being such spontaneities may occasionally operate, they cannot be at all intense or prolonged without calling up a representation of the consequences to which they prompt. They are residua or habits due to past fully conscious acts. If some of Dr Martineau's expressions in his account of these 'natural tendencies' were taken literally and pressed, they would result in the doctrine that the proper

objects of moral judgment are wants in abstraction from their objects, desires which are desires for nothing in particular;1 when two of these conflict, we have a feeling sui generis, of their relative moral worth, and this feeling is the ground of the moral judgment. 'Secondary springs'-in other words, those that are directed to the pleasure and gratification, as such, which are afforded by a primary spring-are judged in the same way relatively to one another and to the primaries. Manifestly such a doctrine cannot be held for a moment. But there are other expressions in Dr Martineau's account of the 'primary springs' which tend to represent them more as desires for objects which are consciously represented to the mind. We are told that the voluntary state, where at least two impulses are present, "implies undeniably an end in view, and no end can bring itself into view except in relation to some other to set it off into distinctness for our contemplation." Again: "We think only by differencing; and nothing can lie before us as an object, otherwise than as it is cut out by contrast either from its antecedents in time or from its analogies in place or possibility. . . . All judgment is relative and predicates distinction; and our mind could attach no predicate to a spring of action, did we not see it side by side with something dissimilar." If, therefore, Dr Martineau admits a consciousness of the distinction between two such impulses, and of their moral worth, he must admit a consciousness of their complementary objects,-their 'ends in view'; as one of Dr Martineau's critics has truly said, "If a man knows that he is being driven by the impulse of love, he knows that he is being driven towards a beloved object: if he knows that he is being driven by a desire for food, he also knows that food will satisfy his hunger.' ") 3

If, then, purposive desire is the 'unit of conduct,' and every 1 That is, in the consciousness of the agent. As we have seen, Dr Martineau conceives of them after the analogy of instincts.

2 Op. cit., vol. ii. p. 35 (3rd edition).

3 Cf. Professor S. W. Dyde's critical account of Dr Martineau's theory, Journal of Speculative Philosophy, vol. xxii. pp. 138-169. The doctrine of 'secondary springs' is, however, misunderstood; these are desires for pleasure, arising out of the primaries as lust may arise out of appetite.

It is not denied that blind instinct plays a very important part in the historical evolution of mind; but Ethics must deal with man as possessed of conscious purpose.

such desire springs from a wider circle of desires, or an interest, which again depends upon character, it is evident that in case of a conflict between two or more particular desires we cannot properly pass moral judgment on the case if we do no more than consider the relation of these desires, merely as particulars, to one another. Other desires for wider aims would arise, on each side, in whose train the original one would take its place,—until some end or aim which was regarded as supremely regulative of Life was appealed to. Professor Sidgwick has well said1 that, “If a serious question of conduct is raised, I cannot conceive myself deciding it morally by any comparison of motives below the highest: ... the comparison ultimately decisive would not be between the lower motives primarily conflicting, but between the effects of the different lines of conduct to which these lower motives respectively prompt, considered in relation to whatever we regard as the ultimate end or ends of reasonable action." Thus Dr Martineau's theory of conscience, when developed on lines that he himself suggests but does not work out, results in the ethical theory which has been expounded in the preceding chapter. We retain what is deepest and truest in his system: we accept his doctrine that our 'springs of action' understood as consciously purposive desires cannot be divided into two classes, the absolutely right and the absolutely wrong, but arrange themselves in a scale of moral worth and have various degrees therein; we recognise gratefully his insistence on the truth that every one of our natural tendencies' is ethically justified in its proper place, and his brief but profound interpretation of moral progress as the gradual organisation of such tendencies, high and low, and of our reflection upon them, into 'social consensus

1 Methods, III. xii. 3.

2 Dr Martineau excludes the 'secondary passions' as 'alone inadmissible.' But these passions seem to be only another name for what has been called pure or disinterested malevolence—that is, the delight in inflicting pain and injury simply because it is pain and injury and for no other reason whatever. I think with Mr Bradley that such a propensity does not exist; though I am aware that the contrary view is strongly maintained by so competent a psychologist as Professor Bain; see Mind, vol. viii. pp. 415, 562. But if there is such a thing as pure malevolence, we certainly accept Dr Martineau's judgment on it.

and religion.' We say, with Dr Martineau,2 that "any 'knowledge with ourselves,' large or small, which we may have of the superior right of one spring of action over another comes under the head of conscience," and that this is the true form of the moral judgment; but this judgment of the relative worth of our desires is not based merely on a special kind of feeling which arises when two of them meet: it is based on a comparison of their objects with what for the time being is taken as the supreme Ideal of life as a whole. In view of such an Ideal their organisation takes place, as the historical evolution of morality proceeds.

Thus, as regards the question placed at the head of the present note, our conclusion is that the 'motive,' in the sense here explained, is the most fundamental determinant of the moral worth of conduct; when we go beyond this, it is to consider the whole personality of the agent, and not the consequences of his conduct in abstraction from himself. Take the case-sometimes brought forward in this discussion -of an inquisitor torturing a heretic because he sincerely believes that it is for the eternal good of the latter, or conduces to "the glory of God": it is said that the motive is a pure one, but the action is thoroughly bad. Now here we must not stop when we have traced the motive back to a desire for the heretic's 'good' or a desire to 'glorify' God; we must ask, How came the inquisitor to think that any divine or human good could be attained by such a means? May we not say that what is implicitly condemned in such a case is the whole system of personal beliefs and convictions which could produce a desire to torture men 'for their good'? In other words, the act is bad because ultimately the motive is bad; the character of the agent, on its intellectual side at least, and perhaps beyond the intellect,—is thoroughly perverted. To regard intelligence as an essential part of character may seem contrary to common-sense; intellectually, we only make mistakes, while morally, we do wrong. It may thus be said that the intellectual fault is a mere misfortune, while the moral fault cannot be looked upon in that light. It will be evident that a prior question which needs to be settled is this: 2 P. 402.

1

Op. cit., pp. 401-406 (quoted below).