Читать книгу The Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas - Edward Westermarck - Страница 66

Table of Contents

WE have seen that moral disapproval is a form of resentment, and that moral approval is a form of retributive kindly emotion. It still remains for us to examine in what respects these emotions differ from kindred non-moral emotions—disapproval from anger and revenge, approval from gratitude—in other words, what characterises them as specifically moral emotions.

It is a common opinion, held by all who regard the intellect as the source of moral concepts, that moral emotions only arise in consequence of moral judgments, and that, in each case, the character of the emotion is determined by the predicate of the judgment. We are told that, when the intellectual process is completed, when the act in question is definitely classed under such or such a moral category, then, and only then, there follows instantaneously a feeling of either approbation or disapprobation as the case may be.1 When we hear of a murder, for instance, we must discern the wrongness of the act before we can feel moral indignation at it.

1 Fleming, Manual of Moral Philosophy, p. 97 sqq. Fowler, Principles of Morals, ii. 198 sqq.

It is true that a moral judgment may be followed by a moral emotion, that the finding out the tendency of a certain mode of conduct to evoke indignation or approval is apt to call forth such an emotion, if there was none before, or otherwise to increase the one existing. It is, moreover, true that the predicate of a moral judgment, as well as the generalisation leading up to such a predicate, may give a specific colouring to the approval or disapproval which it produces, quite apart from the general characteristics belonging to that emotion in its capacity of a moral emotion; the concepts of duty and justice, for instance, no doubt have a peculiar flavour of their own. But for all this, moral emotions cannot be described as resentment or retributive kindliness called forth by moral judgments. Such a definition would be a meaningless play with words. Whatever emotions may follow moral judgments, such judgments could never have been pronounced unless there had been moral emotions antecedent to them. Their predicates, as was pointed out above, are essentially based on generalisations of tendencies in certain phenomena to arouse moral emotions; hence the criterion of a moral emotion can in no case depend upon its proceeding from a moral judgment. But at the same time moral judgments, being definite expressions of moral emotions, naturally help us to discover the true nature of these emotions.

The predicate of a moral judgment always involves a notion of disinterestedness. When pronouncing an act to be good or bad, I mean that it is so, quite independently of any reference it might have to my own interests. A moral judgment may certainly have a selfish motive; but then it, nevertheless, pretends to be disinterested, which shows that disinterestedness is a characteristic of moral concepts as such. This is admitted even by the egoistic hedonist, who maintains that we approve and condemn acts from self-love. According to Helvetius, it is the love of consideration that a virtuous man takes to be in him the love of virtue; and yet everybody pretends to love virtue for its own sake, “this phrase is in every one’s mouth and in no one’s heart.”2

2 Helvetius, De l’Homme, i. 263.

If the moral concepts are essentially generalisations of tendencies in certain phenomena to call forth moral emotions, and, at the same time, contain the notion of disinterestedness, we must conclude that the emotions from which they spring are felt disinterestedly. Of this fact we find an echo—more or less faithful—in the maxims of various ethical theorisers, as well as practical moralists. We find it in the utilitarian demand that, in regard to his own happiness and that of others, an agent should be “as strictly impartial as a disinterested and benevolent spectator”;3 in the “rule of righteousness” laid down by Samuel Clarke, that “We so deal with every man, as in like circumstances we could reasonably expect he should with us”;4 in Kant’s formula, “Act only on that maxim which thou canst at the same time will to become a universal law”;5 in Professor Sidgwick’s so-called axiom, “I ought not to prefer my own lesser good to the greater good of another”;6 in the biblical sayings, “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself,”7 and, “Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them.”8 The same fact is expressed in the Indian Mahabharata, where it is said:—“Let no man do to another that which would be repugnant to himself; this is the sum of righteousness; the rest is according to inclination. In refusing, in bestowing, in regard to pleasure and to pain, to what is agreeable and disagreeable, a man obtains the proper rule by regarding the case as like his own.”9 Similar words are ascribed to Confucius.10 When Tsze-kung asked if there is any one word which may serve as a rule of practice for all one’s life, the Master answered, “Is not Reciprocity such a word? What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others.” And in another utterance Confucius showed that the rule had for him not only a negative, but a positive form. He said that, in the way of the superior man, there are four things to none of which he himself had as yet attained; to serve his father as he would require his son to serve him, to serve his prince as he would require his minister to serve him, to serve his elder brother as he would require his younger brother to serve him, and to set the example in behaving to a friend as he would require the friend to behave to him.11

3 Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism, p. 24.

4 Clarke, Discourse concerning the Unchangeable Obligations of Natural Religion, p. 201.

5 Kant, Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten, sec. 2 (Sämmtliche Werke, iv. 269).

6 Sidgwick, Methods of Ethics, p. 383. However, as we have seen above, this so-called “axiom” is not a correct representation of the disinterestedness of moral emotions.

7 Leviticus, xix. 18. St. Matthew, xxii. 39.

8 St. Matthew, vii. 12. Cf. St. Luke, vi. 31.

9 Mahabharata, xiii. 5571 sq., in Muir, Religious and Moral Sentiments, rendered from Sanskrit Writers, p. 107. Cf. Panchatantra, iii. (Benfey’s translation, ii. 235).

10 Lun Yü¸, xv. 23. Cf. ibid. xii. 2; Chung Yung, xiii. 3.

11 Chung Yung, xiii. 4.

This “golden rule” is not, as has been sometimes argued, a rule of retaliation.12 It does not say, “Do to others what they wish to do to you”; it says, “Do to others what you wish, or require, them to do to you.” It brings home to us the fact that moral rules are general rules, which ought to be obeyed irrespectively of any selfish considerations. If formulated as an injunction that we should treat our neighbour in the same manner as we consider that he, under exactly similar circumstances, ought to treat us, it is simply identical with the sentence, “Do your duty,” with emphasis laid on the disinterestedness which is involved in the very conception of duty. So far, St. Augustine was right in saying that “Do as thou wouldst be done by” is a sentence which all nations under heaven are agreed upon.13

12 Letourneau, L’Évolution religieuse dans les diverses races humaines, p. 553.

13 St. Augustine, quoted by Lilly, Right and Wrong, p. 106.

Disinterestedness, however, is not the only characteristic by which moral indignation and approval are distinguished from other, non-moral, kinds of resentment or retributive kindly emotion. It is, indeed, itself a form of a more comprehensive quality which characterises moral emotions—apparent impartiality. If I pronounce an act done to a friend or to an enemy to be either good or bad, that implies that I assume it to be so independently of the fact that the person to whom the act is done is my friend or my enemy. Conversely, if I pronounce an act done by a friend or by an enemy to be good or bad, that implies that I assume the act to be either good or bad independently of my friendly or hostile feelings towards the agent. All this means that resentment and retributive kindly emotion are moral emotions in so far as they are assumed by those who feel them to be uninfluenced by the particular relationship in which they stand, both to those who are immediately affected by the acts in question, and to those who perform those acts. A moral emotion, then, is tested by an imaginary change of the relationship between him who approves or disapproves of the mode of conduct by which the emotion was evoked and the parties immediately concerned, whilst the relationship between the parties themselves is left unaltered. At the same time it is not necessary that the moral emotion should be really impartial. It is sufficient that it is tacitly assumed to be so, nay, even that it is not knowingly partial. In attributing different rights to different individuals, or classes of individuals, we are often, in reality, influenced by the relationship in which we stand to them, by personal sympathies and antipathies; and yet those rights may be moral rights, in the strict sense of the term, not mere preferences, namely, if we assume that any impartial judge would recognise our attribution of rights as just, or even if we are unaware of its partiality. Similarly, when the savage censures a homicide committed upon a member of his own tribe, but praises one committed upon a member of another tribe, his censure and praise are certainly influenced by his relations to the victim, or to the agent, or to both. He does not reason thus: it is blamable to kill a member of one’s own tribe, and it is praiseworthy to kill a member of a foreign tribe—whether the tribe be mine or not. Nevertheless, his blame and his praise must be regarded as expressions of moral emotions.

Finally, a moral emotion has a certain flavour of generality. We have previously noticed that a moral judgment very frequently implies some vague assumption that it must be shared by everybody who possesses both a sufficient knowledge of the case and a “sufficiently developed” moral consciousness. We have seen, however, that this assumption is illusory. It cannot, consequently, be regarded as a conditio sine quâ non for a moral judgment, unless, indeed, it be maintained that such a judgment, owing to its very nature, is necessarily a chimera—an opinion which, to my mind, would be simply absurd. But, though moral judgments cannot lay claim to universality or “objectivity,” it does not follow that they are merely individual estimates. Even he who fully sees their limitations must admit that, when he pronounces an act to be good or bad, he gives expression to something more than a personal opinion, that his judgment has reference, not only to his own feelings, but to the feelings of others as well. And this is true even though he be aware that his own conviction is not shared by those around him, nor by anybody else. He then feels that it would be shared if other people knew the act and all its attendant circumstances as well as he does himself, and if, at the same time, their emotions were as refined as are his own. This feeling gives to his approval or indignation a touch of generality, which belongs to public approval and public indignation, but which is never found in any merely individual emotion of gratitude or revenge.

The analysis of the moral emotions which has been attempted in this and the two preceding chapters, holds good, not only for such emotions as we feel on account of the conduct of others, but for such emotions as we feel on account of our own conduct as well. Moral self-condemnation is a hostile attitude of mind towards one’s self as the cause of pain, moral self-approval is a kindly attitude of mind towards one’s self as a cause of pleasure. Genuine remorse, though focussed on the will of the person who feels it, involves, vaguely or distinctly, some desire to suffer. The repentant man wants to think of the wrong he has committed, he wants clearly to realise its wickedness; and he wants to do this, not merely because he desires to become a better man, but because it gives him some relief to feel the sting in his heart. If punished for his deed, he willingly submits to the punishment. The Philippine Islander, says Mr. Foreman, if he recognises a fault by his own conscience, will receive a flogging without resentment or complaint, although, “if he is not so convinced of the misdeed, he will await his chance to give vent to his rancour.”14 We may feel actual hatred towards ourselves, we may desire to inflict bodily suffering upon ourselves as a punishment for what we have done;15 nay, there are instances of criminals, guilty of capital offences, having given themselves up to the authorities in order to appease their consciences by suffering the penalty of the law.16 Yet the desire to punish ourselves has a natural antagonist in our general aversion to pain, and this often blunts the sting of the conscience. Suicide prompted by remorse, which sometimes occurs even among savages,17 is to be regarded rather as a method of putting an end to agonies, than as a kind of self-execution; and behind the self-torments of the sinner frequently lurks the hopeful prospect of heavenly bliss. Self-approval, again, is not merely joy at one’s own conduct, but is a kindly emotion, a friendly attitude towards one’s self. Such an attitude, for instance, lies at the bottom of the feeling that one’s own conduct merits praise or reward.

14 Foreman, Philippine Islands, p. 185. Cf. Hinde, The Last of the Masai, p. 34; Zöller, Das Togoland, p. 37.

15 Cf. Jodl, Lehrbuch der Psychologie, p. 675.

16 von Feuerbach, Aktenmässige Darstellung merkwürdiger Verbrechen, i. 249; ii. 473, 479 sq. von Lasaulx, Sühnopfer der Griechen und Römer, p. 6.

17 See infra, on Suicide.

Not every form of self-reproach or of self-approval is a moral emotion—no more than is every form of resentment or retributive kindly emotion towards other persons. We may be angry with ourselves on account of some act of ours which is injurious to our own interests. He who has lost at play may be as vexed at himself as he who has cheated at play, and the egoist may bitterly reproach himself for having yielded to a momentary impulse of benevolence, or even to conscience itself. In order to be moral emotions, our self-condemnation and self-approval must present the same characteristics as make resentment and retributive kindliness moral emotions when they are felt with reference to the conduct of other people. A person does not feel remorse when he reproaches himself from an egoistic motive, or when he afterwards regrets that he has sacrificed the interests of his children to the impartial claim of justice. Nor does a person feel moral self-approval when he is pleased with himself for having committed an act which he recognises as selfish or unjust. And besides being disinterested and apparently impartial, remorse and moral self-approval have a flavour of generality. As Professor Baldwin remarks, moral approval or disapproval, not only of other people, but of one’s self, “is never at its best except when it is accompanied, in the consciousness which has it, with the knowledge or belief that it is also socially shared.”18 Indeed, almost inseparable from the moral judgments which we pass on our own conduct seems to be the image of an impartial outsider who acts as our judge.

18 Baldwin, Social and Ethical Interpretation in Mental Development, p. 314.