History of European Morals From Augustus to Charlemagne (Vol. 1 of 2)Lecky, William Edward Hartpole
Philosophy
History of European Morals From Augustus to Charlemagne (Vol. 1 of 2)
Lecky, William Edward Hartpole
Ethics; Europe -- Moral conditions
This separation is all that is meant by a moral faculty. We are apt to
regard the term as implying a distinct and well defined organ, bearing to
the mind the same kind of relation as a limb to the body. But of the
existence of such organs, and of the propriety of such material imagery,
we know nothing. Perceiving in ourselves a will, and a crowd of
intellectual and emotional phenomena that seem wholly different from the
properties of matter, we infer the existence of an immaterial substance
which wills, thinks, and feels, and can classify its own operations with
considerable precision. The term faculty is simply an expression of
classification. If we say that the moral faculty differs from the æsthetic
faculty, we can only mean that the mind forms certain judgments of moral
excellence, and also certain judgments of beauty, and that these two
mental processes are clearly distinct. To ask to what part of our nature
moral perceptions should be attributed, is only to ask to what train of
mental phenomena they bear the closest resemblance.
If this simple, but often neglected, consideration be borne in mind, the
apparent discordance of intuitive moralists will appear less profound than
might at first sight be supposed, for each section merely elucidates some
one characteristic of moral judgments. Thus Butler insists upon the sense
of obligation that is involved in them, contends that this separates them
from all other sentiments, and assigns them in consequence to a special
faculty of supreme authority called conscience. Adam Smith and many other
writers were especially struck by their sympathetic character. We are
naturally attracted by humanity, and repelled by cruelty, and this
instinctive, unreasoning sentiment constitutes, according to these
moralists, the difference between right and wrong. Cudworth, however, the
English precursor of Kant, had already anticipated, and later
metaphysicians have more fully exhibited, the inadequacy of such an
analysis. Justice, humanity, veracity, and kindred virtues not merely have
the power of attracting us, we have also an intellectual perception that
they are essentially and immutably good, that their nature does not depend
upon, and is not relative to, our constitutions; that it is impossible and
inconceivable they should ever be vices, and their opposites, virtues.
They are, therefore, it is said, intuitions of the reason. Clarke,
developing the same rational school, and following in the steps of those
moralists who regard our nature as a hierarchy of powers or faculties,
with different degrees of dignity, and an appropriate order of supremacy
and subordination, maintained that virtue consisted in harmony with the
nature of things. Wollaston endeavoured to reduce it to truth, and
Hutcheson to benevolence, which he maintained is recognised and approved
by what his respect for the philosophy of Locke induced him to call “a
moral sense,” but what Shaftesbury had regarded as a moral “taste.” The
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