Moral Philosophy: Ethics, Deontology and Natural LawRickaby, Joseph
Philosophy
Moral Philosophy: Ethics, Deontology and Natural Law
Rickaby, Joseph
Ethics
1. It is the difference between sensible apprehension and intellectual
knowledge, that the former seizes upon a particular object and it
only, as _this sweet_: the latter takes its object as the type of a
class of similars, _this and the like of this, this sweet as one of
the class of sweet things_. In like manner the love of passion, which
is the love of sense, regards one sole object. Titius is in love with
Bertha alone, not with woman in general. But an intellectual love is
the love of a type of beauty or goodness, of _this_ object and of
others as they approach in likeness to it. Whoever loves William from
an intellectual appreciation of his patriotism, in loving him loves
all patriots. Every animal loves itself with a brute, sensible love,
not a love to find fault with, nor yet a noble and exalted
sentiment--a love purely self-regarding, quite apart from the good
that is in self, but embracing self simply as self, and self alone.
This is the first love of self even in man. But over and above this
animal and sensible love, which no man lacks, there is in all men
worthy of the name a second self-regarding affection of an
intellectual cast, whereby a man loves himself as discerning with the
eye of his soul the excellence of his own nature--"how noble in
reason, how infinite in faculty, in form and moving how express and
admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a
god, the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals." Intellectual
self-complacence overflows from self to similars. It is not self-love,
it is love of the race, "the milk of human kindness," philanthropy.
2. But man is a disappointing creature, after all a mere "quintessence
of dust," unless he can rise above himself by relation with some
superhuman being, and make his final fortune in some better region
than this world. Reason requires that we love ourselves, and love our
fellow-men, for and in order to the development of the highest gifts
and capacities that are in us. These are gifts and capacities divine,
preparing us to find our everlasting happiness in God. (_Ethics_, c.
ii., s. iv., n. 2, p. 22.) The love that we bear to ourselves and our
neighbour, in view of our coming from God and going to God, is called
the love of _charity_. Charity differs from philanthropy in looking
beyond the present life, and above creatures. A materialist and
atheist may possess philanthropy, but not charity.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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