Moral Philosophy: Ethics, Deontology and Natural Law — John Shaqi
Moral Philosophy: Ethics, Deontology and Natural LawRickaby, Joseph
Philosophy
Moral Philosophy: Ethics, Deontology and Natural Law
Rickaby, Joseph
Ethics
9. _The desire of happiness, ample and complete, beyond what this
world can afford, is not planted in man by defect of his nature, but
by the perfection of his nature, and in view of his further
perfection_. This desire has not the character of a drawback, a thing
that cannot be helped, a weakness and decay of nature, and loss of
power, like that which sets in with advancing years. A locomotive
drawing a train warms the air about it: it is a pity that it should do
so, for that radiation of heat is a loss of power: but it cannot be
helped, as locomotives are and must be constructed. Not such is the
desire of perfect happiness in the human breast. It is not a disease,
for it is no peculiarity of individuals, but a property of the race.
It is not a decay, for it grows with the growing mind, being feeblest
in childhood, when desires are simplest and most easily satisfied, and
strongest where mental life is the most vigorous. It is an attribute
of great minds in proportion to their greatness. To be without it,
would be to live a minor in point of intellect, not much removed from
imbecility. It is not a waste of energy, rather it furnishes the
motive-power to all human volition. It comes of the natural working of
the understanding that discerns good, and other good above that, and
so still higher and higher good without limit; and of the natural
working of the will, following up and fastening upon what the
understanding discerns as good. The desire in question, then, is by no
means a necessary evil, or natural flaw, in the human constitution.
10. It follows that the desire of perfect happiness is in man by the
normal growth of his nature, and for the better. But it would be a
vain desire, and objectless, if it were essentially incapable of
satisfaction: and man would be a made and abiding piece of
imperfection, if there were no good accessible to his intellectual
nature sufficient to meet its proper exigence of perfect happiness.
But no such perfect happiness is attainable in this world. Therefore
there must be a world to come, in which he who was man, now a
disembodied spirit, but still the same person, shall under due
conditions find a perfect good, the adequate object of his natural
desire. Else is the deepest craving of human nature in vain, and man
himself is vanity of vanities.
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