Moral Science; a Compendium of EthicsBain, Alexander
Philosophy
Moral Science; a Compendium of Ethics
Bain, Alexander
Ethics; Ethics -- History
3. In his chapter on the Cynic and Cyrenaic schools, he discusses at
length the summum bonum, or Happiness, and, by implication, the Ethical
end, or Standard. He considers that men have to keep in view _two_
ends; the one the maintenance of their own nature, as rational and
thinking beings; the other their happiness or pleasure. He will not
allow that we are to do right at all hazards, irrespective of utility;
yet he considers that there is something defective in the scheme that
sets aside virtue as the good, and enthrones happiness in its place. He
sums up as follows:--
'We thus see that a complete body of ethics should embrace two codes,
two systems of rules, the one of which we may call the fundamental or
antecedent, or under-ground ethics, as underlying the other; and the
other of which we may call the upper or subsequent, or above-ground
ethics, as resting on, and modified by the former. The under-ground
ethics would inculcate on man the necessity of being what he truly is,
namely, a creature of reason and of thought; in short, the necessity of
being a man, and of preserving to himself this status. Here the end is
virtue, that is, the life and health of the soul, and nothing but this.
The above-ground ethics would inculcate on man the necessity of being a
_happy_ man.
It is not enough for man _to be_; he must, moreover, if possible, _be
happy_. The fundamental ethics look merely to his being, _i.e._, his
being rational; the upper ethics look principally to his being happy,
but they are bound to take care that in all his happiness he does
nothing to violate his rationality, the health and virtue of the soul.'
HENRY LONGUEVILLE/MANSEL.
Mr. Mansel, in his 'Metaphysics,' has examined the question of a moral
standard, and the nature of the moral faculty, accepting, with slight
and unimportant modifications, the current theory of a moral sense.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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