fact that volition, or some form of volition, _includes_ a _cognition_
of goodness, that will can have the same relation to ethical, which
cognition has to metaphysical, propositions. Accordingly the fact of
volition, _as a whole_, that is, if we include in it the element which
makes it volition and distinguishes it from cognition, has _not_ the
same relation to ethical propositions which cognition has to those
which are metaphysical. Volition and cognition are _not_ coordinate
ways of experiencing, since it is only in so far as volition denotes
a _complex_ fact, which includes in it the one identical simple fact,
which is meant by _cognition_, that volition is a way of experiencing
at all.
But, (3) if we allow the terms ‘volition’ or ‘will’ to stand for
‘thinking good,’ although they certainly do not commonly stand for
this, there still remains the question: What connection would this fact
establish between volition and Ethics? Could the enquiry into what was
willed be identical with the ethical enquiry into what was good? It
is plain enough that they could not be identical; though it is also
plain why they should be thought so. The question ‘What is good?’ is
confused with the question ‘What is thought good?’ and the question
‘What is true?’ with the question ‘What is thought true?’ for two main
reasons. (1) One of these is the general difficulty that is found
in distinguishing what is cognised from the cognition of it. It is
observed that I certainly cannot cognise anything that is true without
cognising it. Since, therefore, whenever I know a thing that is true,
the thing is certainly cognised, it is assumed that for a thing to _be_
true at all is the same thing as for it to be cognised. And (2) it is
not observed that certain words, which are supposed to denote only
peculiar species of cognition, do as a matter of fact _also_ denote
that the object cognised is true. Thus if ‘perception’ be taken to
denote only a certain kind of mental fact, then, since the object of it
is always true, it becomes easy to suppose that to be true means only
to be object to a mental state of that kind. And similarly it is easy
to suppose that to be truly good differs from being falsely thought
so, solely in respect of the fact that to be the former is to be the
object of a volition differing from that of which an apparent good is
the object, in the same way in which a perception (on this supposition)
differs from an illusion.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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