The World's Greatest Books — Volume 13 — Religion and Philosophy
Religion
The World's Greatest Books — Volume 13 — Religion and Philosophy
Philosophy; Religion
The manner, the "how" of action, must be in accord with Right Reason,
whereof we shall speak elsewhere. Here we must recognise that we are not
laying down universal propositions, but general rules which are modified
by circumstances. Our activities must lie in a mean between the two
extremes of excess and defect, and this applies both to the process of
generating virtue, and to its manifestation. The virtues are concerned
with pleasure and pain, because these act as inducements or opposing
influences; Beauty, Advantage, and Pleasure being the three standing
inducements, and Pleasure entering into both the others; so that in one
aspect Virtue is the Best action in respect to pleasure.
But it does not lie in the mere act; the act must be born of knowledge
and of choice done for its own sake, and persistently--the first,
knowledge, being the least important; to make it the most important is a
speculative error.
Now, there are three modes of mind: feeling or passion, faculty, and
habit. We do not praise or blame passion in itself, or the faculty;
therefore virtue can lie in neither, but must be found in habit or
condition. The virtuous habit or condition is what enables that whereof
it is the virtue to perform its function, which, in the case of man, is
the activity of the soul, preserving always a middle course between
excess and deficiency, by choice.
In another sense, however, we must remember that there are qualities in
themselves wrong, and that virtue may be presented as not something
intermediate, but a consummation. But when we name each of these
virtues--Courage, Temperance, Liberality, etc.; the social virtues, or
good manners; the virtues concerned with the passions--we can name the
corresponding excess or deficiency. Justice and the intellectual virtues
demand a separate analysis.
Each virtue stands in opposition to each of the extremes, and each of
these to the other extreme, though in some cases the virtue may be more
antagonistic to one extreme than to the other, as courage to cowardice
more than to rashness. In individual cases, it is difficult to avoid
being deflected towards one or other of the extremes.
Before proceeding with this analysis, we must examine the question of
choice. To be praiseworthy, an act must be voluntary. An act is not
voluntary if it is the outcome of external compulsion. Where there is a
margin of choice, an act must still, on the whole, be regarded as
voluntary, though done "against our will." Of properly involuntary acts,
we must distinguish between the unintentional and the unwilling, meaning
by the latter, in effect, what the agent would not have done if he had
known.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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