share with every one who regards the distinction between right and wrong
in a serious light; and the reproach is not one which a conscientious
utilitarian need be anxious to repel.
If no more be meant by the objection than that many utilitarians look on
the morality of actions, as measured by the utilitarian standard, with
too exclusive a regard, and do not lay sufficient stress upon the other
beauties of character which go towards making a human being loveable or
admirable, this may be admitted. Utilitarians who have cultivated their
moral feelings, but not their sympathies nor their artistic perceptions,
do fall into this mistake; and so do all other moralists under the same
conditions. What can be said in excuse for other moralists is equally
available for them, namely, that if there is to be any error, it is
better that it should be on that side. As a matter of fact, we may
affirm that among utilitarians as among adherents of other systems,
there is every imaginable degree of rigidity and of laxity in the
application of their standard: some are even puritanically rigorous,
while others are as indulgent as can possibly be desired by sinner or by
sentimentalist. But on the whole, a doctrine which brings prominently
forward the interest that mankind have in the repression and prevention
of conduct which violates the moral law, is likely to be inferior to no
other in turning the sanctions of opinion against such violations. It is
true, the question, What does violate the moral law? is one on which
those who recognise different standards of morality are likely now and
then to differ. But difference of opinion on moral questions was not
first introduced into the world by utilitarianism, while that doctrine
does supply, if not always an easy, at all events a tangible and
intelligible mode of deciding such differences.
* * * * *
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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