Elements of Morals. Paul Janet
the terms employed to express them.
1. Starting point of morals: common notions.—All men distinguish the good and the bad, good actions and bad actions. For instance, to love one’s parents, respect other people’s property, to keep one’s word, etc., is right; to harm those who have done us no harm, to deceive and lie, to be ungrateful towards our benefactors, and unfaithful to our friends, etc., is wrong.
To do right is obligatory on every one—that is, it should be done; wrong, on the contrary, should be avoided. Duty is that law by which we are held to do the right and avoid the wrong. It is also called the moral law. This law, like all laws, commands, forbids, and permits.
He who acts and is capable of doing the right and the wrong, and who consequently is held to obey the moral law, is called a moral agent. In order that an agent may be held to obey a law, he must know it and understand it. In morals, as in legislation, no one is supposed to be ignorant of the law. There is, then, in every man a certain knowledge of the law, that is to say, a natural discernment of the right and the wrong. This discernment is what is called conscience, or sometimes the moral sense.
Conscience is an act of the mind, a judgment. But it is not only the mind that is made aware of the right and the wrong: it is the heart. Good and evil, done either by others or by ourselves, awaken in us emotions, affections of diverse nature. These emotions or affections are what collectively constitute the moral sentiment.
It does not suffice that a man know and distinguish the good and the evil, and experience for the one and for the other different sentiments; it is also necessary, in order to be a moral agent, that he be capable of choosing between them; he cannot be commanded to do what he cannot do, nor can he be forbidden to do what he cannot help doing. This power of choosing is called liberty, or free will.
A free agent—one, namely, who can discern between the right and the wrong—is said to be responsible for his actions; that is to say, he can answer for them, give an account of them, suffer their consequences; he is then their real cause. His actions may consequently be attributed to him, put to his account; in other words imputed to him. The agent is responsible, the actions are imputable.
Human actions, we have said, are sometimes good, sometimes bad. These two qualifications have degrees in proportion to the importance or the difficulty of the action. It is thus we call an action suitable, estimable, beautiful, admirable, sublime, etc. On the other hand, a bad action is sometimes but a simple mistake, and sometimes a crime. It is culpable, base, abominable, execrable, etc.
If we observe in an agent the habit of good actions, a constant tendency to conform to the law of duty, this habit or constant tendency is called virtue, and the contrary tendency is called vice.
Whilst man feels himself bound by his conscience to seek the right, he is impelled by his nature to seek pleasure. When he enjoys pleasure without any admixture of pain, he is happy; and the highest degree of possible pleasure with the least degree of possible pain is happiness. Now, experience shows that happiness is not always in harmony with virtue, and that pleasure does not necessarily accompany right doing.
And yet we find such a separation unjust; and we believe in a natural and legitimate connection between pleasure and right, pain and wrong. Pleasure, considered as the consequence of well-doing, is called recompense; and pain, considered as the legitimate consequence of evil, is called punishment.
When a man has done well he thinks, and all other men think, that he has a right to a recompense. When he has done ill they think the contrary, and he himself thinks also that he must atone for his wrong-doing by a chastisement. This principle, by virtue of which we declare a moral agent deserving of happiness or unhappiness according to his good or bad actions, is called the principle of merit and demerit.
The sum total of the rewards and punishments attached to the execution or violation of a law is called sanction; the sanction of the moral law will then be called moral sanction.
All law presupposes a legislator. The moral law will presuppose, then, a moral legislator, and morality consequently raises us to God. All human or earthly sanction being shown by observation to be insufficient, the moral law calls for a religious sanction. It is thus that morality conducts us to the immortality of the soul.
If we go back upon the whole of the ideas we have just briefly expressed, we shall see that at each of the steps we have taken there are always two contraries opposed the one to the other: good and evil, command and prohibition, virtue and vice, merit and demerit, pleasure and pain, reward and punishment.
Human life presents itself, then, under two aspects. Man can choose between the two. This power is liberty. This choice is difficult and laborious; it exacts from us incessant efforts. It is for this reason that life is said to be a trial, and is often represented as a combat. It should therefore not be represented as a play, but rather as a manly and valiant effort. Struggle is its condition, peace its prize.
Such are the fundamental ideas morality has for its object, and of which it seeks, at the same time, both the principles and the applications.
2. What is morality? the object of morality.—Morality may be considered as a science or as an art.
By science we understand a totality of truths connected with each other concerning one and the same object. Science has for its object proper, knowledge.
By art we understand a totality of rules or precepts for directing activity towards a definite end; art has for its object proper, action.
Science is theoretical or speculative; art is practical.
Morality is a science inasmuch as it seeks to know and demonstrate the principles and conditions of morality; it is an art inasmuch as it shows and prescribes to us its applications.
As science, morality may be defined: science of good or science of duty.
As art, morality may be defined: the art of right living or the art of right acting.
3. Division of morality.—Morality is divided into two parts: in one it studies principles, in the other, applications; in the one, duty; in the other, duties.
Hence a theoretical morality and a practical morality. The first may also be called general morality, and the second particular morality, because the first has for its object the study of the common and general character of all our duties, and the other especially that of the particular duties, which vary according to objects and circumstances. It is in the first that morality has especially the character of science, and in the second, the character of art.
4. Utility of morality.—The utility of moral science has been disputed. The ancients questioned whether virtue could be taught. It may also be asked whether it should be taught. Morality, it is said, depends much more upon the heart than upon the reasoning faculties. It is rather by education, example, habit, religion, sentiment, than through theories, that men become habituated to virtue. If this were so, moral science would be of no use.
However, though it may be true that for happiness nothing can take the place of practice, it does not follow that reflection and study may not very efficaciously contribute toward it, and for the following reasons:
1. It often happens that evil has its origin in the sophisms of the mind, sophisms ever at the service of the passions. It is therefore necessary to ward off or prevent these sophisms by a thorough discussion of principles.
2. A careful study of the principles of morality causes them to penetrate deeper into the soul and gives them there greater fixity.
3. Morality consists not only in the actions themselves,