Elements of Morals. Paul Janet
of our actions. An outward morality, wholly of habit and imitation, is not yet the true morality. Morality must needs be accompanied by conscience and reflection. So viewed, moral science is a necessary element of a sound education, and the higher its principles the more the conscience is raised and refined.
4. Life often presents moral problems for our solution. If the mind is not prepared for them it will lack certainty of decision; what above all is to be feared is that it will mostly prefer the easier and the more convenient solution. It should be fortified in advance against its own weakness by acquiring the habit of judging of general questions before events put it to the proof.
Such is the utility of morality. It is of the same service to man as geometry is to the workman; it does not take the place of tact and common sense, but it guides and perfects them.
It is well understood, moreover, that such a study in nowise excludes, it even exacts, the co-operation of all the practical means we have indicated above, which constitute what is called education. Doctrinal teaching is but the complement and confirmation of teaching by practice and by example.
5. Short résumé of theoretical morality.—Theoretical morality should, in fact, precede practical morality, and that is what usually takes place; but as it presents more difficulties and less immediate applications than practical morality, we shall defer the developments it may give rise to, to a subsequent year.[2] The present will be a short résumé, purely elementary, containing only preliminary and strictly necessary notions. It will be an exposition of the common notions we have just enumerated above.
6. Pleasure and the good.—Morality being, as we have said, the science of the good, the first question that presents itself is: What is good?
If we are to believe the first impulses of nature, which instinctively urge us towards the agreeable and cause us to repel all that is painful, the answer to the preceding question would not be difficult; we should have but to reply: “Good is what makes us happy; good is pleasure.”
One can, without doubt, affirm that morality teaches us to be happy, and puts us on the way to true happiness. But it is not, as one might believe, in obeying that blind law of nature which inclines us towards pleasure, that we shall be truly happy. The road morality points out is less easy, but surer.
Some very simple reflections will suffice to show us that it cannot be said absolutely that pleasure is the good and pain the bad. Experience and reasoning easily demonstrate the falsity of this opinion.
1. Pleasure is not always a good, and in certain circumstances it may even become a real evil; and, vice versa, pain is not always an evil, and it may even become a great good. Thus we see, on the one hand, that the pleasures of intemperance bring with them sickness, the loss of health and reason, shortening of life. The pleasures of idleness bring poverty, uselessness, the contempt of men. The pleasures of vengeance and of crime carry with them chastisement, remorse, etc. Conversely, again, we see the most painful troubles and trials bringing with them evident good. The amputation of a limb saves our life; energetic and painstaking work brings comfort, etc. In these different cases, if we consider their results, it is pleasure that is an evil and pain a good.
2. It must be added that among the pleasures there are some that are low, degrading, vulgar; for example, the pleasures of drunkenness; others, again, that are noble and generous, as the heroism of the soldier. Among the pleasures of man there are some he has in common with the beasts, and others that are peculiar to him alone. Shall we put the one kind and the other on the same level? Assuredly not.
3. There are pleasures very keen, which, however, are fleeting, and soon pass away, as the pleasures of the passions; others which are durable and continuous, as those of health, security, domestic comfort, and the respect of mankind. Shall we sacrifice life-long pleasures to pleasures that last but an hour?
4. Other pleasures are very great, but equally uncertain, and dependent on chance; as, for instance, the pleasures of ambition or the pleasures of the gaming-table; others, again, calmer and less intoxicating, but surer, as the pleasures of the family circle.
Pleasures may then be compared in regard to certainty, purity, durability, intensity, etc. Experience teaches that we should not seek pleasures without distinction and choice; that we should use our reason and compare them; that we should sacrifice an uncertain and fleeting present to a durable future; prefer the simple and peaceful pleasures, free from regrets, to the tumultuous and dangerous pleasures of the passions, etc.; in a word, sacrifice the agreeable to the useful.
7. Utility and honesty.—One should prefer, we have just seen, the useful to the agreeable; but the useful itself should not be confounded with the real good—that is, with the honest.
Let us explain the differences between these two ideas.
1. There is no honesty or moral goodness without disinterestedness; and he who never seeks anything but his own personal interest is branded by all as a selfish man.
2. Interest gives only advice; morality gives commands. A man is not obliged to be skillful, but he is obliged to be honest.
3. Personal interest cannot be the foundation of any universal and general law as applicable to others as to ourselves, for the happiness of each depends on his own way of viewing things. Every man takes his pleasure where he finds it, and understands his interest as he pleases; but honesty or justice is the same for all men.
4. The honest is clear and self-evident; the useful is uncertain. Conscience tells every one what is right or wrong; but it requires a long trained experience to calculate all the possible consequences of our actions, and it would often be absolutely impossible for us to foresee them. We cannot, therefore, always know what is useful to us; but we can always know what is right.
5. It is never impossible to do right; but one cannot always carry out his own wishes in order to be happy. The prisoner may always bravely bear his prison, but he cannot always get out of it.
6. We judge ourselves according to the principles of action we recognize. The man who loses in gambling may be troubled and regret his imprudence; but he who is conscious of having cheated in gambling (though he won thereby) must despise himself if he judges himself from the standpoint of moral law. This law must therefore be something else than the principle of personal happiness. For, to be able to say to one’s self, “I am a villain, though I have filled my purse,” requires another principle than that by which one congratulates himself, saying, “I am a prudent man, for I have filled my cash-box.”
7. The idea of punishment or chastisement could not be understood, moreover, if the good only were the useful. A man is not punished for having been awkward; he is punished for being culpable.
8. The good or the honest.—We have just seen that neither pleasure nor usefulness is the legitimate and supreme object of human life. We are certainly permitted to seek pleasure, since nature invites us to it; but we should not make it the aim of life. We are also permitted, and even sometimes commanded, to seek what is useful, since reason demands we see to our self-preservation. But, above pleasure and utility, there is another aim, a higher aim, the real object of human life. This higher and final aim is what we call, according to circumstances, the good, the honest, and the just.
Now, what is honesty?
We distinguish in man a double nature, body and soul; and in the soul itself two parts, one superior, one inferior; one more particularly deserving of the name of soul, the other more carnal, more material, if one may say so, which comes nearer the body. In one class we have intelligence, sentiments, will; in the other, senses, appetites, passions. Now, that which distinguishes man from the lower animal is the power to rise above the senses, appetites, and passions, and to be capable of thinking, loving, and willing.
Thus, moral good consists in preferring what there is best in us to what there is