Elements of Morals. Paul Janet
the action is performed, the pleasure which results from it, if we have acted rightly, is called moral satisfaction; and if we have acted wrong, remorse, or repentance.
Remorse is a burning pain; and, as the word indicates, the bite that tortures the heart after a culpable action. This pain may be found among the very ones who have no regret for having done wrong, and who would do it over again if they could. It has therefore no moral character whatsoever, and must be considered as a sort of punishment attached to crime by nature herself. “Malice,” said Montaigne, “poisons itself with its own venom. Vice leaves, like an ulcer in the flesh, a repentance in the soul, which, ever scratching itself, draws ever fresh blood.”
Repentance is also, like remorse, a pain which comes from a bad action; but there is coupled with it the regret of having done it, and the wish, if not the firm resolution, never to do it again.
Repentance is a sadness of the soul; remorse is a torture and an anguish. Repentance is almost a virtue; remorse is a punishment; but the one leads to the other, and he who feels no remorse can feel no repentance.
Moral satisfaction, on the contrary, is a peace, a joy, a keen and delicious emotion born from the feeling of having accomplished one’s duty. It is the only remuneration that never fails us.
Among the sentiments called forth by our own actions, there are two which are the natural auxiliaries of the moral sentiment: they are the sentiment of honor and the sentiment of shame.
Honor is a principle which incites us to perform actions which raise us in our own eyes, and to avoid such as would lower us.
Shame is the opposite of honor; it is what we feel when we have done something that lowers us not only in the eyes of others, but in our own. All remorse is more or less accompanied by shame; yet the shame is greater for actions which indicate a certain baseness of soul. For instance, one will feel more ashamed of having told a falsehood than for having struck a person; for having cheated in gambling than for having fought a duel.
Honor and shame are therefore not always an exact measure of the moral value of actions; for be they but brilliant, man will soon rid himself of all shame; this happens, for instance, in cases of prodigality, licentiousness, ambition. One does wrong, not without remorse, but with a certain ostentation which stifles the feelings of shame.
Let us pass now to the sentiments which the actions of others excite in us.
Sympathy, antipathy, kindness, esteem, contempt, respect, enthusiasm, indignation, these are the various terms by which we express the diverse sentiments of the soul touching virtue and vice.
Sympathy is a disposition to share the same impressions with other men; to sympathize with their joy is to share that joy; to sympathize with their grief is to share that grief. It may happen that one sympathizes with the defects of others when they are the same as our own; but, as a general thing, people sympathize above all with the good qualities, and experience only antipathy for the bad. At the theatre, all the spectators, good and bad, wish to see virtue rewarded and crime punished.
The contrary of sympathy is antipathy.
Kindness is the disposition to wish others well. Esteem is a sort of kindness mingled with judgment and reflection, which we feel for those who have acted well, especially in cases of ordinary virtues; for before the higher and more difficult virtues, esteem becomes respect; if it be heroism, respect turns into admiration and enthusiasm; admiration being the feeling of surprise which great actions excite in us, and enthusiasm that same feeling pushed to an extreme; carrying us away from ourselves, as if a god were in us.[3] Contempt is the feeling of aversion we entertain towards him who does wrong; it implies particularly a case of base and shameful actions. When these actions are only condemnable without being odious, the sentiment is one of blame, which, like esteem, is nearer being a judgment than a sentiment. When, finally, it is a case of criminal and revolting actions, the feeling is one of horror or execration.
12. Liberty.—We have already said that man or the moral agent is free, when he is in a condition to choose between right and wrong, and able to do either at his will.
Liberty always supposes one to be in possession of himself. Man is free when he is awake, in a state of reason, and an adult. He is not free, or very little so, when he is asleep, or delirious, or in his first childhood.
Liberty is certified to man.
1. By the inward sentiment which accompanies each of his acts; for instance, at the moment of acting, I feel that I can will or not will to do such or such an action; if I enter on it, I feel that I can discontinue it as long as it is not fully executed; when it is completed, I am convinced that I might have acted otherwise.
2. By the very fact of moral law or duty; I ought, therefore I can. No one is held to do the impossible. If, then, there is in me a law that commands me to do good and avoid evil, it is because I can do either as I wish.
3. By the moral satisfaction which accompanies a good action; by the remorse or repentance which follows a bad one. One does not rejoice over a thing done against his will, and no one reproaches himself for an act committed under compulsion. The first word of all those reproached for a bad action is, that it was not done on purpose, intentionally. They acknowledge thereby that we can only be reproached for an action done wilfully; namely, freely.
4. By the rewards and punishments, and in general by the moral responsibility which is attached to all our actions when they have been committed knowingly. We do not punish actions which are the result of constraint or ignorance.
5. By the exhortations or counsels we give to others. We do not exhort a man to be warm or cold, not to suffer hunger or thirst, because it is well known that this is not a thing dependent on his will. But we exhort him to be honest, because we believe that he can be so if he wishes.
6. By promises: no one promises not to die, not to be sick, etc., but one promises to be present at a certain meeting, to pay a certain sum of money, on such a day, to such a man, because one feels he can do so unless circumstances over which he has no control prevent.
Prejudices against Liberty.—Although men, as we have seen, may have the sense of liberty very strong, and may show it by their acts, by their approbation or blame, etc., yet, on the other hand, they often yield to the force of certain prejudices which seem to contradict the universal belief we have just spoken of.
1. Character.—The principal one of these prejudices is the often expressed opinion that every man is impelled by his own character to perform the actions which accord with this character, and that there is no help against this irresistible necessity of nature; this is often expressed by the common axiom: “One cannot make himself over again.” The same has also been expressed by the poet Destouches in that celebrated line:
Chassez le naturel, il revient au galop.[4]
Nothing is less exact as a fact and more dangerous as a principle, than this pretended immutability of human character, which, if true, would render evil irremediable and incorrigible.
Experience teaches the contrary. No man is wholly deprived of good and bad inclinations; he may develop the one or the other, as he chooses between them.
2. Habits.—Habits in the long run become, it is true, irresistible. It is a fact which has been often observed; but if, on the one hand, an inveterate habit is irresistible, it is not so in the beginning, and man is thus free to prevent the encroachments of bad habits. It is for this reason that moralists warn us above all against the beginnings of habits. “Beware especially of beginnings,” says the Imitation.
3. Passions.—Passions have especially enjoyed the privilege of passing for uncontrollable and irresistible. All great sinners find their excuse in the fatal allurements of passions. “The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak,” says the Gospel. The remarks we have just made touching the habits, may be equally applied to the passions. It is rare that passions manifest