Elements of Morals. Paul Janet
entering into the enjoyment of thine? Thou shalt die, thinkest thou; no, thou shalt live, and it is then I shall keep what I have promised! One would say, hearing the murmurings of impatient mortals, that God owes them a reward before they have shown any merit, and that he is obliged to pay their virtue in advance. Oh! let us first be good; we shall be happy afterwards. Do not let us claim the prize before the victory, nor the salary before the work. ‘It is not in the lists,’ says Plutarch, ‘that the victors in our sacred games are crowned; it is after they have run the course.’ ”
CHAPTER II.
DIVISION OF DUTIES—GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF SOCIAL MORALITY.
SUMMARY.
Division of duties.—In theory there is but one duty, which is to do right; but this duty is subdivided according to the various relations of man. Hence three classes of duties: duties towards ourselves, towards others, towards God: individual, social, religious morality. We will begin with social morality, which requires the most expounding.
General principles of social duties: to do good; not to do evil.
Different degrees of this double obligation: 1, not to return evil for good (ingratitude); 2, not to do evil to those who have not done us any (injustice and cruelty); 3, not to return evil for evil (revenge); 4, to return good for good (gratitude); 5, to do good to those who have not done us any (charity); 6, to return good for evil (clemency, generosity).
Distinction between the various kinds of social duties: 1, towards the lives of other men; 2, towards their property; 3, towards their family; 4, towards their honor; 5, towards their liberty.
Distinction between the duties of justice and the duties of charity.—Justice is absolute, without restriction, without exception. Charity, although as obligatory as justice, is more independent in its application. It chooses its time and place; its objects and means; its beauty is in its liberty.
We have seen that practical morality or private morality has for its object to acquaint us with the application of theoretical morality. It bears not so much on duty as on duties. The first question, then, that presents itself to us is that of the division of duties.
17. Division of duties.—It has been reasonably asserted that there is in reality but one duty, which is to do good under all circumstances, the same as it has also been said that there is but one virtue: wisdom, or obedience to the laws of reason. But as these two general divisions teach us in reality nothing touching our various actions, which are very numerous, it is useful and necessary to classify the principal circumstances in which we have to act, in order to specify in a more particular manner wherein the general principle which commands us to do good may be applied in each case.
Human actions may then be divided, either in regard to the different beings they have for their object, or in regard to the various faculties to which they relate.
The ancients divided morality particularly in reference to the divers human faculties, and in private morality they considered above all the virtues.
The moderns, on the other hand, have divided morality particularly in its relations to the different objects of our actions; and, in private morality, they have considered, above all, the duties.
The ancients reduced all virtues to four principal ones: prudence, temperance, courage, and justice. This division was transmitted to us, and it is these four virtues which the catechism teaches under the name of cardinal virtues.
The moderns reduced duties to three classes: the duties towards ourselves, towards others, and towards God. Some add a fourth class, namely, duties towards animals.
That portion of morality which treats of the duties towards ourselves, is called individual morality; that which treats of the duties towards God, is called religious morality; that which treats of the duties towards other men, social morality. As to the duties towards animals, they are of so secondary an order, that it is not worth while to classify them apart; we shall include them in social morality.
Social morality is by far the most extended in precepts and applications, the various relations of men with each other being extremely numerous. It may be subdivided into three parts: 1, general duties of social life, or morality properly called social; 2, duties towards the State, or civil morality; 3, duties towards the family, or domestic morality.
We will begin with the study of social morality, social duties towards men in general, and we will first establish their principles and different varieties.
Let us in a few pages rapidly take a summary review of the general principles of social morality.
18. General principles of social duties: to do good, not to do evil.—All human actions, in regard to others, may be reduced to these two precepts: 1, to do good to men; 2, not to do them harm. To this all the virtues of social morality may be reduced. But before exhibiting these virtues and vices more in detail, let us explain what is understood by the expressions to do good and to do evil.
In the most general and apparent sense to do any one good would seem to be to give him pleasure; to do him harm, would seem to be to give him pain. Yet, is it always doing good to a person to procure him pleasure? and is it always doing him harm, to cause him pain? For example, Kant[6] says, “Shall we allow the idler soft cushions; the drunkard wines in abundance; the rogue an agreeable face and manners, to deceive more easily; the violent man audacity and a good fist?” Would it really be doing good to these men to grant them the object of their desires, what may satisfy their passions? On the other hand, the surgeon who amputates a mortified limb, the dentist who pulls out a bad tooth, the teacher who obliges you to learn, the father who corrects your faults or restrains your passions, do they really do you harm because they give you pain? No, certainly not. There are, then, cases where to do some one good is to cause him pain, and to do him harm is to procure him pleasure.
One may reasonably reduce all principles of social morality to these two maxims of the gospel: “Do not do to others what you do not wish them do to you;”—“Do to others as you wish to be done by.” These two maxims are admirable, certainly; but they must be interpreted rightly. If, for instance, we have done wrong, do we generally wish to be corrected and punished? When we are yielding to a passion, do we wish to be repressed in it, have it repelled? On the contrary, do we not rather wish to be allowed to enjoy it, and have the free range of our vices? Is not this generally what we all wish, when the voice of duty is mute and does not silence our passionate feelings? If this is so, should we wish to do to others as we wish in similar circumstances, namely, in the gratification of passions, to be done by? Should we not rather do to them what we should not like them do to us, that is, punish and correct them? It is evidently not in that sense we are to understand the two evangelical maxims; for they would be then no other than maxims of remissness and improper kindness; whilst they, on the contrary, express most admirably a moral truth; only when they speak of what we wish, they mean a true and good wish, not the desires of passion; the same when we recommend men to do good, we mean real good and not apparent good; as also in recommending to do no harm, we mean real harm, not the illusory harm of the senses, imagination and passions.
Thus, to well understand the duties we have to fulfil towards other men, we must understand the distinction between true good and false good. False good is that which consists exclusively in pleasure, all abstraction being made of usefulness or moral value; as, for example, the pleasures of passions. True good is that which independently of pleasure recommends itself either through usefulness or through moral value; as, for instance, health or education. The real evils, of course, are those which injure either the interests of others