Part 5

But there is yet one "good," one fundamental imperative which needs no proof, and that is Truth--ultimate truth, because it is the statement of what Is; without which logic, or, indeed, intelligible language, would be impossible. But truth is not opinion, or assertion, or hope, or faith, or in the words of Huxley "those idols built up of books and traditions and fine-spun ecclesiastical cobwebs." Truth and all its derivatives--honesty, integrity, truthfulness and sincerity--have an intrinsic value of their own, for their negation implies the negation of the principles of Existence.

But men require more than this, they require a "moral code" or standard to give coherence to their relationships; this code, then, is that which is desired, or imposed, and this want is most efficiently supplied by the principle of "Utility."

FOOTNOTES:

See "Conscience, its Origin and Authority," p. 25.

W. H. Mallock, quoted by Richardson.

Professor James Ward uses the terms "anabolic" and "catabolic" processes in this connexion, also in a sense analogous to the distinction between doing and suffering.

J. Ward, "Heredity and Memory," 1913.

"Conscience, its Origin and Authority," p. 69.

Ibid., pp. 67 and 68.

"Conscience, its Origin and Authority," p. 96.

Hastings Rashdall: "Is Conscience an Emotion?"

"Conscience, its Origin and Authority," p. 99.

"Conscience, its Origin and Authority," pp. 99, 95, 96, 70, 72 and 73.

"Is Conscience an Emotion?" p. 113.

"Is Conscience an Emotion?" p. 52.

III

THE MEANING OF MORAL OBLIGATION

The author of "Conscience, its Origin and Authority," attempts, after the manner of priests, to demolish the Utilitarian principle of morality by stating that the Utilitarian must, to be logical, justify any means if the end is desirable. As though the Utilitarian and not the Theist was for ever trying to show that the intrinsic character or value of an action depended upon the motive (which must be distinguished from the intention; a man who saved another from drowning in order to put him to death afterwards would be influenced by an intention to murder, but the motives were: first, desire to rescue, and, for the subsequent action, desire to kill). Mr. Richardson writes: "The Good and the Right possess their authority to the Utilitarian because they tend to the greatest possible happiness of the greatest number of sentient beings." Now suppose a case which I do not think actually happened, but which may easily be conceived as happening. Suppose that Cecil Rhodes deliberately caused the South African War, as many people believed at the time. This would be characterized (and was, in fact, characterized) as an immoral act of unscrupulous aggression. But he might defend his action thus: "Granted that so many thousands of soldiers and citizens will be slain, and the land cleared of its inhabitants. In a few years the land so cleared will produce increased harvests of gold and grain. More food will mean an increase of human productiveness and an increase of population; thriving townships and farmsteads will support a people more numerous and richer in the comforts which make life desirable than could have existed without my action. Therefore on the Utilitarian hypothesis my action was right and good, and deserved, not reprobation, but approval."

Not only is this position not admitted by Utilitarians, but John Stuart Mill long ago pointed out that such a hypothesis "is to mistake the very meaning of a standard of morals, and to confound the rule of action with the motive of it. It is the business of Ethics to tell us what are our duties, or by what test we may know them; but no system of ethics requires that the sole motive of all we do shall be a feeling of duty.... The great majority of good actions are intended, not for the benefit of the world, but for that of individuals, of which the good of the world is made up; and the thoughts of the most virtuous man need not on these occasions travel beyond the particular persons concerned, except so far as is necessary to assure himself that in benefiting them he is not violating the rights--that is, the legitimate and authorized expectations--of any one else."

This is sufficient refutation of such objections to Utilitarianism as the one brought forward by Richardson, and clearly founded on a misconception.

Mill, in what is still the best defence of this system, continues: "Utilitarians ... are ... of opinion that in the long run the best proof of a good character is good actions; and resolutely refuse to consider any mental disposition as good, of which the predominant tendency is to produce bad conduct."

"The creed which accepts as the foundation of morals, Utility, or the Greatest Happiness Principle, holds that actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness."

The Theistic writer says "the essence of morality is sacrifice."

The utilitarian morality does recognize in human beings the power of sacrificing their own greatest good for the good of others. It only refuses to admit that sacrifice is itself a good. A sacrifice that does not increase, or tend to increase, the sum total of happiness, it considers as wasted.

As regards "conscience": the Utilitarian, when he attempts an analysis, realizes that "in that complex phenomenon as it actually exists, the simple fact is in general all encrusted over with collateral associations derived from sympathy, from love, and still more from fear; from all forms of religious feeling; from recollections of childhood and of all our past life; from self-esteem, desire of the esteem of others, and occasionally even self-abasement."

For the priest "ethics cannot be built securely upon anything less than religious sanctions, and it is for the sake of conscience that ethics have a practical value."

Can an honest and unbiased thinker doubt that the first is the truer statement?

Let us now return to a further statement of the position of Utilitarianism as dealt with by J. S. Mill. From Professor Sidgwick and those Utilitarians who attempt to claim for the atheistic moralist a conscience of mathematical accuracy we are unlikely to derive much assistance.