Independent Ethics

57. (a) Namely, some hold that ethics is indeed independent from revealed religion, but not from God.¹ Concerning these we do not now treat; we by no means deny that some code of moral laws can be established by reason alone; but, as was proved in the treatise concerning True Religion, n. 50, in the present state, the human race cannot morally, without some revelation, know a complete and perfect code of moral truths expeditiously, with firm certitude and with no admixture of error.

¹ Thus Ravaisson; Franck; P. Janet, La Morale; J. Simon, Le Devoir, Paris, 1854; E. Caro, Problemes de Morale sociale, 2nd ed., Paris, 1887, p. 15-95, where he expressly rejects and refutes the system of ethics independent from God.

58. (b) Others say that it is independent even from God, insofar as the essential principles of morals can be safely and certainly defined, without the existence of God being demonstrated, from the sole consideration of the moral order, such as can be detected by reason, once the liberty of man alone is admitted.¹ For we can recognize the existence of liberty by conscience alone, without any metaphysical investigations; but since liberty is an inviolable power, it supposes some right to which duty responds: and from the twofold idea of right and duty the whole of ethics can be deduced.

¹ Thus C. Coignet, La Morale independante, Paris, 1869; M. Ferraz, Philosophie du Devoir, 2nd ed., Paris, 1869; Beaussire, Les principes de la Morale, Paris, 1888.

On the other hand, it is of the greatest importance that ethics by no means depend on theodicy and metaphysics: for there are so many dissensions concerning metaphysical matters that unless the foundation of ethics is placed outside these controversies, it now becomes impossible to find a commonly received rule of morals.

59. (c) Others contend that the rule of morals is wholly independent from speculative reason itself, and is to be placed in the moral sense: namely, that must be called honorable or dishonorable which excites the sympathy or antipathy of the majority; or, as it pleases others, that which is conformable or deformed in relation to the moral sense. For, whatever may be said concerning merely speculative truths, men commonly agree concerning certain moral rules which by moral sense they recognize as true. But that sense is sometimes called common sense, moral instinct, sometimes moral sympathy and antipathy, or simply conscience. It indeed exists in all, but can and ought to be cultivated, especially by exciting sympathy toward others: then good is easily known and is perfected by a certain natural instinct.² This school flourished especially in England, although it gained not a few disciples in other regions.

² Thus, among others, Shaftesbury, An inquiry concerning virtue and merit, 1699; Adam Smith, Theory of moral sentiments; T. Reid, Inquiry into the Human mind, or the principle of common sense, Edinburgh, 1765; F. Hutcheson, System of Moral Philosophy, Glasgow, 1755; Hoffding, Morale, Essai sur les principes theoriques et leur application, translated from the German by L. Poitevin, Paris, 1903.

60. We do not deny that something true is found in these systems: indeed right reason can find certain rules of morals from the very contemplation of things and of the end to which they are destined; it is likewise true that some duties are manifested to us, without any discourse, by a certain moral sense, which is called the voice of conscience. But how incomplete and imperfect the norm of morality is when constituted independently from God will be clear from the following.

61. (A) The supreme norm of morals ought to be absolute and universal; but human reason and moral sense, if they are considered independently from God, bear before themselves nothing absolute and immutable: reason, as created and finite, perceives truth only in a finite and imperfect manner, and, unless it rests on divine reason, often errs; hence it is historically established that there have been no fewer dissensions of philosophers concerning the principles of morals than concerning metaphysical truths, as is established from the various systems already set forth above. Therefore human reason, if it is considered separately from divine reason, will often be uncertain, and will propose diverse rules according to diverse times or various nations; and consequently it will be essentially mutable and subjective.

62. (B) Moreover it lacks authority for imposing moral obligation; for this cannot be understood without a superior being. If right reason is a certain participation of divine reason, and the natural order is apprehended as a manifestation of the divine will wisely disposing all things, then there arises the obligation of living and acting according to this order constituted by the supreme Lord of all things; but if reason is considered in itself, without any respect to God, it can indeed perceive that some act is honorable, but it cannot impose the obligation of doing it, since reason is not superior to man, but only a part of man. The same must be said a fortiori concerning the moral sense: if it is the same as practical reason, it has no greater force; but if it is held as a special sense, distinct from reason, it will possess still less authority, since sense is or ought to be subordinated to reason. - We indeed confess that moral sense rightly informed is a sign of some obligation, but it cannot create or induce this obligation.

63. (C) In that system likewise sanction is lacking for inciting man to good. God indeed, as just and supreme remunerator, is able to bestow reward upon the good and punishments upon the evil, so that He may draw them to virtue and deter them from vice. But, if one abstracts from God, what will the sanction be? Not human felicity: for not rarely the just are oppressed and the evil abound in riches and pleasures. Nor remorse of conscience; for unless this is held as the voice of God, it terrifies the evil little: indeed the more wicked they are, the less they feel remorse, and by long custom of vice the voice of conscience is finally rendered mute. Therefore there will be no truly efficacious sanction; now although a few men, among the noblest, do not hesitate to fulfill the law without sanction, nevertheless most are accustomed to despise it.

134. Conclusion.

From these things it is now clear what is to be judged concerning morality absolutely independent or lay morality. Besides the fact that it is incomplete, under some respect it seems to include something utopian. For in general:

1. In the logical order, it is impossible to justify ethics without an absolute end which subsists in itself, and which is nothing other than God, the supreme and infinite good; otherwise all our aspirations toward good would go away into emptiness or nothingness. Hence beyond contingent created goods there must be an absolute End, which is the end in itself.

2. In the ontological order, all things are founded in this, that God loves himself with necessary love and cannot will anything except on account of himself; otherwise he could not communicate himself to other beings which participate in his perfection, nor give to them as an end the communication of his goodness.

3. In the order of practical execution, without recourse to God, the observance of morality will not be sufficiently obtained, because of the lack of an efficacious sanction; namely, if man were not certain that God, infinitely just and omnipotent, establishes an eternal harmony and concord between virtue and happiness, vice and unhappiness.

In particular, those who defend independent morality propose, in place of theistic or Christian morality, either:

1. An ethics of solidarity, by which we are bound toward others. Obligation would arise either from contract, or from inheritance by which we obtain all things from preceding generations. Not from contract, for a contract is not valid unless freely entered; but individuals are not bound, because they did not assume the obligation, indeed they did not freely take up society. Not from inheritance, because the patrimony of prior generations does not have determined natural heirs, but pertains to all and to each; hence if we use it, we contract no debt toward others.

1. Lehu notes, o. c. n. 322: "1. It is a law of nature that man live in society; but not all laws of nature induce obligation, for example, winter cold is a law of nature, but man is not obliged not to avoid cold. 2. Certainly man owes something to society, but to determine the quantity of that debt is not so easy. 3. Many men judge society to be badly ordered because from it they have received more evil than good: such persons do not admit society to be the just foundation of obligation."

Or:

2. A sociological ethics, which founds morality upon the idea of society, which is a moral person distinct from individuals and superior to them, which can command. But society is not a person or a being really distinct from individuals, nor is it an absolute end in itself: it exists for the good of individuals, and they are not simply for it. But if individuals are bound to obey, it is not because society has an absolute right of commanding for the sake of commanding, but because the precept contributes to the good of individuals and thus can be legitimated. Or:

3. An ethics of nature, which is founded in man's subjection to his nature. The ultimate end is: to be ourselves, to preserve ourselves and perfect ourselves under the individual respect and in order to society. This can be understood in a right sense of rational nature as such, ordered to the ultimate end, God; but in fact, those who do not acknowledge God and the author of the universe, what do they understand by the name of nature which is the norm? They interpret it in various and opposed ways. Moreover, the instincts which must be reformed for the good ordering of nature proceed equally from nature itself as those which are to be stimulated; therefore there must be another discriminating rule: human reason, an irradiation of divine reason itself.

Since Christian ethics, in our times indeed, is much attacked, and since modern prejudices against it, on account of the wider diffusion of culture and literature, are now carried about everywhere, it seems not useless to set forth succinctly the principal systems of adversaries. Yet we in no way intend to hand down a complete history of ethics, but to note certain things useful for the use of priests.

I. Hedonism practically exists among many in all times; but theoretically and scientifically it does not have many defenders. Protagoras (c. 480-410) and Gorgias (c. 480-375) taught moral positivism and relativism. From the fact that there is no objective difference and norm discriminating good and evil, their disciples concluded that a norm must be established relative to the subject. Whence the principle of discrimination is sensible pleasure; to procure this by all means is good. Thus the sophist Callicles first taught, and after him Thrasymachus and Polus. Aristippus the Cyrenaic (435-354) perfected the system, whose disciples led it to its ultimate evil consequences.

In modern times the Encyclopedists adhered to it, such as Helvetius (1715-1771), de La Mettrie (1709-1751), D'Holbach (1723-1789), author of the work Le Systeme de la Nature, and in Italy Melchior Gioia (1767-1829).

To these the pessimists are partially reduced, such as Schopenhauer (1788-1860) and von Hartmann (1842-1906), who say that only negative happiness is possible: the absence of misery and pain (negative eudaemonism); finally Nietzsche (1844-1900) in antipessimism, who proposes full happiness, but for eminent men alone, or supermen (Uebermensch).

Hedonism was set forth and refuted in n. 130.

II. Individual or egoistic utilitarianism. In antiquity Leucippus, Democritus (c. 460-370), Epicurus (341-270), and Lucretius taught it; among the moderns, Gassendi (1592-1655), Spinoza (1632-1677), Hobbes (1588-1679), La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680), and many followers of moral positivism, such as Bentham (1748-1832), Mackintosh (1766-1832), Stuart Mill (1806-1873); likewise (explicitly or implicitly) the materialists of the eighteenth century: de Condillac (1715-1780), Diderot (1713-1784), Feuerbach (1804-1872), economists such as Malthus, Bastiat, etc., anarchists such as Bruno Will and Kropotkine.

Among these the following deserve attention:

1. Epicurus (341-270), who does not attend to sensual pleasure alone, but also to spiritual pleasure; nor to immediate and present pleasure alone, but also to mediate and future pleasure; nor to every pleasure indiscriminately: not every pleasure is good, because sometimes it brings with itself greater pains, just as, on the contrary, from the tolerance of pains a greater delight often follows. Whence the true wise man rightly discerns among pleasures and pains; and the principal virtue is the right discernment of pleasures, but from love of pleasure! And in this he is distinguished from Aristippus, who admitted only present pleasure as the norm of morality. Epicurus judged, namely, that greater pleasure would come to man from the absence of pain and tranquility of soul than from pleasant affections and positive satiety of the senses.

2. Hobbes (1588-1679) followed Epicurus: the one good is pleasure; but it is necessary to distinguish present and future pleasure, and sometimes it is expedient to lack the present lest we be deprived of the future: thus justice is utility sanely understood, and altruism is egoism sanely understood.

3. Jeremiah Bentham (1748-1832) perfected the system spread by Hobbes; he contended that the method of experimental observation recommended by Bacon must be applied in moral matters, and he comparatively estimates things delightful and painful according to intensity, duration, nearness, certainty, extension, purity and fecundity, etc., by arithmetical computation. It is a certain moral arithmetic, for knowing that which produces the greater happiness.

4. Stuart Mill (1806-1873) perfected moral arithmetic by weighing quality rather than quantity, so that those things which are of a higher order, for example, the exercise of virtue, are more excellent and to be esteemed more than those which are of the lowest order, such as sensual pleasures: "it is better to be Socrates suffering than a satiated pig!"

We spoke of individual utilitarianism in n. 131.

III. Social or altruistic utilitarianism. F. Bacon (1561-1626) proposed this system: the common good, or public utility, is the rule of morals. It prevailed under the influence of Lockean philosophy (Locke 1632-1704). Cumberland (1632-1719) taught: the law of mutual benevolence is the foundation of all morality; Shaftesbury (1671-1713): the true account of morality is in preserving perfect harmony between egoistic and altruistic inclinations, but egoistic propensities are to be subjected to social ones; Hutcheson (1694-1747); Reid (1710-1796); Hume (1711-1776); Smith (1723-1790); Hartley (1705-1757) and Paley, etc.; and in Germany Pufendorf (1632-1694): the Creator by His free decree implanted into human nature the law of sociality, so that all actions agreeing with the law of sociality are good, and those repugnant to it are evil. Likewise the positive school, namely, the modern positivists: Aug. Comte (1798-1857): you ought to live for others; Littre¹ (1801-1811), Sidgwick (1838-1900), Lotze (1817-1881), Laas (1837-1885), Paulsen (1846-1908), v. Ihering (1818-1892), Jodl (1849-1914), Ziegler (1846-1918), and several socialists. Finally the defenders of the system of solidarity, such as Bourgeois and Payot: since we are debtors to society for every good which we have, every good which we do is owed to society.

¹ Littre attempted to confirm this from the faculties of vegetative life. There are two functions in man: nutrition for preserving individual life, and generation for the propagation of the human species. Nutrition produces egotism; generation promotes altruism. But falsely: altruism arising from generation would be limited to a few, and often excites egotism, indeed also hatred, against strangers.

Social utilitarianism exists under a threefold form:

a) such that the social aspect is an effect of individual utilitarianism, insofar as it is necessary to the utility of the individual. Thus already Epicurus, Bentham, Stuart Mill, and Nietzsche pro parvis. But thus altruism does not constitute a special system;

b) such that the utility of others is principally regarded, secondarily the utility of the individual, insofar as it favors the good of the whole. Thus A. Comte, Hoffding, and the assertors of solidarity. Every good, they say, is from society; therefore we owe to it everything which we do. For man, in the concrete case, is a production of society; although generation is not a social but an individual act, and the man produced is a distinct, separate individual, and spiritual functions are individual;

c) such that only social utility is regarded (absolute altruism), and personality is absorbed by the State. Thus the pantheists of metaphysical monism: Fichte (1761-1814), Schelling (1775-1854), Hegel (1770-1831). Likewise Schopenhauer; and also v. Hartmann as to intermediate ends.

On altruistic utilitarianism see n. 131, B.²

² See below VI, B.

IV. A special form of altruism is affective ethics, which affirms that human nature of itself is generous and inclined to virtue, and that we spontaneously discern good and evil by a certain special sense, which is distinct from the intellect and is called the moral sense. Shaftesbury (1671-1733) first taught this, and Cumberland (1632-1723) had in some measure preceded him; Hutcheson (1694-1747), however, determined it more, positing in us egoistic and altruistic tendencies; but holding that these latter are moral as benevolences toward others. According to Hume (1711-1776), however, even egoistic tendencies can be moral, as those which can generate certain virtues, such as prudence and ability; yet they are to be subordinated to generous and altruistic affections, which are reduced to a certain affection of humanity. The system flourished in the Scottish school, which, just as it said that the fundamental criterion of truth was the instinct of truth, which is called common sense, so in moral matters it established good sense, which is called conscience. Thus Reid (1710-1796), Hamilton (1788-1856), Mansel (1820-1871), and others. Finally Smith (1723-1790) perfected the system and placed the criterion of morality, or the moral sense, in the spontaneous sympathy or antipathy which we experience toward certain actions and their authors.

The theory passed into France, where J. J. Rousseau (1712-1778), against the pure rationalists, posited that there is a voice of nature which speaks in conscience and directly reveals itself, so that there is no uncertainty of reason; but Th. Jouffroy places it in blind faith in the veracity of our faculties.

Likewise in Germany Jacobi (1743-1819) was the parent of the sentimental school. But the sentimentalists say that the moral sense consists in an internal affection or affective faith, which begets in us a firm and invincible persuasion and induces us to pursue some things and avoid others, or experiences satisfaction in good deeds and remorse in evil deeds.

Herbart (1776-1841), however, establishes a moral taste, so that the good is the object of right taste, and morals, which judges concerning the value of actions, is a subdivision of aesthetics, insofar as good and evil arouse pleasure or displeasure. Thus he confuses the aesthetic order with the moral.

The system of moral sense, which many moderns adopt, such as Schuppe, Hoffding, Martineau, was sufficiently refuted in n. 137, B.

Especially as to the theory of Herbart, it should be noted:

a) that the systematization of ideas is artificial; in particular

b) that it establishes a superficial identification of the aesthetic and ethical order. Although a moral action can procure aesthetic delight, nevertheless it is not moral because it procures this; nor is the aesthetic sense the criterion or norm of morality. In us there is a sense, or rather a judgment concerning the moral goodness and malice of acts, but it is altogether foreign to any delight whatever arising from admiration;

c) that it contradicts the facts, for sometimes we approve actions as moral without any kind of aesthetic delight;

d) that thus morality is exclusively reduced to the affective life; and the ideal or rational element is excluded, although it is primary. For all, in his system, say that this is the norm of morality which they have as rational;

e) finally, that the system is illogical. Pleasure arising from a noted comparison or conformity of the will and the judgment of reason is the first form of moral estimation; and yet in the moral judgment itself that estimation is already fully present. Therefore it does not arise from a comparison of the inclination of the will and the judgment of reason. And therefore the pleasure arising thence is other than the estimation approving the goodness or disapproving the evil of the action.