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This institution reserves the right to refuse to accept a copy order if, In its judgement, fulfillment of the order would involve violation of the copyright law. A UTHOR: SETH, JAMES TITLE: THE SCOTTISH CONTRIBUTION TO PLACE: EDINBURGH DA TE: 1898 COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES PRESERVATION DEPARTMENT * Master Negative # BIBLIOGRAPHIC MICROFORM TARGET Original Material as Filmed - Existing Bibliographic Record yyf—iHii H i ■ If ■ m il 192 Se71 r ««^pHP»'HMpMP|pwpBMfMi I f I " ipHP^^I^ Seth, Jcunes, 1860-1924. The Scottish contribution to moral philosophy; inaugural lecture by James Seth. . . Edinburgh, Blaclcv7ood, 1898. 43 p. 22 cm. Restrictions on Use: * i • p * 1 1 ♦ f ' "*' \J \ FILM SIZE: IMAGE PLACEMENT: lA (UA), II DATE FILMED: '^-^-v TECHNICAL MICROFORM DATA REDUCTION RATIO: /f^"^ HLMEDBY: RESEARCH PIlBl INITIALS INC WOODBRIDGE. Cf / r Association for information and image iManagement 1100 Wayne Avenue, Suite 1100 Silver Spring, Maryland 20910 301/587-8202 Centimeter 12 3 4 5 iiiiliiiiliiiiliiiiliiiiliiiiliiiiliiiiliiiiliiiiliii 6 7 8 9 10 iiiiliiiiliiiiliiiiliiiiliiiiliiiiliiiiliiiilii 11 12 13 14 15 mm T T T Inches 1 I I I I I TTT 1.0 1^ p.8 1^ ||H I&3 ttliau 1.4 2.5 2.2 2.0 1.8 1.6 I.I 1.25 1 / '^^ J^J^ MfiNUFflCTURED TO flllM STflNDflRDS BY fiPPLIED IMRGE. INC. liltlRFflilllilEDii ?*36v5b ^^^^i - ■J'.j-,^M' ■v'/^Ms^:. ,■^■'^,1 - ^.j' _ - \ SeTf ttt nw Citsi of llcnr "^ovVi %ih\'iiVl} 1899 CSiucn anouButowsta i; jThe Scottish Contribution to Moral Philosophy INAUGURAL LECTURE. . OCTOBER 21 1898 .... Hi JAMES SETH, M.A. Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of Edinburgh WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS EDINBURGH AND LONDON 1898 Price Sixpence ^A' ■ iV'/ » ij J ) 3 1 3 > > , » J J J >' » 1 1 ) J ' J ) J J 1 1 > > 1 > ) > 1 > > J ) 3 ) ) > > 1 1 ' 5 » 1 > . 1 > ) 3 J 3 J > J 1 ) ) •,, 1 TEE SCOTTISH OONTEIBUTIOIf TO MORAL PHILOSOPHY Inaugural £ecture BY fl ^ i' JAMES SETH, M.A. PROFESSOR OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY IX THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH OCTOBER 21, 1898 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS EDINBURGH AND LONDON MDCCCXCVIII All Rights reserved iiiyiiiiiiiiMiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiliiiiililliiiili iiiiiiiiiiiiliiiii! » • • • ••• •" • • • • • • •' • •••••• •: : : : ••• .-. :: :: • * • ■••• • • • •,i« •• •••••• • •• • • ,•" ••• ••••••«•• • •• ".a • • »• ••• • • • •• •• •■•••••! NOTE. Owing to pi^essure of time, this lecture was some- what curtailed in delivery. The passages omitted consisted mainly of citations from the authors uthder consideration; and as these are important for the interpretation of their views, the lecture is here printed as originally written. ] 278427 ) > ) 1 *',«■» i € ) J J > INATIGUEAL LECTURE. In entering upon the duties of the Chair of Moral Philosophy in this University, I may be permitted to express my sense of the honour of the office, and the satisfaction with which, after a considerable period of work in other lands, I return to the service of my own country and of my own University. The Chair of Moral Philosophy has been filled >j by a long line of distinguished men, by Adam Ferguson and Dugald Stewart, by Thomas Brown and Christopher North. But it is not of these names that I chiefly think when I wish to realise the honour and the responsibihty of the position to which I have been called, but of him who must be in all our thoughts to-day, my own teacher, who so long and so honourably occupied this Chair. It seems but the other day that I • I t • t I, _ . ; ■ . , t i t <: ^ € ^ f '^' t •§*€•«" ' • c t • ,« I I • I c c I. f e *: t '.•65 T/ic Scottish Contribution 1 1 • IE " t « sali^ Professor Calderwood for the first time in the Moral Philosophy class-room, and it is diffi- cult to realise that he has already passed beyond our sight. I can never forget what I owe to him ; and while it is with great diffidence that I venture to take up his work in the University, the memory of his example will be a constant inspiration in my task. It would be impertinent in me to attempt an appreciation of the work of Professor Calderwood as a philosopher, as a teacher, or as a man and a citizen. But no one could know him in these various relations without perceiving the essential harmony and even identity that underlay them. The man and the philosopher and the teacher were one ; he lived his philosophy, and practised what he taught. His life was a rare exemplification of the ancient Greek ideal of the identity of the good man with the good citizen, and the loss df his removal has been felt by his fellow- citizens hardly less than by his colleagues and his students. Such a man's place cannot be filled ; such a man's influence outlives himself The name of Henry Calderwood will not soon be forgotten by the University and the city of Edinburgh. Throughout his philosophic career Professor iii N to Moral Philosophy. Calderwood was identified with that type of philosophy which has come to be known abroad as well as at home by the national name; and it seemed to me that it might not be inappro- priate to the occasion to call attention to the more significant elements in the Scottish con- tribution to Moral Philosophy. Nor must we limit our consideration to what is technically described as the '' Scottish School," if we would understand even this more limited part of the field. The movement of Scottish Moral Phil- osophy from Hutcheson to the present day is a single movement, which can be understood only if it is studied as a whole. In this movement the University of Glasgow has played an even more important part than our own University, through the succession of brilliant men who have occupied its Chair of Moral Philosophy. Hutcheson's Inquiry and Keid's Essays on the Active Powers represent, with Hume's Treatise and Enquiry, the three important stages in the development of ethical philosophy in Scotland. *' Hutcheson," says the late Professor Veitch, *' struck with firm hand the keynote of Scottish speculation."! If, in his polemic against the 1 Memoir of Dugald Stewart, p. 19. 8 The Scottish CoHtribtition crude empiricism which seems to have dlimi- nated the Scottish Universities during the first half of the eighteenth century, Hutcheson is an important precursor of Keid, his refutation of the ethical subjectivism of Hobbes has a unique historical importance. He is not to be regarded as merely the disciple of Shaftesbury and the continuator of his doctrine. In the characteristic features of his thought, in his theory of the '* Moral Sense," and in his doc- trine of Benevolence, he is distinctly original ; and in many respects his Moral Philosophy suggests, and bears, the comparison with his greater English contemporary. Bishop Butler. Hutcheson's polemic is chiefly directed, like Shaftesbury's, against the egoism of Hobbes and his followers. Virtue, he insists, is not a matter of self- interest, as " some of our moralists themselves" would have us believe, " so much are they accustomed to deduce every approbation or aversion from rational views of interest." On the contrary, there is **some quality apprehended in actions which procures approbation, and love towards the actor, from those who receive no advantage by the action," and " a contrary quality, which excites aversion, and dislike towards the actor, even from persons to Moral Philosophy. unconcerned in its natural tendency." ^ Hutche- son s aim is to prove ''the reality of virtue," and for him its disinterestedness and its reality are one. Between the object and the subject of morality he finds, moreover, a perfect adap- tation. "His principal design," he tells us in the preface,^ ''is to show that human nature was not left quite indifferent in the affair of virtue, to form to itself observations concerning the advantage or disadvantage of actions, and accordingly to regulate its conduct. . . . The Author of nature has much better furnished us for a virtuous conduct than our moralists seem to imagine, by almost as quick and power- ful instructions as we have for the preservation of our bodies. He has made Virtue a lovely Form, to excite our pursuit of it; and has given us strong affections to be the springs of each virtuous action. May we not find in mankind a relish for a beauty in characters, in manners ? I doubt we have made Philosophy, as well as Religion, by our foolish management of it, so austere and ungainly a form, that a gentleman cannot easily bring himself to like it ; and those who are strangers to it can scarcely bear to hear descriptions of it. So much it is 1 Inquiry, p. Ill (second edition). * Ih., pp. xiv, xv. The Scottish Contribution to Moral Philosophy, II changed from what was once the delight of the finest gentlemen among the ancients, and their recreation after the hurry of public affairs." ^ Hutcheson^s chief lesson for his contemporaries is, therefore, the old Greek lesson of the in- herent beauty of goodness, of the essential attractiveness of virtue; and he tells us that he 'Hook the first hints" of his opinions from "some of the greatest writers of antiquity." Certain forms of conduct and character, like certain forms of sound and colour, give pleasure to the spectator; and "that determination to be pleased with the contemplation of those aflfections, actions, or characters of rational agents, which we call virtuous, he marks by the name of a moral sense." ^ "We find as great an agreement of men in their relishes of Forms as in their external senses, which all agree to be natural ; and that pleasure or pain, delight or aversion, are naturally joined to their perceptions." 3 But, while virtue pleases, its pleasantness is rather the criterion than the essence of virtue. "In the pleasant passions, we do not love because it is pleasant to love ; we do not choose this state, because it is an advantageous or pleasant state: this passion 1 Inquiry y p. xvi: » A, p. xiv. » 76., p. xvii. necessarily arises from seeing its proper object, a morally good character." V The very dis- tinction between "natural" and "moral good" is that the one is pursued from interest or self-love, the other from disinterested love of the action itself. This moral sense does not necessarily imply such a desire of virtue as shall overcome all considerations of self-interest : we may know and approve the better, yet choose the worse. But no considerations of self-interest can blind our perception of the beauty of virtue : " our moral sense cannot be bribed." ^ And though we may be able to reason out the advantage of virtue, our recognition of it is a perception rather than an inference. "Must a man have the reflection of Cumberland, or Puffendorf, to admire generosity, faith, humanity, gratitude? Unhappy would it be for mankind if a sense of virtue was of as narrow an extent as a capacity for such meta- physics." » He specially warns us, however, not to confuse the doctrine of the moral sense with that of " innate ideas," and insists that " this moral sense has no relation to innate ideas."* We are not furnished at the outset of our moral career with a ready-made set of moral ideas, and XM«;^,p.l54. -^76., p. 126. = /J., pp. 125, 126. * 76., p. xvL 12 The Scottish Contribution to Moral Philosophy. 13 without experience we should never have come by such ideas. All that nature provides is the capacity of moral perception, a moral sense, not moral ideas or perceptions. " The vast diversity of moral principles, in various nations and ages, ... is indeed a good argument against innate ideas or principles, but will not evidence man- kind to be void of a moral sense to perceive virtue or vice in actions, when they occur to their observation."^ We have already seen that the mark of virtue is, in Hutcheson's eyes, its disinterestedness or unselfishness. But he goes further, and insists that the essence of virtue is positive benevolence or love of others. " If we examine all the actions which are counted amiable anywhere, and enquire into the gi^ounds upon which they are approved, w^e shall find that, in the opinion of the person who approves them, they always appear as benevolent, or flowing from love of others, and a study of their happiness. "2 "The universal foundation of our sense of moral good or evil" is " benevolence toward others on the one hand, and malice, or even indolence and unconcernedness about the apparent public evil, on the other. "^ It follows that *'the most perfectly virtuous" ,^ #' ^ Inquiry^ p. 200r 2 76., p. 162. 3 IK, p. 168. actions are "such as appear to have the most universal unlimited tendency to the greatest and most extensive happiness of all the rational agents to whom our influence can reach. "^ As " that action is best which procures the greatest happiness for the greatest numbers," ^ so is that agent most virtuous the purity of whose intention to minister to the greatest general happiness is least corrupted by thoughts of self-seeking. Hutcheson has even constructed a "universal canon to compute the morality of any actions, with all their circumstances," a calculus of virtue and vice with w^hich I will not trouble you here, but the general outcome of which is that the amount of virtue is determined by the ratio of benevolence to selfishness in every case. It would seem to follow that the ideal life excludes regard for our own good. Hutcheson holds, however, that "the actions which flow solely from self-love, and yet evidence no want of benevolence, having no hurtful effects upon others, seem perfectly indifierent in a moral sense, and neither raise the love or hatred of the observer."^ Such actions belong to the sphere of natural, rather than to that of moral good. But the one sphere may easily overlap the other, ^ Inquiry, p. 180. 2 75,^ p. 177, 3 /^.^ p. 172. 14 The Scottish Contribiction to Moral Philosophy. 15 and natural good may become moral. '' He who pursues his own private good, with an intention also to concur with that constitution which tends to the good of the whole ; and much more he who promotes his own good, with a direct view of making himself more capable of serving God, or doing good to mankind, acts not only inno- cently, but also honourably and virtuously: for in both these cases a motive of benevolence concurs with self-love to excite him to the action. And thus a neglect of our own good may be morally evil, and argue a want of be- nevolence toward the whole. "^ Nay, he goes on to argue, self-love may be interpreted as, in the last analysis, a form of benevolence. Since "every moral agent justly considers himself as a part of this rational system which may be useful to the whole, . . . he may be, in part, an object of his own benevolence. "2 Why should a man not be benevolent to himself? "A man surely of the strongest benevolence may justly treat himself as he would do a third person, who was a competitor of equal merit with the other; and as his preferring one to another in such a case would argue no weakness of benevolence, so, no more would he evidence it by- preferring himself to a man of * Inquiry^ p. 172. »/5., p. 173. "jn:»iijl| only equal abilities."^ ''Self-love is really as necessary to the good of the whole as bene- volence ; as that attraction which causes the cohesion of the parts is as necessary to the regular state of the whole as gravitation. "^ In these w^ords Hutcheson seems to anticipate the very latest version of Utilitarianism, making "the good of the whole" the end, and strict impartiality — "each to count for one and no one for more than one" — the working rule, of the moral life. In his subordination of reason to feeling, too, he arrives at the same view as the later Utilitarians. "What is reason," he asks, "but that sagacity which we have in prosecuting any end?"^ "It must be an in- stinct, or a determination previous to reason, which make us pursue private good, as well as public good, as our end."^ Nor will Hutcheson hear of resolving benevolence into self-love. We cannot be " truly virtuous, if we intend only to ob- tain the pleasure which accompanies beneficence, without the love of others ; nay, this very pleasure is founded on our being conscious of disinterested love to others, as the spring of our actions."^ In the stress which he lays on benevolence or love of others, making it the whole of virtue, 1 Inquiry, p. 174. ^ Ih., pp. 284. 285. ^ /^.^ p. 192. 4 76., p. 193. ^ lb., p. 194. ^1 i6 The Scottish Contribution I'l Hutcheson passes beyond thT^h^TT^ZZ LTtilitanan ethics. His mnml ^ ouujtjctive, uni versa] r«fl^^*, ^.i even of the greatest ^IJ^Tot "''"'''PT' -nmber, as in the will or ^fte„? \ f "*'"' general happi„e., that ^i ^ I^r t""' *' essent al dio-n if ^r ^ ,i ^^^^^^^^- -^t is the -her ^^z::^-zj. :rr-- tutes its virtue. Moreover ^ZZ """'" diate sense of a di^nitv T ' ^"^ '"'"''■ :i-% in so.: fe^'r/;::- vr «« -tenseness of the lower kinds can 1 1 " they also as In«f;., ^"l""^'' ^^^re wJnwea.'rhttfalJerr'''" ^"'^ « fin., theo^ ef Us na el^rtrr^r'' Hutcheson'e answer remln/ "Wigation. than of the mL °' '"'"■"' "' '*"">«• Whence arises this love of estl ^ T^""'' W, to good naen. or to :anktd1; " T" -t fro. son.e nice views T^Z^:^' '' How we can be moved to desire ZT ' others, without any view to 1 ?'"''' "^ be answered 'That thT ''''''• ^* ^^^^^ " ' ^^^^ ^^ same cause which deter- • '"^y« Moral Philosophy. I? mines us to pursue happiness for ourselves, deter- mines us both to esteem and benevolence on their proper occasions ; even the very frame of our nature, or a generous instinct, which shall be afterwards explained/ " ^ Is not this to say that, in such a being as man, virtue is simply natural, and vice unnatural ; and is not that, in essence and in outline, the theory of Butler ? Hutcheson is too comprehensive a moralist to be adequately described by any of the recognised school-names. But, for our present purpose, he is best described as the founder, in Scotland at least, of Intu- itionism in ethics. How carefully this Intuition- ism is distinguished by him from the doctrine of " Innate Ideas," we have already seen. Hume's quarrel is with the Rationalists rather than with the Egoists, with Cudworth and Clarke rather than with Hobbes and Mandeville. To these upholders of an '' abstract theory of morals " it had seemed that morality belonged to the nature of things, that ethical propositions were no less demonstrable than mathematical, that the distinction between virtue and vice was as eternal and immutable as the distinction between truth and falsehood. *' There has been an opinion, ^ Inquiri/^ p. 142. i8 The Scottish Contribution to Moral Philosophy, 19 mxj industriously propagated by certain philo- sophers, that morality is susceptible of demon- stration ; and though no one has ever been able to advance a single step in those demonstrations, yet 'tis taken for granted that this science may be brought to an equal certainty with geometry J or algebra."! The issue lies for Hume between this rationalistic view of morality and the theory of a moral sense. -There has been a contro- ; versy started of late . . . concerning the general I foundation of Morals : whether they be derived from Eeason or from Sentiment; whether we attain the knowledge of them by a chain of argument and induction, or by an immediate feelmg and finer internal sense; whether, like all sound judgments of truth and falsehood, they should be the same to every rational intelligent bemg ; or whether, like the perception of beauty and deformity, they be founded entirely on the particular fabric and constitution of the human species.'^ 2 Bq^j^ j^^ ^^^ Treatise and in the En- quiry, Hume adopts unhesitatingly the latter view. -Keason is wholly inactive, and can never be the source of so active a principle as conscience, or a sense of morals." ^ The 1 Treatise, p. 4C3, Oxford edition. ' ^?«^'*y, p. 170. 3 TreatUe, p. 458. iL " proper province " of reason is " the world of ideas," while '' the will always places us in that of realities."! Though "reason and sentiment concur in almost all moral determinations and conclusions, the final sentence, it is probable, . . . depends on some internal sense or feeling which nature has made universal in the whole species." ^ While truth *' procures only the cool assent of the understanding," virtue " takes pos- session of the heart." ^ ** Morality, therefore, is more properly felt than judged of." * " It is impossible there can be a progress in infinitum ; and that one thing can always be a reason why another is desired. Something must be desirable on its own account, and because of its immediate accord or agreement with human sentiment and affection. ... As virtue is an end, and is desir- able on its own account, without fee and reward, merely for the immediate satisfaction which it conveys; it is requisite that there should be some sentiment which it touches, some internal taste or feeling, or whatever you may please to call it, which distinguishes moral good and evil, and which embraces the one and rejects the other." ^ We feel "the deformity of vice 1 Treatise, p. 413. 2 Enquiry, pp. 172, 173. * Treatise, p. 470. ^ Eriquiry, pp. 293, 294. 3 76., p. 172. X 20 The Scottish Contribtttion to Moral Philosophy, 21 and beauty of virtue " : we approve, or take pleasure in, the one ; we disapprove, or are pained by, the other. And " what other reason can we ever assign for these affections but the original fabric and formation of the human mind, which is naturally adapted to receive them ? " ^ Hume thus seems to give in his adherence to the doctrine of a moral sense, already formulated by Hutcheson. "An action, or sentiment, or character is virtuous or vicious ; why ? because its view causes a pleasure or uneasiness of a particular kind. . . . We go no farther ; nor do we enquire into the cause of the satisfaction. We do not infer a character to be virtuous, be- cause it pleases ; but in feeling that it pleases after such a particular manner, we in effect feel that it is virtuous. The case is the same as in our judgments concerning all kinds of beauty, and tastes, and sensations." ^ Even in the Trea- tise, the spirit of which is much more egoistic than that of the Enqniiy, he insists on the dis- interestedness of the moral sense. " Tis only when a character is considered in general, with- out reference to our particular interest, that it causes such a feeling or sentiment as denominates it morallv good or evil." ^ ^ Enquiry, p. 172. ^ Treatue^ p. 471. ^ lh„ p. 472. It is true that, in the Treatise, Hume evinces \a good deal of dissatisfaction with the moral [sense theory of morality, as held by Hutcheson, considering it unscientific to rest in an unan- alysed instinct, or to regard any particular prin- ciple as ultimate and simple. As Mr Selby-Bigge says, '* In the Treatise nothing is more clear than his intention to reduce the various principles of human nature which appear distinct to ordinary men, to some more general and underlying prin- ciple ; and indeed his philosophy differed from that of the moral sense school, represented by Hutcheson, in precisely that particular. In other words, he attempted a philosophical ex- planation of human nature, and was not content to accept the ordinary distinctions of ' faculties ' and 'senses' as final." ^ In particular, Hume is dissatisfied with the view of justice as an orimnal and unaccountable ''instinct" of human nature, and insists with great emphasis and iteration of argument upon its merely "artifi- cial " character. And, in general, he sets himself to the task of accounting for the deliverances of the moral sense, by reducing them all to the single principle of sympathy. " Those who resolve the sense of morals into original in- ^ Introduction to Hume's Enquiries^ p. xxiii. \ 22 The Scottish Contribution to Moral Philosophy, 23 stincts of the human mind, may defend the cause of virtue with sufficient authority ; but want the advantage which those possess who account for that sense by an extensive sympathy with mankind." ^ In the last analysis, therefore, ** sympathy is the chief source of moral distinc- tions." ^ Nor is Hume content to accept sym- pathy itself as an ultimate and inexplicable principle of human nature. He seeks to account for sympathy as the product of self-love, through the association of ideas and impressions. There is no such thing, he holds, as " a general bene- volence in human nature," and particular bene- volence can always be explained as an extension of self-love. In the Enquiry, however, Hume abandons this endeavour after a final simplification of morality, and returns to Hutcheson's standpoint of a moral sense. Sympathy is still the content of the moral sense, but the attempt is no longer made to account for sympathy. Hume has now defi- nitely abandoned the egoistic point of view of his earlier work, and is ready, with Hutcheson, to accept a general principle of benevolence or humanity as the ultimate principle of morality. " The notion of morals implies some sentiment 1 Treatise, p. 619. 2 ^ ^ p^ eig. ^ j#f common to all mankind, which recommends the same object to general approbation, and makes every man, or most men, agree to the same opinion or decision concerning it. It also implies some sentiment, so universal and comprehensive as to extend to all mankind, and render the actions and conduct, even of the persons the most remote, an object of applause or censure, according as they agree or disagree with that rule of right which is established. These two requisite circumstances belong alone to the senti- ment of humanity here insisted on. . . . One man's ambition is not another's ambition, nor will the same event or object satisfy both ; but the humanity of one man is the humanity of every one, and the same object touches this passion in all human creatures. "^ *' By all the rules of philosophy, therefore, we must conclude, that these sentiments [of morals and of humanity] are originally the same." ^ He devotes an ap- pendix to the proof of '' the disinterestedness of benevolence " and its distinctness from self-love ; and one cannot help thinking that he has his own earlier theory in view, as well as the egoistic theory in general, when he says : " Everything which contributes to the happiness of society re- ^ Enquiry, pp. 272, 273. lb., p. 236. 'IMA T/ie Scottish Contribtttioii to Moral Philosophy, 25 commends itself directly to our approbation and goodwill. Here is a principle which accounts, in great part, for the origin of morality; and what need we seek for abstruse and remote systems, when there occurs one so obvious and natural?"^ Although he writes a long section on the question, '' Why utility pleases," he ends by simply accepting the fact that it pleases. ''Utility is only a tendency to a certain end; and were the end totally indifferent to us, we should feel the same indifference towards the means. It is requisite a sentiment should here display itself, in order to give a preference to the useful above the pernicious tendencies. This sentiment can be no other than a feeling for the happiness of mankind, and a resentment of their misery ; since these are the different ends which virtue and vice have a tendency to promote. Here, therefore, reason instructs us in the several tendencies of actions, and humanity makes a distinction in favour of those which are useful and beneficial." ^ " In his interpretation of obligation, it is true, Hume seems to relapse into his earlier egoism. *'What theory of morals," he asks, "can ever serve any useful purpose, unless it can show, * Enquiry^^. 219. '^ Ih., p. 286. by a particular detail, that all the duties which it recommends are also the true interest of each individual ? " ^ '* Nor does she [virtue] ever willingly part with any pleasure but in hopes of ample compensation in some other period of their lives. The sole trouble which she demands is that of just calculation, and a steady preference of the greater happiness." ^ It is significant, how- ever, that, in attempting to reconcile humanity and self-interest, Hume here accepts the view of self-love already advocated by Hutcheson and Butler. '' Whatever contradiction may vulgarly be supposed between the selfish and social senti- ments or dispositions, they are really no more opposite than selfish and ambitious, selfish and revengeful, selfish and vain. It is requisite that there be an original propensity of some kind, in order to be a basis to self-love, by giving a relish to the objects of its pursuit ; and none more fit for this purpose than benevolence or humanity." ^ If, however, a man should be sceptical as to whether he shall 'find his account' in virtue, while moral argument with him may be impos- sible, we may trust, Hume thinks, to the healthy impulse of his nature, to his uncorrupted heart, to lead him in the path of duty. ''What heart ' Enquiry y p. 280. 2 76., p. 279. 3 Ih., p. 281. . * 26 The Scottish Contribution to Moral Philosophy. 27 must one be possessed of, who professes such prin- ciples, and who feels no internal sentiment that belies so pernicious a theory, it is easy to imagine." ^ "If his heart rebel not against such pernicious maxims, if he feel no reluctance to the thoughts of villainy or baseness, he has indeed lost a considerable motive to virtue, and we may expect that his practice will be answer- able to his speculation. But in all ingenuous natures the antipathy to treachery and roguery is too strong to be counterbalanced by any views of profit or pecuniary advantage." - For Hume, as for Hutcheson, then, the ulti- mate basis of moral distinctions is found in the moral sentiments of approbation and disapproba- tion. Morality is, therefore, he concludes, like knowledge, subjective rather than objective ; the measure of right and wrong is found in " the particular structure and fabric " of " human nature," in the modes of its sensibility. " Here [in " the sentiment of disapprobation which arises in you towards this action "] is a matter of fact ; but it is the object of feeling, not of reason. It lies in yourself, not in the object. So that when you pronounce any action or character to be vicious, you mean nothing, but that from the ^ Enquiry^ p. 295. 2 75.^ p. 283. constitution of your nature you have a feeling or sentiment of blame from the contemplation of it. Vice and virtue, therefore, may be com- par'd to sounds, colours, heat and cold, which, according to modern philosophy, are not qualities in objects, but perceptions in the mind." ^ Simi- larly, in distinguishing the *' boundaries and offices of reason and of taste," he says : " The former conveys the knowledge of truth and falsehood; the latter gives the sentiment of beauty and deformity, vice and virtue. The one discovers objects as they really stand m nature, without addition or diminution; the other has a productive faculty, and gilding or staining all natural objects with the colours, borrowed from internal sentiment, raises in a manner a new creation." ^ Now we know that Hume was no believer in the speculative any more than in the practical reason, that in his eyes knowledge is no less subjective than mor- ality, and that, in the speculative field at any rate, his scepticism is thorough-going. And we might readily draw the same sceptical corollary from his ethical criticism. Man, it would seem, is the measure of virtue as well as of truth ; and is not that to say that there is no measure of 1 Treatise, p. 469. ^ Enquiry, p. 294. iip^siiii 28 The Scottish Contribution to Moral Philosophy, 29 mSBUKlim either? Hume, however, denies the parallel. Moral distinctions are natural, '* founded on the original constitution of the mind, not arti- ficial and conventional, the invention of poli- ticians." ''Nothing can be more superficial than this paradox of the sceptics ; and it were well if, in the abstruser studies of logic and metaphysics, we could as easily obviate the cavils of that sect, as in the practical and more intelligible sciences of politics and morals." ^ It is no easy matter |& sum up Hume's contribution to ethical science. So far as the history of Utilitarianism is concerned, he freed that theory from the egoism which still char- acterises it even in the later statements of Tucker, Paley, and Bent ham, and anticipated Mill himself in all the essential elements of his ethical system. " It would hardly be too much to claim," says a careful student of this subject, " that the Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals, with all its defects and shortcomings, is the classic statement of English Utilitarian- ism." 2 A less important influence, ethically re- garded, was exerted by Hume, especially so far as the Treatise is concerned, upon the development 1 Enquire/, p. 214. 2 E. Albee, fn Tlie Philosophical Review^ vol. vi. p. 355. / of English Associationism. His analysis of sym- pathy, in particular, stimulated his friend and countryman, Adam Smith, to the construction of his ingenious, though not permanently import- ant, "theory of the moral sentiments," which explains conscience as sympathy with the feelings of an imaginary impartial spectator of our conduct. Hume's most important historical influence, how- ever, in ethics as in metaphysics, is negative rather than positive in its character. His de- rationalisation of morality, like his sensationalistic disintegration of knowledge, roused his successors to the defence of reason, practical as well as theoretical. The Treatise was, in both refer- ences, of far greater historical importance than the Eyiquiry. In both fields Hume had made "human nature" the measure; in both he had substituted psychology for philosophy. It is perhaps not so clearly understood in the ethical as in the metaphysical reference, that Kant's philosophy is explicitly an "answer to Hume." The rediscovery of reason in that " human nature " which was for Hume the ultimate term of philosophical explanation, is Kant's effort in both Critiques. The reduction of morality to the particular structure and fabric of the human constitution, the adoption of pleasure and pain 30 The Scottish Contribution to Moral Philosophy. 31 I \ I as criteria of virtue and vice,— this seemed to Kant the fatal error in ethical theory. For this would be to make morality subjective and con- tingent, and to resolve duty into expediency. Morality or duty — for these are one — has nothing to do with the particular constitution of human nature, or with its sentiments of approbation and disapprobation, of pleasure and displeasure. It speaks to man as a purely rational being, and says, "Thou shalt act as such." To man as a sentient or affective being its voice is a relentless and eternal " Thou shalt not act as such." Even sympathy and benevolence are, in Kant's eyes, " pathological," and for the health of the moral being they must give place to the pure life of reason. It was perhaps inevitable that Hume's anti-rationalism should give rise, in ethics as in metaphysics, to a new rationalism even more extreme and intolerant of feeling than the old ; but it is curious that in ethics, where Hume s an- tipathy to reason was less intense, and his entire interest so much more positive, Kant's enthusiasm for reason should have been so great as to lead him to an exclusive advocacy of its claims. In ethics, as in metaphysics, however, there was another "answer to Hume." His con- temporaries and his successors in Scotland were ^'^MRj N ■ y roused to the same effort as the founder of German idealism. The " Scottish philosophy '' of Keid and Stewart, and of the later Intuitionists down to our own time is, in its sum and sub- stance, a reassertion of the place and function of reason in the thought and in the life of man ; and though it proceeds very largely upon the same lines as the Kantian philosophy, it pos- sesses characteristics of its own which differ- entiate it from the philosophy of Kant, and^ still more from that of his successors,— characteristics which give it a distinct historical importance, and which are intimately connected with certain fundamental qualities of the national spirit of which it is the expression. If Hutcheson is the founder of Scottish philos- ophy, Reid is its second founder. To him we owe I its characteristic later form as a philosophy of \ " Common Sense." This point of view is reached by Reid in his effort to refute the scepticism of Hume by the establishment of the objective validity of both our intellectual and our moral judgments. Judgment is for him the central feature alike of knowledge and of morality, and the new question which he raises in both refer- ences is essentially the question of Kant, How is such judgment possible ? tt» 32 The Scottish Contributio n to Moral Philosophy. 33 ' I "" '0 ! ' l ijlli ii il li l l ' iiiliill i l li ii w ^^ ^ The secret of moral action is to be found in judgment, not in feeling ; it is judgment that difterentiates human from animal action. " Ap- petites, affections, passions . . . draw a man toward a certain object, without any farther view, by a kind of violence." Eeason is a "cool prmcple," and "operates in a calm and dis- passionate manner." Reason is "the manly part of our constitution, the other the brute part. In the animal "we may observe one passion combating another, and the stroncrest prevaihng ; but we perceive no calm principle m their constitution, that is superior to every passion, and able to give law to it." i Passion has strength, but lacks authority; reason "is always accompanied with authority." "It is the office of judgment to appreciate the value of an end, or the preference due to one end above another." "Mr Hume maintains that reason is no principle of action, but that it is and ought to be, the servant of the passions.' ... I shall endeavour to show that, among the various ends of human actions, there are some of which, without reason, we could not even form a conception; and that, as soon as they are conceived, a regard to them is, by our con- ^ Essays on th Active Powers, II. ch. 2. stitution, not only a principle of action, but a leading and governing principle, to which all our animal principles are subordinate, and to which they ought to be subject. . . . These I shall call rational principles." ^ Such rational judgments are, according to Reid, judgments of reason, not of reasoning, or, iii Kantian langiiage, of the understanding. Hmne bad not contemplated the possibility of such a higher rational function. Moral distinc- tions, being indemonstrable, must, he argued, be felt rather than judged. But there are, and must be, Reid replies, at the basis of all dem- onstration, certain original and indemonstrable but none the less-rather, all the more-rational principles, which constitute the first premisses of all demonstration, the starting-points of all inference, and without which we should have the absurdity of an infinite regress of premisses. Among these original premisses of thought we must postulate moral as well as intellectual iudgments. "There must be in morals, as in all other sciences, first or self-evident principles on which all moral reasoning is grounded, and on which it ultimately rests Without such principles we can no more establish any conclu- 1 Essay II T., pt. iii^ch. 1. C It M 34 The Scottish Contribution to Moral Philosophy. 35 f. 1 sion in morals than we can build a castle in the air, without any foundation." ^ To attempt the discussion of moral questions without reference to such moral principles would be " like reason- ing with a blind man about colour, or with a deaf man about sound." Moral or practical judgments are of two kinds — judgments of good and of duty, embracing respectively the spheres of prudence and of virtue. " A man is prudent when he consults his real interest ; but he cannot be virtuous if he has no regard to duty." '^ Our judgments of duty Reid attributes to conscience, which he calls sometimes the "moral faculty," sometimes the " moral sense." *' By an original power of the mind, which we call conscience, or the moral faculty, we have the conceptions of right and wrong in human conduct . . . and, by the same faculty, we perceive some things in human conduct to be right, and others to be wrong." ^ But at the heart of moral as of intellectual per- ception Reid finds judgment. "By our moral faculty we have both the original conceptions of right and wrong in conduct, of merit and demerit, and the original judgments that this ^ E%my III., pt. iii. ch. 6. ^ /j.^ pt. iii. ch. 5. 3 76., pt. iii. ch. 6. conduct is right, that is wrong ; that this char- acter has worth, that demerit." ^ The prudential judgments, or judgments of good, are clearly differentiated by Reid from the moral judgments, or judgments of duty, although he holds that "both lead to the same conduct." The object of the former is our " good on the whole," as distinguished from particular good. Conduct dictated by such principles, "if it be virtue, is not the noblest kind, but a low and mercenary species of it." '^ By " good " Reid generally means happiness, but he also dis- tinctly recognises perfection as a species of good. "Whatever makes a man more happy or more perfect is good, and is an object of desire as soon as we are capable of forming the conception of it."^ He insists upon the ri^ht of "the natural desires" to satisfaction. They are "in themselves neither virtuous nor vicious. They are parts of our constitution, and ought to be regulated and restrained when they stand in competition with more important prin- ciples. But to eradicate them, if it were pos- sible (and I believe it is not), would only be like cutting off a leg or an arm,— that is, making ourselves other creatures than God has made » E%my III., pt. iii. ch. 6. '' Ih., pt. iii. ch. 4. ^ j^,.^ pt. iii. ch. 2. 36 The Scottish Contribution to Moral Philosophy, 37 us."^ Moreover, our own "good on the whole" includes that of others indirectly, through the ''benevolent affections planted in our constitu- tion," the exercise of which makes ''a capital part of our happiness." For the ultimate recon- ciliation of virtue and prudence Reid has recourse to natural theology. *' While the world is under a wise and benevolent administration, it is im- possible that any man should, in the issue, be a loser by doing his duty. . . . This shows the strong connection between morality and tlie principles of natural religion ; as the last only can secure a man from the possibility of an apprehension that he may play the fool by doing his duty."^ Reid, therefore, concludes with Lord Shaftesbury, "that virtue without piety is incomplete." Reid s successors in Scotland and in America cannot be said to have added anything of material importance to the ethical teachings of their master. They may have improved upon his psychological analysis, and reduced his doctrine to a more exact form. But in general it may be said that, when it left Reid's hands, the Intuitional theory of ethics was finally stereo- typed, and that the energies of his successors 1 Euay III., pt. ii. ch. 2. * Ih^ pt. iiL ch. & \|# have been devoted mainly to its defence and propagation. In Stewart and Brown the theo- logical or metaphysical basis .of the theory receives an added emphasis and a further development, but even here we find no addi- tion of importance. When we compare Scottish Intuitionism with other ethical theories, and even with the great English theory of Bishop Butler, what strikes us as its chief defect is its unsystematic char- acter. Nor is this a mere accident : the school is inspired by a strong and characteristic sus- picion and dislike of system. The value of system in morals is, according to Reid, didactic rather than scientific. "A system of morals is not like a system of geometry, where the subsequent parts derive their evidence from the preceding, and one chain of reasoning is carried on from the beginning, so that, if the arrangement is changed, the chain is broken, and the evidence is lost. It resembles more a system of botany, or mineralogy, where the subsequent parts de- pend not for their evidence upon the preceding, and the arrangement is made to facilitate appre- hension and memory, and not to give evidence." ^ Similarly Stewart holds that "the different * Es%ay v., ch. 2. II The Scottish Contnoutton to Moral Philosophy. 39 !li!liillilllli i il|li|ill!ijj i iii|ii|ll!l |^l lillll|lliiilli p ^ theories which have been proposed concerning the nature and essence of virtue, have arisen chiefly from attempts to trace all the branches of our duty to one principle of action ; such as a rational self-love, benevolence, justice, or a dis- position to obey the will of God." Such *' partial views of the subject," he holds, " naturally take their rise from an undue love of system." ^ In- stead of reducing morality to a system, therefore, the Scottish School has rested content with a series of co-ordinate moral principles. Accord- ingly, while the authority of conscience'' is main- tained with an emphasis that reminds us of Butler, we miss the deduction of its authority which Butler gives. Such a deduction implies an investigation of the end of human activity ; and the Intuitionists refuse to connect human duty with human good. Their point of view is nearer Kant's than Butler s, though even Kant is more teleological. The reason of the loose attachment of the Scottish moralists to Butler, in spite of their general agreement with his views, is that they imagine they see in his characteristic method the sceptical method of Hume. Butler found the clue to ethical system in human nature, and the end to which, by its ^ Outlines of Moral Philosophy , part ii. ch. ii. §§ 245, 246. N Iv V. very constitution, it is adapted. Man is made for virtue, as the clock is made for keeping time : human virtue is the expression of human nature. It is the subjectivity and scepticism, which Hume has taught the Scottish School to find in such a deduction of morality from ''the particular struc- ture and fabric " of human nature, that give them pause. But why should not morality be objec- tive, as w^ell as subjective, in its scope and validity? Man is a part of reality. Why should ''human nature" be an incompetent wit- ness to the nature of things ? Why not return, * with Butler, to the standpoint of Aristotelian, and of Greek ethics in general, which always sought the clue to human virtue or excellence in human nature itself, and for which the unity of virtue was the corollary of the unity of the good to which it led? Why should not man be the measure, after all ? Why, at least, should not ethics, as a science, make its own abstraction, and regard him provisionally as the measure, leaving to metaphysics the task of investigating the ultimate validity of this, as of other, assump- tions of scientific thought ? Yet, criticise as we may the ethical product of Scottish Philosophy, we must approve the method which it adopted as the true method mmmmamm 40 The Scoftisk Contribution to Moral Philosophy, 41 li of ethics. That method, as we have seen, thev designate the method of Common Sense; but, although they found it necessary to recall the minds of British moralists to it, the method itself is no innovation of the Scottish phil- osophers. It is the method of Socrates and Aristotle, no less truly than of Reid and /Stewart, to interrogate the common moral con- sciousness of mankind, to verify ethical theory by reference to the facts of moral experience, and to accept no hypothesis in morals which does violence to, or which fails to recognise, any of these facts. Moral experience is the datum of moral science. The business of ethics is to organise into a coherent system our ordinary moral judgments, not to deduce from a metaphysical point of view a system of moral judgment which may or may not tally with the deliverances of the moral consciousness it- self. The results of ethical science form part of the data of metaphysics, and, like its other data, must always be "first for us,' though not first in the nature of things or from an absolute point of view. The Scottish philoso- phers shared with Socrates and Aristotle and Butler their reverence for the ** plain man's " conscience, for the uncorrupted testimony of i V. ^'■:i the human heart. And perhaps we need to be reminded of this ultimate touchstone of ethical truth, no less than the contemporaries of the founders of Scottish Philosophy. Per- haps we are even more in love with *' system" than they, and need to be taught that the true method of ethics is not the metaphysical method of German idealism, which deduces an ethical theory from the nature of things, but the more modest and scientific method of our own countrymen — English as well as Scot- tish, with very few exceptions — which bases its theory of morals upon the facts of human nature, and prefers to remain unsystematic and incomplete rather than sacrifice to the demands of systematic completeness a single element of moral experience. If we find it necessary to make our induction of moral facts more complete and scientific, adopting here as everywhere the evolutionary method of con- temporary science, we are not thereby aban- doning, but only extending and refining, the method of Common Sense. But, I would remind you in closing, the contribution of the Scottish School to Moral Philosophy is not exhausted by its answer to m 42 The Scottish Contribution to Moral Philosophy, 43 the technically ethical question. Scottish Philo- sophy itself is, even in its metaphysical aspects, primarily and characteristically ethical in its method and in its point of view. The method and the point of view of Common Sense is essen- tially an appeal to the moral consciousness, as an all - important and incorruptible witness to the truth. It was in the defence of moral reality that Eeid, like Kant, rebelled against the sceptical philosophy of Hume. He and his successors deliberately adopted the ethical point of view as metaphysically valid, and refused to accept a metaphysical system which was in- adequate to the interpretation of moral experi- ence. They found in man a higher term of philosophical explanation than in external nature, and they insisted upon construing the universe m terms of man rather than in terms of nature. Eeid's own interest in this spiritual significance of his Common Sense principle seems to have deepened in his later years, and the intrepid philosophical genius of Sir William Hamilton did much to develop that significance. But it was reserved for Hamilton's pupil and successor, whom I am proud to claim as my own master in metaphysics, Professor Campbell Eraser, to show us the larger meaning of the Philosophy of Common Sense, in view of contemporary issues and alternatives of thought. These are still the old issues and alternatives of metaphysical re- flection, between a humanistic and a naturalistic, an idealistic and a materialistic interpretation of the universe, between an ultimate vindication and an ultimate disparagement and condemnation of our judgments of moral value. A true idealism must be ethical, must maintain the real validity of our moral, no less than of our intellectual and aesthetic ideals, must make man the measure of nature rather than nature the measure of man, must recognise in morality no mere transitory appearance and illusion, but a true expression of ultimate Reality and a trustworthy exponent of the very nature of things. In his recent Giiford Lectures on The PhUosoplmj of Theism, and, the other day, in his study of Reid, Professor Fraser has given to a wider public the lesson which he had already taught to suc- cessive generations of students in this University, the lesson of the unwisdom of resisting ^' the final venture of the heart and conscience in their interpretation of the world and of human life." ^ 1 Beid {Famous Scots Series), p. 94. ■< .|| * ) PRINTED BY WILUAM BLACKWOOD AXD SONS. I V •f i\ * 4 ''W / ( ] \ / i Ik PHOTOCOPY HOT C M^mikM^