Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 8.djvu/879

 NOTES AND ABSTRACTS.

The Domain of Utilitarian Ethics. Utilitarian ethics, when understood in the terms by which its principal advocates have undertaken to expound it, has always been open to successful attack from its opponents. The intuitionists have triumphantly urged against it that pleasure is neither the immediate nor the ultimate end of ethical conduct; that the contemplation of pleasure as an object of desire can never ar.mse the feeling expressed by the word "ought," and that the idea of pleasure is not an essential element in the consciousness of a moral agent when incited to perform a moral act.

Mr. John Morley has called attention to a statement by Aristotle, which should be regarded as the cardinal maxim of personal morals: "The wise man seeks after free- dom from pain, not pleasure." This practical rule, although not intended as any- thing more than a guide to prudent conduct for the benefit of the individual, may nevertheless be so paraphrased as to express the fundamental principle of ethics that "the moral man is he whose actions are directed to the avoidance, prevention, removal, or alleviation of pain whenever and wherever imminent or present, and whether affecting himself or his fellow-men, but wholly irrespective of any pleasure which may thereby be attained or promoted except in the negative sense of relief from painful experience."

The great masters of utilitarianism have not attended to this distinction. Does the production of pleasure come to the same thing in morals as the prevention of pain? The feeling of moral obligation undoubtedly appertains to that form of utility which tends to prevent the happening of pain or evil either to the community in general or to a particular individual ; but this surely does not hold true of that other form of utility which tends to produce benefit or happiness of a positive kind.

If the utilitarian theory of morals should be so stated as to make the terms "right" and "wrong" exactly the reverse of each other in meaning and co-extensive in their range of application, its position would be unassailable.

Wrongful acts are universally recognized as comprised in one or the other of two categories. They are either those of direct performance, by which suffering is inflicted or augmented, or those of wilful non-performance, by which the prevention or mitigation of suffering is refused or neglected. In like manner acts which are right, when viewed strictly according to moral standards, are also embraced within two categories corresponding to those of wrongful acts, but diametrically opposite thereto in character. They are, first, acts of abstention from the infliction or aug- mentation of suffering; and, second, acts of direct endeavor to prevent or mitigate suffering.

Hence it results that negative beneficence is the reverse of positive malevolence, and that positive beneficence is the reverse of negative malevolence. Pain is the invariable and essential subject-matter of both morality and immorality. The one is concerned solely with its elimination or prevention; the other, always with its gene- ration and continuance.

In the domain of morality, the conduct of the moral agent is concerned with two classes of pains ; namely, those which may be experienced by himself, and those which may be experienced by others. Each of these classes of pains may be divided into those which are believed to arise from natural causes and those believed to be inflicted by supernatural agencies. Hence, a further division of morality into secular morals and religious morals.

These distinctions will be found helpful in considering the question of moral progress. Among the lowest varieties of the human race, man has the least foresight, the least regard for the welfare of others, and the least fear of natural consequences. His morals, therefore, are concerned with evils which are immediate, which relate chiefly to himself, and which are largely superstitious. On the contrary, civilized

859