Page:An introduction to ethics.djvu/153

 the judgment. Moral judgment is simply ordinary judgment on the special subject-matter of conduct. The standard of moral judgment is not immediately given in private feeling or opinion or intuition, nor crystallised in social convention or law. It needs to be reflected on and reasoned about. Moral judgment is rational, and the standard it employs must be investigated by a process of reasoning.

The dependence of moral judgment on reason will become clear, if we bear in mind certain general characteristics, which belong to all true moral judgment.

(1) All true moral judgments are objective. They are judgments upon actions, and not upon people's feelings or opinions with regard to those actions. When we make the moral judgment that Cromwell did wrong when he sacked Drogheda, we are making a judgment about Cromwell's action as an object. We do not merely mean that we have certain feelings towards Cromwell: we mean that on rational grounds, of which we can give a reasonable account, we definitely judge that his action was wrong. Moral judgments are objective: they are not simply the expression of private likes and dislikes.

(2) Moral judgments imply universality. True moral judgments are universally true. Of course, we may make mistakes in our moral judgments, just as we may make mistakes in other departments of rational activity. But in these cases we recognise that we have made a mistake, and that there is a definite and universal right and wrong. If a long multiplication sum be given out to a class of small boys, the answers they get will probably not all agree.