Page:An introduction to ethics.djvu/163

 mother sees her young son climb a neighbour's apple-tree, pick an unripe apple, and begin to eat it. She calls him to her and says, "Tommy, it is wrong to pick apples that don't belong to you." If Tommy be in a contentious mood, he may protest, "But why shouldn't I do what's wrong? Why should I be good?" Mother may reply, "Because you will be punished if you do wrong." And if mother is inclined to be expansive, she may describe some of the kinds of punishment that await boys who steal unripe apples. (1) Green apples make your stomach very sore. (2) The policeman will catch you. (3) Mother and father and grannie and cook won't like you. (4) Boys who steal apples may go to the bad place when they die.

These are the four kinds of sanction which Bentham, the founder of the Utilitarian School of Ethics, considered most important in the moral life. By the Utilitarians the sanctions are called (1) the physical sanction, (2) the political sanction, (3) the social sanction, and (4) the religious sanction. These are precisely the sanctions that the mother has used in persuading her boy not to steal apples. A word or two must be said about each of them.

(1) The physical sanctions include the pains of body and mind that follow the disregard of natural laws, e.g. the headache which follows an evening's carouse. (2) The political sanction consists of the pains and penalties which are attached to the violation of the legal enactments of the State. The law of the land enjoins certain actions and prohibits others. It prohibits theft, libel, assault and battery, etc. It enjoins the paying of rates and taxes, the