Page:Philosophical Review Volume 13.djvu/657

Rh. Moreover, few men subject either to Aristotelian or Platonic influence would be apt to frame a summum bonum empty of wisdom; and it is not uncommon to find the free life of increasing intelligence upheld as the very highest end of rational endeavor,—a final intrinsic good, to which all other goods are in the last resort contributory. This 'intellectual pragmatism' is not only shared by the greatest of professed thinkers; it is the religious belief of multitudes of men of culture, who, in devoting their lives to the enlargement of human knowledge, conceive that no higher ambition could have been chosen. To men of this class, the ideal of mere willingness to do the right can scarcely seem other than brutal and contemptible.

And yet, when we attempt to indicate the exact place of knowledge in the moral ideal, we find the task not easy. If any knowledge is to be so considered, none will more naturally be fixed upon than that of the consequences of conduct. Asking, then, the question, how far the moral agent is responsible for the actual (as distinguished, on the one hand, from the foreseen, and, on the other hand, from the probable) consequences of his acts, we find the answer in general wavering and uncertain, but, on the whole, inclining to an extreme negative,—that the agent is not in the least responsible for such consequences. We find, indeed, some very forcible expressions of opinion to this effect. Clifford, for example, devotes some admirable rhetoric to this point; and so circumspect a thinker as Meinong declares for this view no less unreservedly. Suppose we accept this opinion for the moment, and proceed to ask what bearing the probable, but not actually foreseen, consequences may have upon the morality of the act. The 'probability' of such consequences may have two meanings: either that they were foreseen, or would have been foreseen, by the wiser individual who passes judgment; or that the agent himself would not have overlooked them had he used proper deliberation. Now when the act is condemned, let us say on account of the evil nature of such consequences, it is