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539 be, under the particular antecedent and co-existent circumstances, just what they are and no other, it can be fitting and desirable to bestow such approval or disapproval, reward or punishment. For, if rewards ought to be given, then we may well call those actions to which they are appropriate meritorious; and similarly, if penalties are rightly inflicted, the conduct which leads to them is of 'ill desert.'

The determinists' justification for praising good actions rests on two grounds, on the fact that such praise is the suitable expression of the pleasure which these actions give him, and on the expectation that it will tend to produce other good actions. In the first place, then, our commendation of good conduct is the natural outflow of the satisfaction we take in the sight of moral beauty. How this 'moral sense' has arisen is a question we are not here concerned with. The average man is conscious of pleasure when witnessing, or hearing of, deeds of heroism or self-denial, just as he is to some extent susceptible to beauties of color, form, and harmony. And as our admiration of the scent of the rose and the hues of the sunset is not lessened by our being aware that such odor and colors are the effects of certain natural causes, so neither need the more profound admiration that we feel in the presence of moral perfection be diminished, because we know that the conduct we rejoice in is the inevitable expression of a human character, which is itself the summing up of numerous preceding facts. The aesthetic pleasure which the sight of a lovely flower gives us is not affected by our knowing that a particular seed, sown on just this soil, and growing up under just such conditions of air, sunshine, and moisture, must produce this very blossom and no other; and our recognition that an act of courage or unselfishness is a product of preceding mental conditions need not interfere with the satisfaction which it gives our moral sense.

The close analogy which subsists between the aesthetic and the ethical feelings has been often overlooked in modern moral philosophy, where the dread of disturbing the foundations of practical ethics has prevented a thorough analysis being made of the origin and nature of the moral consciousness. The