Page:Philosophical Review Volume 25.djvu/168

156 question is a very fruitful one. But in so far as it can be answered at all, its meaning would seem to be in terms of the extent and importance of the effects of the man upon the world. It is intelligible to ask whether the results of Gladstone's work were as far-reaching and significant as those of Kant, though in view of the very complex nature of the question it is not certain that a man would show good sense in raising it.

But what I wish to maintain is, that while this is so, and while relative greatness or bigness,—the ability to do things beyond the ordinary,—in so far calls forth our admiration for its qualities, this is still not ethical admiration, and the judgment is not one of the qualitatively higher. Otherwise I should have to say that in so far the bigger or more able man is ethically the better man, which I do not think we tend to say at all. However much I admire the superior ability which brings about greater results, I do not feel that I, who have less ability, or ability in a different direction, ought to aim at these results; and when I see another man with modest talents who does his best, ethically I honor him equally with his more gifted competitor, though my intellect recognizes that he is intrinsically a smaller man.

The only positive suggestion I have to make with reference to specifically moral quality is this: that we cannot say we ought to do a certain thing, or that it is qualitatively better, or right, unless our attitude toward the alternative choice is one of actual disapproval. For the peculiarity of the judgment of 'better' in the qualitative sense, with the feeling of oughtness that accompanies it, I am able to discover no general reason except the bare fact that there is aroused in me in connection with it some feeling of repugnance. So far as I can see, this represents the difference between quantitative 1 and qualitative judgments. If I do not feel a positive dislike to the thought of the alternative, then I simply like the other more; and while this means that I prefer it, it does not mean that I feel that I ought necessarily to prefer it. And for this repugnance I find no single cause, but rather several. Why, for example, do I feel that sensuality is lower than intellect, or that piggishness is not a human virtue? Primarily, so far as I can judge, out of an æsthetic disgust.