Page:Philosophical Review Volume 3.djvu/443

427 one's purpose in working is; the obligation to follow the rules of hygiene, or the rules of logic, or the rules of painting, is the same in kind as the obligation to follow the precepts of any system of the morality that ought to be, as distinguished from the morality that is.

Not only is the moral obligation the same in kind as the obligation to take care of one's health, but there is no reason other than mere inclination for giving one of these obligations precedence over the other. There would be if it could be shown that the moral end is superior to health; but nothing of the kind can be shown. One may prove that one does choose to be moral rather than to be healthy, or vice versa, but not that one ought to do so. What obligation can there be to choose to be moral at all? Surely, not a moral obligation. A moral obligation presupposes that one has chosen the moral end; it is simply the obligation, since you have chosen that end, to take such and such means of attaining it. From the fact that such and such are the means to an end, it in no wise results that you ought to choose that end. One might as well say, because a hammer is one of the means for horseshoeing, that therefore one ought to shoe horses. The only way in which one can be under obligation to choose an end is by subordinating it as a means to some other end, which one has chosen. If I am bent on worldly prosperity, I am obliged to be conscientious, because other people respect it; but the obligation to choose conscientiousness is, in that case, a matter of policy, not of morals. The moral end is degraded to a mere means. Or, again, if I am bent on being moral, and am persuaded that it is right to care for one's health, I am obliged to choose health, but the obligation is not a matter of hygiene, it is a matter of morals. Health has ceased to be an independent end, and become a mere means. Of independent ends there can be no question which of them ought to be chosen, or ought to be preferred to others. None of the many moral aims which we have developed can maintain a claim to occupy higher ground than the others, or than aims not moral at all. The only question that can be asked is, which of them is