FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   299   300   301   302   303   304   305   306   307   308   309   310   311   312   313   314   315   316   317   318   319   320   321   322   323  
324   325   326   327   328   329   330   331   332   333   334   335   336   337   338   339   340   341   342   343   344   345   346   347   348   >>   >|  
they are just or generous, or the contrary, and with no reference to happiness or unhappiness. In answering this argument, he confines himself to the case of Justice. To be morally approved, a just action must in itself be peculiarly pleasant or agreeable, irrespective of its other effects, which are left out: for on no theory can pleasantness or agreeableness be dissociated from moral approbation. Now, as Happiness is but a general appellation for all the agreeable affections of our nature, and unable to exist except in the shape of some agreeable emotion or combinations of agreeable emotions; the just action that is morally commendable, as giving naturally and directly a peculiar kind of pleasure independent of any other consequences, only produces one species of those pleasant states of mind that are ranged under the genus happiness. The test of justice therefore coincides with the happiness-test. But he does not mean that we are actually affected thus, in doing just actions, nor refuse to accept justice as a criterion of actions; only in the one case he maintains that, whatever association may have effected, the just act must originally have been approved for the sake of its consequences, and, in the other, that justice is a criterion, because proved over and over again to be a most beneficial principle. After remarking that the Moral Sentiments of praise and blame may enter into accidental connection with, other feelings of a distinct character, like pity, wonder, &c., he criticises the use of the word _Utility_ in Morals. He avoids the term as objectionable, because the _useful_ in common language does not mean what is directly productive of happiness, but only what is instrumental in its production, and in most cases customarily or recurrently instrumental. A blanket is of continual utility to a poor wretch through a severe winter, but the benevolent act of the donor is not termed useful, because it confers the benefit and ceases. Utility is too narrow to comprehend all the actions that deserve approbation. We want an uncompounded substantive expressing the two attributes of _conferring_ and _conducing to_ happiness; as a descriptive phrase, _producing_ happiness is as succinct as any. The term useful is, besides, associated with the notion of what is serviceable in the affairs and objects of common life, whence the philosophical doctrine that erects utility as its banner is apt to be deemed, by the unthinking
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   299   300   301   302   303   304   305   306   307   308   309   310   311   312   313   314   315   316   317   318   319   320   321   322   323  
324   325   326   327   328   329   330   331   332   333   334   335   336   337   338   339   340   341   342   343   344   345   346   347   348   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

happiness

 

agreeable

 

actions

 
justice
 

criterion

 
instrumental
 

approbation

 
Utility
 

common

 

action


directly

 

consequences

 

utility

 

morally

 
pleasant
 
approved
 
productive
 

recurrently

 

language

 

customarily


production
 

connection

 

feelings

 
distinct
 

accidental

 

praise

 

character

 

Morals

 
avoids
 
criticises

objectionable
 

benefit

 
succinct
 

notion

 
serviceable
 

producing

 

phrase

 

attributes

 

conferring

 

conducing


descriptive

 

affairs

 

objects

 

deemed

 

unthinking

 

banner

 

erects

 
philosophical
 

doctrine

 

expressing