Progressive Morality | Page 2

language, and almost totally
inapplicable to practice, have usually done duty for what is called a
system of moral philosophy. The authors or exponents of such theories
have the good fortune at once to avoid odium and to acquire a
reputation for profundity.

In the following pages, I shall attempt (1) to discriminate morality,
properly so called, from other sanctions of conduct; (2) to determine
the precise functions, and the ultimate justification, of the moral
sentiment, or, in other words, of the moral sanction; (3) to enquire how
this sentiment has been formed, and how it may be further educated and
improved; (4) to discover some general test of conduct; (5) to give
examples of the application of this test to existing moral rules and
moral feelings, with a view to shew how far they may be justified and
how far they require extension or reformation. As my subject is almost
exclusively practical, I shall studiously avoid mere theoretical puzzles,
such as is pre-eminently that of the freedom of the will, which, in
whatever way resolved, probably never influences, and never will
influence, any sane man's conduct. Questions of this kind will always
excite interest in the sphere of speculation, and speculation is a
necessity of the cultivated human intellect; but it does not seem to me
that they can be profitably discussed in a treatise, the aim of which is
simply to suggest principles for examining, for testing, and, if possible,
for improving the prevailing sentiment on matters of practical morals.
To begin with the first division of my subject, How is morality,
properly so called, discriminated from other sanctions of conduct? By a
sanction I may premise that I mean any pleasure which attracts to as
well as any pain which deters from a given course of action. In books
on Jurisprudence, this word is usually employed to designate merely
pains or penalties, but this circumstance arises from the fact that, at
least in modern times, the law seldom has recourse to rewards, and
effects its ends almost exclusively by means of punishments. When we
are considering conduct, however, in its general aspects and not
exclusively in its relations to law, we appear to need a word to express
any inducement, whether of a pleasureable or painful nature, which
may influence a man's actions, and such a word the term 'sanction'
seems conveniently to supply. Taking the word in this extended sense,
the sanctions of conduct may be enumerated as the physical, the legal,
the social, the religious, and the moral. Of the physical sanction
familiar examples may be found in the headache from which a man
suffers after a night's debauch, the pleasure of relaxation which awaits a
well-earned holiday, the danger to life or limb which is attendant on

reckless exercise, or the glow of constant satisfaction which rewards a
healthy habit of life. These pleasures and pains, when once experienced,
exercise, for the future, an attracting or a deterring influence, as the
case may be, on the courses of conduct with which they have
respectively become associated. Thus, a man who has once suffered
from a severe headache, after a night's drinking-bout, will be likely to
exercise more discretion in future, or the prospect of agreeable
diversion, at the end of a hard day's work, will quicken a man's efforts
to execute his task.
The legal sanction is too familiar to need illustration. Without penal
laws, no society of any size could exist for a day. There are, however,
two characteristics of this sanction which it is important to point out.
One is that it works almost exclusively[1] by means of penalties. It
would be an endless and thankless business, in a society of any size,
even if it were possible, to attempt to reward the virtuous for their
consideration in not breaking the laws. The cheap, the effective, indeed,
in most cases, the only possible method is to punish the transgressor.
By a carefully devised and properly graduated system of penalties each
citizen is thus furnished with the strongest inducement to refrain from
those acts which may injure or annoy his neighbour. Another
characteristic of the legal sanction is that, though it is professedly
addressed to all citizens alike, it actually affects the uneducated and
lower classes far more than the educated and higher classes of society.
This circumstance arises partly from the fact that persons in a
comfortable position of life are under little temptation to commit the
more ordinary crimes forbidden by law, such as are theft, assault, and
the like, and partly from the fact that their education and associations
make them more amenable to the social, and, in most cases, to the
moral and religious sanctions, about to be described presently. Few
persons in what are called the higher or middle ranks