Progressive Morality | Page 7

those who advocate a total abstention from intoxicating liquors
and those who allow of a moderate use of them,--men on both sides in
these controversies, or, at least, the majority of them, doubtless act
conscientiously, and yet, as they arrive at opposite conclusions, the
conscience of one side or other must be at fault. There is no act of
religious persecution, there are few acts of political or personal cruelty,
for which the authority of conscience might not be invoked. I doubt not
that Queen Mary acted as conscientiously in burning the Reformers as
they did in promulgating their opinions or we do in condemning her
acts. It is plain, then, not only that the decisions of conscience are not
infallible, but that they must, to a very large extent, be relative to the
circumstances and opinions of those who form them. In any intelligible
or tenable sense of the term, conscience stands simply for the aggregate
of our moral opinions reinforced by the moral sanction of
self-approbation or self-disapprobation. That we ought to act in
accordance with these opinions, and that we are acting wrongly if we
act in opposition to them, is a truism. 'Follow Conscience' is the only
safe guide, when the moment of action has arrived. But it is equally
important to insist on the fallibility of conscience, and to urge men, by

all means in their power, to be constantly improving and instructing
their consciences, or, in plain words, to review and, wherever occasion
offers, to correct their conceptions of right and wrong. The 'plain,
honest man' of Bishop Butler would, undoubtedly, always follow his
conscience, but it is by no means certain that his conscience would
always guide him rightly, and it is quite certain that it would often
prompt him differently from the consciences of other 'plain, honest
men' trained elsewhere and under other circumstances. To act contrary
to our opinions of right and wrong would be treason to our moral
nature, but it does not follow that those opinions are not susceptible of
improvement and correction, or that it is not as much our duty to take
pains to form true opinions as to act in accordance with our opinions
when we have formed them.
[Footnote 1: I use the expressions 'moral sanction' and 'moral sentiment'
as equivalent terms, because the pleasures and pains, which constitute
the moral sanction, are inseparable, even in thought, from the moral
feeling. The moral feeling of self-approbation or self-disapprobation
cannot even be conceived apart from the pleasures or pains which are
attendant on it, and by means of which it reveals itself to us.
It should be noticed that the expression 'moral sentiment' is habitually
used in two senses, as the equivalent (1) of the moral feeling only, (2)
of the entire moral process, which, as we shall see in the third chapter,
consists partly of a judgment, partly of a feeling. It is in the latter sense,
for instance, that we speak of the 'current moral sentiment' of any given
age or country, meaning the opinions then or there prevalent on moral
questions, reinforced by the feeling of approbation or disapprobation.
As, however, the moral feeling always follows immediately and
necessarily on the moral judgment, whenever that judgment
pronounces decisively for or against an action, and always implies a
previous judgment (I am here again obliged to anticipate the discussion
in chapter 3), the ambiguity is of no practical importance at the present
stage of our enquiry. It is almost needless to add that the word
'sentiment,' when used alone, has the double meaning of a feeling and
an opinion, an ambiguity which is sometimes not without practical
inconvenience.]

The terms 'conscience' and 'moral sense' are very convenient
expressions for popular use, provided we always bear in mind that
'illuminate' or 'instruct' your 'conscience' or 'moral sense' is quite as
essential a rule as 'follow' your 'conscience' or 'moral sense.' But the
scientific moralist, in attempting to analyse the springs of moral action
and to detect the ultimate sanctions of conduct, would do well to avoid
these terms altogether. The analysis of moral as well as of intellectual
acts is often only obscured by our introducing the conception of
'faculties,' and, in the present instance, it is far better to confine
ourselves to the expressions 'acts' of 'approbation or disapprobation,'
'satisfaction or dissatisfaction,' which we shall hereafter attempt to
analyse, than to feign, or at least assume, certain 'faculties' or 'senses' as
distinct entities from which such acts are supposed to proceed. I shall,
therefore, in the sequel of this work, say little or nothing of 'conscience'
or 'moral sense,' not because I think it desirable to banish those words
from popular terminology, but because I think that, in an attempt to
present the principles of ethics