The Basis of Morality | Page 5

that which conduces to the greatest happiness of the greatest number is Right; that which does not is Wrong.
This general maxim being laid down, it remains for the student to study history, to analyse experience, and by a close and careful investigation into human nature and human relations to elaborate a moral code which would bring about general happiness and well-being. This, so far, has not been done. Utility has been a "hand-to-mouth" moral basis, and certain rough rules of conduct have grown up by experience and the necessities of life, without any definite investigation into, or codifying of, experience. Man's moral basis as a rule is a compound of partially accepted revelations and partially admitted consciences, with a practical application of the principle of "that which works best". The majority are not philosophers, and care little for a logical basis. They are unconscious empirics, and their morality is empirical.
Mr. Charles Bradlaugh, considering that the maxim did not sufficiently guard the interests of the minority, and that, so far as was possible, these also should be considered and guarded, added another phrase; his basis ran: "The greatest happiness of the greatest number, with the least injury to any." The rule was certainly improved by the addition, but it did not remove many of the objections raised.
It was urged by the Utilitarian that morality had developed out of the social side of human beings; that men, as social animals, desired to live in permanent relations with each other, and that this resulted in the formation of families; men could not be happy in solitude; the persistence of these groups, amid the conflicting interests of the individuals who composed them, could only be secured by recognising that the interests of the majority must prevail, and form the rule of conduct for the whole family. Morality, it was pointed out, thus began in family relations, and conduct which disrupted the family was wrong, while that which strengthened and consolidated it was right. Thus family morality was established. As families congregated together for mutual protection and support, their separate interests as families were found to be conflicting, and so a modus vivendi was sought in the same principle which governed relations within the family: the common interests of the grouped families, the tribe, must prevail over the separate and conflicting interests of the separate families; that which disrupted the tribe was wrong, while that which strengthened and consolidated it was right. Thus tribal morality was established. The next step was taken as tribes grouped themselves together and became a nation, and morality extended so as to include all who were within the nation; that which disrupted the nation was wrong, and that which consolidated and strengthened it was right. Thus national morality was established. Further than that, utilitarian morality has not progressed, and international relations have not yet been moralised; they remain in the savage state, and recognise no moral law. Germany has boldly accepted this position, and declares formally that, for the State, Might is Right, and that all which the State can do for its own aggrandisement, for the increase of its power, it may and ought to do, for there is no rule of conduct to which it owes obedience; it is a law unto itself. Other nations have not formularised the statement in their literature as Germany has done, but the strong nations have acted upon it in their dealings with the weaker nations, although the dawning sense of an international morality in the better of them has led to the defence of international wrong by "the tyrant's plea, necessity". The most flagrant instance of the utter disregard of right and wrong as between nations, is, perhaps, the action of the allied European nations against China--in which the Hun theory of "frightfulness" was enunciated by the German Kaiser--but the history of nations so far is a history of continual tramplings on the weak by the strong, and with the coming to the front of the Christian white nations, and their growth in scientific knowledge and thereby in power, the coloured nations and tribes, whether civilised or savage, have been continually exploited and oppressed. International morality, at present, does not exist. Murder within the family, the tribe, and the nation is marked as a crime, save that judicial murder, capital punishment, is permitted--on the principle of (supposed) Utility. But multiple murder outside the nation--War--is not regarded as criminal, nor is theft "wrong," when committed by a strong nation on a weak one. It may be that out of the widespread misery caused by the present War, some international morality may be developed.
We may admit that, as a matter of historical and present fact, Utility has been everywhere tacitly accepted as the basis of morality, defective as it is as a theory.