Read Ebook: Moral Science; a Compendium of Ethics by Bain Alexander

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 719 lines and 133357 words, and 15 pages

THE THEORY OF ETHICS.

PRELIMINARY VIEW OF ETHICAL QUESTIONS.

THE ETHICAL STANDARD.

THE MORAL FACULTY.

THE ETHICAL SYSTEMS.

SOKRATES. His subjects were Men and Society. His Ethical Standard indistinctly expressed. Resolved Virtue into Knowledge. Ideal of pursuit--Well-doing. Inculcated self-denying Precepts. Political Theory. Connexion of Ethics with Theology slender.

THE CYNICS AND THE CYRENAICS. Cynic succession. The proper description of the tenets of both schools comes under the Summum Bonum. The Cynic Ideal was the minimum of wants, and their self-denial was compensated by exemption from fear, and by pride of superiority. The Cyrenaic ARISTIPPUS:--Was the first to maintain that the summum bonum is Pleasure and the absence of Pain. Future Pleasures and Pains taken into the account. His Psychology of Pleasure and Pain.

Book Second. Definition and classification of the Moral virtues. Virtue the result of Habit. Doctrine of the MEAN. The test of virtue to feel no pain. Virtue defined an acquirement or a State, a Mean between extremes. Rules for hitting the Mean.

Book Third. The Voluntary and Involuntary. Deliberate Preference. Virtue and vice are voluntary. The virtues in detail:--Courage . Temperance.

Book Fourth. Liberality. Magnificence. Magnanimity. Mildness. Good-breeding. Modesty.

Book Fifth. Justice:--Universal Justice includes all virtue. Particular Justice is of two kinds, Distributive and Corrective.

Book Sixth. Intellectual Excellences, or Virtues of the Intellect. The Rational part of the Soul embraces the Scientific and the Deliberative functions. Science deals with the necessary. Prudence or the Practical Reason; its aims and requisites. In virtue, good dispositions must be accompanied with Prudence.

Book Seventh. Gradations of moral strength and moral weakness. Continence and Incontinence.

Books Eighth and Ninth. Friendship:--Grounds of Friendship. Varieties of Friendship, corresponding to different objects of liking. Friendship between the virtuous is alone perfect. A settled habit, not a mere passion. Equality in friendship. Political friendships. Explanation of the family affections. Rule of reciprocity of services. Conflicting obligations. Cessation of friendships. Goodwill. Love felt by benefactors. Self-love. Does the happy man need friends?

Book Tenth. Pleasure:--Theories of Pleasure--Eudoxus, Speusippus, Plato. Pleasure is not The Good. Pleasure defined. The pleasures of Intellect. Nature of the Good or Happiness resumed. Perfect happiness found only in the philosophical life; second to which is the active social life of the good citizen. Happiness of the gods. Transition from Ethics to Politics.

THE STOICS. The succession of Stoical philosophers. Theological Doctrines of the Stoics:--The Divine Government; human beings must rise to the comprehension of Universal Law; the soul at death absorbed into the divine essence; argument from Design. Psychology:--Theory of Pleasure and Pain; theory of the Will. Doctrine of Happiness or the Good:--Pain no evil; discipline of endurance--Apathy. Theory of Virtue:--Subordination of self to the larger interests; their view of active Beneficence; the Stoical paradoxes; the idea of Duty; consciousness of Self-improvement.

EPICURUS. Life and writings. His successors. Virtue and vice referred by him to Pleasures and Pains calculated by Reason. Freedom from Pain the primary object. Regulation of desires. Pleasure good if not leading to pain. Bodily feeling the foundation of sensibility. Mental feelings contain memory and hope. The greatest miseries are from the delusions of hope, and from the torments of fear. Fear of Death and Fear of the Gods. Relations with others; Justice and Friendship--both based on reciprocity. Virtue and Happiness inseparable. Epicureanism the type of all systems grounded on enlightened self-interest.

THE NEO-PLATONISTS. The Moral End to be attained through an intellectual regimen. The soul being debased by its connection with matter, the aim of human action is to regain the spiritual life. The first step is the practice of the cardinal virtues: the next the purifying virtues. Happiness is the undisturbed life of contemplation. Correspondence of the Ethical, with the Metaphysical scheme.

SCHOLASTIC ETHICS. ABAELARD:--Lays great stress on the subjective element in morality; highest human good, love to God; actions judged by intention, and intention by conscience.

ST. BERNARD:--Two degrees of virtue, Humility and Love.

JOHN of SALISBURY:--Combines philosophy and theology; doctrine of Happiness; the lower and higher desires.

ALEXANDER OF HALES. BONAVENTURA. ALBERTUS MAGNUS. AQUINAS:--Aristotelian mode of enquiry as to the end; God the highest good; true happiness lies in the self-sufficing theoretic intelligence; virtue; division of the virtues.

HOBBES. . Constituents of man's nature. The Good. Pleasure. The simple passions. Theory of the Will. Good and evil. Conscience. Virtue. Position of Ethics in the Sciences. Power, Worth, Dignity. Happiness a perpetual progress; consequences of the restlessness of desire. Natural state of mankind; a state of enmity and war. Necessity of articles of peace, called Laws of Nature. Law defined. Rights; Renunciation of rights; Contract; Merit. Justice. Laws of Gratitude, Complaisance, Pardon upon repentance. Laws against Cruelty, Contumely, Pride, Arrogance. Laws of Nature, how far binding. Summary.

CUMBERLAND. Standard of Moral Good summed up in Benevolence. The moral faculty is the Reason, apprehending the Nature of Things. Innate Ideas an insufficient foundation. Will. Disinterested action. Happiness. Moral Code, the common good of all rational beings. Obligations in respect of giving and of receiving. Politics. Religion.

CUDWORTH. Moral Good and Evil cannot be arbitrary. The mind has a power of Intellection, above Sense, for aiming at the eternal and immutable verities.

CLARKE. The eternal Fitness and Unfitness of Things determine Justice, Equity, Goodness and Truth, and lay corresponding obligations upon reasonable creatures. The sanction of Rewards and Punishments secondary and additional. Our Duties.

WOLLASTON. Resolves good and evil into Truth and Falsehood.

LOCKE. Arguments against Innate Practical Principles. Freedom of the Will. Moral Rules grounded in law.

BUTLER. Characteristics of our Moral Perceptions. Disinterested Benevolence a fact of our constitutions. Our passions and affections do not aim at self as their immediate end. The Supremacy of Conscience established from our moral nature. Meanings of Nature. Benevolence not ultimately at variance with Self-Love.

HUTCHESON.--Primary feelings of the mind. Finer perceptions--Beauty, Sympathy, the Moral Sense, Social feelings; the benevolent order of the world suggesting Natural Religion. Order or subordination of the feelings as Motives; position of Benevolence. The Moral Faculty distinct and independent. Confirmation of the doctrine from the Sense of Honour. Happiness. The tempers and characters bearing on happiness. Duties to God. Circumstances affecting the moral good or evil of actions. Rights and Laws.

MANDEVILLE. Virtue supported solely by self-interest. Compassion resolvable into self. Pride an important source of moral virtue. Private vices, public benefits. Origin of Society.

HUME. Question whether Reason or Sentiment be the foundation of morals. The esteem for Benevolence shows that Utility enters into virtue. Proofs that Justice is founded solely on Utility. Political Society has utility for its end. The Laws. Why Utility pleases. Qualities useful to ourselves. Qualities agreeable to ourselves, and to others. Obligation. The respective share of Reason and of Sentiment in moral approbation. Benevolence not resolvable into Self-Love.

PRICE. The distinctions of Right and Wrong are perceived by the Understanding. The Beauty and Deformity of Actions. The feelings have some part in our moral discrimination. Self-Love and Benevolence. Good and ill Desert. Obligation. Divisions of Virtue. Intention as an element in virtuous action. Estimate of degrees of Virtue and Vice.

ADAM SMITH. Illustration of the workings of Sympathy. Mutual sympathy. The Amiable and the Respectable Virtues. How far the several passions are consistent with Propriety. Influences of prosperity and adversity on moral judgments. The Sense of Merit and Demerit. Self-approbation. Love of Praise and of Praiseworthiness. Influence and authority of Conscience. Self-partiality; corrected by the use of General Rules. Connexion of Utility with Moral Approbation. Influence of Custom on the Moral Sentiments. Character of Virtue. Self-command. Opinion regarding the theory of the Moral Sense.

HARTLEY. Account of Disinterestedness. The Moral Sense a product of Association.

FERGUSON.

REID. Duty not to be resolved into Interest. Conscience an original power of the mind. Axiomatic first principles of Morals. Objections to the theory of Utility.

STEWART. The Moral Faculty an original power. Criticism of opposing views. Moral Obligation: connexion with Religion. Duties. Happiness: classification of pleasures.

BROWN. Moral approbation a simple emotion of the mind. Universality of moral distinctions. Objections to the theory of Utility. Disinterested sentiment.

BENTHAM. Utility the sole foundation of Morals. Principles adverse to Utility. The Four Sanctions of Right. Comparative estimate of Pleasures and Pains. Classification of Pleasures and Pains. Merit and Demerit. Pleasures and pains viewed as Motives: some motives are Social or tutelary, others Dissocial or Self-regarding. Dispositions. The consequences of a mischievous act. Punishment. Private Ethics and Legislation distinguished; their respective spheres.

JAMES MILL. Primary constituents of the Moral Faculty--pleasurable and painful sensations. The Causes of these sensations. The Ideas of them, and of their causes. Hope, Fear; Love, Joy; Hatred, Aversion. Remote causes of pleasures and pains--Wealth, Power, Dignity, and their opposites. Affections towards our fellow-creatures--Friendship, Kindness, &c. Motives. Dispositions. Applications to the virtue of Prudence. Justice--by what motives supported. Beneficence. Importance in moral training, of Praise and Blame, and their associations; the Moral Sanction. Derivation of Disinterested Feelings.

AUSTIN. Laws defined and classified. The Divine Laws; how are we to know the Divine Will? Utility the sole criterion. Objections to Utility. Criticism of the theory of a Moral Sense. Prevailing misconceptions as to Utility. Nature of Law resumed and illustrated. Impropriety of the term 'law' as applied to the operations of Nature.

WHEWELL. Opposing schemes of Morality. Proposal to reconcile them. There are some actions Universally approved. A Supreme Rule of Right to be arrived at by combining partial rules: these are obtained from the nature of our faculties. The rule of Speech is Truth; Property supposes Justice; the Affections indicate Humanity. It is a self-evident maxim that the Lower parts of our nature are governed by the Higher. Classification of Springs of Action. Disinterestedness. Classification of Moral Rules. Division of Rights.

FERRIER. Question of the Moral Sense: errors on both sides. Sympathy passes beyond feeling, and takes in Thought or self-consciousness. Happiness has two ends--the maintenance of man's Rational nature, and Pleasure.

JOHN STUART MILL. Explanation of what Utilitarianism consists in. Reply to objections against setting up Happiness as the Ethical end. Ultimate Sanction of the principle of Utility: the External and Internal sanctions; Conscience how made up. The sort of Proof that Utility is susceptible of:--the evidence that happiness is desirable, is that men desire it; it is consistent with Utility that virtue should be desired for itself. Connexion between Justice and Utility:--meanings of Justice; essentially grounded in Law; the sentiments that support Justice, are Self-defence, and Sympathy; Justice owes its paramount character to the essential of Security; there are no immutable maxims of Justice.

BAILEY. Facts of the human constitution that give origin to moral phenomena:--susceptibility to pleasure and pain, and to the causes of them; reciprocation of these; our expecting reciprocation from others; sympathy. Consideration of our feelings in regard to actions done to us by others. Our feelings as spectators of actions done to others by others. Actions done to ourselves by others. The different cases combine to modify each other. Explanation of the discrepancies of the moral sentiment in different communities. The consequences of actions the only criterion for rectifying the diversities. Objections to the happiness-test. The term Utility unsuitable. Disputes as to the origin of moral sentiment in Reason or in a Moral Sense.

SPENCER. Happiness the ultimate, but not the proximate, end. Moral Science a deduction from the laws of life and the conditions of existence. There have been, and still are, developing in the race, certain fundamental Moral Intuitions. The Expediency-Morality is transitional. Reference to the general theory of Evolution.

COUSIN. Analysis of the sentiments aroused in us by human actions. The Moral Sentiment made up of a variety of moral judgments--Good and Evil, Obligation, Liberty, Merit and Demerit. Virtue brings Happiness. Moral Satisfaction and Remorse. The Law of Duty is conformity to Reason. The characteristic of Reason is Universality. Classification of Duties:--Duties to Self; to Others--Truth, Justice, Charity. Application to Politics.

JOUFFROY. Each creature has a special nature, and a special end. Man has certain primary passions to be satisfied. Secondary passions--the Useful, the Good, Happiness. All the faculties controlled by the Reason. The End of Interest. End of Universal Order. Morality the expression of divine thought; identified with the beautiful and the true. The moral law and self-interest coincide. Boundaries of the three states--Passion, Egoism, Moral determination.

ETHICS

THE THEORY OF ETHICS.

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet