Moral judgments Are Not Based On Comparisons Or Relations

Some assert that:

• the sense of morality consists in the discovery of some distinct relation, and
• our enumeration was incomplete when we comprehended all demonstrable relations under 4 general heads . I do not know what to reply to this, until someone can point out to me this new relation.

It is impossible to refute a system which has never been explained yet.

I require 2 conditions for anyone clearing up this system:

Moral good and evil:

• belong only to the mind’s actions, and
• are derived from our situation with regard to external objects.

The relations creating these moral distinctions:

• must lie only between internal actions and external objects, and
• must not be applicable to:
  • internal actions, compared among themselves, or
  • external objects, when placed in opposition to other external objects.

Morality is supposed to attend certain relations.

If these relations could belong to single internal actions, then we might be guilty of crimes in ourselves, independent of our situation with respect to the universe.

If these moral relations could be applied to external objects, then even inanimate beings would be susceptible of moral beauty and deformity.

It is difficult to imagine that any relation can be discovered between our passions, volitions and actions, compared to external objects.

This relation might not belong to these:

• passions and volitions, or
• external objects, compared among themselves.

Some people maintain:

• an abstract rational difference between moral good and evil, and
• a natural fitness and unfitness of things.

According to their principles, these relations are:

• eternal and immutable, and
• the same, when considered by every rational creature.

Their effects are also supposed to be necessarily the same.

It is concluded they have no greater or less influence in directing the deity’s will, than in governing the rational and virtuous humans.

These 2 relations are evidently distinct.

It is one thing to know virtue, and another to conform the will to it.

Therefore, to prove that the measures of right and wrong are eternal laws, it is not enough to show the relations that they are founded on.

We must also:

• point out the connection between the relation and the will, and
• prove that this connection is so necessary, that in every well-disposed mind, it must take place and have its influence.

Though the difference between these minds are immense and infinite.

I have already proven that, even in human nature, no relation can alone ever produce any action.

All connections of cause and effect:

• are discoverable only by experience, and
• cannot be secured by the simple consideration of the objects.

All beings in the universe, considered in themselves, appear entirely loose and independent of each other.

We only learn their influence and connection through experience.

We should never extend this influence beyond experience.

Thus, it will be impossible to fulfill the first condition of the eternal measures of right and wrong.

Because it is impossible to show those relations which such a distinction may be founded on. It is as impossible to fulfill the second condition.

Because we cannot prove a priori, that these relations would be universally forcible and obligatory if they really existed and were perceived.

To make these reflections more convincing, we can illustrate them through particular instances wherein moral good or evil are most universally acknowledged.

The most horrid and unnatural of all crimes is ingratitude, especially when it is committed against parents.

It appears in the more flagrant instances of wounds and death.

• This is acknowledged by everyone.

The only question among philosophers is whether the ingratitude’s guilt or moral deformity is:

• discovered by demonstrative reasoning, or
  • This would not be the answer if we can show the same relations in other objects, without the notion of any guilt attending them.
• felt by:
  • an internal sense, and
  • some sentiment naturally caused by reflecting on such an action.

Reason or science is nothing but the:

• comparing of ideas, and
• the discovery of their relations.

If the same relations have different characters, it follows that those characters are not discovered merely by reason.

To test this, let us choose any inanimate object, such as an oak tree.

By the dropping of its seed, it produces a sapling below it.

It springs up and finally overtops and destroys the parent tree.

In this case, is there any missing relation in killing a parent?

Isn’t the parent tree the cause of the young tree’s existence, and the young tree the cause of the parent’s destruction?

It is not enough to reply that a choice or will is lacking.

For in the case of killing one’s parents, a will does not create any different relations.

A will is only the cause of the action.

It consequently produces the same relations, that the oak produces from some other principles.

Will or choice determines a man to kill his parent.

Laws of matter and motion determine a sapling to destroy the oak it has sprung from.

Here, the same relations have different causes, but the relations are the same.

But a notion of immorality is not discovered in both cases.

It follows that that notion does not arise from such a discovery.

Why is human incest criminal but incest in animals is not?

You argue in a circle if you reply that animals are innocent because:

• they do not have sufficient reason to discover its wickedness
• man’s reason restrains him from this.

Before reason can perceive this wickedness, the wickedness must exist.

Consequently, wickedness is:

• independent of the decisions of our reason, and
• their object more than their effect.

Every animal has sense, appetite, and will.

According to this system, every animal can have all the same virtues and vices as humans.

The difference is that our superior reason:

• discovers the vice or virtue, and
• augments the blame or praise.

But this discovery supposes:

• a separate being in these moral distinctions, and
• a being:
  • which depends only on the will and appetite, and
  • which may be distinguished from the reason, in thought and reality.

Animals are susceptible of the same relations, with respect to each other, just as humans are.

If the essence of morality consisted in these relations, then animals are also susceptible of the same morality.

Their lack of a sufficient reason may hinder them from perceiving the duties and obligations of morality.

But it can never hinder these duties from existing.

Since they must antecedently exist to their being perceived.

Reason must find them and can never produce them.

I think this is an entirely decisive argument.

This reasoning proves that morality does not consist in any relations that are the objects of science.

• It does not consist in any matter of fact which can be discovered by the understanding.

This is the second part of our argument.

We may conclude that morality is not an object of reason.

It is easy to prove that vice and virtue are not matters of fact, whose existence we can infer by reason.

Take any vicious action such as willful murder.

You will find that matter of fact, or real existence, called vice.

You find only certain passions, motives, volitions and thoughts.

There is no other matter of fact in the case.

The vice entirely escapes you, as long as you consider the object.

You never can find it, until you:

• reflect into your own breast, and
• find a sentiment of disapprobation arising in you, towards this action.

Here is a matter of fact that is the object of feeling, not of reason.

It lies in yourself, not in the object.

When you call any action or character as vicious, you only mean that from your nature, you have a feeling of blame from its contemplation.

Therefore, vice and virtue may be compared to sounds, colours, heat and cold.

According to modern philosophy, these are not qualities in objects, but mental perceptions.

This discovery in morals, like the discovery in physics, is a considerable advancement of the speculative sciences.

Even if, like the discovery in physics, it has little or no influence on practice.

Nothing can be more real, or concern us more, than our own sentiments of pleasure and uneasiness.

If these are favourable to virtue and unfavourable to vice, nothing more can be needed to regulate our conduct.

In every system of morality, the author proceeds in the ordinary way of reasoning and establishes God, or makes observations on human affairs.

Suddenly, instead of the usual propositions of ‘is’ and ‘is not’, I meet propositions of ‘should’ and ‘should not’.

This change is imperceptible, but is of final consequence.

This ‘should’ or ‘should not’ expresses some new relation or affirmation.

It should be observed and explained at the same time that a reason should be given for what seems inconceivable.

How can this new relation be a deduction from other deductions entirely different from it?

Authors do not commonly use this precaution.

I recommend it to the readers.

This small detail would:

• subvert all the vulgar systems of morality, and
• let us see that the distinction of vice and virtue is not:
  • founded merely on the relations of objects, nor
  • perceived by reason.