{footnote 3} It is curious enough to observe
the variety of inventions men have hit upon, and the variety of
phrases they have brought forward, in order to conceal from the world,
and, if possible, from themselves, this very general and therefore
very pardonable self-sufficiency.
1. One man says, he has a thing made on
purpose to tell him what is right and what is wrong; and that it is
called a moral sense: and then he goes to work at his ease,
and says, such a thing is right, and such a thing is wrong - why?
"because my moral sense tells me it is".
2. Another man comes and alters the phrase: leaving out
moral, and putting in common, in the room of it. He
then tells you, that his common sense teaches him what is right and
wrong, as surely as the other's moral sense did: meaning by common
sense, a sense of some kind or other, which he says, is possessed by
all mankind: the sense of those, whose sense is not the same as the
author's, being struck out of the account as not worth taking. This
contrivance does better than the other, for a moral sense being a new
thing, a man may feel about him a good while without being able to
find it out: but common sense is as old as the creation, and there is
no man but would be ashamed to be thought not to have as much of it as
his neighbours. It has another great advantage: by appearing to share
power, it lessens envy: for when a man gets up upon this ground, in
order to anathematize those who differ from him, it is not by a sic
volo sic jubeo, but by a velitis jubeatis.
3. Another man comes, and says, that as to a
moral sense indeed, he cannot find that he has any such thing: that
however he has an understanding, which will do quite as
well. This understanding, he says, is the standard of right and wrong:
it tells him so and so. All good and wise men understand as he does:
if other men's understandings differ in any point from his, so much
the worse for them: it is a sure sign they are either defective or
corrupt.
4. Another man says, that there is an eternal
and immutable Rule of Right: that that rule of right dictates so and
so: and then he begins giving you his sentiments upon any thing that
comes uppermost . and these sentiments (you are to take for granted)
are so many branches of the eternal rule of right.
5. Another man, or perhaps the same man (it's no matter) says, that
there are certain practices conformable, and others repugnant, to the
Fitness of Things; and then he tells you, at his leisure, what
practices are conformable and what repugnant: just as he happens to
like a practice or dislike it.
6. A great multitude of people are continually
talking of the Law of Nature; and then they go on giving you their
sentiments about what is right and what is wrong: and these
sentiments, you are to understand, are so many chapters and sections
of the Law of Nature.
7. Instead of the phrase, Law of Nature, you have sometimes, Law of
Reason, Right Reason, Natural Justice, Natural Equity, Good Order. Any
of them will do equally well. This latter is most used in
politics. The three last are much more tolerable than the others,
because they do not very explicitly claim to be any thing more than
phrases: they insist but feebly upon the being looked upon as so many
positive standards of themselves, and seem content to be taken, upon
occasion, for phrases expressive of the conformity of the thing in
question to the proper standard, whatever that may be. On most
occasions, however, it will be better to say utility:
utility is clearer, as referring more explicitly to pain and
pleasure.
8. We have one philosopher, who says, there is
no harm in any thing in the world but in telling a lie: and that if,
for example, you were to murder your own father, this would only be a
particular way of saying, he was not your father. Of course, when this
philosopher sees any thing that he does not like, he says, it is a
particular way of telling a lie. It is saying, that the act ought to
be done, or may be done, when, in truth, it ought not to be
done.
9. The fairest and openest of them all is that
sort of man who speaks out, and says, I am of the number of the Elect:
now God himself takes care to inform the Elect what is right: and that
with so good effect, and let them strive ever so, they cannot help not
only knowing it but practicing it. If therefore a man wants to know
what is right and what is wrong, he has nothing to do but to come to
me.
10. It is upon the principle of antipathy that
such and such acts are often reprobated on the score of their being
unnatural: the practice of exposing children, established
among the Greeks and Romans, was an unnatural practice. Unnatural,
when it means any thing, means unfrequent: and there it means
something; although nothing to the present purpose. But here it means
no such thing: for the frequency of such acts is perhaps the great
complaint. It therefore means nothing; nothing, I mean, which there is
in the act itself. All it can serve to express is, the disposition of
the person who is talking of it: the disposition he is in to be angry
at the thoughts of it. Does it merit his anger? Very likely it may:
but whether it does or no is a question, which, to be answered
rightly, can only be answered upon the principle of utility.
Unnatural, is as good a word as moral sense, or common sense; and
would be as good a foundation for a system. Such an act is unnatural;
that is, repugnant to nature: for I do not like to practice it: and,
consequently, do not practise it. It is therefore repugnant to what
ought to be the nature of every body else.
The mischief common to all these ways of thinking and arguing (which,
in truth, as we have seen, are but one and the same method, couched in
different forms of words) is then serving as a cloke, and pretense,
and aliment, to despotism: if not a despotism in practice, a despotism
however in disposition: which is but too apt, when pretense and power
offer, to show itself in practice. The consequence is, that with
intentions very commonly of the purest kind, a man becomes a torment
either to himself or his fellow-creatures. If he be of the melancholy
cast, he sits in silent grief, bewailing their blindness and
depravity: if of the irascible, he declaims with fury and virulence
against all who differ from him; blowing up the coals of fanaticism,
and branding with the charge of corruption and insincerity, every man
who does not think, or profess to think, as he does.
If such a man happens to possess the advantages of style, his book
may do a considerable deal of mischief before the nothingness of it
is understood.
These principles, if such they can be called, it is more frequent to
see applied to morals than to politics: but their influence extends
itself to both. In politics, as well as morals, a man will be at least
equally glad of a pretense for deciding any question in the manner
that best pleases him without the trouble of inquiry. If a man is an
infallible judge of what is right and wrong in the actions of private
individuals, why not in the measures to be observed by public men in
the direction of those actions accordingly (not to mention other
chimeras) I have more than once known the pretended law of nature set
up in legislative debates, in opposition to arguments derived from the
principle of utility.
"But is it never, then, from any other considerations than those
of utility, that we derive our notions of right and wrong?" I do
not know: I do not care. Whether a moral sentiment can be originally
conceived from any other source than a view of utility, is one
question: whether upon examination and reflection it can, in point of
fact, be actually persisted in and justified on any other ground, by a
person reflecting within himself, is another: whether in point of
right it can properly be justified on any other ground, by a person
addressing himself to the community, is a third. The two first are
questions of speculation: it matters not, comparatively speaking, how
they are decided. The last is a question of practice: the decision of
it is of as much importance as that of any can be.
"I feel in myself", (say you) "a disposition to approve
of such or such an action in s moral view: but this is not owing to
any notions I have of its being s useful one to the community. I do
not pretend to know whether it be an useful one or not: it may be, for
aught I know, a mischievous one." "But is it then",
(say I) "a mischievous one? examine; and if you can make
yourself sensible that it is so, then, if duty means any thing, that
is, moral duty, is your duty at least to abstain from it: and
more than that, if it is what lies in your power, and can be done
without too great a sacrifice, to endeavour to prevent it. It is not
your cherishing the notion of it in your bosom, and giving it the name
of virtue, that will excuse you."
"I feel in myself", (say you again) "a disposition to
detest such or such an action in a moral view; but this is not owing
to any notions I have of its being a mischievous one to the
community. I do not pretend to know whether it be a mischievous one or
not: it may be not a mischievous one: it may be, for aught I know, an
useful one." - "May it indeed", (say I) "an
useful one? but let me tell you then, that unless duty, and right and
wrong, be just what you please to make them, if it really be not a
mischievous one, and any body has a mind to do it, it is no duty of
yours, but, on the contrary, it would be very wrong in you, to take
upon you to prevent him: detest it within yourself as much as you
please; that may be a very good reason (unless it be also a useful
one) for your not doing it yourself: but if you go about, by word or
deed, to do any thing to hinder him, or make him suffer for it, it is
you, and not he, that have done wrong: it is not your setting yourself
to blame his conduct, or branding it with the name of vice, that will
make him culpable, or you blameless. Therefore, if you can make
yourself content that he shall be of one mind, and you of another,
about that matter, and so continue, it is well: but if nothing will
serve you, but that you and he must needs be of the same mind, I'll
tell you what you have to do: it is for you to get the better of your
antipathy, not for him to truckle to it."
A suffering which befalls a man in the natural and spontaneous course of
things, shall be styled, for instance, a calamity; in which case, if it be
supposed to befall him through any imprudence of his, it may be styled
a punishment issuing from the physical sanction. Now this same suffering,
if inflicted by the
law, will be what is commonly called a
punishment; if
incurred for want of any friendly assistance, which the misconduct, or
supposed misconduct, of the sufferer has occasioned to be
withholden, a punishment issuing from the moral sanction; if through
the immediate interposition of a particular providence, a punishment
issuing from the religious sanction
5.33: Of all these several sorts of pleasures and pains, there is
scarce any one which is not liable, on more accounts than one, to come
under the consideration of the law. Is an offense committed? It is the
tendency which it has to destroy, in such or such persons, some of these
pleasures, or to produce some of these pains, that constitutes the mis-
chief of it, and the ground for punishing it. It is the prospect of some of
these pleasures, or of security from some of these pains, that constitutes
the motive or temptation, it is the attainment of them that constitutes the
profit of the offense. Is the offender to be punished? It can be only by
the
production of one or more of these pains, that the punishment can be
inflicted
13.1. General view of cases unmeet for punishment.
13.1.1. The general object which all laws have, or ought to have, in
common, is
to augment the total happiness of the community; and therefore, in the
first place, to exclude, as far as may be, every thing that tends to
subtract from that happiness: in other words, to exclude mischief.
13.1.2. But all punishment is mischief: all punishment in itself is evil.
Upon
the principle of utility, if it ought at all to be admitted, it ought only
to be admitted in as far as it promises to exclude some greater evil.
13.1.3. It is plain, therefore, that in the following cases punishment
ought
not to be inflicted.
Where it is groundless: where there is no mischief for it to prevent;
the act not being mischievous upon the whole.
Where it must be inefficacious: where it cannot act so as to prevent the
mischief.
Where it is unprofitable, or too expensive: where the mischief it would
produce would be greater than what it prevented.
Where it is needless: where the mischief may be prevented, or cease of
itself, without it: that is, at a cheaper rate.
{footnote on punishment: The immediate principal end of punishment is to
control action. This action
is either that of the offender, or of others: that of the offender it
controls by its influence, either on his will, in which case it is said to
operate in the way of reformation; or on his physical power, in which case
it is said to operate by disablement: that of others it can influence
otherwise than by its influence over their wills, in which ease it is said
to operate in the way of example. A kind of collateral end, which it has a
natural tendency to answer, is that of affording a pleasure or satisfaction
to the party injured, where there is one, and, in general, to parties whose
ill-will whether on a self-regarding account, or on the account of sympathy
or antipathy, has been excited by the offense.. This purpose, as far as it
can be answered gratis, is a beneficial one. But no punishment ought to be
allotted merely to this purpose, because (setting aside its effects in the
way of control) no such pleasure is ever produced by punishment as can be
equivalent to the pain. The punishment, however, which is allotted to the
other purpose, ought, as far as it can be done without expense, to be
accommodated to this. Satisfaction thus administered to a party injured, in
the shape of a dissocial pleasure, may be styled a vindictive satisfaction
or compensation: as a compensation, administered in the shape of self-
regarding profit, or stock of pleasure, may be styled a lucrative one. See
B. I. tit. vi. [Compensation]. Example is the most important end of all, in
proportion as the number of the persons under temptation to offend is to
one.