If you do not love virtue 'for its own sake,'said Mackintosh,you will break a general law wherever the law produces a balance of painful consequences.Mill replies with great vigour.127All general rules,it is true,imply exceptions,but only when they conflict with the supreme rule,'there is no exception to a rule of morality,'says Mill,'but what is made by a rule of morality.'128There are numerous cases in which the particular laws conflict;and one law must then be broken.The question which to break must then be decided by the same unequivocal test,'utility.'If a rule for increasing utility diminishes utility in a given case,it must be broken in that case.Mackintosh's Fletcher of Saltoun illustrates the point.129What is the 'base'thing which Fletcher would not do to save his country?Would he not be the basest of men if he did not save his country at any cost?To destroy half a population and reduce the other half to misery has been thought a sacrifice not too great for such an end.Would not Mackintosh himself allow Fletcher,when intrusted with an important fortress,to sacrifice the lives and properties of innocent people in defence of his position?130What,then,does the love of virtue,for its own sake 'come to'?If you refuse to save your country,because you think the means base,your morality is mischievous,that is,immoral.If,on the other hand,you admit that the means cease to be base,the supposed supremacy is an empty brag.The doctrine is then verbally maintained,but interpreted so as to conform to the criterion of utility.In other words,Mackintosh cannot reconcile his admission of utility as a 'criterion'with his support of a moral sense entitled to override the criterion.Mackintosh's moral sense is meant to distinguish the moral motive from 'expediency.'To this,again,Mill has a very forcible answer.A man is blameable who makes exceptions to laws in his own private interest.But if a man consistently and invariably acted for the 'greatest happiness of the greatest number,'and paid no more attention to his own happiness than to other people's,he would certainly have a very lofty and inflexible test,assuming --as we must allow Mill to assume --that we can calculate the effect of conduct upon happiness at large.
Again,upon the assumption that 'moral'is equivalent to 'felicific,'we get a general rule entitled to override any individual tastes or fancies,such as Mill supposes to be meant by the 'Moral Sense.'The rule is derived from the interests of all,and gives an ultimate 'objective criterion.'
J.S.Mill,describing his father's system,observes that the teaching of such a man was not likely to err on 'the side of laxity or indulgence.'131It certainly did not.And,in fact,his criterion,however obtained,had in his eyes the certainty of a scientific law.This or that is right as surely as this or that food is wholesome.My taste has nothing to do with it.And,moreover,the criterion certainly gives a moral ground.If I know that any conduct will produce more happiness than misery that is a moral reason for adopting it.A 'moral sense'which should be radically inconsistent with that criterion,which should order me to inflict suffering as suffering,or without some ulterior reason,would be certainly at fault.Mackintosh indeed would have agreed to this,though,if Mill was right,at the expense of consistency.
Mill,however,deduces from his criterion doctrines which involve a remarkable paradox.The mode in which he is led to them is characteristic of the whole method.Mill,like Bentham,puts morality upon the same plane with law.Conduct is influenced either by the 'community in its conjunct capacity'--that is,by law;or by 'individuals in their individual capacity'--that is,by morality.132The sanction of one,we may infer,is force;of the other,approval and disapproval.With this we must take another Benthamite doctrine,of which I have already spoken.133'Mr.Bentham demonstrated,'says Mill,'that the morality of an act does not depend upon the motive,'and,further,that it 'is altogether dependent on the intention.'134Upon this he constantly insists.Mackintosh's view that virtue depends upon motive will be 'scorned by every man who has any knowledge of the philosophy of the human mind.The virtue does not depend upon the motive.There is no bad motive.Every motive is the desire of good;to the agent himself or to some one else.'135He gives an analysis of action to put the point beyond doubt.Action supposes a 'motive,'a 'volition,'and an 'external act'or muscular contraction.So far there is nothing moral.
But then an act has consequences,good or bad,to human beings,which constitute its utility.To make it moral,the agent must anticipate 'beneficial consequences,'and must have no reason to anticipate a balance of evil consequences.Intention means the calculation of consequences,and without that calculation there can be no morality.136Hence the morality is equivalent to a 'conviction of the general utility'of the action.137'All this,'he concludes,'is settled by universal consent.It is vain,therefore,to think of disputing it.'One may,however,ask what it means.I have already observed that the view of the non-moral character of motive was a natural corollary from the purely legal point of view.I must now consider the results of applying it unreservedly in the inappropriate sphere of ethics.
In the first place,the denial of any moral quality in motive seems to be inconsistent with Mill's own principles.The Utilitarian,according to him,holds that the moral law is essentially the statement that certain conduct produces general happiness.
