Prolegomena to ethics

Preface

The works by which Professor Green has hitherto been chiefly known to the general public are his Introdtictioii to Messrs. Longmans' edition of Hume's Philosophical Works, and his articles in the Contemporary Review on some doctrines of Mr. Spencer and Mr. Lewes.

When in the year 1877 Mr. Green became Whyte's Professor of Moral Philosophy, his main desire was, both in his teaching and writing, to develope more fully and in a more constructive way the ideas which underlay his previous critical writings and appeared in them. The present treatise is the first outcome of that desire ; and doubtless it would have been only the first but for the premature and unexpected death of the author in March, 1882.

Even the Prolegomena to Ethics (the title is the author's own) was left unfinished. The greater part of the book had been used, some of it twice over, in the Professorial lectures ; and about a quarter of it (the first 116 pages) was printed in the numbers of Mind for January, April, and July, 1882. But, according to a letter of the author written not long before his death, some twenty or thirty pages remained to be added,

VI PREFACE

and, though with this exception the whole was written out nearly ready for printing, no part of it can be considered to have undergone the final revision.

At his death Mr. Green left the charge of the manuscript to me ; and I have now only to explain the course I have followed in preparing it for publication.

The manuscript was written in paragraphs, but otherwise was continuous; and I may add that it was composed without regard to arrangement in Books and Chapters. For that arrangement I am responsible, and also for the numbering and occasional re-division of the sections, and for the frequent division of a section into two or more paragraphs. I have also made the few corrections in expression which seemed to be necessary, and in one case I have ventured, for the sake of clearness, to transfer a passage from one place to another. References have been verified and supplied ; translations of Greek quotations have been given, where their meaning was not obvious from the text ; and a few notes have been added by way of explanation or qualification, for the most part only where a mark in the author's manuscript showed that he intended to reconsider the passage. The Editor's notes, except where they give merely a reference or translation, are enclosed in square brackets.

My desire throughout has been to make no changes except in passages which I felt sure Mr. Green would have altered had his attention been called to them. With the further object of rendering the work as intelligible as possible to the general reader I have ventured to print an analysis. Mr. Green would

PREFACE VI 1

probabl}' have followed the plan he adopted in the Introduction to Hume, and have placed a short abstract on the margins of the pages. I have thought it better to print my analysis as a Table of Contents, as that arrangement clearly separates my work from the author's, and will also probably be the most useful to those who care to read an analysis at all. Perhaps I may further suggest to any reader who is unaccustomed to metaphysical and psychological discussions that much of the author's ethical views, though not their scientific basis, may be gathered from the Third and Fourth Books alone.

It has been already explained that the book was left unfinished. But on the whole I thought it best to make no attempt to add anything, especially as the comparison which occupies the last chapter seems to have reached a natural conclusion. The reader will also find in the text indications of subjects which were to have been discussed. In particular the author — at any rate at one time — intended to introduce a criticism of Kant's ethical views (see page 183). But I think this intention must have been abandoned during the composition of the book, and, as it is hoped that before long Mr. Green's published writings will be collected and edited, together with a short biography and selections from his unpublished manuscripts, it seemed best that the materials on this subject furnished by the author's notes for lectures should be reserved for a future occasion.

I have received material assistance in preparing the present work for the press. Mrs. Green has compared

Vlll PREFACE

the whole of the book in proof with the original manuscript. Professor Edward Caird, of Glasgow University, and Mr. R. L. Nettleship, Fellow of BalHol, read through the proofs and the analysis and sent me many suggestions. I feel, in particular, that but for Professor Caird's very full and valuable notes the analysis must have been far more imperfect than it remains. But it would seem to me, and to those who have helped me, out of place to express any gratitude for work given to a book which, more than any writing of Mr. Green's yet published, may enable the public outside Oxford to understand not only the philosophical enthusiasm which his teaching inspired, but the reverence and love which are felt for him by all who knew him well.

A. C. BRADLEY.

University College, Liverpool, April, 1883.

Introduction

THE IDEA OF A NATURAL SCIENCE OF MORALS.

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1. The prevalent distrust of Moral Philosophy, and the substitution

of Poetry for the philosophical discussion of moral problems ■ i

2. Necessity of a scientific answer to these problems. Can this

answer be given by a natural science of man ? . . . 3

3. Such a science, if developed on the lines of the traditional Eng-

lish ethics, would involve a physical theory {a) of conscience,

{F) of free-will. Hume's contribution to 'a) . . . .5

4. Desiderata left by Hume ........ 6

5. The theory of descent and evolution as supplying these desiderata 7

6. iU) Physical theory of what is commonly understood as free-will 9

7. The speculative part of Moral Philosophy being thus reduced

to natural science, the preceptive part must, in consistency, be abolished, and the unmeaning idea of moral obligation accounted for .......... 10

8. The idea of such a science suggests the questions : (i) Does not

the knowledge of nature imply a principle in man which is not natural ? And, if so, (2) does not this principle appear also as consciousness of a moral ideal • . . . . . .12

Chapter I. The Spiritual Principle In Knowledge And In Nature

9. The attempt to answer the first question materialistically involves

a ' hysteron proteron.' All mental functions may be materially conditioned ; but the material conditions, being constituents of the world of experience, cannot originate or explain the conscious principle which makes that world possible . . -If

X ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS

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10. Why is this conclusion, which seems to be implied even in commonly accepted doctrines, not more generally acknowledged ? .......... 1 7

11. Kant's dictum : ' The understanding makes nature.' This may be taken to vcie^n, first (cf. § 19), that a spiritual principle is implied in the consciousitess of nature or a real world . .17

Tht Spiritual Principle in Knowledge.

12. This statement is denied, because reality is supposed to be what is independent of consciousness. But, in fact, the question, Is anything real or not ? means, Is it, or is it not, related as it seems to be related ? 18

^^13. TJie qiiestion implies, that is, the conception of reality or nature as a single and unalterable order of relatioijs ; and"it^has no meaning except to a consciousness possessing this conception 19

14. This conception is necessary : which does not mean that every one is aware of it, but that experience is only explicable through its action .......... 20

15. It, or the consciousness of which it is the function, cannot be the product of experience. It is presupposed in experience, if that means f5«j«(7«j«^j-.f of change ; . . . . .22

f- 16. and if experience means merely a process of change, or a series of events, it can neither be nor produce the consciousness of that change or those events . . . . . . . .23

17. Nor can this consciousness be the effect oiz.ny previous changes

or events ; for this supposition is either a repetition of the last,

or has no meaning ........ 24

18. Thus the consciousness through which alone nature exists for

us, is neither natural nor a result of nature . ... 25

The Spiritual Principle in Nature.

19. Can we say, secondly, that nature itself im^Wos, a spititvial prin-

ciple? 25

•20. As before, this idea is resisted by the antithesis between nature, or the real, and the work of the mind. But this antithesis is self-destructive, if relations are the work of the mind and yet are the essence of reality ....... 26

21. That it appears to be an absolute antithesis is due to a misinterpretation of the true conception of reality, as a single and unalterable system of relations ...... 28

22. The real cannot be defined by antithesis to the unreal ; for that

is nothing, and even a false idea is not unreal . . .28

ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS xi

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23. Bnt a particular reality, standing in certain relations, may have relations ascribed to it in which it does not stand. It then seems

to be what it is not ; 29

24. and this is discovered by its showing itself to be alterable. For what anything is really it is unalterably . - . . .3°

25. This truth may, through confusion, issue in (a) sensational or (b')

materialistic atomism ; the reality ;^unalterableness) belonging to the relation between certain conditions and a certain sensation being ascribed (a) to the sensation alone, or (3) to the material conditions and, finally, to atoms alone . . • 32

26. If nature, then, means a single and unalterable order of relations,

what is implied in it as the condition of its possibility ? . .33

27. This question is admissible only if the system of relations is

essentially dependent on something else, which is not related

to the system as its constituents are related to one another . 34

28. This something is that which holds plurality in unity, and so |^^

constitutes relation ;........ 35

29. something therefore the same as, or analogous to, our intelligence ........... 36

80. For {a] even if we admit, with Kant, that there are unknown •)(- things-in-themselres, •'ar"*'*"*^"o^im]ifj ^-y^-'j 'i^-tlT" ' ""'^ producing feelings in u§, ....... 37

31. still an action of intelligence is necessar}', as Kant saw, to constitute an experience of related objects out of successive feelings, and so to ' make nature ' : . . , . - 37

32. and this intelligence must distinguish itself from the feelings it unites, and must have a unity correlative to the unity of the system of relations which is its object . . . . -39

S3. Thus the uniform order of nature and our knowledge of that ^^ order nave a common source in a spiritual principle; . . 40

34. and, in this sense, the dualism of nature and knowledge must ' disappear .......... 41

35. Not that our intelligence is to be r^arded as a result oijc^ivcK (for this were to treat as a result of nature that which makes natnrg possible), ......... 42

6. or nature as a result of our intelligence; but they are to be regarded as having a common source and as being communicated to us in inseparable correlation . . . .42 37. Such an idealism, which interprets facts as relations and affirms the reality of nature as opposed to our transitorj- feelings, is the very reverse of the so-called idealism which reduces facts to feelings 44

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PAGE

38. But {b) can we on this view admit, with Kant, that there are things-in-themselves, constituting a reality beyond ' nature ' or phenomena ; and that, while the ' form ' of phenomena is due to understanding, the 'matter' — the affections produced

by things-in-themselves — has a character independent of it 1 . 45

39. If so, there will be no universe, but two unrelated worlds,

each determining the same sensation : and this conclusion would be obvious, if things-in-themselves were not confused with the material conditions of sensation . . . .46

40. Nor can the difficulty be overcome by making the understand-

ing a product of things-in-themselves ; for this view either involves the 'hysteron proteron' of materialism, or, at the least, qualifies the independence of things-in-themselves by some relation to the understanding they are supposed to produce 48

41. Nor does Kant escape this paralogism: for if phenomena, in respect of their ' matter,' are effects of things-in-themselves, the latter are causes and therefore phenomena . . . -49

42. Still it may be objected : Though it is impossible to consider 1/^ sensation as an effect of things-in-themselves, it is equally

impossible to consider it as a product of understanding ; it forms therefore an unaccountable residuum, and in this sense dualism must hold 51

43. Objections like this arise from reflection on the process of acquiring knowledge, which seems to lead us back to a material

of mere sensation, unqualified by thought . . . -51

44. But mere sensation could not be even a beginning of conscious experience to the individual ....... 53

45. Nor, even if it could, would this affect the question : for it

cannot be an element either (i) in the world of knowable facts, or (2) in the consciousness implied in that world , • 53

46. (1) Not in the world of facts ; for a sensation unqualified by any relation is no fact, audJhe minimum of such qualification, that

of sequence and degree, implies thought . . . .54

47. This can be disputed only when thought is. wrongly conceived

as a mere faculty of this or that individual . . . -55

48. No doubt sensation may exist without thought in the animals and in man ; but, as merely felt, it is a fact not for itself but for consciousness .......... 56

49. (2) Not in the consciousness implied in the world of facts : for, just so far as we feel without thinking, no world of facts exists

for us 57

50. Alike in the world of facts and in the consciousness implied in

ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS xiii

PAGE

it, feeling and thought are inseparable ; nor can we acconn t for either as the product of the other, nor for their unity as the product of anything outside of itself 58

51. Thus the unaccountable residuum, on which the distinction of nature from things-in-themselves was based, is not to be found either in the world or in the consciousness to which the world

is object 60

52. Nature, then, implies a non-natural principle, which we may call a self-distinguishing consciousness, and which cannot be subject to the relations it establishes between phenomena, — e.g. cannot be in time or space, cannot be material or moved . 61

53. If it be objected that matter is a substance, not a relation, this only means that it is the correlatum of change ; a determination which can no more be applied to the spiritual principle than change itself . . . . , . . , . .62

54. Use and necessity of the distinction between nature and spirit employed in the above discussion 6^

CHAPTER n.

THE RELATION OF MAN, AS INTELLIGENCE, TO THE SPIRITUAL PRINCIPLE IN NATURE.

55. Human experience is on the one hand an order of events, on the other a consciousness of this order. This consciousness cannot

be a part of the process of nature 66

56. This is concealed by the ordinary representation of knowledge

as a series or succession of 'states of consciousness ; ' a representation which is partially true of the process whereby knowledge grows and decays, . . . . . . . 6~

57. but not at all true of knowledge itself, which may be ^events

or phenomena, but cannot be itself a phenomenon or event . 68

58. Confusion on this point is due, in part, to the error of separating intellectual activities, as events in our mental historj-, from their objects or contents, and transferring the latter from consciousness to ' external things ' go

59. The error is most easily committed in the case of Perception.

Sensation being necessary to perception, the perceived object is confused with the stimulant of sensation, and thus extruded from consciousness ^i

60. But the stimulant of sensation is never the perceived object ; and this cannot be ' outside' consciousness . . . .71

61. And it is implicitly admitted that the perceiving consciovsness xiv ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS

PAGE

is no series of phenomena, when a perception is defined as ' the synthesis of all the sensations we have had of the object ' (Lewes) ......-•••• 73

62. For this, if true, must mean, not a number of sensations revived, as sensations, on occasion of a present sensation being felt ; but the synthesis of the facts that sensations have occurred with the fact that a sensation now occurs. This implies a self-distinguishing consciousness, which holds its experiences together as related facts, and therefore cannot be a series of events ........... 74

63. And, though the relations through which the perceiving consciousness determines the object are not adequate to its full nature, that nature must consist in relations, which again imply a self-distinguishing consciousness ....... 76

64. This account of perception does not imply that we can make objects at will — for we cannot make consciousness at will — but it implies that consciousness, as active even in simple perception, is not a series of phenomena : . . . '77

fi5. and thus shows the existence of an eternal consciousness in

man as the basis of an act which all admit that he can perform 78

66. But how can the presence of this eternal principle be reconciled with the apparent fact that our consciousness varies and grows? 80

67. Oar consciousness, as a function of the animal organism, does develope in time : but the consciousness which constitutes our knowledge is the eternally complete consciousness as so far realised through that organism . . . . . .81

68. This does not imply two minds in man, but that two conceptions are needed for the understanding of the one mind ; as two conceptions are also needed for the understanding of organic life . 82

69. The common notions of the growth of knowledge also involve this twofold conception of it, as the gradual development in us of the consciousness of an eternal order ; and as this order cannot exist apart from the consciousness of it, . . . 83

70. an eternal consciousness must be operative in us to produce the gradual development of our knowledge 84

71. Illustration of this by the process of reading, where a general consciousness that sentences have a meaning operates in the apprehension of the meaning of particular sentences . . 85

72. The self-communication to us of the eternal consciousness can never be complete, because made in time through the series of sensuous events ; ])ut it is necessary to explain the simplest beginning, as well as the growth, of knowledge : . . ,86

PAGE

73. not that this fore-casting idea is present to ns before the experience in which it realises itself, but that it operates in that experience without being reflected on at first . . . . 8;

Chapter III

C^. The subject in whom such an eternal consciousness reproduces

itself is, like it, a ' free cause ' j^q

75. It cannot be called the ' cause ' of the world in the sense in which one phenomenon is called the cause of another ; for this implies determination from without, whereas consciousness and the world from which it distinguishes itself are not external to each other, \y^

76. nor can either be conceived as having a nature of its own apart from the other. But we may call it a 'free cause ' because in determining the world it is not determined by anything other than itself ......

77. Nor does the epithet ' free ' take away all meaning from the word ' cause ' : for we have in knowledge the experience of such a causality in ourselves. Though man's natural life is determined like other phenomena by the eternal consciousness, as a knowing subject he is not determined by it but a reproduction of it, and therefore a free cause

78. But does not this imply that man himself is in part a mere product of nature, and only m /)a;/ free ? . . . . g^

79. No: for (i) even the animal functions organic to knowledge cease by that fact to be merely natural 04

SO. And (2) man hitnself can mean only the self which distinguishes '

itself from natural relations, q .

81. and which, as consciousness of time and of successive events, cannot itself be conditioned by time or by anything in time . 96

82. That the eternal consciousness realises itself by means of organic

functions which have a natural history, is a fact which we cannot explain, but it does not affect the freedom implied in that consciousness ....

83. Nor will our conclusion be affected if we suppose that the

human organism has descended from a merely animal organism, 98 i^. and that the appearance of the distinctively human consciousness may have required as its condition a certain development of sensibility, which may be itself the result of a long experience on the part of beings gifted with sense but not with such consciousness _ ^ „„

9^ xvi ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS

The "Will.

Chapter I. The Freedom Of The Will

PAGE

85. As consciousness distinguishes itself from impressions and thus gradually beconaes the apprehension of a world of knowledge, so it distinguishes itself from wants and impulses to satisfy

^ them 101

86. The conception thence arising (even if we confine our view to

objects wanted for the satisfaction of the animal nature) is that of a world of practice; of something which should be, and which, unlike the object of knowledge, depends for its reality i on our prior idea of it ........ 103

* 87. In other words, in the world of practice the determining causes are motives. And accordingly the question whether moral philosophy can be a natural science, or whether the will is free, will be the question whether motives are natural phenomena ........... 104

88. A mere want is strictly natural. But a motive involves the

action of self-consciousness on the want : .... 105

89. and the necessity of the want to the existence of this motive does not make the motive natural, unless the self-consciousness implied in it is natural, 105

90. i. e. unless it is an event, or a series of events, or a relation between events : and it can be none of these . . . .106

91. This does not imply that the motive is in part an animal want and in part self-consciousness. The motive is always an idea of personal good ; of which idea animal want may be a condition but cannot be a part .106

92. The existence of action from such motives is far more certain

than that of the actions we call instinctive, and we can only represent the latter by a negation of the characteristics which we know to belong to the former loS

93. This knowledge, being a knowledge of action from the inner side, can only be attained through self-reflection, guarded by constant reference to the experience of mankind embodied in language, literature, and institutions; 109

94. and, as the knowledge so gained is the presupposition of all enquiry into the history of the fact, it cannot be affected by such enquiry 109

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95. Self-reflection then shows that the motive is always an idea of personal good. The want that conditions it is natur.il ; it itself, as constituted by self-consciousness, is not so : and although its moral quality depends on the concrete character of the agent, in the formation of that character also self- consciousness has been active . . . . . . . . . . iio

96. When, for example, Esau sells his birthright, an animal want conditions his motive, but the motive itself is his idea of himself as finding his good in the satisfaction of the animal want ; and if it were not so he would not hold himself responsible . ill

9". How does this affect the question of moral freedom? The answer is that the question of freedom is the question as to the origin of motives . . . . II2

98. To say that the motive is the outcome of circumstances and

character is ambiguous : for (i) the circumstances determine the motive only through the reaction of the character or self on them, and (2) the most important of them presuppose such reaction in the past ; . , . . . . • 113

99. and the character or self, being a reproduction of the eternal self-consciousness through organic processes, cannot be determined by circumstances which it has not itself determined . 114

100. This dees not imply that there is a ' mysterious entity,' called the self, apart from all particular thoughts, desires, and feelings ; such a self would be an unreal abstraction, but so also are the thoughts, feelings, and desires apart from the self . . .115

101. Hence also the self in this aspect has a history in the same sense in which the self as intelligence has a history v§ 66 and foil.) ; the possibility of this history depending on the presence

of a self-consciousness which has none . . . . • 1 1 7

102. Thus the form in which it presents a good to itself is conditioned by past presentations ; but these, like the new presentation, are time-less acts in which the self identifies itself with some desire. This identification is the motive, and the resulting

act is therefore free 118

103. This point is obscured when the motive is confused with a mere desire, as it commonly is by indeterminists when they assert an unmotived choice between motives, and by determinists w^en they hold that the act is necessarily determined by the stiongest motive . . . 126

104. IJ is true that the act does necessarily proceed from the motive ; ^ 'it the motive is not one of the desires which solicit a man, \^^ it one of these as identified by the man with himself . . m

b

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105. To call it ' strongest ' is misleading, becnuse this would co-ordinate it with the mere desires ; and ' strength ' has quite different meanings as applied to them and as applied to the will or character . .121

106. Thus the statement that the motive is the outcome of circumstances and character is compatible with the idea of freedom, if it be understood that both circumstances and character, though conditioned, are conditioned only through a self-distinguishing and self-seeking consciousness / \y>^ ' • -123

107. But in admitting this we must guard against the misconception that the character of a man is something other than himself, which co-operates with an equally independent force of circumstances to determine his action . , . . .124

108. For the character is the man, who is thus not determined except as he determines himself . . . . . .125

109. And, though the act is a necessary result (a// results are necessary results), the agent is not a necessary, because not

a natural, agent . . . . , . , . . 1 26

110. Remorse and self-reformation are intelligible on this view ; which they would not be, either if action, present and past, did not proceed from self-consciousness, or if it proceeded from

an unmotived power of choice . , , . . .127

111. Still an objection may be raised in the form of the question, 'If my present depends on my past, and my future on my present, why should I try to become better?' — a question arising from the confused idea that, if the act is a necessary result of the agent, the agent must be necessary, i.e. an instrument of natural forces . . . . . ^ _ .120

112. But the question itself implies that the questioner is noi this, but a self-distinguishing and self-seeking consciousness; that his future depends upon this consciousness ; and that it would

be absurd 'to try to become better ' un/ess it so depended . 130

113. If it be rejoined tliat the agent was, to start with, a mere natural result, and that all his development, even though self-consciousness is present in it, follows necessarjly on that beginning; ^^2

114. the answer is that from S7{c/t a beginning no self-consciousness could possibly be developed, for there is no identity between that beginning and it . , . ... . . .132

ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS xix

Chapter II. Desire, Intellect, And Will

PAGE

115. If a motive is always the idea of some personal good (§ 91), how does the good will differ from the bad ? To answer this question we must consider the nature of will in its relation to intellect and desire 135