GUIDE TO THE PHILOSOPHY 1938 - 1947.pdf - Rare Books at ...

NATURE OF THE MORAL FACULTY 285
normally regarded as being appropriate to reason, his
predecessor, Cudworth (1617-1688) had pronounced
quite unequivocally in favour of reason. With considerable
emphasis he insists that our consciousness of the
difference between right and wrong depends wholly upon
the exercise of our reasoning faculties, and in no degree
whatever upon feeling or emotion. It is quite possible
that this is true, but unfortunately for Cudworth 's Intuitionism,
our reasoning faculties refuse to make moral
judgments without considering circumstances and conse-
quences. I shall return later to this point and develop its
significance.
Happiness
the Reward of Virtue. There is another
path which leads from Shaftesbury's Intuitionism to
Utilitarianism. Shaftesbury's main position is quite un-
equivocally that of an objective intuitionist; he holds, that
is to say, that the universe contains elements or factors which
we recognize to be good or right, but whose goodness or
lightness is in no sense dependent upon our recognition
of them. Misconduct is not wrong because we disapprove
of it; we disapprove of it because it is wrong. When
our feelings tell us that vice is odious they are, Shaftesbury
holds, giving us true information about the nature of
things. Similarly, virtue, which may bt defined on Shaftesbury's
view as the habit of acting in accordance with the
moral law, that is to say, with the Will of Nature, is good
whether its goodness is recognized or not. But, while
insisting that virtue is good in itself, Shaftesbury concedes
that it is also conducive to happiness and, because con-
as a means to an end
ducive to happiness, therefore good
beyond itself as well as good in itself.
On this point his view was reinforced by that of his con-
temporary, Cumberland (1632-1718), who, more forcibly
than Shaftesbury, emphasized the happiness-producing
property of virtue. Public happiness, said Cumberland
the utilitarians were later to call it the greatest happiness
of the greatest number is a good. Hence any act which