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

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ETHICS
he will at
if; for him, tout comprtndr* is not tout pardonntr,
least insist on the greatest possible amount of under-
standing as a preliminary to pardoning whenever he can.
if there is
To return to our argument, it is clear that,
any force in the foregoing considerations, a strict Intuitionism
which concentrates its attention upon actions and
accepts direct intuitions as to their lightness and wrongness
as a sufficient guide to morality is untenable. Such a
view is an unduly simple one, and in practice too often
issues in judgments which are harsh, unsympathetic and
intolerant.
The Motive School of Intuitionism. It must not be
supposed that the above considerations have occurred
solely to the author, or that they have not been stressed
in one form or another by many writers upon ethics,
including those who have in general been disposed to
adopt some form of Intuitionism. Many writers, indeed,
have insisted that the motive of an action is the main
factor to be taken into account in determining its lightness
or wrongness. Bishop Butler, for instance, whose views
I have already considered, maintained that "the right*
ness or wrongness of an act depends very much upon the
motive for which it is done**.
The advantage of insisting upon the importance of
motive lies, from the intuitionist point of view, in the
answer which the "motive" school of Intuitionism is
enabled to offer to the criticisms just outlined. The effect
of these criticisms was to demonstrate the impossibility
of divorcing an act from its consequences and they bore,
therefore, most heavily upon that form of Intuitionism
which suggests that it is possible to pass moral judgments
upon actions without taking their consequences into
account "The effects of our actions cannot," said Kant,
But they can and must do so, if
"give them moral worth/ 9
the action includes some at least of its effects. To meet this
criticism, the intuitionist, while agreeing that motive,
act and consequences cannot be divorced from one