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

310
ETHICS
Inevitably, we hear only of the geniuses who "break
"
through" and stamp their thought upon the minds of
men. But for every one who, in spite of opposition, succeeds
in imposing his original inspiration upon the mind
of the race, there may have been, there probably have been,
a dozen whom opposition has succeeded in stifling.
The conclusion seems to be that the received moral
judgment of any given society cannot be accepted as a true
guide to morality, if only because it is frequently opposed
to what in the light of history we recognize to have been a
moral advance. 1
Just because received moral opinion
reflects the needs and conduces to the stability of a society,
it is liable to be ranged against change. Yet change there
must be, if there is to be evolution and progress in morality.
Unless, then, we are prepared to accept the view that a
final and ultimate revelation of right and wrong has
already been vouchsafed to a particular community,
we cannot but conclude that there are occasions when
the interests of morality are best served by a refusal to abide
by the received standards of the time.
IV. CRITICISM OF INTUITIONIST
AND MORAL SENSE THEORIES
RESUMED
(6) That if the Moral Sense is Feeling, its Deliverances
are Subjective. To resume the general criticism of
Intuitionism, any view which seeks to base morality
upon feeling is exposed to the objection that the deliverance*
of a moral sense so conceived will have a purely
subjective reference. For feelings, it may be pointed out,
are relative and private in a sense in which the deliverances
of reason are objective and public. Hence
feelings give no information except about themselves. If
feelings only give information about themselves, informa-
tion, that is to say, to the effect that such and such a feeling
1 This is a point of view which J. S. Mill elaborated with great force.
See Chapter XIV, pp. 529-596.