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

A THEORY OF GOOD OR VALUE 433
abundantly illustrated by some of the theories which have
figured in the preceding survey. Thus subjecthrist theories
give an account of moral virtue in terms of its predisposing
conditions. Let a certain class of conduct be expedient for
a community in the sense that it conduces to its safety, or
promotes its welfare; let the conduct in question be, as
a consequence, inculcated as a duty in the members of
that community and its performance rewarded by the
esteem of the community; let the same conditions prevail
over a number of generations in the course of each of
which the conduct in question is praised and its performance
encouraged; then, according to the theories in ques-
tion, a generation will one day arise in whom the obligation
to perform the conduct will be recognized as a duty,
and approval of it when performed will be bestowed by a
so-called moral sense.
THAT MORAL VIRTUE is NOT DESGRIBABLE IN
TERMS OF ITS PREDISPOSING CONDITIONS. It
is broadly on these lines that subjcctivist theories give an
account of moral virtue, citing the predisposing conditions
which cause the feeling of duty to arise, and concluding
that conduct is right and characters virtuous simply because
they are approved. I have already criticized theories of
1
this type. Here my purpose is to point out that, if the
predisposing conditions which are cited are really efficacious
in giving rise to the feeling of moral obligation and the
sense of moral approval, then both the feeling and the
sense are the determined functions of the conditions;
they are, that is to say, as much the products of the
factors which brought them into existence as red hair
and freckles are the products of a certain combination of
genes, or a fear of the dark of incidents in early childhood.
If we are not responsible for our conception of duty
and our feelings of moral approval, then we are not free
in respect of thertt. We cannot help doing our duty when
*See Chapter XI, pp. 384-392.