A Review of the Systems of Ethics Founded on Evolution

Alfred Barratt

Alfred Barratt’s “Physical Ethics” (1869) deals with First Principles, “Pure,” as distinguished from “Applied,” Ethics, the aim of the science, as stated by the author, being “to try to establish the first principle which is the condition of further progress. If we can establish a principle a priori, and then verify its universality by an appeal to mental phenomena and to philosophical theories, its existence as a fact will be made certain; if, in addition to this, we can connect it with laws still more general and with the family of natural sciences, it will be no longer a fact, but become a scientific law, a section of the universal code; and the title of this essay will be justified.”

Part First of “Physical Ethics” is occupied with the statement of axioms, definitions, and propositions “derived from general experience.” They are as follows:—

“Axiom 1.—Actions, like objects, are capable of being classified according to their properties, and of being measured by a definite standard.

“Obs.—This axiom merely means that the qualities of actions, like those of objects, are fixed and constant, so that the same action has always the same properties and moral value, and, under the same circumstances, always produces the same effect.... It follows from this axiom that it is possible to act so as to attain a definite object, and thus a general end of action may be arrived at....

“Axiom 2.—The end of action (being some common property or effect) is a possible object of knowledge.

“Axiom 3.—We are capable of being affected by any external object only through our faculties, or (in other words) as a part of our consciousness.

“Axiom 4.—Faculties are known only by their action, or (in other words) so far as they are portions of our consciousness.

“Axiom 5.—The sphere of action lies in the adaptation of ‘inner’ to ‘outer’ sequences, of faculties to the laws of nature.

“Axiom 6.—The constitution of man and other animal beings is an organism consisting of a number of parts, each having its appropriate function, and the end of each part results from the performance of its function.

“Axiom 7.—Approbation is the standard whereby we judge of the moral value of actions, and is the universal mark of the due performance of a function and of the attainment of an end.”

Definitions

“1. Good is the object of moral approbation. The highest good is, therefore, the ultimate object of such approbation, the end of action.

“2. Pleasure is that state of consciousness which follows upon the unimpeded performance (as such) of its function, by one or more of the parts of our organism.”

Proposition I

“The Good is relative to our faculties. For no object can affect us except through our faculties (Axiom 3); but to be known by us is to affect us;

“Therefore, nothing can be known except through our faculties, or (in other words) except in relation to our faculties;

“But the Good, or End of Action, is a possible object of knowledge (Axiom 2);

“Hence the Good is relative to our faculties.

“Corollary 1.—The highest good of man at any time is relative to his faculties at that time.

“Corollary 2.—Since ideas derive their elements from experience, the idea of perfect Good, or God, can only be an idealization of humanity.

Proposition II

“The Good is a state of Consciousness. For, the Good is a possible object of knowledge (Axiom 2); but all objects of knowledge are states of consciousness;

“Hence the Good is a state of Consciousness. Or, the Good exists (or is capable of being known) only by affecting our faculties, or, in other words, only as an affection of our faculties (Proposition I);

“But an affection of our faculties is a state of consciousness;

“Hence the Good exists only as a state of consciousness.

“Obs.—... To speak of anything existent external to our consciousness, is, as we saw, a pure hypothesis, incapable of proof, perfectly unintelligible and void of utility. When, therefore, we make use of the ordinary dualistic phraseology, we must remember that the two worlds there distinguished are merely two divisions of the universe of self considered as distinct for convenience of language, but differing only as two classes comprehended under a common genus.

Proposition III

“The Good is relative to circumstances. For, the Good is determined by, and therefore lies in action (Axioms 7, 6, Obs.); but Action is relative to circumstances (Axiom 5). Hence the Good is relative to circumstances.

Proposition IV

“The Good depends upon the adaptation of faculties to circumstances.

“For, the Good is identical with the end (Def.); which results from the performance of function by each part of the organism (Axiom 6).

“But the function of each part is its adaptation to circumstances (Axioms 5, 6): Hence the Good depends upon the adaptation of faculties to circumstances.

“Corollary.—Since man is an organism composed of parts (Axiom 6), the whole good of man is the sum of the goods of his parts, and therefore depends upon the adaptation of all his parts to their corresponding circumstances.

Proposition V

“The Good is Pleasure.

“For the good results from the due performance of functions (Prop. IV); but the Good is a state of consciousness (Prop. II), therefore the Good is the state of consciousness which results from the due performance of functions (as such). Hence (by Definition), the Good is Pleasure.

“Obs.—By our definitions of Good and Pleasure it was evident that they were coëxtensive, being both marks of the same thing; to prove their identity it was necessary to show that Good is a state of consciousness.”

Of these propositions Barratt says that I and II are perhaps the most important, since they assert the impossibility of Transcendentalism.

Part Second of “Physical Ethics” is a “Verification by Special Experience.”

The Origin of the Moral Sense

The assumption of a moral sense has already been made in the definition of Good as the object of Approbation.

Our previous reasoning would lead us nevertheless to guess that this sense is not, in its nature, a simple and indecomposable faculty. How, then, did this sense arise, and what is its nature and composition?

In the lowest animal organization, there are merely vague and indefinite states of consciousness corresponding to the undeveloped state of physical function. With the development and specialization of advancing evolution arises Perception; by which likeness and unlikeness among sensations are distinguished, and classification is begun.

“At first only the most obvious resemblances are noticed, but as experience progresses, wider and wider classes ever tend to be formed, till at last we arrive at those highest ideas which are coëxtensive with experience. These, though the last in order of birth, become the starting-points of science—just as men formed the idea of stones falling long before they discovered the law of attraction, yet by that law they afterwards ’explain’ the former fact. Thus we trace the whole of Perception or Knowledge to this power of comparison and noting likenesses, and this we see to be coincident with the organization of consciousness into central meeting-places or ganglia, in which different sensations are presented to a common tribunal and so compared together. We see, therefore, that Perception does not originate consciousness; it only organizes and develops it. We cannot, therefore, agree with Mr. Herbert Spencer, who will not allow consciousness to the lowest animals.”63

The process of perception or Knowledge works, not only on states of consciousness themselves, but on the changes from one state to another, or, in other words, on relations. Thus results, on the one hand, recognition of objects; on the other, argument and reasoning, for the most abstruse reasoning is nothing more than a classification of relations.

“We have now, therefore, two distinct divisions of Consciousness: Sensation, which as before consists only of pleasure and pain, though now of different kinds; and Perception, which classifies states of consciousness and their relations, and is therefore concerned only with change. Knowledge, therefore, has originally no other object than different pleasures and pains, but eventually it attends so much to the differences and resemblances that it ceases to remember the pleasure or pain; in its absorption in the relation it well-nigh forgets the things related. This process is furthered by the fact that, as the medium gets more extended, each part of it has less average effect upon the organism: the primary pleasures and pains being spread over a larger surface are less intense, and so obtrude themselves less. This is exemplified by the common observation that sensation and perception tend to exclude each other.... Nevertheless pleasure and pain ever remain indissolubly connected with consciousness, though their presence is often unheeded, and only the more violent forms force themselves on the attention.

“What is true of these simple forms of consciousness, is true of their later development. The relation of sensation to perception is the same as that between the faculties of which these are respectively the germs, emotion and intellect. For emotion is associated sensations of pleasure and pain; and intellect is associated perceptions of change and relation. Hence by their very nature these are at once mutually exclusive and inseparable. A strong emotion drives out reason, and much reasoning chills emotion.... Yet we can give some reason for any emotion; and we feel some emotion in working a mathematical problem.... In every intentional act it is evident that both are involved; the end being given by emotion, the means by reasoning. Reasoning can give no end, it can only arrange, elicit, suggest; emotion can give no means, for it cannot classify or observe relations. In the building up, therefore, of any moral faculty, both these elements must take a part. Hence it will be well to trace, a little more closely, their mode of formation, and their connection with muscular activity.

“When in the course of experience a certain sequence of sensation frequently recurs, the consciousness becomes habituated to it, and the return of the first sensation is followed by an idea or associative image of the others.... Hence the idea of pleasure or pain not actually felt comes to be associated with objects, which, if placed in certain different positions, would effect us in the way imagined.... Pleasure may thus be associated through a train of ideas of any length.... After a time this process becomes organic, the intermediate terms are lost, and pleasure is directly connected with sensations and ideas that are in themselves not distinctly pleasurable.

“Now by various trains of association, various pleasures and pains are connected with the same object. These different combinations of pleasures and pains, some of which arise, before reasoning, by unintentional association, but the higher of which are the results of automatization of reasoning, form the different emotions....

“Action in its origin is simply the correlative of sensation. Contractility and irritability are the two general properties of vital tissue, or rather are two sides of one fundamental property which is also known under the name of sensibility—the power of contraction under irritation, or of expressing impressed force. Irritability means merely the phenomena of consciousness, the development of which we have hitherto been tracing, though we have been throughout obliged to express ourselves in the language of the inner, and not of the outer experience.... This internal development we have already examined; we must now turn to the obverse external development which takes its origin in contractility.

“The connection between these two fundamental properties is exceedingly intimate, that of ultimate identity or at any rate inseparability. For not only is contraction universally the result of irritation, but the only evidence that we have of irritation is the contraction which follows, and in their early stages the two represent one and the same process. When, however, the expression, in action, of force impressed in sensation, becomes indirect and immediate, the name of irritability is given to the immediate, internal results of its impression, while contractility expresses the action ultimately expressed. Hence the seat of irritability is preëminently the nervous system, while contractility, or the vis musculosa, is the name of the special property of the muscular tissue.

“Considering them however in their origin, they together represent a certain form of the transmission of force.... Some kinds of impressed force are followed by movements of retraction and withdrawal, others by such as secure a continuance of the impression. These two kinds of contraction are the phenomena and external marks of pain and pleasure respectively. Hence the tissue acts so as to secure pleasure and avoid pain by a law as truly physical and natural as that whereby a needle turns to the pole, or a tree to the light.... Hence, the law of Self-Conservation, or of the direction of Action, is merely another mode of expressing the fundamental property of animal tissue, which we have every reason to believe is derived from the more elementary physical properties of matter. The course of action is just as dependent on physical laws as that of a stone which falls to the ground. The belief in external consciousness makes no difference either way; the earliest phenomena of such consciousness are those of pleasure and pain, therefore we can suppose it to exist only as pleasure and pain. In the one case we say that action aims at, or naturally results in, the phenomena of pleasure; in the other case that it aims at the actual consciousness of pleasure.

“The expression of impressed force, or the connection of action and sensation, is at first in the unorganized tissue direct and immediate, without the agency of nervous communication, or to return again to the ordinary psychological language, is unintentional or involuntary.... The earliest modification is due to association, whereby secondary sensations, or (as they are called later when they become perceived) ideas are produced. These manifest themselves as weaker repetitions of the primary pleasures and pains, and, therefore, are naturally followed by like results.... The process is this: the force originally impressed by the first sensation, instead of being all expressed in action, is partly induced by habituation into an internal channel, and so transformed into the kind of force which generally impresses the second kind of sensation, and this now produces its appropriate action. Hence part of the original force has undergone two transformations instead of one; the immediate antecedent of action being the force produced by association, or in other words, the associated pleasure. This is the rudiment of motive, which, however, is not generally called by that name till it is perceived. The same process may go on through two or more links of association; the first transformed force being again transformed internally instead of expressed, and the second again in its turn, until eventually a transformation is reached which finds its easiest way of escape in action; the immediate motive power being that transformation of force, or that associated pleasure, which immediately precedes the action. Actions of this kind constitute the lower phenomena of instinct: and we see therefore that they may depend on any number of links of unperceived, or, as we say, unconscious reasoning; and that their motive is also ‘unconscious.’ These actions stand half way between Reflex and Voluntary Actions....

“We now come to the third and last development of associated action. Here not only is each associated idea perceived, but the change, in each case, is also a fresh centre of association; whereby similar changes are connected with it, and it is referred to a class. Hence the whole train is perceived, not only by the classification of each of its parts with similar previous sensations, but by the classification of each of its sequences with previous like sequences: in other words, it is now a chain of reasoning from the past to the present. That associated pleasure from which this reasoned train commences is now called the motive (though really the immediate motive power lies in the last transformation which directly precedes the active expression) and the series of ideas intervening between this and the action is called the means. Hence the motive associates the means, and the motive power is transmitted through them till it is finally expressed in the action which is appropriate to the attainment of the pleasurable state whose idea is its source. This association of means with ends is at first sight opposed to the natural direction, which is from antecedent to consequent; but when a line of nervous connection is formed, a current may be transmitted indifferently in either direction. An effect may lead us to think of its cause, as easily as a cause associates its effect. By the sequence of action and sensation, a connection is established between their ideas, which is independent of the order of excitation. This last kind of action is that which we call voluntary, and the series of classified ideas and relations which lead to it is called Reasoning. If at any point the current is attracted in two or more directions by different trains of association, deliberation is the result; and the eventual victory of one and the consequent transmission of the force along it is entitled Will.

“We have therefore distinguished four kinds of action: Reflex Action, which is purely physical and independent of association, and which is the last link in all the derived varieties; Lower Instinctive Action, which is caused by the first introduction of association, and is hardly to be distinguished in its phenomena from the last;... Higher Instinctive Action, which involves perception of qualities or objects;... and finally, Voluntary or Intentional Action, such as we find it in man.... Though we have separated these classes from each other for clearness of description, there is no distinct line to be drawn anywhere between them. Each fades insensibly into the next.... Evolution, we must remember, does not advance by stages; these are merely marks that we make ourselves, like the constellations in astronomy, for convenience of study.

“Finally, we must remark that the last two kinds of Action ever tend to relapse into the second, which subjectively is a mere form of the first. Association of all kinds tends to become organic. By this we mean that, as the connection becomes more definitely marked and easy, the perpetual radiation which occurs as the current passes the different points on its path, disappears; and the whole current passes unimpaired. First, the radiation caused by the changes disappears, and reasoning becomes instinct, as in doing a mathematical example from mere memory of the different steps. Secondly, the radiation from the different nervous centres also disappears, and the current which ends in action becomes not only unreasoning but unperceived, as in walking or reading aloud while thinking of something else....

“Long habituation has two effects: it increases the number of trains connected with each object, and also the length of each. If we suppose the simpler emotions to have, by this time, become organic or apparently simple states of consciousness, a continuance of association tends to connect them together in bundles, as they themselves were originally bundles of elementary pleasures and pains. Hence the emotions become organized in their turn so as to form higher emotions, and eventually, when association has completed its work,... this organization ends in one supreme emotion, which is the head of the emotional or sensitive side of the consciousness....

“Turning next to the second effect of prolonged habituation, we find that, with objects or actions with which pleasure was at first associated and which so were called pleasurable, further association often connects a subsequent pain which increased experience has shown always to follow upon the immediate pleasure. This pain often more than counterbalances the preceding pleasure; hence when it is taken into the emotion, that emotion becomes one no longer of appetition but of aversion, and the object or action is remembered as one not to be sought after but avoided. It cannot, however, be called painful, because it causes immediate pleasure, so a new name has to be invented, and it is called Bad, or Evil. Similarly, many things which are immediately associated with pain are found to be eventually followed by pleasure which more than counterbalances the pain, and as this experience becomes consolidated by the power of association, they attract rather than repel, and for a name whereby to distinguish them, are called Good; so that Good and Evil are correlative terms like Pleasure and Pain, and mean respectively the greatest total Pleasure, and the greatest total Pain. Now this experience when once acquired is never lost, but by virtue of hereditary transmission descends from parents to children. But, as in the case of the simpler emotions, only the results survive, and not the means whereby they were arrived at; so that, in a short time, the words Good and Evil come to be quite separated from Pleasant and Painful; nay, as might be expected from their origin, they tend to acquire exactly opposite meanings; for Pleasure and Pain come to signify only immediate pleasure and pain; and the final reckoning is often considerably at variance with the first item; as in a race the man who leads for the first lap seldom wins in the end....

“This, then, is the origin of the Moral Sense.... The Moral Sense, therefore, is merely one of the emotions,” though the last of all in the order of evolution; it can only claim a life of some two or three centuries; and there are even some who still doubt its existence. “Man at any rate is the only animal who possesses it in its latest development; for even in horses and dogs we cannot believe that it has passed the intentional or conscious stage.... Good, with them, has no artificial meaning; it is simply identical with the greatest pleasure.”

Only by complete and perfect obedience to all emotions can perfect freedom from regret be obtained in the gratification of all desire. Man is at present passion’s slave, because he is so only in part; “for the cause of repentance is never the attainment of some pleasure, but always the non-attainment of more: not the satisfaction of one desire, but the inability to satisfy all. The highest virtue, therefore, consists in being led, not by one desire, but by all; in the complete organization of the Moral Nature.”

Of the Social Relation of the Individual

When we assert the end of Action to be Pleasure, do we mean the pleasure of the individual, or universal happiness? “Good has been shown to follow immediately on the adaptation of an organism to circumstances; it is evident that external objects can affect it only in so far as they form part of these circumstances. Hence it follows that the pleasure and pain of others can come in only incidentally; from the fact that each man is not an isolated unit, but a member of society. But further, this social medium itself is, after all, nothing but a part of the individual affected by it; it is one division of that primary side of his nature, by which the other side, the emotional, the intellectual, the moral, is being continually moulded and fashioned; and even if we take the narrower meaning of self, the pleasures and pains of others cannot possibly affect a man’s actions or emotions except in so far as they become a part of his. If man aims at pleasure merely by the physical law of action, that pleasure must evidently be ultimately his own; and whether it be or be not preceded by phenomena which he calls the pleasures and pains of others, is a question not of principle but of detail, just as the force of a pound weight is unaltered whether it be composed of lead or of feathers, or whether it act directly or through pulleys.

“The principle, therefore, is clear enough, that the happiness of others can have only an indirect influence upon the good of each individual. But it is equally clear that this direct influence must be of no mean extent, and that it is now our duty to trace its history.” Here follows a scheme of the development of the state from the family, which last was necessitated by the helplessness of infancy, and from which arose the habit of human association. We have no evidence from history or science that mankind has not always existed in a state of society; there is no warrant for assuming an earlier condition of isolation. “Hence to the human race the earliest Good was inseparably bound up with what we now call the Family Virtues.”64 The state, thus originated, developed as a social organism, with ever greater integration, heterogeneity, and complexity of parts, and “the End or Good of each individual became largely modified by the extension of the medium to which his actions had to be adapted”; man became a member, not only of the family but of the state, and the conceptions of his nature and duty became wider, “so that at last the more perfectly each attains his own interest, and the more pleasure he gathers to his own store, the more certainly does he secure the universal happiness of mankind.” If a man aims, as Spinoza remarks, at doing real good to himself, he will be sure to do most good to others.

The Unselfish Emotions

Under this head is traced the genesis of sympathy through representation of the pains and pleasures of others and interpretation of them by individual experience in the same environment; and the genesis of benevolence, the active side of sympathy, through habit associated with the ideas of the pleasures and pains of others. Love is defined as “originally the association of many pleasures with one individual.” From the wider experience of man as a member of a state is developed justice or the sense of equality of right, patriotism, etc. All these feelings are hereditary.

Of the Relation of Man to Nature

This portion of the book treats of the gradual development of knowledge to wider and wider generalization; of the extension of sympathy from man to the animal world also; of the universality of consciousness, which exists in the inanimate as well as the animate world; of the perfection of morality through the perfection of knowledge, since “knowledge moulds emotion, and absolute virtue is nothing but absolute correspondence with nature in action resulting from thought”; and of the evolution of religion, through knowledge, to a religion of knowledge of the real universe or of humanity.

Of the Will

Under this heading the metaphysical doctrine of freedom of the will is combated as a contradiction of the laws of Cause and Effect. Praise and blame, reward and punishment, are desirable because of their effect on action.

Of Obligation

Barratt defines obligation as a “violent motive.” Paley says: “If a man finds the pleasure of sin to exceed the remorse of conscience, of which he alone is the judge, the moral-instinct man, so far as I can understand, has nothing more to offer.” What, then, asks Barratt, has he himself to offer if a man finds the pleasure of sin to exceed the pain entailed by disobedience to the external command? It may, indeed, be the fact that particular kinds of motive only come from particular sources, but unless we can prove that those coming from a command are always the strongest, we cannot claim for them a position such as that implied by the word obligation, of being the highest or most universal motives. In a contest between two motives, it is not the kind but the quantity which decides. For if two pleasures or pains be equal, what does it matter where they came from? And if they be not equal, the greater, whatever its source, will always be the stronger motive.

“Hence obligation is nothing more than a ‘violent motive.’ Prudence and duty are both the following of the greatest pleasure; but so far as in ordinary language we make a distinction between them, the pleasure aimed at in prudence is proximate and only slightly greater than the pain, whereas in duty it is not only very considerably greater, but the greatness is further glorified by a dim aureole of magnificent generalities and the halo of an unfathomable future....

“And as the result of a motive is in no way dependent on its external source, so neither is it influenced by its mode of internal operation. A motive may be strong either by its own natural force as a large excess of associated pleasure in one direction, or by the facility artificially given to its expression by the long-continued custom, either in ourselves or in our fathers, of acting in a certain way on certain occasions. In other words, the strength of a motive is not absolute, it is relative to the habits and predispositions of our organisms; but the strongest motive, whatever its kind, prevails in all cases.

“Obligation is often, again, confounded with compulsion: but submission to physical force is not morally an act at all, because its αρχη or immediate antecedent is external to us, and therefore independent of our moral laws.”

Of Pleasures That Are Called Bad

“We saw that Good differs from Pleasure simply by a widening of the field of calculation; whereby the pleasure of the moment is often found to entail future pain greater than itself (allowance being made for perspective), and is therefore condemned as Bad. When, therefore, we speak of Pleasure as opposed to Good, we always mean the pleasure of the moment; or very often by a still further narrowing of the term, sensual as opposed to intellectual pleasures.”

Footnotes

63 Pp. 39, 40.

64 P. 73.