Moral judgments Are Not Based On Comparisons Or Relations
Table of Contents
Thus, moral good and bad cannot be based on reason since reason cannot make that distinction.
Reason and judgment can be the intermediate cause of an action by directing a passion.
But this judgment does not have virtue or vice.
The judgments caused by our judgments can less bestow good or bad on the actions which cause them.
If right and wrong were established by our thoughts alone, then good or bad would:
- be in some relations of objects, or
- be a matter of fact discovered by our reasoning.
The human understanding has 2 operations:
- The comparing of ideas
- The inferring of matter of fact
If goodness was discovered by the understanding, then it is an object of one of these operations.
The understanding has no third operation to discover it.
Some philosophers have suggested that morality can be demonstrated.
- But no one has ever been able to do a demonstration.
Others assume that the science of morality may be brought to an equal certainty with geometry or algebra.
They say that good and bad have some relations since no matter of fact can be demonstrated.
Morality is not based on Relations
A relation is the association of ideas.
If good and bad consist in relations that are certain and demonstrable, then they should be based on those 4 relations which alone allow them.
This leads to absurdities because you make the very essence of morality lie in the relations.
But the only relations are those that are applicable to an irrational and inanimate object.
It follows, that even such objects can have merit or demerit.
All the following relations belong to matter just as they belong to our actions, passions, and volitions:
- resemblance, contrariety, degrees in quality, and proportions in quantity and number
Therefore, morality does not lie in any of these relations.
The moral sense does not lie in the discovery of these relations.13
Footnote 13:
Our way of thinking on this subject is commonly confused.
Those who assert that morality is demonstrable, do not say:
- that morality lies in the relations, and
- that the relations are distinguishable by reason.
They only say that reason can discover such an action in such relations to be virtuous, and such another to be vicious.
They thought it sufficient to bring ‘relation’ into the proposition, without troubling themselves whether it fulfilled the purpose or not.
But demonstrative reason only discovers relations.
According to this hypothesis, reason also discovers vice and virtue.
- These moral qualities, therefore, must be relations.
When we blame any action, the whole complicated object of action and situation must form relations which form the essence of vice.
Otherwise, this hypothesis is not understandable.
For what does reason discover when it calls any action as vicious?
Does it discover a relation or a matter of fact?
These questions are decisive and must not be eluded.