Here we must be guided by a principle which is,in fact,the logical result of the doctrines already laid down.We are bound to apply our 'felicific calculus'with absolute impartiality.We must therefore assign equal value to all motives.'No motives,'he says,(43)are 'constantly good or constantly bad.'Pleasure is itself a good;pain itself an evil:nay,they are 'the only good and the only evil.'This is true of every sort of pain and pleasure,even of the pains and pleasures of illwill.The pleasures of 'malevolence'are placed in his 'table'by the side of pleasures of 'benevolence.'Hence it 'follows immediately and incontestably,that there is no such thing as any sort of motive that is in itself a bad one.'The doctrine is no doubt a logical deduction from Bentham's assumptions,and he proceeds to illustrate its meaning.A 'motive'corresponds to one of his 'springs of action.'He shows how every one of the motives included in his table may lead either to good or to bad consequences.The desire of wealth may lead me to kill a man's enemy or to plough his field for him;the fear of God may prompt to fanaticism or to charity;illwill may lead to malicious conduct or may take the form of proper 'resentment,'as,for example,when I secure the punishment of my father's murderer.Though one act,he says,is approved and the other condemned,they spring from the same motive,namely,illwill.(44)He admits,however,that some motives are more likely than others to lead to 'useful'conduct;and thus arranges them in a certain 'order of pre-eminence.'(45)It is obvious that 'goodwill,''love of reputation,'and the 'desire of amity'are more likely than others to promote general happiness.'The dictates of utility,'as he observes,are simply the 'dictates of the most extensive and enlightened (that is,well advised)benevolence.'It would,therefore,seem more appropriate to call the 'motive'good;though no one doubts that when directed by an erroneous judgment it may incidentally be mischievous.
The doctrine that morality depends upon 'consequences'and not upon 'motives'became a characteristic Utilitarian dogma,and I shall have to return to the question.Meanwhile,it was both a natural and,I think,in some senses,a correct view,when strictly confined to the province of legislation.For reasons too obvious to expand,the legislator must often be indifferent to the question of motives.He cannot know with certainty what are a man's motives.
He must enforce the law whatever may be the motives for breaking it;and punish rebellion,for example,even if he attributes it to misguided philanthropy.
He can,in any case,punish only such crimes as are found out;and must define crimes by palpable 'external'marks.He must punish by such coarse means as the gallows and the gaol:for his threats must appeal to the good and the bad alike.He depends,therefore,upon 'external'sanctions,sanctions,that is,which work mainly upon the fears of physical pain;and even if his punishments affect the wicked alone,they clearly cannot reach the wicked as wicked,nor in proportion to their wickedness.That is quite enough to show why in positive law motives are noticed indirectly or not at all.It shows also that the analogy between the positive and the moral law is treacherous.
The exclusion of motive justifiable in law may take all meaning out of morality.
The Utilitarians,as we shall see,were too much disposed to overlook the difference,and attempt to apply purely legal doctrine in the totally uncongenial sphere of ethical speculation.To accept the legal classification of actions by their external characteristics is,in fact,to beg the question in advance Any outward criterion must group together actions springing from different 'motives'and therefore,as other moralists would say,ethically different.
There is,however,another meaning in this doctrine which is more to the purpose here.Bentham was aiming at a principle which,true or false,is implied in all ethical systems based upon experience instead of pure logic or a priori 'intuitions.'Such systems must accept human nature as a fact,and as the basis of a scientific theory.They do not aim at creating angels but at developing the existing constitution of mankind.So far as an action springs from one of the primitive or essential instincts of mankind,it simply proves the agent to be human,not to be vicious or virtuous,and therefore is no ground for any moral judgment.If Bentham's analysis could be accepted,this would be true of his 'springs of action.'The natural appetites have not in themselves a moral quality:they are simply necessary and original data in the problem.The perplexity is introduced by Bentham's assumption that conduct can be analysed so that the 'motive'is a separate entity which can be regarded as the sole cause of a corresponding action.That involves an irrelevant abstraction.There is no such thing as a single 'motive.'One of his cases is a mother who lets her child die for love of 'ease.'We do not condemn her because she loves ease,which is a motive common to all men and therefore unmoral,not immoral.But neither do we condemn her merely for the bad consequences of a particular action.We condemn her because she loves ease better than she loves her child:that is,because her whole character is 'unnatural'or ill-balanced,not on account of a particular element taken by itself.Morality is concerned with concrete human beings,and not with 'motives'running about by themselves.Bentham's meaning,if we make the necessary correction,would thus be expressed by saying that we don't blame a man because he has the 'natural'passions,but because they are somehow wrongly proportioned or the man himself wrongly constituted.Passions which may make a man vicious may also be essential to the highest virtue.That is quite true;but the passion is not a separate agent,only one constituent of the character.