On this page

• Text (1)

  Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

  • 

    Untitled Article

• Transcript

  • Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

    Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.

    Untitled Article

    md fear ; and there is danger that those who have been accustomed to contemplate man exclusively in these relations , may » ize on the few coarse principles by which they have seen him to te actuated , and , tempted by the simplicity of the procedure , may

    ipp ly them to the explanation of all his processes of thought , emoion , and action , many of which involve far different causes , and iemand a finer analysis . We cannot disguise our opinion that ^ I r . Be ntham has , in the work before us , illustrated this error ; hat with feet accustomed to tread the outer and much worn

    > assages of human life , he has dragged their dust into its purer ecesses . This opinion must rest for its justification on the xiticisms which we shall have occasion shortly to offer . Human existence is made up of acts and states involuntary ind voluntary . The involuntary belong to the researches of physi-Jogy in the case of the body , of psychology in the case of the nind . The voluntary form the materials of ethics , or ( as Mr .

    Jentham ' s whimsical vocabulary will have it ) deontology ; whose ibject it is to enable men to select from all the results of volition hose which are eligible , and to discard those which are ineli gible . Phe first thing to be settled is , what must be the principle of . election , —what is the mark set upon all the eligible class , by vhich they may be distinguished from the rest ? It seems surmising that any one should hesitate to answer , their happiness !

    Without happiness , existence would not be desirable ; without lappiness , the several integrant parts of existence would not be lesirable ; without happiness , that is , the acts and states of a luman being would be ineligible ; for it is of a succession of these hat life is compounded . If it would not be worth while to be X ) rn , perform one painful act , and die ; and if it would be worth rhile to be born , perform one pleasurable act , and die ; the nference is inevitable , that it is happiness which discriminates etween that which is worth having or doing , and that which

    snot . The eligible class of voluntary acts and states is comprised mder one word , virtue ; and the ineligible under another , vice . Ul those effects of the will which are attended by a balance of lappiness to the agent , are therefore virtuous ; those which bring lim a balance of misery are vicious- This balance of enjoyment

    rom an action , unwisely denominated its utility and expediency , aay present itself immediately on its performance ; or may slowly > ut surely arise from its remoter and more indirect consequences , n estimating the moral worth of actions and states , then , consists he whole business q ( moral philosophy ; the only measure of

    alue is , the tendency to the individual ' s happiness ; and in commuting this , the utmost care must be taken to include all the Pendant and consequent feelings , however remote in time , and deluded from a superficial view . But we shall be told that this criterion , though well enough if

    Untitled Article

    Bentham 8 Deontology . 613

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1834, page 613, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2637/page/9/