"1

tends one way, whilst my desire tends another, and that the direct contrary way. Yet in this case I either do not intend to persuade the man, but only to discharge my office by speaking to him words which are apt to have a persuasive effect on him; or, if I do intend to persuade him, I do not in the same moment feel any deliberate wish to the contrary, although I may feel such a wish before or afterwards. We cannot simultaneously have an intention to do a thing and a deliberate wish not to do it.

If it is admitted that moral judgments are passed on acts simply in virtue of their volitional character, it seems impossible to deny that such judgments may be passed on the motives of acts as well. By "motive " I understand a conation which "moves" the will, in other words, the conative cause of a volition. The motive itself may be, or may not be, a volition. If it is, it obviously falls within the sphere of moral valuation. The motive of an act may even be an intention, but an intention belonging to another act. When Brutus helped to kill Cæsar in order to save his country, his intention to save his country was the cause, and therefore the motive, of his intention to kill Cæsar. The fact that an intention frequently acts as a motive has led some writers to the conclusion that the motive of an act is a part of the intention. But if the intention of an act is part of the act itself, and a motive is the cause of an intention, the motive of an intention cannot be a part of that intention, since a part cannot be the cause of the whole of which it forms a part.

But even motives which, being neither deliberate wishes

1 Locke, Essay concerning Human Understanding, ii. 21. 30 (Philosophical Works, p. 219).

says Pro

2 The term 'motive,' fessor Stout (Groundwork of Psychology, p. 233 sq.), "is ambiguous. It may refer to the various conations which come into play in the process of deliberation and tend to influence its result. Or it may refer to the conations which we mentally assign as the

ground or reason of our decision when it has been fully formed." Motive, in the former sense of the term, is not implied in what I here understand by motive. On the other hand, it should be observed that there are motives not only for decisions, but for deliberate wishes-another circumstance which shows the affinity between these two classes of mental facts.

nor intentions, consist of non-volitional conations, and, therefore, are no proper subjects of moral valuation, may nevertheless indirectly exercise much influence on moral judgments. Suppose that a person without permission gratifies his hunger with food which is not his own. The motive of his act is a non-volitional conation, an appetite, and has consequently no moral value. Yet it must be taken into account by him who judges upon the act. Other things being equal, the person in question is less guilty in proportion as his hunger is more intense. The moral judgment is modified by the pressure which the nonvolitional motive exercises upon the agent's will.

The same is the case when the motive of an act is the conative element involved in an emotion. If a person commits a certain crime under the influence of anger, he is not so blamable as if he commits the same crime in cold blood. Thus, also, it is more meritorious to be kind to an enemy from a feeling of duty, than to be kind to a friend. from a feeling of love. No man deserves blame or praise for the pressure of a non-volitional conation upon his will, unless, indeed, such a pressure is due to choice, or unless it might have been avoided with due foresight. But a person may deserve blame or praise for not resisting that impulse, or for allowing it to influence his will for evil or good.

It is true that moral judgments are commonly passed on acts without much regard being paid to their motives; but the reason for this is only the superficiality of ordinary moral estimates. Moral indignation and moral approval are, in the first place, aroused by conspicuous facts, and, whilst the intention of an act is expressed in the act itself, its motive is not. But a conscientious judge cannot, like the multitude, be content with judging of the surface only. Stuart Mill, in his famous statement that "the motive has nothing to do with the morality of the action, though much with the worth of the agent,' "2 has drawn a distinc

1 Cf. James Mill, Fragment on Mackintosh, p. 376; Sidgwick, op. cit.

p. 364.

Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism, p. 26.

tion between acts and agents which is foreign to the moral consciousness. It cannot be admitted that "he who saves a fellow creature from drowning does what is morally right, whether his motive be duty, or the hope of being paid for his trouble." He ought, of course, to save the other person from drowning, but at the same time he ought to save him from a better motive than a wish for money. It may be that "he who betrays his friend that trusts him is guilty of a crime, even if his object be to serve another friend to whom he is under greater obligations"; but surely his guilt would be greater if he betrayed his friend, say, in order to gain some personal advantage thereby. Intentions and motives are subjects of moral valuation not separately, but as a unity; and the reason for this is that moral judgments are really passed upon men as acting or willing, not upon acts or volitions in the abstract. It is true that our detestation of an act is not always proportionate to our moral condemnation of the agent; people do terrible things in ignorance. But our detestation of an act is, properly speaking, a moral emotion only in so far as it is directed against him who committed the act, in his capacity of a moral agent. We are struck with horror when we hear of a wolf eating a child, but we do not morally condemn the wolf.

A volition may have reference not only to the doing of a thing, but to the abstaining from doing a thing. It may form part not only of an act, but of a forbearance. A forbearance is morally equivalent to an act, and the volition involved in it is equivalent to an intention. Sitting still, or holding one's peace," says Locke," when walking or speaking are proposed, though mere forbearances, requiring as much the determination of the will, and being as often weighty in their consequences as the contrary actions, may, on that consideration, well enough pass for actions too." 2 Yet it is hardly correct to call them acts. Bentham's division of acts into acts of com

1

Ibid. p. 26 VOL. I

2 Locke, op. cit. ii. 21, 28 (Philosophical Works, p. 218).

P

1

mission and acts of omission or forbearance is not to be recommended. A not-doing I do not call an act, and the purpose of not doing I do not call an intention. But the fact remains that a forbearance involves a distinct volition, which, as such, may be the subject of moral judgment no less than the intention involved in an act.

Willing not to do a thing must be distinguished from not willing to do a thing; forbearances must be distinguished from omissions. An omission-in the restricted sense of the word-is characterised by the absence of volition. It is, as Austin puts it, "the not doing a given act, without adverting (at the time) to the act which is not done." Now moral judgments refer not only to willing, but to not-willing as well, not only to acts and forbearances, but to omissions. It is curious that this important point has been so little noticed by writers. on ethics, although it constitutes a distinct and extremely frequent element in our moral judgments. It has been argued that what is condemned in an omission is really a volition, not the absence of a volition; that an omission is bad, not because the person did not do something, but because he did something else, "or was in such a condition that he could not will, and is condemned for the acts which brought him into that condition." In the latter case, of course, the man cannot be condemned for his omission, since he cannot be blamed for not doing what 1 Bentham, op. cit. p. 72.

2 Cf. Clark, Analysis of Criminal Liability, p. 42.

3 Austin, op. cit. i. 438.

Alexander, Moral Order and Progress, p. 34 sq. So, also, Professor Sidgwick maintains (op. cit. p. 60) that "the proper immediate objects of moral approval or disapproval would seem to be always the results of a man's volitions so far as they were intended-i.e., represented in thought as certain or probable consequences of such volitions," and that, in cases of carelessness, moral blame, strictly speaking, attaches to the agent, only "in so far as his carelessness is the result of some wilful neglect of duty."

A similar view is taken by the moral philosophy of Roman Catholicism. (Göpfert, Moraltheologie, i. 113). Binding, again, assumes (Die Normen, ii. 105 sqq.) that a person may have a volition without having an idea of what he wills, and that carelessness implies a volition of this kind. Otherwise, he says, the will could not be held responsible for the result. But, as we shall see immediately, the absence of a volition may very well be attributed to a defect of the will, and the will thus be regarded as the cause of an unintended event. To speak of a volition or will to do a thing of which the person who wills it has no idea seems absurd.

he "could not will"; but to say that an omission is condemned only on account of the performance of some act is undoubtedly a psychological error. If a person forgets to discharge a certain duty incumbent on him, say, to pay a debt, he is censured, not for anything he did, but for what he omitted to do. He is blamed for not doing a thing which he ought to have done, because he did not think of it; he is blamed for his forgetfulness. In other words, his guilt lies in his negligence.

Closely related to negligence is heedlessness, the difference between them being seemingly greater than it really is. Whilst the negligent man omits an act which he ought to have done, because he does not think of it, the heedless man does an act from which he ought to have forborne, because he does not consider its probable or possible consequences.1 In the latter case there is acting, in the former case there is absence of acting. But in both cases the moral judgment refers to want of attention, in other words, to not-willing. The fault of the negligent man is that he does not think of the act which he ought to perform, the fault of the heedless man is that he does not think of the probable or possible consequences of the act which he performs. In rashness, again, the party adverts to the mischief which his act may cause, but, from insufficient advertence assumes that it will not ensue; the fault of the rash man is partial want of attention. Negligence, heedlessness, and rashness, are all included under the common term "carelessness."

Our moral judgments of blame, however, are concerned with not-willing only in so far as this not-willing is attributed to a defect of the will, not to the influence of intellectual or other circumstances for which no man can be held responsible. That power in a person which we call his "will" is regarded by us as a cause, not only of

1 The meaning of the word "negligence," in the common use of language, is very indefinite. It often stands for heedlessness as well, or for carelessness. I use it here in the sense in which it

was applied by Austin (op. cit. i. 439 sq.).

2 Austin, op. cit. i. 440 sq. Clark, op. cit. p. 101.