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CHAPTER XXXVI

F-REGARDING DUTIES

AND VIRTUES-INDUSTRYREST

ACCORDING to current ideas men owe to themselves a variety of duties similar in kind to those which they owe to their fellow-creatures. They are not only forbidden to take their own lives, but are also in some measure considered to be under an obligation to support their existence, to take care of their bodies, to preserve a certain amount of personal freedom, not to waste their property, to exhibit self-respect, and in general, to promote their own happiness. And closely related to these self-regarding duties there are self-regarding virtues, such as diligence, thrift, temperance. In all these cases, however, the moral judgment is greatly influenced by the question whether the act, forbearance, or omission, which increases the person's own welfare, conflicts or not with the interests of other people. If it does conflict, opinions vary as to the degree of selfishness which is recognised as allowable. But judgments containing moral praise or the inculcation of duty are most commonly passed upon conduct which involves some degree of self-sacrifice, not on such as involves self-indulgence.

Moreover, the duties which we owe to ourselves are generally much less emphasised than those which we owe to others. "Nature," says Butler, "has not given us so sensible a disapprobation of imprudence and folly, either in ourselves or others, as of falsehood, injustice, and

cruelty." Nor does a prudential virtue receive the same praise as one springing from a desire to promote the happiness of a fellow man. Many moralists even maintain that, properly speaking, there are no self-regarding duties and virtues at all; that useful action which is useful to ourselves alone is not matter for moral notice; that i every case duties towards one's self may be reduced into duties towards others; that intemperance and extravagant luxury, for instance, are blamable only because they tend to the public detriment, and that prudence is a virtue Only in so far as it is employed in promoting public interest.2 But this opinion is hardly in agreement with the ordinary

moral consciousness.

It is undoubtedly true that no mode of conduct is exclusively self-regarding. No man is an entirely isolated being, hence anything which immediately affects a person's own welfare affects at the same time, in some degree, the welfare of other individuals. It is also true that the moral ideas concerning such conduct as is called selfregarding are more or less influenced by considerations as to its bearing upon others. But this is certainly not the only factor which determines the judgment passed on it. In the education of children various modes of self-regarding conduct are strenuously insisted upon by parents and teachers. What they censure or punish is regarded as wrong, what they praise or reward is regarded as good; for, as we have noticed above, men have a tendency to sympathise with the retributive emotions of persons for whom they feel regard. Moreover, as in the case of suicide,* so also in other instances of self-inflicted harm, the injury committed may excite sympathetic resentment towards the agent, although the victim of it is his own self. Disinterested likings or dislikes often give rise to moral

1 Butler, 'Dissertation on the Nature of Virtue,' in Analogy of Religion, &c. P. 339.

2 Hutcheson, Inquiry into the Original of our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue, pp. 133, 201. Grote, Treatise

on the Moral Ideals, p. 77 sqq. Clifford, Lectures and Essays, pp. 298, 335von Jhering, Der Zweck im Recht, ii. 225.

3 Supra, i. 114 sq.
4 Supra, ii. 262,

approval or disapproval of conduct which is essentially self-regarding.1 It has also been argued that no man has a right to trifle with his own well-being even where other persons' interests are not visibly affected by it, for the reason that he is not entitled wantonly to waste "what is not at his unconditional disposal." 2 And in various other ways—as will be seen directly-religious, as well as magic, ideas have influenced moral opinions relating to selfregarding conduct. But at the same time it is not difficult to see why self-regarding duties and virtues only occupy a subordinate place in our moral consciousness. The influence they exercise upon other persons' welfare is generally too remote to attract much attention. In education there is no need to emphasise any other self-regarding duties and virtues but those which, for the sake of the individual's general welfare, require some sacrifice of his immediate. comfort or happiness. The compassion which we are apt to feel for the victim of an injury is naturally lessened by the fact that it is self-inflicted. And, on the other hand, indignation against the offender is disarmed by pity, imprudence commonly carrying its own punishment along with it.3

Being so little noticed by custom and public opinion, and still less by law, most self-regarding duties hardly admit of a detailed treatment. In a general way it may be said that progress in intellectual culture has, in some respects, been favourable to their evolution; Darwin even maintains that, with a few exceptions, self-regarding virtues are not esteemed by savages. The less developed the intellect, the less apt it is to recognise the remoter consequences of men's behaviour; hence more reflection. than that exercised by the savage may be needed to see that modes of conduct which immediately concern a person's own welfare at the same time affect the well-being

1 Cf. supra, i. 116 sq.

2 Martineau, Types of Ethical Theory, ii. 126.

3 Cf. Butler, op. cit. p. 339 sq.; Dugald Stewart, Philosophy of the

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am a burthen to it; suppose that my life hinders some person from being much more useful to society. In such cases my resignation of life must not only be innocent. but laudable." 1 Hume also attacks the doctrine that suicide is a transgression of our duty to God. "If it would be no crime in me to divert the Nile from its course, were I able to do so, how could it be a crime to turn a few ounces of blood from their natural channel? Were the disposal of human life so much reserved as the peculiar province of the Almighty that it were an encroachment on his right for men to dispose of their own lives, would it not be equally wrong of them to lengthen out their lives beyond the period which by the general laws of nature he had assigned to it? My death, however voluntary, does not happen without the consent of Providence; when I fall upon my own sword, I receive my death equally from the hands of the Deity as if it had proceeded from a lion, a precipice, or a fever." 2

Thus the main arguments against suicide which had been set forth by pagan philosophers and Christian theologians were scrutinised and found unsatisfactory or at least insufficient to justify that severe and wholesale censure which was passed on it by the Church and the State. But a doctrine which has for ages been inculcated by the leading authorities on morals is not easily overthrown; and when the old arguments are found fault with new ones are invented. Kant maintained that a person who disposes of his own life degrades the humanity subsisting in his person and entrusted to him to the end that he might uphold it.3 Fichte argued that it is our duty to preserve our life and to will to live, not for the sake of life, but because our life is the exclusive condition of the realisation of the moral law through us. According to Hegel it is a contradiction to speak of a person's right over his life, since this would

1 Hume, 'Suicide,' in Philosophical gründe der Tugendlehre, p. 73. Works, iv. 413.

2 Ibid. p. 407 sqq.

3 Kant, Metaphysische Anfangungs

Fichte, Das System der Sittenlehre, P. 339 $99. See also ibid. pp. 360,

391.

imply a right of a person over himself, and no one can stand above and execute himself.1 Paley, again, feared that if religion and morality allowed us to kill ourselves in any case, mankind would have to live in continual alarm for the fate of their friends and dearest relations 2-just as if there were a very strong temptation for men to shorten their lives. But common sense is neither a metaphysician nor a sophist. When not restrained by the yoke of a narrow theology, it is inclined in most cases to regard the self-murderer as a proper object of compassion rather than of condemnation, and in some instances to admire him as a hero. The legislation on the subject therefore changed as soon as the religious influence was weakened. The laws against suicide were abolished in France by the Revolution, and afterwards in various other continental countries; whilst in England it became the custom of jurymen to presume absence of a sound mind in the self-murderer-perjury, as Bentham said, being the penance which prevented an outrage on humanity. These measures undoubtedly indicate not only a greater regard for the innocent relatives of the self-murderer, but also a change in the moral ideas concerning the act itself.

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As appears from this survey of facts, the moral valuation of suicide varies to an extreme degree. It depends partly on the circumstances in which the act is committed, partly on the point of view from which it is regarded and the notions held about the future life. When a person sacrifices his life for the benefit of a fellow-man or for the sake of his country or to gratify the supposed desire of a god, his deed may be an object of the highest praise. It may, further, call forth approval or admiration as indicating a keen sense of honour or as a test of courage; in Japan, says Professor Chamberlain, "the courage to take

1 Hegel, Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts, $ 70, Zusatz, p. 72.

2 Paley, Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy, iv. 3 (Complete Works, ii. 230).

3 Legoyt, op. cit. p. 109.
Bourquelot, loc. cit. 1v. 475.

5 Bentham, Principles of Penal Law, ii. 4. 4 (Works, i. 479 sq.).

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