Morality Prior To Conscience
Chapter 2
Is Conscience A Practical Judgment?
18. What we have said will enable us to decide if conscience is indeed a practical judgment, as it is usually called. Our decision will depend upon the meaning given to the word practical. PraxiV , practice, is a Greek word meaning action. Strictly speaking, therefore a practical judgment means an operative, efficacious, active judgment. But a truly efficacious, active judgment must be the root and starting point of our action. In a word, such a judgment must necessarily result in action, unless impeded by a contrary, practical judgment. We must note carefully that the operation of an intelligent being is always physically begun and determined by a judgment.
When I, as an intelligent being, decide to act, I first say to myself: 'Such an action will help me', and I act immediately on this interior word. The judgment with which I recognise that an action is good for me here and now is the first movement leading me inevitably to what I actually do. Is this practical judgment moral conscience? Is conscience of its nature an efficacious, active judgment resulting in action?
It is already clear that conscience is entirely separate from action, and that we can act even against the dictate of conscience. Conscience, therefore, does not necessarily lead to action; it is not a judgment on which action depends, or to which action is physically joined. Conscience is not an operative judgment, and properly speaking cannot be called a practical judgment.
19. The practical judgment, the effective root of our actions, can be morally good or bad in so far as it rests upon motives conforming to, or in opposition to, the moral law. When a person is mugged and killed, the murderer acts because he has said to himself: 'This will help me.' He would certainly not have acted in this way without making such a practical judgment. But the motive drawing him to judge that the mugging will help him is solely economic; it is unjust, and contrary to the law. The murderer's practical judgment, therefore, is wicked. Moreover, it has nothing to do with his conscience. If anything, his conscience is directly opposed to his practical judgment and condemns it as immoral. Conscience, therefore, is a judgment over and above the practical judgment and as such was defined by me elsewhere as, 'a speculative judgment that a person makes about the morality of his practical judgment.'(5)
20. But if conscience is merely a speculative judgment about the morality of our own particular actions, why has it generally come to be known as a practical judgment?
It has been called a practical judgment because the word practical has been taken in a broad sense. Instead of being understood solely of something active or pertaining to action (its true meaning), practical now indicates something referring to, or ordered to, action.
This last meaning is also used when moral philosophy is called practical philosophy in order to show that the dictates of moral philosophy refer to and regulate human actions.(6) But it is clear that no teaching contained in moral philosophy exceeds the bounds of speculative truth because such teaching has nothing to do with the reality of actions. Like all other ideas, moral philosophy belongs to the order of ideas; actions on the other hand belong to the order of real things, not to the order of ideas. Because this has been overlooked and attention concentrated on the ideas which help to regulate our actions, such ideas have been improperly called 'practical', despite their speculative or theoretical status.
21. It seems to me time to restore the proper use of language(7) both for the sake of dealing with the intricate problems of conscience, and in order to eliminate the innumerable, useless distinctions and complicated phraseology needed to express ideas.
An example of the difficulties which may occur is found in the definition of conscience used by certain writers. Because the word practical came to be applied to whatever refers to actions, moral philosophy, which refers to actions in so far as it offers rules for action, became practical philosophy, and conscience, which judges our own past, present or future actions, became a practical judgment.
But it was soon observed that moral philosophy does not refer to actions as immediately as conscience does. Moral philosophy indicates only in general terms which actions are to be done and which are to be avoided; only conscience immediately applies the dictates of moral philosophy to present or past actions. It became clear, therefore, that a distinction was necessary to show how conscience was more directly concerned than moral philosophy with action, and barbarous neologisms were invented to provide such a distinction. Moral philosophy was called 'speculatively practical' and conscience 'practically practical'. As Billuart writes: 'The understanding is said to be speculatively practical when, by means of moral philosophy, it reaches general conclusions about good and evil relative to human actions; it is said to be practically practical when, by means of conscience, it reaches particular conclusions about good or evil relative to a single act.'(8)
It is clear that the same kind of reasoning will eventually force us to recognise the need of more outrageous jargon. If the word practical has to be employed to indicate various degrees of nearness to action in different branches of moral philosophy, conscience can only be called 'practical' through continual repetition of the word. Moral dictates begin in fact with our obligation to acknowledge universal being. This is the supreme moral law,(9) and its obligation is very distant from actions, which are approached gradually first through generic, then through more special laws until conscience indicates the final, particular command.
For example, the first law states: 'Acknowledge being (with your practical judgment) for what it is.' This law is very far from determining, by prohibition or positive command, any particular action. If I apply this law to human nature, I deduce another law: 'Acknowledge human beings (with your practical judgment) as intelligent beings, that is, as beings who possess an end in themselves and cannot be considered as means for your use.' I have now come a little nearer to action in so far as I can determine more closely the respect I should have for human beings.
If I apply this law to slavery, taken in its strict sense, I deduce another, more particular law: 'Slavery in the strict sense is unlawful because by it one human being uses another as a means, without respecting the other as an end.' This third norm is nearer to action than either of the other two because it prohibits that kind of activity which constitutes slavery taken in its strict sense. But we have not yet reached conscience.
For instance, what would Pollio's conscience have told him when he wanted to feed his fish with the carcases of his slaves? His conscience would have disapproved. It would have applied the third norm more or less as follows: 'Feeding your fish with human flesh is unlawful because it is an act of slavery in the strict sense, and therefore unjust because it uses human beings without respecting them as having an end in themselves.' This final norm, or judgment of conscience, is nearer to action than any of the three already stated.
If we wanted to express the nearness of moral laws to action, we would have to call the supreme law practical, the second law (deduced from the supreme law) practically-practical, the third practically-practically-practical, and finally conscience practically-practically-practically-practical. This kind of semantic barbarism would produce endless confusion of ideas, and would still not express what was required -- the four steps I have indicated from the supreme law to action could be multiplied indefinitely, with even greater detriment to language.
22. The truth is that moral teachings, whatever their nearness to action, cannot rightly be called practical. They are all speculative because they are all contained in the order of ideas, although they do indeed regulate practice, that is, real actions. Practice, however, is action itself, and once accepted as such gives the lie to its use in any description of moral teaching.
Notes
(5) PE, 191.
(6) Preface to the Works of Moral Philosophy, [PE, 1 ss.].
(7) It is worthwhile examining the use made of the word practical by our classical writers, who consistently employ it in its exact sense. Villani and others use it as the opposite of knowledge, reason, and speculation. 'Great people, wise in thought and practice' (Villani, bk. 10, 50); 'Understanding is a true gift when it is related both to thought and practice' (Man. Dictionary 30); 'Practice and age teach a great deal' (Alammani, Gir., 22, 80). Essays on Natural Experiences states: 'The rule for making them is acquired only through practice.' In all these examples the word practice is used in its first, proper meaning. It is then used to indicate 'the habit of action acquired through action itself, and therefore a principle of action.' Berni used it with this meaning: 'His people, prompt, ready and practical, tempered in fact and in war' (Orl., II, 1, 47). Finally, the word is used, with less propriety, about knowledge related to action. But we have to notice that practical knowledge, strictly speaking, entails a contradiction. We would be speaking of knowledge-not-knowledge, knowledge-action. We have to interpret the expression, practical knowledge, therefore, as a convenient abbreviation employed in everyday language. We speak of 'practical knowledge' instead of 'knowledge that teaches how practice should be carried out.'
(8) Summa summae etc., t. 1, De actibus humanis, Diss. 5, art. 1.
(9) The supreme law of morality has been established in PE, and in Storia comparativa e critica de' sistemi intorno al principio della morale [cf. fn. 1].