Rosmini’s Theory
of Ethics:
Some Considerations
4 The Idea of
Being as the
Principle of Ethics
Before continuing our investigation into the moral law let us summarise what we have found so far:
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1. The idea of being is the supreme rule of all the judgements made by the human mind. |
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2. So the idea of being is the supreme rule of moral judgements and as such is the first and most universal of all laws. |
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3. This law can be expressed as: follow the light of reason. This is the most embracing of the declarations found in ethics. |
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4. Because the idea of being is the rule of all judgements, including moral judgements, it is a principle common to many branches of knowledge. |
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5. Because being and good are the same thing, the notion of being is also the notion of good and in a special way the principle of all branches of knowledge concerned with what is good. |
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6. The idea of being is the principle of eudaimonology, i.e. the science of human subjective good or happiness. |
We must now see how the idea of being serves as the moral law. How can ‘being’ used in a practical way enable us to differentiate between what is just from what is unjust, what is right from what is wrong? We have talked about good in general but what is moral good? It is obvious that judgements about moral good require first the notion of good in general. We then restrict this notion to consider it as the principle of ethics, the special kind of good with which ethics is concerned.
§1. Subjective and Objective Good
Objective good is good as far as it is perceived objectively, that is, in so far as it becomes the object of knowledge. Through our understanding we can know everything to which the notion of good extends just as we know everything to which the notion of being extends. These are concepts. Knowledge does not entail possession of what is good it simply provides the notion of good as a basis of reason. On the other hand, bodily feeling (sense) perceives good without perceiving the reason for what is good. It perceives and enjoys a particular subjective good. This explains the great attraction which we have for subjective goods, enjoyment and pleasure. These attract the will to approve them sometimes in opposition to the moral good which we know to be right and which demands the sacrifice of subjective good.
This difference between subjective and objective good is crucial to Rosmini’s theory of morality. The pursuit of subjective good is not moral and in pursuing what might be good for my nature I can trample on the rights of others. When David conceived a passion for Bathsheba he was willing to kill in order to marry her. When he came to his senses and weighed what he had done in the light of objective, moral good, he repented because he saw the disorder for which he was responsible. He had violated the rights of Bathsheba and Uriah and damaged his own personal integrity. This led to repentance (2 Sam 11–12).
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Subjective Good |
Objective Good |
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Feelable good which is good to the subject uniting it to itself and feeling it. It has its origin in sense. A subject searching for its own good, to perfect its nature, does nothing moral. It obeys its own instinct for pleasure and happiness. It pays no attention to other beings with the same rights as, or greater rights than, itself. So in the pursuit of personal satisfaction irrespective of objective good the rights of others can be trampled on, and often are. It is self-love. |
Intelligible good is intuited by the mind as the object of thought. It is considered as it is in itself irrespective of the thinking subject. Even subjective good considered by the mind is considered objectively; some things are good for me and some are not. The intelligence measures the good of each thing disinterestedly, not egotistically. Moral good can only be found in objective good. The morally good person loves good for its own sake wherever they find it. |
The morally good person loves good for its own sake and measures being and good objectively. The morally good act has objective good as its term. Ethics can never be based on pleasure and self interest. To do this would be to confuse ethics, which deals with duty and obligation towards an object considered by the intelligence, and eudaimonology, which has the subject as its foundation and deals with happiness. These are two opposite non-identifiable branches of knowledge.
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The moral law: follow the light of reason is equivalent to love all beings. The light of reason presents them so that we may love them, showing us what is good in every being. |
Moral good only becomes such when desired by the will. Speculative knowledge of good does not render it moral. The person must will the good that she/he knows speculatively. The will is the power by which people become the authors of their own actions otherwise they can remain mere spectators. The will is the active power of the intelligence. Moral good consists in the relationship between objective good and the will. We cannot be morally good if we are not the authors of our own actions.
Summary
1. Good and being are the same.
2. Being possesses an intrinsic order in its composition; being appears
to the mind as good as soon as the mind considers it in its intrinsic, essential
order.
3. Consequently, good is fitting to every nature and harmonises with the interior
order of each being.
4. The forces constituting each nature tend unceasingly to this good.
5. The understanding approves naturally of this good because it tends towards
its object, being, which is the origin of this order. The understanding tends
to contemplate this harmony between things and their nature.
6. When desired by the will this good takes on the name of moral good. Moral
good consists in the relationship between objective good and the will.
§3. Moral Good and the Order of Being
The principle of ethics can now be stated more precisely as:
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Desire or love being, wherever you know it, in the order or degree in which it presents it to your intelligence |
The understanding knows the order of being with the act by which it knows being. This is the same as saying, being as it is. As we have said, the order of being is gleaned from observation and experience aided by reflection on the objects contemplated by the mind.
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There is no doubt that the intelligence weighs and measures the different degrees of being (wherever being is) in the act by which it perceives being. In the same way the intelligence weighs and measures different degrees of good and consequently orders all good for itself according to merit distinguishing the greater from the lesser and giving the former priority. This is the meaning of ‘to determine the order of being.(46) |
For example it is clear to the intelligence that the lowest form of being is that without feeling because it does not exist to itself and lacks the mode of being which is possessed by a feeling being. So a fly is superior in being to a table. Again the intelligence sees that a merely sentient being, even a sophisticated one such as an ape, is unknown to itself, and consequently nothing in the order of knowledge. The intellective being knows that it exists and feels.(47)
The goodness of the will depends upon the dignity of the being as loved and the intensity with which the will loves it. Conversely intelligent beings can hate other beings. The degree of this depravity depends on the dignity of the being hated and the intensity of the will’s hate. Hatred of God is the ultimate sin and manifests the greatest depravity of will in the human being. The quantity of being as loved or hated and the quantity of intensity of the love or hatred are the two elements necessary for judging the morality of the will.
The examples so far given are very general ones but the intelligence soon formulates norms which apply to more particular cases. It is evident, for instance, that if there is a collision between the good of two beings, the greater being must be loved in preference to the lesser, that is, the greater good must be preferred. This was well expressed by St. Thomas More before his execution when his conscience would not allow him to take the Oath of Supremacy: ‘I am the king’s good servant but God’s first.’ To love the lesser good is an illusion of love and not true love at all. It is tantamount to the desire and attainment of moral evil. This happens whenever we sin. We prefer a lesser good which is against the order of being; the order of good, as expressed in a moral norm, which has been derived from the law laid down by the God.
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For instance, if I kill someone to obtain his money I prefer my own subjective pleasure over the other’s life. In preferring a lesser good I offend against the moral laws, ‘Thou shalt not kill’ and ‘Thou shalt not steal’. |
Non-intelligent beings have existence relative to intelligent beings only for whom they serve as means. So it is impossible for love in intelligent beings to be directed towards or to be fulfilled in non-intelligent beings.(48) Intelligent beings possess a certain infinite dignity raising them above irrational beings. This enables them alone to be considered as ends. The personality of intelligent beings is constituted by this conceptual relationship with end which is proper to them. Acts of the will which follow on acts of the intellect view as ends only those beings possessing the light of being. It is therefore immoral to prefer one’s pet dog over one’s neighbour though one might object to uncharitable actions which injure one’s animal. One must question the actions of pet owners who spend an inordinate amount of money on animals when human beings are starving, or who leave money in their wills to animals without any real justification. It is immoral to campaign for animal rights as only intelligent beings have rights. It is even worse to risk life to obtain this end. There might be justification in campaigning for respect for God’s Creation. But to endow non intelligent and non sensitive beings with rights and to try to elevate them into an order of being which they manifestly lack, is to ignore the order of being. Often the objections raised refer to animals being used as a means in the advancement of technology. Using animals as a means to an end is not contrary to the order of being. Abuse of animals lies in the disordered will of human beings sometimes prone to cruelty or disregard of the due order of being and therefore of their duties towards God’s gifts. We injure our own dignity.
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The Dignity of the Human BeingFurther Considerations The source of the dignity in intelligent beings is universal being present to rational natures and enlightening them with its own spark of divine fire… The presence of this idea in human beings produces an extraordinary paradox in nature, causing us to marvel at the obvious limitations and the infinite greatness found in the human being who is indeed formed of finite and infinite elements that alone explain the essential struggle in which human nature is perpetually involved. Seen from the point of view of man-as-subject, there is nothing weaker or more miserable than human nature; seen from the point of view of being-as-object, there is nothing greater or more noble than human nature whose intellect beholds in being its essential light from which it receives the intellectual vision of the intelligible, essential notion common to all that the subject understands. Moreover, only the absolute itself can be that universal being which activates thought — not however in the state of possibility in which it now presents itself to the human mind, but in the state of perfect actuality, as it would be if the mind were to see being no longer in its initial state, as it does now, but in its subsistence as final term. Then the intellect would be perfectly replete, enraptured and enthralled: it would see God.(49) |
Our human dignity which makes us
superior to the entire feelable universe arises from absolute infinite being
towards which we, intelligent subjects, are ordered.
When we love this better part of human nature, being is loved, and loved completely
in its order, as we reach out to the very source of order, and towards the being
in which and through which all beings are and remain. The dignity of moral good
arises from the fact that moral legislation begins with being seen
by the mind, the fulfilment and actuation of which is absolute being, God
himself. Morally good acts in practice begin in intelligent beings and terminate
in intelligent beings. Every moral act, in order to be such, must be an act
of love having as its term an intelligent being.
The light of being, rendering us intelligent, longs to complete itself in us by revealing its subsistence, its majesty as God. Everything must be loved relatively to this term beyond which nothing exists and in which the longing of the will is consummated. Only in this way does the will love being as it is. All other beings are loved relative to this first essential being.
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Expressions of Moral Legislation — a Summary 1. The first expression was:
‘Follow the light of reason’. |
Notes
(46) Op. cit., n. 96.
(47) It is worth noting here that the actions of animals, no matter how intelligent looking they are, result from instinctive behaviour. Animals can be taught to do various things but they are dependent on their teachers and it is obvious that the patterns of behaviour are of a different order to intelligent beings. ‘My dog is very intelligent’ really means ‘My dog’s instincts are highly organised’. Pavlov understood this with his own experiments. Cf. A. Rosmini, Anthropology as an Aid to Moral Science, Translated by Denis Cleary and Terence Watson, Rosmini House Durham, 1991, nn. 416 ff. ‘As human beings, we use our intelligence to carry out many of the activities done by animals without intelligence. Hence, we can scarcely conceive mentally of a being entirely enclosed within the limitations of corporeal feeling and the instinctive activity which is the spontaneous effect of feeling’ (n. 417).
(48) Often we direct our love to animals but we know that this is ‘make believe’. We use them as objects of pleasure for ourselves. Sometimes we endow them with human characteristics. ‘He knows when he’s hungry.’ ‘My dog is very intelligent’, and so on. We even talk to them knowing that they can’t understand us or talk back! The highly organised instincts of some animals are mistaken for human intelligence.
(49) Principles of Ethics, nn. 103-4.