Rosmini’s Theory of Ethics:

Some Considerations

Introduction

In 1831 Rosmini published his first great work of Moral Philosophy entitled Principles of Moral Science now translated into English as Principles of Ethics.(19)
Ethics is concerned with how we act and its purpose is to make us good human beings. After all we are intelligent beings and have a free will. We have power over our actions and our own perfection depends on what we do with them. When our will is good the human person is good.

But the moral teaching which guides us is governed by principles which have a value independent of the person guided by them and independent of any moral teacher. This is a fact at the very heart of Rosmini’s theory. We know only too well what harm can and has been done by self-styled teachers who have propounded their own flawed theories to the detriment of their followers. For instance contemporary mass suicides are the ultimate expression of an erroneous way of life, where people have been led astray by so-called gurus who have inflicted their own subjective principles on others. These principles have arisen out of fabricated theories which are not based on moral truth.

The purpose of Ethics is to make human beings good; there are other rules which will govern whether people are good in their own sphere of activities. For instance, a person might be a good painter, or a good footballer. But one can be a good painter or a good footballer without being a good human being. Caravaggio appears to have been a quite violent man and was a murderer but he was a great painter! In other words his actions were good within the norms of a painter but not in themselves as human actions. The actions of human beings are good when they are governed by what is upright and just. Moral good extends to all human actions and not just relatively to certain activities which are judged good according to their results.

Rosmini defines Ethics as

It is evident that of the norms which should govern our actions some norms will be more generic than others, and that from generic norms specific norms will follow. The most general moral formula is, ‘Do what is morally good, and avoid moral evil.’ This comprises the whole of ethics. A specific application of this norm would be, ‘You shall not harm your neighbour’ and an even more specific norm still would be, ‘You shall not kill.’ If I am asked why I shouldn’t kill my neighbour I can give as the reason that I would harm him and if asked why I shouldn’t harm him I can only answer that it would be morally bad.
All laws, then, are reduced to a universal law from which they all descend and which explains them and their necessity.

Notes

(19) Translated by D.Cleary and T.Watson, Leominster, 1988.

(20) Principles of Ethics, Preface, n. 11.