Preface to the
Works of Moral Philosophy

1. In this preface I want to offer an ordered description of the nature of moral sciences, of the sphere within which they are to be found, and of their natural division. First, the nature of moral sciences.

Because human beings are cognitive and active, human life is concerned with theory and practice.(1) The same cannot be said, strictly speaking, about philosophy which is never action but always consideration, whatever the subject under consideration. Philosophy is entirely and essentially theoretical. Nevertheless, because it deals with action or practice we have become accustomed to speaking about practical philosophy instead of the theory of practice.

This kind of linguistic shorthand, however, is dangerous. It would be far better - and it is extremely important, generally speaking - to use a longer, more exact phrase, which safeguards the genuine meaning of words, than to lay ourselves open to error by preferring misleading brevity to clarity.

We shall not follow the usual practice therefore of separating theoretical from practical philosophy, but consider philosophy as two theories, one concerned with how beings exist and act, and the other with ourselves and the way in which we have to act.

2. These two great divisons of philosophical teaching are not formally distinguished. Their difference does not lie in their mode of being because both are meditative; they differ only in the objects they contemplate. Moreover, they employ the same faculty, whatever they contemplate (despite Kant's endeavour to distinguish the power(2) of theoretical reason from that of practical reason). The contemplative faculty is a single faculty of knowledge applied to different objects.

On what basis is philosophy divided into the two theories we have described?

As we have seen, all things which become objects of thought can be considered under two aspects, that is, either as they are or as they have to be. This appears the most obvious division of philosophy, but it is not yet that for which we are searching. What we call ''the theory of practice' does not determine how all things must be, but only how human actions have to be.

This is not an arbitrary restriction. In the last analysis, philosophy is for human beings, and it is reasonable that its divisions should be accommodated to human beings, provided always that truth is safeguarded.

3. We must note that our mind not only knows, up to a certain point, what beings are and how they act, but also judges with certainty, or on the basis of probable opinion, how they have to be and act. Very often, however, it is not in our power to make beings be or act as we judge they should; we can only consider what they have to be or do. But there are some things which we can make what we know they have to be. Such are our own actions, and our perfection depends upon what we do about them.

It is necessary and useful, therefore, that philosophy should have a separate section for those actions whose form we can determine, and on which our perfection depends. This division of philosophy will be dedicated to human beings,(3) and will be cut off from the great body of philosophical teaching. It will include neither theory about beings and their de facto activity, nor theory about how beings over which we have no influence have to be and act in order to be perfect. In a word, we exclude from this special section whatever illuminates our intellect without directing our life. We concentrate instead on whatever relates to the rule governing the actions of which we are authors and rulers. This rule serves as a guide directing our steps in our journey through life.

4. The reason for separating ethics from the rest of philosophy also throws light on the nature of this part of human learning. Ethics is not only theory about practice in general; it is concerned with how we ourselves act, and hence very different from teaching concerned with perfection in things over which we have no power. For example, I may research the elements necessary to perfection in animals, but this kind of knowledge will not be of much practical use to me. Animals depend upon nature for their perfection, not on me. The perfection of things in nature could constitute a theory about the activity of the supreme being, the author of nature; it can be related to his art and his praxis; but it will not regulate my own activities.

Moreover, it is not sufficient to accurately separate moral teaching from the other philosophical sciences and from all the other theories of activity;(4) it is not sufficient to assign moral philosophy its own sphere and delineate its limits. If an activity or art is a habit of acting according to certain norms for the sake of achieving an end, every art belongs to practice and is practice; every science, on the contrary, is theory. But the theory of every activity can be investigated and in this way coincides with moral teaching as a theory of practice and of human practice when human activity is in question. And all activity, of course, in so far as it is exercised by human beings, lies within human power. The theory of painting, of sculpture, and of every cultural and technical activity serves, in fact, as a guide to human actions. How then can ethics be the sole guide of these actions, and how does it differ in its application from other sciences concerned with activities proper to human beings?

5. The difference between ethics and other guides to human action is immense, and provides completes justification for the claim that ethics is the sole guide and regulator of human actions. It is, of course, true that the rules of painting, architecture and other activities have to be followed by those wishing to be good painters, good architects and in general good artists, but they do not have to be followed by those who wish to be good humans. What makes a painter good, and what makes a human being good are obviously different. An excellent painter can be a bad man or woman, and a good man or woman can be a bad painter. The purpose of ethics, however, is to make human beings good; the science of painting is directed to forming good painters. Human beings are good when their actions are good and as such governed by what is upright and just. The painter is good as painter not when his actions are good in themselves as human actions, but when some of his actions, his painting actions, are good relative only to painting walls or canvases and so on.

6. The differences, therefore, between morality and the human activities we have mentioned can be listed as follows: 1st, morality renders human actions good; other activities only render human actions suitable for obtaining some effect - a statue, a machine, something manufactured - exterior to human beings. What is good about these actions is not found in the actions themselves, but in what has been produced and relative to what has been produced. 2nd, morality makes actions good in so far as they are human (their intended goodness); other activities make actions good relative to the effect they produce and to the effort made to produce them, not relative to the final intention for which the acts are done. 3rd, moral good consequently extends to all human actions, and is essentially the same in them all. But good relative to certain activities is extended only to the single complexes of actions making up the different activities, in each of which the goodness or rather the suitability of the actions differs according to the object of the art.

7. What has been said helps to clarify the intimate nature of the moral sciences. At the same time, it prompts a clearer understanding of the limits proper to these sciences. As we have seen, ethics has a special place in the great body of philosophical learning. Its supreme importance and dignity lies in its capacity for teaching how to make human actions and their authors good. This is all-important. If we ourselves are evil, the goodness of other things, including our possessions, is irrelevant. This is why the study of morality has a special position as the greatest and ultimate branch of learning. Infinite knowledge is useless if finally it does not help us improve ourselves.

Thinking is only the first step to action. We do not improve as a result of simple contemplation, but as a consequence of willing activity. The will is the apex of the human person; when the will is good, the human person is good. But if sciences and activities improve the human person only in so far as they improve the will, and if learning is of supreme importance to human beings relative to the improvement of the will alone, a distinction must be made between the sciences and activities that assist human perfection only indirectly and remotely, and the uniquely noble science that indicates the norms of voluntary activity which, in perfecting the good will, make us good and perfect.

8. However, the exact outline of ethics can be determined still further. There is no doubt that goodness and human perfection are the sole good of human beings; there can be no good for human beings which does not leave them better than they were. It is also certain that the actuation of human perfection depends upon the observance of the norms discovered by ethical science, the definition of which includes human perfectibility. Nevertheless, a problem arises. Do the norms which improve and perfect human beings have a value independently of human beings? A careful examination of this important and difficult question leads to the conclusion that the need to obey upright and just norms does not spring from the realisation that we perfect ourselves in this way. Human perfection is the effect of obedience, not its reason. The obligation we have of conforming to the requirements of uprightness and justice is simple, immediate and absolute; it is independent of any consideration about the effects of such conformity in the person who acts; it is an authority whose very presence reveals the rule of uprightness. Of itself, this rule requires the highest reverence that cannot be gainsaid whatever the outcome. We have to conclude therefore (to our surprise, perhaps) that what can be taught about human perfection as the effect of virtue, differs from moral teaching. The latter is authoritative and powerful in its own right, and strictly independent of human perfection to which it communicates its own splendour. Hence the origin of two distinct, but closely related sciences: ethics, and the science of human perfection.

9. The sciences of human perfection and eudaimonology (the science of human happiness) are practically speaking the same thing. When analysed, human happiness and human perfection more or less coincide. It will not be necessary for me to distinguish them. For the moment I can speak of them indifferently. But I do have to describe briefly the general elements of the science of human perfection which either already form the basis of special sciences or are sure to do so in the future.

Human perfection can be considered in individuals or in society. In both cases, the fundamental problems are: 1st, what is the concept (nature) of human perfection? 2nd, what are the means for achieving human perfection, and what are the degrees by which it is approached and reached? Research into these problems gives rise to the following sciences (besides ethics which deals with the cause of human perfection).

It is clear from our description of these sciences that the art of promoting perfection in others is threefold because it is concerned either with single individuals, or individuals united in family society, or individuals as members of civic society. Domestic society and political society would of course be non-existent if there were not two methods for the progressive improvement and advantage of their members. Without these methods, government of the family and the state would be aimless and vain.

All these sciences, therefore, must be distinguished from ethics. Special attention must be given to this distinction in the case of the sciences closest to ethics and most like it because ethics, with its absolute exigency, has its own place superior to every other branch of philosophy. Its object is not humanity or some other limited nature, but eternal, unshakeable truths requiring unconditional respect and obedience. Such truths are independent of reasons extrinsic to themselves; the respect we owe them is based upon a simple, irrefutable, evident reason shining in them and impervious to exceptions, ignorance, contradiction and violence of any sort.

10. Nevertheless, ethics is still confused with the other sciences we have mentioned, especially with eudaimonology. In modern times sensism, after invading European culture, has ensured the substitution of ethics by eudaimonology, and it would be useful to see how this has come about. To do this adequately we would have to refer to the theory of beings as they are. Ethics is a corollary of this theory, and dependent upon it in such a way that every ethical error has its corresponding mistake in the theory. An examination of the history of ethics, however, will be sufficient to illustrate how the eudaimonological sciences have invaded and overrun the territory of moral science.

Francesco Maria Zanotti's Moral Philosophy according to the Peripatetics - a Compendium was fairly well known in Italy during the last century when the complete absorption of morals by eudaimonology was underway. The book gives us a clear idea of what was taking place, and how the same process had already been effected in classical Greek philosophy. Aristotle is to Epicurus as Zanotti is to Gioia.

Zanotti first presents happiness as the final end of human beings, and attempts to prove that it consists in an amalgam of pleasure, virtue and contemplation, that is, an amalgam of what is good and proper to human nature. We may note in passing that here the concept of virtue is still distinct from that of happiness. According to Zanotti, happiness is the end, and virtue one means amongst several of attaining happiness. As it stands, eudaimonology has not yet absorbed ethics entirely, but it is easy to see that the two sciences are about to be confused. If ethics has virtue for its object, why use happiness as a starting point and describe happiness at such length? The first words of the book show that the true subject of the work has already been lost to sight. This is inevitable if virtue is simply a means to happiness. In this case, it cannot have an absolute, but only a relative value, and indeed only a relative existence. Even here, however, there is an obvious contradiction: virtue could not be a means to happiness if it were not first something in itself. Nothing cannot be a means to anything. Ethics must first tell us what virtue is in itself, and then show how it is a means to human happiness. Zanotti, however, follows Aristotle by immediately asserting that virtue is a means to happiness, while neglecting to investigate the meaning of virtue in itself. In a word he ignores the essential question of ethics: ''What is virtue in itself?' And ethics, after all, is the science which has virtue as its subject.

When philosophical schools have gone so far as to forget the essential question of ethics and consider virtue only as relative to happiness and as a means to happiness, we can be sure that moral science is near collapse. In forgetting the essence of virtue, human ingenuity is preparing itself for an immediate denial of this essence. It is easy to move from: ''Virtue is a means to happiness' to ''Virtue is only the means to happiness'. The first formula obliterates virtue, the second denies its existence. Happiness alone, and the means to happiness, are the sole elements of ethics when philosophy reaches final corruption; eudaimonology has eliminated ethics.

11. Having considered the genuine nature and limits of ethics, we must now examine briefly its natural division.

This division must be deduced and justified, not simply asserted. We must therefore analyse the nature and definition of our science, using what has already been said about the quality and sphere of ethics to discover its correct division and order.

We have defined ethics as: ''the science that brings together in orderly fashion the norms according to which human actions have to be regulated, and that illustrates the relationship between these actions and their norms.' But human actions are present to the mind either in their individual existence, furnished with their own factual circumstances, or classified in species and more or less restricted genera. Moral norms, therefore, need to correspond to individual, realised actions or to classified actions. In this way, generic norms will regulate generic classes of action, specific norms specific classes, and particular norms will forbid or permit particular, real actions. Ethics, defined as the science ''bringing together moral laws or norms', will naturally be set out in such a way that more general rules covering all actions come first, to be followed by laws restricted to lesser complexes of actions, and finally by rules of conduct for particular cases. In addition, there must be a common form for all moral norms, whatever their extension. In other words, because they are moral, these norms must indicate and prescribe what is morally good in all actions.

Moral formulas, therefore, can be brought together under one heading, whatever aspect they present, because they are determined by the end to which they all tend. This heading is a supreme formula: ''Do what is morally good, and avoid moral evil.' This comprises the whole of ethics which has no other aim in all its formulas and laws than promoting moral good and forbidding moral evil.

Prior to all norms and laws, therefore, whatever their extension, we find a universal principle from which lesser expressions of law are deduced as applications and consequences of the first principle. For instance, when I say: ''Do not harm your neighbour', I am stating an application or consequence of the universal law, ''Flee moral evil'. Moreover, this universal norm is the reason underlying all its consequences and applications. If I am asked why I should not harm my neighbour, I can only answer: ''Because it is morally bad to do so.' On the other hand, if I am asked why I should avoid moral evil, only an explanation of the meaning of moral evil will show that such evil is to be avoided.

All laws, therefore, are reduced to the universal norm from which they descend, which evidently explains them, and which clearly indicates their necessity. Reasoning about this final, universal law has only a single aim: to state the essence of morality (the nature of moral good and evil). As soon as this essence has been known and considered, that is, as soon as the meaning of moral good and evil has been grasped, the force of obligation, present in the whole of moral legislation, makes itself felt. Ethics exists simply to manifest moral good which of itself is clearly authoritative.

Ethics has to begin, therefore, by clearly stating the elements that constitute the essence of morality. Until this has been achieved, the deduction of moral laws and norms is impossible. They would be blind, gratuitous assertions, without the backing of the clear authority and necessity present in the good they seek to prescribe for human activity. The essence of morality, considered reflectively by human beings and clearly enunciated, is therefore what we call the principle of ethicsÂ

It follows that the first, natural division in moral science is between pure and applied ethics. Pure ethics considers the moral principle and all the conditions of its application; applied ethics actually applies the law to different complexes of human actions, and deduces the various categories of moral norms.

12. Each of these two main branches of ethics is subdivided into the following principal subdivisions.

Pure ethics obviously has three parts, each concerned with a matter of great importance. The first deals with the principle of ethics, the source of obligation and the origin of laws;(5) the second with the condition of the subject to whom the principle must be applied; the third with the manner of applying the principle. If we wished to distinguish them by name, they could be called: pure nomology, moral anthropology and moral logic.

It is clear that all three parts are equally essential to pure ethics. The first establishes the supreme law which, however, remains sterile until applied to human beings, for whom ethics is intended. But this cannot be achieved without some knowledge of human beings as subjects of moral good and evil. There can be no development of the law without knowledge of the conditions in which it is to be applied nor without knowledge of human beings as subjects of obligation in their meritorious or demeritorious relationship with moral good and evil. Finally, we need moral logic in order to avoid error when we deduce other laws from the supreme law, and to clarify rules enabling us to reason correctly in applying the principle of ethics to the human subject, especially in difficult situations.

The works that we are publishing in this collection will cover these three areas of pure ethics. Principles of Ethics and An Anthropology in Aid of Moral Science are dedicated respectively to nomology and moral anthropology; Conscience, which deals with a very intricate question confused by incessant controversy, is of supreme importance for a good life and forms the principal part of moral logic.

13. In applied ethics, which deduces moral laws in their order of generality from the highest to the most particular, subdivisions depend upon the consideration of laws in themselves or in the subject in whom their force is manifest when he obeys or neglects them. The primary subdivision of applied ethics, therefore, should be concerned with the formation of moral laws or formulas (in themselves), on the one hand, and with the execution of moral laws or formulas (in the subject), on the other. These are two convenient titles to which all moral matters may be reduced.(6)

14. The general divisions of ethics, therefore, may be set out as follows:

I

Pure Ethics

Part 1. Pure nomology which considers the supreme law or principle of ethics.

Part 2. Moral anthropology which considers the human, moral subject in the natural order.

Part 3. Moral logic which considers about the manner of applying the moral principle to the moral subject without danger of error, and about the way to deduce lesser laws and formulas.

II

Applied ethics

.Notes

 (1) Theory is a Greek word meaning contemplation or teaching (from theoreo); practice also is a Greek word (from prasso) meaning action. Human life is made up of teaching and action, and philosophy is a species of teaching, not of action. The phrase practical philosophy, cannot, therefore, be taken to mean that philosophy is active (although that would seem to be its meaning); it can only refer to that part of teaching which deals with action in human life. This is more important than may appear at first sight.

(2) See my observations on Kant's distinction between theoretical and practical reason in Opusculi filosofici (vol. 1, p. 106, Milan 1827. It should be noted, however, that I accept an essential distinction between theoretical and practical reason (although what I call practical reason has no connection with Kant's practical reason). It is not the source of any part of philosophy, but the source (the efficient cause) of human actions themselves. Understood in this way, the distinction is of the greatest importance, although generally overlooked by philosophers (cf. Principles of Ethics, 186, 187)

(3) This does not mean that the foundations of morality are not common to all intelligent beings, but that ethics encompasses more than the fundamental elements of morals. It applies these elements to human activity; it adapts them for human use.

(4) Scientific ethics is also the theory of an activity, that is, of the art of right living.

(5) The moral principle or supreme law cannot be considered in isolation. It must be seen in its essential relationship with the subject (the human being) which, when acting, either conforms to it or turns away from it. In itself the moral principle is the essential law, the possibility of moral good or evil; in the subject, the moral principle is moral good or evil itself. Ethics, therefore, requires two sections, one dealing with the supreme moral law, the other with the moral good or evil present in the subject as a result of observance or non-observance of the law.

(6) The study of moral habits, e.g. the study of virtues and vices, has its place in the second part of applied ethics which considers laws or moral formulas in the subject who carries them out.