Excerpt: ...conceptions of well-being and welfare are not fixed, but that our ideas of the nature and proper proportions of their constituents are undergoing constant modification and growth, I may ask if this is less the case with regard to happiness, or the sum of pleasures, or the balance of pleasures over pains, or the perfection or due development of human character, all of which expressions, indeed, when properly qualified and explained, I acknowledge to be the equivalents of those for which I have stated a preference ...
Read More
Excerpt: ...conceptions of well-being and welfare are not fixed, but that our ideas of the nature and proper proportions of their constituents are undergoing constant modification and growth, I may ask if this is less the case with regard to happiness, or the sum of pleasures, or the balance of pleasures over pains, or the perfection or due development of human character, all of which expressions, indeed, when properly qualified and explained, I acknowledge to be the equivalents of those for which I have stated a preference. And here occurs a difficulty with respect to all these expressions and ideas. If their meaning or content is not fixed, and specially if they are undergoing a constant change, in the way of growth, with the progress of reason and society, how can we employ them as a test of morality, which is itself also a variable conception? Surely this is to make one indefinite idea the gauge of another indefinite idea. The answer to this question will, I trust, bring out clearly the nature of a moral test, as well as the different modes of its application. The ultimate origin of moral rules, I conceive, so far at least as science can trace them, is to be found in the effort of men to adapt themselves to the circumstances, social and physical, in which they are placed. At first, probably, this process of adaptation was almost automatic and unconscious, but, when men once began consciously to adapt means to ends, they would soon begin to reflect on their acts, and to ask themselves the reasons why they had selected this course of conduct rather than another. The justifying reasons of their past acts, like the impelling motives of their future acts, could have reference to nothing but the convenience or gratification of themselves or those amongst whom they lived. And the acts which they justified in themselves they would approve of in others. Here, then, already we have a test consciously applied to the estimation of conduct. Experience shews that this...
Read Less
Add this copy of Progressive Morality to cart. $6.41, new condition, Sold by Ingram Customer Returns Center rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from NV, USA, published 2015 by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform.
Add this copy of Progressive Morality to cart. $11.13, new condition, Sold by Ingram Customer Returns Center rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from NV, USA, published 2010 by Book Jungle.
Add this copy of Progressive Morality to cart. $18.10, new condition, Sold by Ingram Customer Returns Center rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from NV, USA, published 2011 by Tredition Classics.
Add this copy of Progressive Morality to cart. $24.30, good condition, Sold by Bonita rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Newport Coast, CA, UNITED STATES, published 2015 by CreateSpace Independent Publis.
Add this copy of Progressive Morality to cart. $36.22, good condition, Sold by Bonita rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Newport Coast, CA, UNITED STATES, published 2010 by Book Jungle.
Add this copy of Progressive Morality: an Essay in Ethics to cart. $45.62, good condition, Sold by Bonita rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Newport Coast, CA, UNITED STATES, published 2007 by BiblioBazaar.
Add this copy of Progressive Morality to cart. $46.25, good condition, Sold by Bonita rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Newport Coast, CA, UNITED STATES, published 2011 by Tredition Classics.
Add this copy of Progressive Morality: an Essay in Ethics to cart. $46.96, good condition, Sold by Bonita rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Newport Coast, CA, UNITED STATES, published 2007 by BiblioBazaar.
