REMARKS ON THK PREDICATES OF MORAL JUDGMENTS. 197 mental quality like courage, which derives all its morality from the end it serves. A brave brigand certainly pos- sesses the virtue of courage. At the same time we refuse to call his brave conduct virtuous which shows that the adjective " virtuous " is more discriminating than the sub- stantive from which it is derived. Attempts have been made to reconcile the Aristotelian and the Kantian views of the relation between virtue and effort by saying that virtue is the harmony won and merit is the winning of it. 1 This presupposes that the man to whom virtue is natural has had his fights. But, to be sure, it is not always so. Who could affirm that every temperate or charitable or just man has acquired the virtue only as a result of inward struggle ? There are people to whom some virtues at least are natural from the beginning, and others who acquire them with a minimum of effort. There has been much discussion about the relation between virtue and duty. It has been said that " they are co-exten- sive, the former describing conduct by the quality of the agent's mind, the latter by the nature of the act performed," 2 or that virtue, in its proper sense, is " the quality of character that fits for the discharge of duty," and that it " only lives in the performance of duty". 3 At the same time it is admitted that " the distinctive mark of virtue seems to lie in what is beyond duty," and that "though every virtue is a duty, and every duty a virtue, there are certain actions to which it is more natural to apply the term virtuous ". 4 Prof. Sidgwick, again, in his elaborate chapter on " Virtue and Duty," remarks that he has " thought it best to employ the terms so that virtuous conduct may include the performance of duty as well as whatever good actions may be commonly thought to go beyond duty ; though recognising that Virtue in its ordinary use is most con- spicuously manifested in the latter ". 5 It can be no matter of surprise that those who regard the notion of " duty " as unanalysable, or who fail to recognise its true import, are embarrassed by its relation to virtue. We do not call it a virtue if a man habitually abstains from killing or robbing, or pays his debts, or performs a great 1 Dewey, The Study of Ethics, p. 133 sq. ; Siinmel, Einleitung in die Moralwissenschaft, vol. i., p. 228 ; cf. also Shaftesbury, An Inquiry concerning Virtue and Merit, bk. i., pt. ii., 4. 2 Alexander, loc. cit. p. 244. 3 Muirhead, The Elements of Ethics, p. 190, note *. 4 Alexander, loc. cit., p. 243 sq. 5 Sidgwick, loc. cit., p. 221 sq.
Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 9.djvu/211
This page needs to be proofread.
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikisource/en/thumb/0/06/Mind_%28New_Series%29_Volume_9.djvu/page211-1024px-Mind_%28New_Series%29_Volume_9.djvu.jpg)