Abstract

It would surely have been better to entitle this work ‘Reflexions on ethical theories’, for it cannot in any true sense of the word be called a study, a scientific study which entails detailed analysis and positive criticism. In fact Professor Mackinnon presents us with a series of considerations, highly personal and at times indeed penetrating and instructive, on the moral theories of certain British and continental philosophers—of the 19th century utilitarians ; of Kant, Hegel and their followers; of the theologianphilosopher bishop of Durham, Joseph Butler; of Russell, Moore and others. The impression left on one after a careful perusal of the work is that it is no more than an agglomeration of ‘mights’ and ‘perhaps’, never a clear–cut judgment. The chief general defect of the book and the cause of much obscurity is certainly this: the absence of any welldefined distinction between exposé and critique. As often as not one does not know what the opinion of the author is as distinct from his interpretation of the authors he is studying. This defect would seem to be characteristic of a great part of the ethical writing produced by the Scottish and British schools, when they do not reduce ethical theory to anything better than semasiology, to a study of ethical language or linguistic usage. Prof. Mackinnon has certainly not freed himself from the ‘present confused state of moral philosophy in this country’, which he so rightly condemns. I had thought that all philosophers, of whatever ilk, were agreed that ethical science or moral philosophy was nothing more than the study of the human being on its way towards completeness in human being, from an initial embryonic stage, as it were, to the full flowering of human perfection, manifested in perfect human being and perfect human life—a journey or precess directed and controlled by the human subject itself, fully conscious of the end to be achieved and conscious too of the steps or means towards it. I would have thought too that if we are to set up moral science as distinct from mere semasiology, or from psychology, biology, zoology or botany, then all were agreed that we have to do with the domain of free activity, of voluntary conscious activity, which obviously brings with it the order of responsibility and willed subjection to a given objective order of things, that is, of human nature itself and human perfection. I would have taken for granted too that one could study all this field of the free development of the human being towards its ultimate perfection either with a view to the acquisition of knowledge and nothing more, or precisely with a view to being in a position to direct oneself and others towards that fullness of being. That would give us two distinct modes of moral or ethical theory, the speculative or theoretical and the practical and normative, the resolutive and the compositive. I am not so sure that Professor Mackinnon is ready to admit these presupposita. He speaks of the ‘curious and almost silly claim that we are free’, and at the same time he can write about the ‘frankly metaphysical reality of freedom’, or its ‘near–metaphysical reality’. This, in the language of the author, is just another way of proclaiming that human freedom is no more than a myth, lacking all substance and reality. Moral science as distinct from all other sciences, one would think, presupposes that the moral subject be conscious of itself and its activity, that is, that it fully and clearly know that its life and its activity is its own. It must be master of its own actions, and in that sense truly master of its own destiny. Then and only then are we in the order of moral activity. However, we are warned by Professor Mackinnon that “to know that an action is mine is a very strange sort of knowledge, quite different from knowing that an apple or a book is mine: to use the word ‘know’ in such a context is a venture fraught with intellectual peril”. I sincerely think it would have been better had the author denied straight out the possibility, not just of metaphysics, but of ethical theory tout court; for he denies often enough the existence of the moral subject, namely, man freely and deliberately ordaining himself towards human consummation. Had he done that at the outset he would have been spared the trouble of writing his book. All in all, one gets the distinct impression that the author is just not sure of his ground and has no really sound criterion whereby to judge of various ethical theories. In fact the book ends with a big question–mark: ‘If we speak and write thus, do we speak and write sound and fury signifying nothing?’. Reluctantly I am constrained to answer in the affirmative. And I should like to add, so as not to appear completely destructive, but in some way constructive: if, instead of dismissing Aristotle and his followers, ancient and modern, as mere ‘intuitionists’, Professor Mackinnon would only study them seriously he would first of all find out how unjustified is his condemnation of them and then, I venture to suggest, he would acquire a light to guide him surely through the maze of ethical theory with which he grapples aimlessly and would thus be enabled to extricate himself from ‘the present confused state of moral philosophy’ in Britain.