This very distinction, however, suggests an interpretation of the notion of rightness which denies its peculiar significance in moral judgments. It is urged that “rightness” is properly an attribute of means, not of ends: so that the attribution of it merely implies that the act judged right is the fittest or only fit means to the realisation of some end understood if not expressly stated: and similarly that the affirmation that anything ‘ought to be done’ is always made with at least tacit reference to some ulterior end. And I grant that this is a legitimate interpretation, in respect of a part of the use of either term in ordinary discourse. But it seems clear (1) that certain kinds of actions--under the names of Justice, Veracity, Good Faith, etc.--are commonly held to be right unconditionally, without regard to ulterior results: and (2) that we similarly regard as “right” the adoption of certain ends--such as the common good of society, or general happiness. In either of these cases the interpretation above suggested seems clearly inadmissible.[29]
We have therefore to find a meaning for “right” or “what ought to be” other than the notion of fitness to some ulterior end. Here we are met by the suggestion that the judgments or propositions which we commonly call moral--in the narrower sense--really affirm no more than the existence of a specific emotion in the mind of the person who utters them; that when I say ‘Truth ought to be spoken’ or ‘Truthspeaking is right,’ I mean no more than that the idea of truthspeaking excites in my mind a feeling of approbation or satisfaction. And probably some degree of such emotion, commonly distinguished as ‘moral sentiment,’ ordinarily accompanies moral judgments on real cases. But it is absurd to say that a mere statement of my approbation of truth-speaking is properly given in the proposition ‘Truth ought to be spoken’; otherwise the fact of another man’s disapprobation might equally be expressed by saying ‘Truth ought not to be spoken’; and thus we should have two coexistent facts stated in two mutually contradictory propositions. This is so obvious, that we must suppose that those who hold the view which I am combating do not really intend to deny it: but rather to maintain that this subjective fact of my approbation is all that there is any _ground_ for stating, or perhaps that it is all that any reasonable person is prepared on reflection to affirm. And no doubt there is a large class of statements, in form objective, which yet we are not commonly prepared to maintain as more than subjective if their validity is questioned. If I say that ‘the air is sweet,’ or ‘the food disagreeable,’ it would not be exactly true to say that I mean no more than that I like the one or dislike the other: but if my statement is challenged, I shall probably content myself with affirming the existence of such feelings in my own mind. But there appears to me to be a fundamental difference between this case and that of moral feelings. The peculiar emotion of moral approbation is, in my experience, inseparably bound up with the conviction, implicit or explicit, that the conduct approved is ‘really’ right--_i.e._ that it cannot, without error, be disapproved by any other mind. If I give up this conviction because others do not share it, or for any other reason, I may no doubt still retain a sentiment prompting to the conduct in question, or--what is perhaps more common--a sentiment of repugnance to the opposite conduct: but this sentiment will no longer have the special quality of ‘moral sentiment’ strictly so called. This difference between the two is often overlooked in ethical discussion: but any experience of a change in moral opinion produced by argument may afford an illustration of it. Suppose (_e.g._) that any one habitually influenced by the sentiment of Veracity is convinced that under certain peculiar circumstances in which he finds himself, speaking truth is not right but wrong. He will probably still feel a repugnance against violating the rule of truthspeaking: but it will be a feeling quite different in kind and degree from that which prompted him to veracity as a department of virtuous action. We might perhaps call the one a ‘moral’ and the other a ‘quasi-moral’ sentiment.
