"Utilitarianism" - читать интересную книгу автора (Mill John Stuart)

The remainder of the stock arguments against utilitarianism mostly
consist in laying to its charge the common infirmities of human
nature, and the general difficulties which embarrass conscientious
persons in shaping their course through life. We are told that a
utilitarian will be apt to make his own particular case an exception
to moral rules, and, when under temptation, will see a utility in
the breach of a rule, greater than he will see in its observance.
But is utility the only creed which is able to furnish us with excuses
for evil doing, and means of cheating our own conscience? They are
afforded in abundance by all doctrines which recognise as a fact in
morals the existence of conflicting considerations; which all
doctrines do, that have been believed by sane persons. It is not the
fault of any creed, but of the complicated nature of human affairs,
that rules of conduct cannot be so framed as to require no exceptions,
and that hardly any kind of action can safely be laid down as either
always obligatory or always condemnable. There is no ethical creed
which does not temper the rigidity of its laws, by giving a certain
latitude, under the moral responsibility of the agent, for
accommodation to peculiarities of circumstances; and under every
creed, at the opening thus made, self-deception and dishonest
casuistry get in. There exists no moral system under which there do
not arise unequivocal cases of conflicting obligation. These are the
real difficulties, the knotty points both in the theory of ethics, and
in the conscientious guidance of personal conduct. They are overcome
practically, with greater or with less success, according to the
intellect and virtue of the individual; but it can hardly be pretended
that any one will be the less qualified for dealing with them, from
possessing an ultimate standard to which conflicting rights and duties
can be referred. If utility is the ultimate source of moral
obligations, utility may be invoked to decide between them when
their demands are incompatible. Though the application of the standard
may be difficult, it is better than none at all: while in other
systems, the moral laws all claiming independent authority, there is
no common umpire entitled to interfere between them; their claims to
precedence one over another rest on little better than sophistry,
and unless determined, as they generally are, by the unacknowledged
influence of considerations of utility, afford a free scope for the
action of personal desires and partialities. We must remember that
only in these cases of conflict between secondary principles is it
requisite that first principles should be appealed to. There is no
case of moral obligation in which some secondary principle is not
involved; and if only one, there can seldom be any real doubt which
one it is, in the mind of any person by whom the principle itself is
recognised.

Chapter 3

Of the Ultimate Sanction of the Principle of Utility.

THE QUESTION is often asked, and properly so, in regard to any