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Fragment on Mackin-
tosh,
which J. S. Mill included in a footnote to ch. XXIII of his father’s
Analysis of the Phenomena
of the Human Mind
(1869). The passage is in [J. S.]
Mill’s Ethical Writings,
ed. J. B. Schneewind
(New York, Collier Books, 1965), pp. 259–270. For an account of social learning theory, see Albert
Bandura,
Principles of Behavior Modification
(New York, Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1969). For a
recent survey of moral learning, see Roger Brown,
Social Psychology
(New York, The Free Press,
1965), ch. VIII; and Martin L. Hoffman, “Moral Development,” in
Carmichael’s Manual of Psychol-
ogy,
ed. Paul H. Mussen, 3rd ed. (New York, John Wiley and Sons, 1970), vol. 2, ch. 23; pp. 282–332
is on social learning theory.
5. For accounts of Freud’s theory of moral learning, see Roger Brown,
Social Psychology,
pp. 350–
381; and Ronald Fletcher,
Instinct in Man
(New York, International Universities Press, 1957), ch. VI,
esp. pp. 226–234.
402
The Sense of Justice
innate susceptibility to the pleasures of fellow feeling and self-mastery,
and these provide the affective basis for the moral sentiments once we
have a clear grasp of our relations to our associates from an appropriately
general perspective. Thus this tradition regards the moral feelings as a
natural outgrowth of a full appreciation of our social nature.
6
Mill expresses the view as follows: the arrangements of a just society
are so suited to us that anything which is obviously necessary for it is
accepted much like a physical necessity. An indispensable condition of
such a society is that all shall have consideration for the others on the
basis of mutually acceptable principles of reciprocity. It is painful for us
when our feelings are not in union with those of our fellows; and this
tendency to sociality provides in due course a firm basis for the moral
sentiments. Moreover, Mill adds, to be held accountable to the principles
of justice in one’s dealings with others does not stunt our nature. Instead
it realizes our social sensibilities and by exposing us to a larger good
enables us to control our narrower impulses. It is only when we are
restrained not because we injure the good of others but by their mere
displeasure, or what seems to us their arbitrary authority, that our nature
is blunted. If the reasons for moral injunctions are made plain in terms of
the just claims of others, these constraints do us no injury but are seen to
be compatible with our good.
7
Moral learning is not so much a matter of
acquiring new motives, for these will come about of themselves once the
requisite developments in our intellectual and emotional capacities have
taken place. It follows that a full grasp of moral conceptions must await
maturity; the child’s understanding is always primitive and the charac-
teristic features of his morality fall away in later stages. The rationalist
tradition presents a happier picture, since it holds that the principles of
right and justice spring from our nature and are not at odds with our good,
whereas the other account would seem to include no such guarantee.
I shall not try to assess the relative merits of these two conceptions of
6. For Rousseau, see
Emile,
trans. Barbara Foxley (London, J.M. Dent and Sons, 1908), esp.
pp. 46–66 (in bk. II), 172–196, 244–258 (in bk. IV); for Kant,
The Critique of Practical Reason,
pt.
II, with the misleading name: The Methodology of Pure Practical Reason; and J. S. Mill as cited
below, note 7. For Jean Piaget, see
The Moral Judgment of the Child,
trans. Marjorie Gabain
(London, Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner, 1932). Further development of this approach is found in
Lawrence Kohlberg; see “The Development of Children’s Orientation toward a Moral Order: 1.
Sequence in the Development of Moral Thought,”
Vita Humana,
vol. 6 (1963); and “Stage and
Sequence: The Cognitive Developmental Approach to Socialization,” in
Handbook of Socialization
Theory and Research,
ed. D. A. Goslin (Chicago, Rand McNally, 1969), ch. VI. For a critique, see
Hoffman, “Moral Development,” pp. 264–275 (on Piaget), pp. 276–281 (on Kohlberg).
7. For Mill’s view, see
Utilitarianism,
chs. III and V, pars. 16–25;
On Liberty,
ch. III, par. 10; and
Mill’s Ethical Writings,
ed. J. B. Schneewind, pp. 257–259.
403
69. A Well-Ordered Society
moral learning. Surely there is much that is sound in both and it seems
preferable to try to combine them in a natural way. It must be emphasized
that a moral view is an extremely complex structure of principles, ideals,
and precepts, and involves all the elements of thought, conduct, and
feeling. Certainly many kinds of learning ranging from reinforcement
and classical conditioning to highly abstract reasoning and the refined
perception of exemplars enter into its development. Presumably at some
time or other each has a necessary role. In the next several sections
(§§70–72) I sketch the course of moral development as it might occur
in a well-ordered society realizing the principles of justice as fairness. I
am concerned solely with this special case. Thus my aim is to indicate
the major steps whereby a person would acquire an understanding of
and an attachment to the principles of justice as he grows up in this
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