Chapter IV: Metaphysical Ethics

A.

    § 66. The term ‘metaphysical’ is defined as having reference primarily to any object of knowledge which is not a part of Nature—does not exist in time, as an object of perception; but since metaphysicians, not content with pointing out the truth about such entities, have always supposed that what does not exist in Nature, must, at least, exist, the term also has reference to a supposed ‘supersensible reality’: …
    § 67. and by ‘metaphysical Ethics’ I mean those systems which maintain or imply that the answer to the question ‘What is good?’ logically depends upon the answer to the question ‘What is the nature of supersensible reality?’ All such systems obviously involve the same fallacy—the ‘naturalistic fallacy’—by the use of which Naturalism was also defined. …
    § 68. Metaphysics, as dealing with a ‘supersensible reality’ may have a bearing upon practical Ethics (1) if its supersensible reality is conceived as something future, which our actions can affect; and (2) since it will prove that every proposition of practical Ethics is false, if it can shew that an eternal reality is either the only real thing or the only good thing. Most metaphysical writers, believing in a reality of the latter kind, do thus imply the complete falsehood of every practical proposition, although they fail to see that their Metaphysics thus contradicts their Ethics. …

B.

    § 69. But the theory, by which I have defined Metaphysical Ethics, is not that Metaphysics has a logical bearing upon the question involved in practical Ethics ‘What effects will my action produce?’, but that it has such a bearing upon the fundamental ethical question, ‘What is good in itself?’ This theory has been refuted by the proof, in Chap. I, that the naturalistic fallacy is a fallacy; it only remains to discuss certain confusions which seem to have lent it plausibility. …
    § 70. One such source of confusion seems to lie in the failure to distinguish between the proposition ‘This is good’, when it means ‘This existing thing is good’, and the same proposition, when it means ‘The existence of this kind of thing would be good’; …
    § 71. and another seems to lie in the failure to distinguish between that which suggests a truth, or is a cause of our knowing it, and that upon which it logically depends, or which is a reason for believing it: in the former sense fiction has a more important bearing on Ethics than Metaphysics can have. …

C.

    § 72. But a more important source of confusion seems to lie in the supposition that ‘to be good’ is identical with the possession of some supersensible property, which is also involved in the definition of ‘reality’. …
    § 73. One cause of this supposition seems to be the logical prejudice that all propositions are of the most familiar type—that in which subject and predicate are both existents. …
    § 74. But ethical propositions cannot be reduced to this type: in particular, they are obviously to be distinguished …
    § 75. (1) from Natural Laws; with which one of Kant's most famous doctrines confuses them, …
    § 76. and (2) from Commands; with which they are confused both by Kant and by others. …

D.

    § 77. This latter confusion is one of the sources of the prevalent modern doctrine that ‘being good’ is identical with ‘being willed’; but the prevalence of this doctrine seems to be chiefly due to other causes. I shall try to shew with regard to it (1) what are the chief errors which seem to have led to its adoption; and (2) that, apart from it, the Metaphysics of Volition can hardly have the smallest logical bearing upon Ethics. …
    § 78. (1) It has been commonly held, since Kant, that ‘goodness’ has the same relation to Will or Feeling, which ‘truth’ or ‘reality’ has to Cognition: that the proper method for Ethics is to discover what is implied in Will or Feeling, just as, according to Kant, the proper method for Metaphysics was to discover what is implied in Cognition. …
    § 79. The actual relations between ‘goodness’ and Will or Feeling, from which this false doctrine is inferred, seem to be mainly (a) the causal relation consisting in the fact that it is only by reflection upon the experiences of Will and Feeling that we become aware of ethical distinctions; (b) the facts that a cognition of goodness is perhaps always included in certain kinds of Willing and Feeling, and is generally accompanied by them: …
    § 80. but from neither of these psychological facts does it follow that ‘to be good’ is identical with being willed or felt in a certain way. The supposition that it does follow is an instance of the fundamental contradiction of modern Epistemology—the contradiction involved in both distinguishing and identifying the object and the act of Thought, ‘truth’ itself and its supposed criterion: …
    § 81. and, once this analogy between Volition and Cognition is accepted, the view that ethical propositions have an essential reference to Will or Feeling, is strengthened by another error with regard to the nature of Cognition—the error of supposing that ‘perception’ denotes merely a certain way of cognising an object, whereas it actually includes the assertion that the object is also true. …
    § 82. The argument of the last three §§ is recapitulated; and it is pointed out (1) that Volition and Feeling are not analogous to Cognition (2) that, even if they were, ‘to be good’ could not mean ‘to be willed or felt in a certain way’. …
    § 83. (2) If ‘being good’ and ‘being willed’ are not identical then the latter could only be a criterion of the former; and, in order to shew that it was so, we should have to establish independently that many things were good—that is to say, we should have to establish most of our ethical conclusions before the Metaphysics of Volition could possibly give us the smallest assistance. …
    § 84. The fact that the metaphysical writers who, like Green, attempt to base Ethics on Volition, do not even attempt this independent investigation, shows that they start from the false assumption that goodness is identical with being willed, and hence that their ethical reasonings have no value whatsoever. …
    § 85. Summary of chapter.