Moral Science; a Compendium of Ethics by Alexander Bain
page 30 of 484 (06%)
page 30 of 484 (06%)
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in our own power; and the grand mistake of the Stoics was their
viewing all good and evil whatever in the same light. It is an essential part of human liberty, to permit each person to form and to indulge these sentiments or caprices; although a good education should control them with a view to our happiness on the whole. But, when any individual liking or fancy of this description is imposed as a law upon the entire community, it is a perversion and abuse of power, a confounding of the Ethical end by foreign admixtures. Thus, to enjoin authoritatively one mode of sepulture, punishing all deviations from that, could have nothing to do with the preservation of the order of society. In such a matter, the interference of the state in modern times, has regard to the detection of crime in the matter of life and death, and to the evils arising from the putrescence of the dead. 6. The Ethical End, although properly confined to Utility, is subject to still farther limitations, according to the view taken of the Province of Moral Government, or Authority. Although nothing should be made morally obligatory but what is generally useful, the converse does not hold; many kinds of conduct are generally useful, but not morally obligatory. A certain amount of bodily exercise in the open air every day would be generally useful; but neither the law of the land nor public opinion compels it. Good roads are works of great utility; it is not every one's duty to make them. The machinery of coercion is not brought to bear upon every conceivable utility. It is principally reserved, when not abused, for |
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