ETHICAL STUDIES Selected Essays The Library of Liberal Arts Downloaded from https://www.holybooks.com The Library of Liberal Arts OSKAR PIEST General Editor Downloaded from https://www.holybooks.com ETHICAL STUDIES Selected Essays F H Bradley With an introduction by Ralph G Ross Professor of Philosophy, The University of Minnesota The Library of Liberal Arts published by THE Q BOBBS-MERRILL compakt mc A 8UBSIDIART OF HOWARD W SAMS * Publishers • Indianapolis • CO INC new vork Downloaded from https://www.holybooks.com F H Bradley: 1846-1924 Ethical Studies was originally published in COPYRIGHT ©, 1876 1951 THE LIBERAL ARTS PRESS, INC All Rights Reserved Printed in the United States of America Downloaded from https://www.holybooks.com CONTENTS Selected Bibliography vi Editor's Introduction vii Note on the Edition ETHICAL STUDIES Why Should I Be Moral Question rests on a dogmatic preconception; which is opposed to the moral consciousness; and is unreasonable The end is self-realization; as is shown from morality; and from psychological considerations It means realizing self as a whole; and an infinite whole Pleasure for Pleasure's Sake Happiness a vague phrase Common opinion on pleasure Hedonism irreconcilable with morality Illusory nature of the Hedonistic end My pleasure as the end gives no rule 29 life And the pleasure of all is illusory; opposed to morality; and gives no practical guidance; it is dogmatically postulated; and irreconcilable with Hedonistic psychology Further modifications of Hedonism Qualitative distinction of pleasures is, in both its forms, untenable Further criticism on Mill's view Results of Duty for Duty's Sake 81 Will This is the universal form What "ought" means Principle of noncontradiction This contradicts itself Duty and duties Psychological objection Practical uselessness of noncontradiction Collision of duties unavoidable The end is the Good My Station and Its Duties 98 Present result Advance to a higher point of view Individualism criticized The end is realization as a member of a community The moral organism seems to be the solution of ethical problems Satisfactoriness of this view Relative and absolute morality Intuitive character of moral judgments Morality not a mere private matter Criticism of the above view Concluding Remarks Downloaded from https://www.holybooks.com 147 SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Works by Bradley Ethical Studies (1876) notes ; second edition, revised, with additional Oxford, 1927 Principles of Logic (1883) minal Essays ; second edition, revised, with Ter- Oxford, 1922 Appearance and Reality (1893) (1897), new edition ; second edition, with appendix Oxford, 1930 Essays on Truth and Reality Oxford, 1914 Oxford, 1935 Collected Essays Works about Bradley Campbell, Charles Arthur Scepticism and Construction London, 1931 Church, Ralph W Eliot, Thomas Bradley* s Dialectic Stearns Ithaca, Metz, Rudolf New New F H Bradley s Logic A Hundred York, 1942 Francis Herbert Bradley printed in T S Eliot, Selected Essays Kagey, Rudolf, New (1926), re- York, 1932 York, 1931 Years of British Philosophy London, 1938 Muirhead, John H Philosophy The Platonic Tradition in Anglo-Saxon London, 1931, chapters V-IX Ross, Ralph Gilbert Scepticism and Philosophy of F H Bradley Taylor, Alfred Edward Dogma: A Study New in the York, 1940 Francis Herbert Bradley, 1846-1924 Proceedings of the British Academy, Vol XI, 1924-5, pp 458-468 Downloaded from https://www.holybooks.com VI INTRODUCTION I "It unusual," wrote T S is Eliot in "that 1926, book a so famous and influential should remain out of print so long as Bradley apparently planned a total Bradley's Ethical Studies.'^ revision of the book before he would allow republication, but when he died he left only some notes for his revision, making no change the notes, A in the essentials of his belief was published second edition, with in 1927, fifty-one years after the book's appearance Reading Bradley it is is always a pleasant experience, although sometimes mixed with exasperation Indubitably, Bradley deserves his place in that long line of British philosophers —a are masters of English prose Berkeley, and Hume wit that and diffidence, startles is own the reader all, a singular by admission of man and inten- of assurance honesty that As with often good the presence of the man, error writers, Bradley's style brings one into in his case a clarity of his qualities: precision sometimes caustic, an alteration and above who Bacon, Hobbes, Although he often lacks the predecessors, Bradley has his sity, line that includes all always exciting, sometimes paradoxical, with a deep sense of his mission as a philosopher Yet this man, who does not hide himself behind an impersonal mask of prose, whose style is that extension work should be, seldom seen by his colleagues, of personality that all was a recluse for most of his life, with no students, and perhaps no intimates It was natural enough that Bradley should seek an academic career An older half-brother, G G Bradley, was Master of A University College, Oxford, and later Dean of Westminster younger brother, A C Bradley, became a distinguished literary and foremost Shakespearian scholar F H Bradley (born January 30, 1846) early showed promise of scholarship and critic philosophic ability but failure to take a First Class in "Greats" vii Downloaded from https://www.holybooks.com Ethical Studies viii and a subsequent failure to obtain a Fellowship upset him deeply and gave him much concern for his future In 1870, however, Merton College, Oxford, elected him to a Fellowship with life tenure, but with the traditional stipulation that it was terminable by marriage A description of Bradley at about this time by his sister carries at Oxford, conviction, even allowing for her strong prejudice in his favor His outward appearance was striking; he was tall and upright in carriage; well and muscularly made, singularly handsome, with large gray-blue eyes under dark eyebrows and lashes, a well-modelled foreIt head, mouth, and chin; his head set well on his shoulders certainly was an arresting face Athletic a as youth, Bradley's physical activities had been somewhat curtailed, shortly before he came to study at Oxford, by a severe attack of typhoid fever which was followed by pneumonia But it was not until about a year after he became a Fellow of Merton that his whole mode of life was changed by a "violent inflammation of the kidneys" (never precisely diagnosed) We can only speculate by ill-health: in later years, on the changes in Bradley made some regarded him as sensitive and kindly; others as splenetic From 1871 on, although he attended college functions and concerned himself with the business and administrative affairs junior colleagues sometimes being terrified by the of Merton mordant wit of the man rumored to be "the best mind in England" which turned him into a Ufelong invalid — —he remained for the most part in his rooms, never teaching, seldom having guests, often leaving Oxford to avoid the cold Indeed, his constant fear of cold and draughts raises psychological if we had considerably more information In any event, he was type of invalid whose constant self-care helped him outlive contemporaries He died of blood-poisoning on September the questions about Bradley which could only be answered 1924, in his 79th year, after a short As story a is chiefly the intellectual made a great life stir 18, illness Fellow of Merton for fifty-four years, of his books his Bradley's recorded in his writing life Each Bosanquet called the publication Downloaded from https://www.holybooks.com Introduction When "an epoch-making event." Ethical Studies of ix William James read The Principles of Logic he used the same phrase, writing: "It surely is 'epoch-making' in English philosophy." Appearance and Reality called forth the comment from Edward Caird that it was the greatest event since Kant, and Muirhead went even farther back in he wrote, in reviewing the it," Hume's since ments were Treatise.'' like book, "had appeared effect of the In June, 1924, Bradley's accomplish- recognized by the King, officially " nothing intellectual history: who awarded him the Order of Merit, a remarkable, almost unique, tribute to an English philosopher.^ II Bradley ordinarily regarded as the most original and sys- is who brought German philosophy England and opposed the dominant native tradition of empiri- tematic of those British thinkers to cism Although writers much influenced group later and to Coleridge and Carlyle were very it remained for a still master the technical equipment of the Germans to apply like by German thought, it The most important members systematically of group were perhaps Green (predominantly a Kantian) BradBosanquet (usually treated as Hegelians) and McTaggart (an original thinker, with some resemblance to the Left Hegel- this ; ley, ; ians) ; but there were a host of others, sometimes political — ^posts of who held academic prime importance: —and Stirling, Caird, Ward, Joachim, Pringle-Pattison, to name only some of them The attack that these men mounted against English empiricism and Scottish intuitionism was successful in that the rebels created a new orthodoxy and then had to fight a rear-guard action against the realists and pragmatists of another generation What Eliot said of Bradley might be repeated by their admirers about the whole group: "He replaced a philosophy which was crude and raw and provincial by one which was, in comparison, catholic, civilized, and universal." Nettleship, Haldane, Muirhead, Seth, Rashdall, Taylor, ^ In — Hoernle 1949 the Order of Merit was awarded to Bertrand Russell political implication is clear, since a labor government was Downloaded from https://www.holybooks.com in power The Ethical Studies X In theory of knowledge and metaphysics, Bradley and most of the British Idealists emphasized both the creative powers of mind and the organic character of the universe, and they returned religion to eminence among "advanced" thinkers (McTaggart is a notable exception) By insisting that error and evil are results of viewing the world in its parts, but that the Whole is true and good, they became apologists for a kind of Christian theology, new terms and demanding stated in reason, not faith, for proof In ethics and politics they were by and large supporters of understand some exceptions, (with conservatism this, is it found in ancient thought, it most part liberal; and that of Although these traditions can be society, chiefly conservative is modern world, the in which the have been drawn somewhat differently, with which we will One can pose Locke and Hegel as representa- concern ourselves tives of almost antithetical positions or of God, capable of probable of natural law leaves its — traditional empiricism To regard man idealism respectively It To H Green) important to distinguish two historical traditions: that of nature, for the lines T like and natural and as a creature of nature, knowledge of the world, assured English empiricism right, is basic to mark on documents like the Declaration of Inde- Society, it follows, should pendence and the Rights of Man not violate natural rights, which are universal; institutions like means the state are for living well, and if they not serve their purposes they should be altered or abolished vidual act of thought attains tremendous importance men can and how, indi- thinking, discover whether or not their institutions are worthy, if necessary, to change them The general temper by The By of this Lockean attitude is not the utilitarian attack on natural law changed Instead of a state of nature and natural rights, the utilitarians depend on other "universal truths" about of advantage natural, or human psychology and the rational calculation For earlier empiricists, individual liberty God-given, right; for John Stuart Mill it is a is a good government We cannot, according to Mill, govern well without truth, and truth is a product of that human inquiry from which no one supremely useful social device, necessary for Downloaded from https://www.holybooks.com ... perhaps Green (predominantly a Kantian) BradBosanquet (usually treated as Hegelians) and McTaggart (an original thinker, with some resemblance to the Left Hegel- this ; ley, ; ians) ; but there were... Utilitarians and the Kantians The Utilitarians, Bradley argued, did not understand the necessarily universal character of morals; and the Kantians understood the universal but provided it with no... a perceptive and purposive creature from a blind and mechanical matter Bradley''s attitude man and his relations to the world is more romantic than naturalistic "Man," says the romantic poet John