Mackintosh thus takes an aesthetic view of morality.We have a 'moral taste'or perception of beauty.The same qualities which make a horse beautiful make him also swift and safe,but we perceive the beauty without thinking of the utility,or rather when we do not think of it.So we admire a hero or martyr for the beauty of his character without reference to his services to us.113This moral taste,though not identical with the conscience,becomes 'absorbed into it.'The conscience differs from the 'moral taste'because it acts upon the will.But its supremacy seems to be this quality which it shares with or derives from the taste --its immediate and spontaneous operation.It is,he seems to mean,a direct perception of beauty in character applied to the regulation of conduct.Virtue corresponds to an instinctive and so far ultimate appreciation of beauty of character,Mackintosh insists upon this intrinsic charm of virtue in the language which struck Mill as simply foppish affectation.The pleasure of 'benevolence'itself,says Mackintosh,is infinitely superior to the pleasures to which it may lead.
Could it become 'lasting and intense,'it would convert the heart into a heaven.114To love virtue,you must love it 'for its own sake.'115The delights of being virtuous (as he interprets the phrase)are greater than any delight from the consequences of virtue.And he holds up as a model Fletcher of Saltoun,who would,lose his life to serve his country,but would not do a base thing to save it.'116How,then,is this view to be reconciled with the unreserved admission of 'utility'as the 'criterion'of right and wrong?One answer is that Mackintosh fully accepts Hartley's doctrine of association.He even criticises previous philosophers for not pushing it far enough.He says that association,instead of merely combining a 'thought'and a 'feeling,''forms them into a new compound,in which the properties of the component parts are no longer discoverable,and which may itself become a substantive principle of human virtue.'117The question of origin,therefore,is different from the question of nature.
He follows Hartley in tracing the development of various desires,and in showing how the 'secondary desires'are gradually formed from the primitive by transference to different objects.118We must start from feelings which lie beneath any intellectual process,and thus the judgment of utility is from the first secondary.We arrive at the higher feelings which are 'as independent as if they were underived,'119and yet,as happiness has been involved at every stage as an end of each desire,it is no wonder that the ultimate result should be to make the general happiness the end.The coincidence,then,of the criterion with the end of the moral sentiments is 'not arbitrary,'but arises necessarily from 'the laws of human nature and the circumstances in which mankind are placed.'120Hence we reach the doctrine which 'has escaped Hartley as well as every other philosopher.'121That doctrine is that the moral faculty is one;it is compound,indeed,in its origin;but becomes an independent unit,which can no longer be resolved even in thought into its constituent elements.
The doctrine approximates,it would seem,to Mill's;but was all the more unpalatable to him on that account.The agreement implies plagiarism,and the difference hopeless stupidity.To Mill Bentham was the legitimate development of Hartley,while to Mackintosh Bentham was the plausible perverter of Hartley.Mill regarded Mackintosh as a sophist,whose aim was to mislead honest Utilitarians into the paths of orthodoxy,and who also ignored the merits of Mill himself.
'It was Mr.Mill,'he says,'who first made known the great importance of the principle of the indissoluble association';122'Mr.Mill'who had taken up Hartley's speculations and ,prosecuted the inquiry to its end';123'Mr.Mill'who explained affections and motives and dispositions;124and 'Mr.Mill,who had cleared up mistakes about classification which 'had done more to perpetuate darkness on the subject of mind than any other cause,perhaps than all other causes taken together.'125Sir James blundered because he had not read Mill's book,as he pretended to have done.Mill does not say all this from vanity;he is simply stating an obvious matter of fact.
Mill's polemic against the Moral Sense theory,even against a moral sense produced by association,reveals the really critical points of the true Utilitarian doctrine.Mill would cut down the moral sense root and branch.The 'moral sense'means a 'particular faculty'necessary to discern right and wrong.But no particular faculty is necessary to discern 'utility.'126Hence the distinction between the 'criterion'and the 'moral sentiments'is absurd.The utility is not the 'criterion'of the morality but itself constitutes the morality,to say that conduct is right,according to the Utilitarians,is the same thing as to say that it produces happiness.If the moral sense orders conduct opposed to the criterion,it is so far bad.If it never orders such conduct,it is superfluous,Happiness,as with Bentham,is a definite thing --a currency of solid bullion;and 'virtue'means nothing except as calculated in this currency.Mill,again,like Bentham,regards the 'utility'principle as giving the sole 'objective'test.The complaint that it sanctions 'expediency'is a simple fallacy.