Outlines of a Critical Theory of Ethics · John Dewey
XLIII.
Bain's Theory of Obligation. It is obvious that the question of obligation presents considerable difficulty to the hedonistic school. If the end of conduct is pleasure, as the satisfaction of desire, why should not each desire be satisfied, if possible, as it arises, and thus pleasure secured? What meaning is there in the term 'duty' or 'obligation' if the moral end or good coincides wholly with the natural end of the inclinations themselves? It is evident, at all events, that the term can have significance only if there is some cause preventing the desires as they arise from natural satisfaction. The problem of obligation in hedonism thus becomes the problem of discovering that outside force which restrains, or, at least, constrains, the desire from immediate gratification. According to Bain, this outside force is social disapprobation manifested through the form of punishment. "I consider that the proper meaning, or import of the terms [duty, obligation] refers to that class of action which is enforced by the sanction of punishment.... The powers that impose the obligatory sanction are Law and Society, or the community acting through the Government by public judicial acts, and apart from the Government by the unofficial expressions of disapprobation and the exclusion from social good offices". Emotions and Will, p. 286. See also pp. 321-323 and p. 527.
Through this 'actual and ideal avoidance of certain acts and dread of punishment' the individual learns to forego the gratification of some of his natural impulses, and learns also to cultivate and even to originate desires not at first spontaneous. "The child is open from the first to the blame and praise of others, and thus is led to do or avoid certain acts". On the model, however, of the action of this external authority there grows up, in time an internal authority--"an ideal resemblance of public authority" (p. 287), or "a _fac simile_ of the system of government around us" (p. 313). "The sentiment, at first formed and cultivated by the relations of actual command and obedience, may come at last to stand upon an independent foundation.... When the young mind, accustomed at the outset to implicitly obeying any set of rules is sufficiently advanced to appreciate the motive--the utilities or the sentiment that led to their imposition--the character of the conscience is entirely changed.... Regard is now had to the intent and meaning of the law, and not to the mere fact of its being prescribed by some power" (E. and W., p. 318). But when the sense of obligation becomes entirely detached from the social sanction, "even then the notion, sentiment or form of duty is derived from what society imposes, although the particular matter is quite different. Social obligation develops in the mind originally the feeling and habit of obligation, and this remains although the particular articles are changed" (page 319, note). _Cf._ also Bain, Moral Science, pp. 20-21 and 41-43.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.