it will facilitate a comparison of the substance of this remarkable essay,—which is not, for most, readily accessible,—with the other ethical works named above.
Gay begins by remarking that, though all writers on morality have practically agreed as to what particular classes of actions are virtuous or the reverse, they have at least seemed to differ in their answers to the related questions: (1) What is the 'criterion' of virtue? and (2) What is the motive by which men are induced to pursue it? Both of these questions must be considered, of course, in any treatment of Ethics, and the author's own view is that the same principle, or the same set of principles, will be found to solve both.
It is therefore indifferent which side of the moral problem we attack first. But, before attempting anything constructive, Gay stops to notice a current view. Some hold that a rational creature will choose only that which, on the whole, is calculated to bring him most happiness; further, that virtue does bring the agent most happiness; and that therefore it will be chosen just in proportion as one is rational.[1] Moreover, they hold that whatever is an 'object of choice' is 'approved of.' Gay seems to object to this view mainly because it implies too great a degree of self-consciousness on the part of the agent. He admits that Hutcheson[2] has made abundantly plain: (1) that most men do actually approve virtue without knowing why; and (2) that some pursue it even in opposition to their own apparent advantage. But Hutcheson was not content with emphasizing the facts; he had recourse to a 'moral sense' to explain moral approval, and a 'public or benevolent affection' to explain apparently disinterested conduct. This, however, is cutting the knot instead of untying it. We may very well be practically benevolent and capable of forming what seem like ultimate moral judgments, and yet these phenomena of our moral life may be perfectly explainable without assuming unknown 'faculties' or 'principles.'
