Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-lj6df Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-04T19:44:02.329Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Benevolence: A Minor Virtue

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 January 2009

John Kekes
John Kekes
Affiliation:
Philosophy, SUNY at Albany
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Morality requires us to act for the good of others. This is not the only moral requirement there is, and it is, of course, controversial where the good of others lies. But whatever their good is, there can be no serious doubt that acting so as to bring it about is one crucial obligation morality places on us. Yet the nature of this obligation is unclear, because there are difficult questions about its aim and about the motivational sources required for realizing it. Who are the others for whose good we are obligated to act? Are they only people in our immediate context, or members of our society, or all human beings? And, as a matter of moral psychology, what leads us to honor this obligation? Is it a sense of justice, decency, prudence, benevolence, or some combination of these and perhaps other virtues? The answers we give will shape our understanding of the nature of the obligation. For the character traits which we think should move us will influence the choice of people we aim to benefit and the inclusiveness we attribute to the obligation will affect the motives we wish to cultivate in ourselves and others.

Type
Research Article
Information
Social Philosophy and Policy , Volume 4 , Issue 2 , Spring 1987 , pp. 21 - 36
Copyright
Copyright © Social Philosophy and Policy Foundation 1987

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

I am indebted to Berel Lang, Bonnie Steinbock, and Eddy Zemach for help with this paper.

1 Brandt, R.B., “Traits of Character: A Conceptual Analysis,” American Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 7 (1970), pp. 23–37.Google Scholar

2 On the last three, see Roberts, T.A., The Concept of Benevolence: Aspects of Eighteenth-Century Moral Philosophy (London: Macmillan, 1973).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 Hume, D., A Treatise of Human Nature, ed. L.A., Selby-Bigge (Oxford: Clarendon, 1960), p. 487.Google Scholar

4 Hume, D., An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals, ed. L.A., Selby-Bigge (Oxford: Clarendon, 1961), pp. 219–220.Google Scholar

5 Brandt, R.B., “The Psychology of Benevolence and Its Implications for Philosophy,” Journal of Philosophy, vol. 73 (1976), pp. 429–453.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6 Warnock, G.J., The Object of Morality (London: Methuen, 1971), p. 26.Google Scholar

7 Matthew, 22:37–40.

8 Kierkegaard, S., Works of Love, trans. H., Hong and E., Hong (New York: Harper, 1962), p. 2.Google Scholar

9 Sidgwick, H., The Methods of Ethics (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1981), p. 241.Google Scholar

10 Butler, J., Fifteen Sermons (London: 1953), pp. 185–187.Google Scholar

11 Stephen, J.F., Liberty, Equality, Fraternity (Cambridge: University Press, 1967), p. 240.Google Scholar

12 For a contemporary account of the Christian view, see Outka, G., Agape: An Ethical Analysis (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1972).Google Scholar

13 Smart, J.J.C. and Williams, B., Utilitarianism: for and against (Cambridge: University Press, 1973), p. 7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

14 I am indebted for my discussion to Miller, D.'s Philosophy and Ideology in Hume's Political Thought (Oxford: Clarendon, 1981)Google Scholar; I also draw on my “Civility and Society,” History of Philosophy Quarterly, vol. 1 (1984), pp. 429–443.

15 Hume, Treatise, p. 481.

16 ibid., p. 602.

17 Mill, J.S., Utilitarianism (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1979), p. 32.Google Scholar

18 Hume, Enquiry, p. 229.

19 Hume, D., Essays, Moral, Political and Literary, ed. T.H., Green and T.H., Gross (London: Longmans, 1898), vol. I, p. 292.Google Scholar

20 Mackie, J., Hume's Moral Theory (London: Routledge, 1980), p. 127.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

21 Hume, Treatise, p. 493.

22 ibid., p. 413.

23 ibid., pp. 488–489.

24 ibid., p. 489.

25 Hume, Enquiry, pp. 44–45.

26 Hume, Treatise, p. 225.

27 See Rousseau, J-J, Emile, trans. B., Foxley (London: Dent, 1911).Google Scholar

28 See Schopenhauer, A., On the Basis of Morality, trans. E.J., Payne (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1965).Google Scholar

29 See Taylor, R., Good and Evil (New York: Macmillan, 1970)Google Scholar, especially Part III.

30 See Beehler, R., The Moral Life (Oxford: Blackwell, 1978).Google Scholar

31 See Blum, L., Friendship, Altruism, and Morality (London: Routledge, 1980).Google Scholar

32 Smart and Williams, Utilitarianism, pp. 4–5.