Professor Sidgwick.35 But, indeed, the relation is not complicated, for there is no other intrinsic relation between them than their common antagonism to “wrong.” That something is a duty implies that its non-performance tends to evoke moral indignation, that it is a virtue implies that its performance tends to evoke moral approval. That the virtues actually cover a comparatively large field of the province of duty is simply owing to their being dispositions of mind. We may praise the habits of justice and gratitude, even though we find nothing praiseworthy in an isolated just or grateful act.
34 Alexander, op. cit. p. 244.
35 Sidgwick, op. cit. p. 219.
There has been no less confusion with regard to the relation between duty and merit. Like the notions of “good” and “virtue,” the “meritorious” derives its origin from the emotion of moral approval; but while the former merely express a tendency to give rise to such an emotion, “meritorious” implies that the object to which it refers merits praise, that it has a just claim to praise, or, in other words, that it ought to be recognised as good. This makes the term “meritorious” more emphatic than the term “good,” but at the same time it narrows its province in a peculiar way. Just as the expression that something ought to be done implies the idea of its not being done, so the word “meritorious” suggests the idea of goodness which may fail of due recognition. And as it is meaningless to speak of duty in a case where the opposite mode of conduct is entirely out of the question, so it would be an absurdity to attribute merit to somebody for an act the goodness of which is universally admitted. Thus “meritorious” involves a restriction. It would be almost blasphemous to call the acts of a God conceived to be infinitely good meritorious, since it would suggest a limitation of his goodness.
The emphatic claim to praiseworthiness made by the “meritorious” has rendered it objectionable to a great number of moralists. It has been identified with the “super-obligatory”—a conception which is to many an abomination. From what has been said above, however, it is manifest that they are not identical. As the discharge of a duty may be regarded as a good act, so it may also be regarded as an act which ought to be recognised as good. Practically, no doubt, there is a certain antagonism between duty and merit. We praise, and, especially, we regard as deserving praise, only what is above the average,36 and we censure what is below it. No merit is conferred upon him who performs a duty which is seldom transgressed, or the transgression of which would actually incur punishment or censure. We do not think that a man ought to be praised for what his own interest prompts him to perform; and, since the transgression of a moral command which is usually obeyed is generally censured or punished, there is under ordinary circumstances nothing meritorious in performing a duty. But though thus probably most acts which are deemed meritorious fall outside the limits of duty as roughly drawn by the popular mind, we are on the other hand often disposed to attribute merit to a man on account of an act which, from a strict point of view, is his duty, but a duty which most people, under the same circumstances, would have left undischarged. This shows that the antagonism between duty and merit is not absolute. And in the concept of merit per se no such antagonism is involved.
36 Merit, as Professor Alexander puts it (op. cit. p. 196), “expresses the interval which separates the meritorious from the average.”
I confess that I fail to grasp what those writers really mean who identify the “meritorious” with the “super-obligatory,” and at the same time deny the existence of any super-obligatory. Do they shut their eyes to the important psychical fact indicated by the term “merit,” or do they look upon it as a chimera inconsistent with a sufficiently enlightened moral consciousness? For my own part, I cannot see how the moral consciousness could dispense with the idea that there are actions which merit praise or reward, which ought to be praised or rewarded. The denial of merit can be defended from a purely theological point of view, but then only with regard to man’s relation to God. It is obvious that a fallen being who is sinning even when he does his best, could not be recognised as good by God and could have no merit. But it is hardly just, nor is it practically possible, that a man should measure his fellow-man by a superhuman standard of perfection, and try to suppress the natural emotion of moral approval and the claims springing from it, by persuading himself that there is no mortal being who ever does anything which ought to be recognised as good.
Quite distinct from the question of merit, then, is that of the super-obligatory. Can a man do more than his duty, or, in other words, is there anything good which is not at the same time a duty? The answer depends on the contents given to the commandments of duty, hence it may vary without affecting the concept of duty itself. If we consider that there is an obligation on every man to promote the general happiness to the very utmost of his ability, we must also maintain that nobody can ever do anything good beyond his duty. The same is the case if we regard “self-realisation,” or a “normal” exercise of his natural functions, as a man’s fundamental duty. In all these cases “to aim at acting beyond obligation,” as Price puts it,37 is “the same with aiming at acting contrary to obligation, and doing more than is fit to be done, the same with doing wrong.” It can hardly be denied, however, that those who hold similar views have actually two standards of duty, one by which they measure man and his doings in the abstract, with reference to a certain ideal of life which they please to identify with duty, and another by which they are guided in their practical moral judgments upon their own and their neighbours’ conduct. The conscientious man is apt to judge himself more severely than he judges others, partly because he knows his own case better than theirs,38 and partly because he is naturally afraid of being intolerant and unjust. He may indeed be unwilling to admit that he ever can do more than his duty, seeing how difficult it is even to do what he ought to do, and impressed, as he would be, with the feeling of his own shortcomings. Yet I do not see how he could conscientiously deny that he has omitted to do many praiseworthy or heroic deeds without holding himself blamable for such omissions.
37 Price, Review of the Principal Questions in Morals, p. 204 sq.
38 Cf. Sidgwick, op. cit. p. 221.
Professor Sidgwick observes that “we should not deny that it is, in some sense, a man’s strict duty to do whatever action he judges most excellent, so far as it is in his power.”39 This, as it seems to me, is not a matter of course, and nothing of the kind is involved in the notion of duty itself. We must not confound the moral law with the moral ideal. Duty is the minimum of morality, the supreme moral ideal of the best man is the maximum of it. Those who sum up the whole of morality in the word “ought” identify the minimum and the maximum, but I fail to see that morality is better for this. Rather it is worse. The recognition of a “super-obligatory” does not lower the moral ideal; on the contrary it raises it, or at any rate makes it more possible to vindicate the moral law and to administer it justly. It is nowadays a recognised principle in legislation that a law loses part of its weight if it cannot be strictly enforced. If the realisation of the highest moral ideal is commanded by a moral law, such a law will always remain a dead letter, and morality will gain nothing. Far above the anxious effort to fulfil the commandments of duty stands the free and lofty aspiration to live up to an ideal, which, unattainable as it may be, threatens neither with blame nor remorse him who fails to reach its summits. Does not experience show that those whose thoughts are constantly occupied with the prescriptions of duty are apt to become hard and intolerant?