Object of moral judgment is voluntary action:
The objects of moral judgment are all voluntary actions. But the voluntary actions, too, have many constituents.
In an internal state, before the activity it there is its motive, reason, intention, desire, thought-selection or will. After this internal condition, bodily activities take place and then their external result is visible. In this way, it cannot suffice to say that the objects of moral judgment are voluntary actions.
The question is that which of the two, reason or consequence, is the object of moral judgment suppose some rich man gives money to some institute hi order to become famous, his reason being obviously selfish. Is this work good or bad?
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Moral judgment is dependent upon result:
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According to the hedonists, the ethical value of any act depends upon its result in the words of Bentham, “If motives are good or bad, it is on account of their effects.” Similarly, according to Mill, “The motive has nothing to do with the morality of the action though much with the worth of the agent.”
Here it is worth noticing that both Mill and Bentham have treated reason as the motive of work. Thus according to Mill, it is a psychological blunder to accept many types of motives of act because the act of everybody is of this type. Thus, good or bad of an act can lie only in its result.
Moral Judgment is based on motive:
According to another opinion, the object of moral decision is the motive of work. In the words of Kant, “.The effect of our actions cannot give them moral worth.”
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The intuitionists believe that it is the source or the motivating elements of any act are base we should regard that act as bad and if they are noble it should be considered good. Butler says, “.The Tightness or wrongness of an act depends very much upon the motive for which it is done.’
Antagonism of motive and result:
No problem arises upon a mutual compromise between motive and result, and moral judgment is taken on both. But when the motive is good but the result bad, then the problem arises as to which of the two, motive and result, is to be the object of moral judgment.
For example, a doctor operates upon a patient in order to cure him, but despite all precautions the patient dies. Here the motive is good, the result bad. Now the question is—was the operation performed by the doctor wrong? It will become clear by considering that only that part of human activity can be called ethical or unethical for which he is free and responsible.
It has been said realistically in the Gita that the result of action is not in men’s hands. Experience and history also support this fact Thus when the result is not hi our hands we can hardly be held responsible for it to call it ethical or unethical would be the same as calling the striking of lightning or shocks of an earthquake ethical or unethical. Hence, it is undoubtedly acceptable that whatever part of the result is dependent upon man’s free will is capable of being called ethical or unethical.
Motive and result are not mutually contradictory:
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In fact motive and result do not contradict each other. When there is mutual difference between motive and result, it is the former which will be the object of moral judgment. In the words of Dr. Johnson, “The morality of action depends on the motive from which we act.
If I fling half a crown at a beggar and he picks it up and buys victuals with it, the physical effect is good, but, with respect to me, the action is very wrong.”
Is intention of motive the object of moral judgment?
Now conjoined to it is another question, viz., is the object of moral judgment motive or intention. Actually this question had been raised by the hedonists who consider feelings of pleasure or pain to be the motives and intention something different from them.
According to Bentham, “A motive is substantially flying more than pleasure or pain operating in certain manner.” According to Bentham, intention is the aim or object to act.
Thus, it is intention, which is the object of moral judgment because motives are all of the same kind.
This is Mill’s opinion as well and he puts it in these words, “The morality of action depends entirely upon the intention, that is, upon what the agent wills to do.
But the motive, that is, the feeling which makes him will to do, when it makes no difference act makes none in the morality.”
Bentham and Mill have correctly said that the feelings of pleasure or pain have no ethical value but they made mistake of making these feelings to be motives, pleasure and pain are merely blind feelings.
They cannot be the motivating causes of an intellectual doer. Motive is the aim of action! Thus, it is due to misunderstanding the correct nature of motive that the hedonists do not believe it to be object of moral judgment.
Actually, motive is only a part of intention. It includes both means and ends. Here the question of means-end relation also arises. Does the end justify the means or dose the means justify the end?
Actually neither cans the means become good if the end is good nor can the end become good if the means is good. For any act to be completely ethical both the means and ends must be good. Thus, both motive and intention are the objects of moral judgement.
Here it is worth noting that ethical laws can be applied only after a complete analysis of the entire moral situation has been carried out in this way intention includes motive. Thus in stating that intention is the object of moral judgement, it becomes clear that motive is not the only determinant of ethics. It is necessary to think of its means too.
Distinctions in Intentions:
Mackenzie has accepted many distinctions in intentions.
(1) The immediate and Remote Intentions:
The immediate intention of the two people may be the same i.e., to save the drowning man, but their remote intentions may be different. One may want to save one’s life while the other may be waning to band him over to the police.
Here both the immediate and the remote intentions will be the objects of moral judgment.
(2) Outer and inner intentions:
Seeing a pig hi pain and taking pain on him, Abraham Lint’ lifted him out of the gutter. Here the outer intention was to remove another’s pain while the internal intention was to remove apprehension due to the pain- in such a situation both the outer and inner intentions will be the objects of moral judgement.
(3) Direct and indirect intention:
When a revolutionary wants to blow up the train carrying the emperor, his direct intention is, of course, to kill the emperor but the indirect intention is to kill the other occupants of the tram as well because he is aware that a number of other people will lose their lives along with the emperor.
(4) Conscious and unconscious intentions:
In this way the conscious intention of a person may be the good of the family while his unconscious intention is to make himself proud. Her unconscious intention is that intention of which the doer has no conscious knowledge. But the unconscious intention can be the object of moral judgment especially when the doer is aware of its presence though not attributing his work to it.
(5) Formal and material intention:
Though the material intentions of two people plotting to overthrow the government are the same their formal intentions may differ because while one wants to remove it due to its extremely dynamic nature, the other may desire to remove it because it is too dogmatic. Here moral judgment will be passed both on forma and material intentions.
Thus we come to the conclusion that total intention, not merely the thought of motive or end, is the subject of moral judgment. In Mackenzie’s word,” .an intention, in the broadest sense of the term, means any aim that is definitely adopted as an object of will.”
Is Character an object of moral judgment:
Here another question arises. Is character an object of moral judgment?” According of Mackenzie, “It appears from this, however that it is only hi a somewhat strained sense that the (moral) judgment can be said to be passed either on the intention or on the motive alone.
The truth seems o be rather that the fully developed moral judgment is always pronounced, directly or indirectly, on the character of the agent. It is never simply ^n the thing done, but always on a person doing, that we pass moral judgment.”
But the principle seems to be doubtful. Intention expresses character. We know a person’s character only by seeing his conduct thus we can call a person’s character good or bad to the extent the conduct expresses a person’s character. But character is a complex psychological structure.
The worst people sometimes do well while people with the best characters can fall a prey to evil and do bad things. Thus a person’s whole character cannot be pronounced bad upon seeing some particular bad activity. Character is the determinant of a person’s moral value, not of the moral of value of some specific act of his. The determinant of the moral value of that act will be his intention.
Habits too are the object of moral judgment:
The habits of a person also are the object of moral judgment because, even though they become involuntary afterwards, man willfully, cultivates them. Voluntary repetition of an activity becomes a habit which, afterwards, forces the individual to act without desire. Thus, habit also is fundamentally voluntary.
In this way, briefly, the objects of moral judgment are motive, intention, means, ends habits etc.