14. WHAT IS NOT THE EXTENT OF MAN'S MORAL OBLIGATION?

 

     By this is intended, to what acts and states of mind does moral obligation extend? This certainly is a solemn and a fundamentally important question.

     In the examination of this question I shall,

     1. Show by an appeal to reason, or to natural theology, to what acts and states of mind moral obligation cannot directly extend.

     2. To what acts or states of mind moral obligation must directly extend.

     3. To what acts and mental states moral obligation must indirectly extend.

     I. I am to show by an appeal to reason, or to natural theology, to what acts and states of mind moral obligation cannot directly extend.

     1. Not to external or muscular action. These actions are connected with the actions of the will, by a law of necessity. If I will to move my muscles, they must move, unless the nerves of voluntary motion are paralyzed, or some resistance is offered to muscular motion, that overpowers the strength of my will, or, if you please, of my muscles. It is generally understood and agreed that moral obligation does not directly extend to bodily or outward action.

     2. Not to the states of the sensibility. I have already remarked, that we are conscious, that our feelings are not voluntary, but involuntary states of mind. Moral obligation cannot, therefore, directly extend to them.

     3. Not to states of the intellect. The phenomena of this faculty, we also know, by consciousness, to be under the law of necessity. It is impossible that moral obligation should extend directly to any involuntary act or state of mind.

     4. Not to unintelligent acts of will. There are many unintelligent volitions, or acts of will, to which moral obligation cannot extend, for example, the volitions of maniacs, or of infants, before the reason is at all developed. They must, at birth, be the subjects of volition, as they have motion or muscular action. The volitions of somnambulists are also of this character. Purely instinctive volitions must also come under the category of unintelligent actions of will. For example: a bee lights on my hand, I instantly and instinctively shake him off. I tread on a hot iron, and instinctively move my foot. Indeed, there are many actions of will, which are put forth under the influence of pure instinct, and before the intellect can affirm obligation to will or not to will. These surely cannot have moral character, and of course moral obligation cannot extend to them.

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