will guarantee right action? Now, there certainly are vast numbers of moral rules, in which the child is often instructed with much earnestness and persistence. "Under all variety of circumstances, in season and often out of season, we are fed on a diet of line upon line and precept upon precept. Children find precepts on the walls of their nurseries, and boys and girls in the headings of their copy-books. When the country girl leaves her home, it is with a precept her mother bids her farewell; and it is with a precept that the father sends out his boy to make his way in the world."[1]
There is no doubt that the moral experience of mankind is to a large extent embodied in these precepts, whether they be commonplaces of moralists, lines from the poets, proverbs of the people, or commandments of God. And it is natural that these moral rules should have an influence in shaping the lives of men and women.
(1) Yet the ethical value of such moral rules is very limited. If, in a concrete situation, we merely act according to a moral rule, in accordance with a formula which we have learnt by rote, our action really has no moral value. This follows from all that was said in the previous chapter. If a moral action is simply in accordance with a moral rule, simply in blind conformity to it, then the action is not really a moral action. It has no motive. If I respect my parents simply because the fifth commandment enjoins that duty, then my action has strictly no moral value. (2) Precepts of all kinds are often mere counsels
- ↑ MacCunn: The Making of Character, p. 179.
