★ Keep up to date with the latest news - subscribe to the Transcribe Bentham newsletter; Find a new page to transcribe in our list of Untranscribed Manuscripts
134
Humanity. It is effective benevolence or a or a disposition towards effective benevolence specifically directed to
a particular case of suffering. Its object is the removal of some immediate
positive, and not considerable weighty evil. It is very like good nature under
excitement. It supposes implies the exercise of not inconsiderable power of relief
on the part of the humane man – and for the only most part supposes
that but for its the exercise of his humanity the relieved object will be subjected to greater
evils than those humanity seeks to remove. But to this there are some
exceptions – the humanity of a King would lead him to pardon at the expense of penal justice –
the consequence of which would be good on a small scale & evil on a
large one: – the balance being a great public loss: – and the exercise
of humanity not a virtue, – but a vice. It may therefore be or
may not be praiseworthy. Its title to the name of virtue can
only be judged of when the pains it removes are weighed against
the pains it creates. It is apt to commit errors under present
impulses. Where, for example, the discipline or punishment
attending misconduct imprudence is likely to correct it that misconduct imprudence, –
& humanity steps in to ward off that punishment, so that
being unvisited by punishment the misconduct imprudence will be probablyv
repeated in consequence of being unvisited by punishment, – the
humanity, far from being a virtue is really a vice. And such
cases are of frequent occurrence. Of Many of our institutions called
humane & charitable – the whose object it is to screen misconduct
from its penalties, – do in fact only minister to human misery
If Indiscriminate Alms giving may in the same way be a premium to idleness
& profligacy. It is pernicious Wherever it weakens the moral sanction to such an extent
as to produce by the deterioration of character, a quantity of
future pain greater than that which it immediately removes it. The lesson to
be taught humanity in order to make it virtuous is that
of calculation. Its disposition is always to remove a pain
& to forget the salutary influence of that pain upon the time to come.
Abstracted It is only therefore from as connected with prudence & benevolence that humanity
is entitled to approval.
Identifier: | JB/015/285/001 "JB/" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 15.
|
|||
---|---|---|---|
015 |
deontology |
||
285 |
|||
001 |
|||
linking material |
1 |
||
recto |
f134 |
||
sir john bowring |
|||
5501 |
|||