Moral Philosophy: Ethics, Deontology and Natural Law — Themes and Context

A Manual Revised but Unchanged

The preface, dated 1905, notes that the manual has 'enjoyed all the popularity that its author could desire' for fifteen years. To avoid disrupting existing copies, Rickaby leaves the pagination and text unaltered, but he acknowledges having 'learnt nothing new' would be 'strange supineness.' He directs readers to his Political and Moral Essays (1902) for an updated chapter on the State. This tension between stability and improvement suggests a work that is both a settled textbook and a living document. The excerpts do not reveal whether the main text itself was revised; the preface implies it was not. Readers should note that the manual's structure—three parts on Ethics, Deontology, and Natural Law—reflects Rickaby's later thinking, but the actual content may predate that division.

Worship as a Duty of Natural Law

Part III, 'Natural Law,' begins with duties to God. Rickaby argues that worship is not optional: because we depend on God for our very being, we owe 'not merely to abstention but to act.' He distinguishes inward acts (adoration, praise, thanksgiving) from outward expressions (kneeling, singing, sacrifice). Interior devotion without exterior is 'worship unprofitable and dead,' while exterior without interior 'tends at once to corruption.' The text cites St. Thomas Aquinas's remark that 'they who b...' (the excerpt cuts off). Rickaby also warns against 'worship, mostly of the silent sort,' which he likens to a stone-breaker's 'vague, aimless reverie.' This section is notable for its concrete, almost liturgical detail—bowing, prostration, incense—and its insistence that worship is a duty, not a mere sentiment.

Polemic Against Utilitarianism

Though the excerpts are fragmentary, they include a clear statement: 'the perverse doctrine of Utilitarianism' is to be refuted by the manual's account of natural law. This aligns with Rickaby's broader project of grounding ethics in obligation rather than consequences. The preface also critiques Aristotle's eudaemonism, which treats duty only hypothetically—'if he means to be a happy man.' Rickaby insists that the 'fiery little word ought' must be central. The excerpts do not show how this refutation unfolds, but the combative tone is evident. Readers should expect a sustained argument against Utilitarian thinkers, likely including John Stuart Mill, though no names appear in the provided text.

Rickaby's manual is best approached as a work of Scholastic moral theology in dialogue with ancient and modern philosophy. The excerpts show a writer who is precise, occasionally witty, and unafraid to challenge canonical figures. Readers interested in the history of ethics, particularly the revival of Thomistic natural law theory in the early twentieth century, will find this a valuable primary source. The book's structure—moving from happiness to duty to law—invites careful comparison with the Aristotelian and Utilitarian systems it critiques.

Rickaby's old manual made me sit with how duty feels heavier than happiness, more like a quiet anchor than a bright goal. It reminded me of another book that untangles our longing for progress without losing that moral weight — Reconstruction in Philosophy — Context and Discussion. Some evenings, I still think about that tension between what is owed and what is simply hoped for.