[THE LOGIC OF MORALS] FROM System of Logic

Abstract

[The final book of the System of Logic is devoted to an analysis of the logic of the Moral Sciences, in which Mill attempts to limit the application of the word “science” to what he calls its proper sense, that is, inquiry into the course of nature. In the concluding chapter, however, he turns to a consideration which, while not part of moral science, is important to moral knowledge. This is “an inquiry” whose results are expressed “in the imperative mood” rather than the “indicative”; in other words, an inquiry which produces “knowledge of duties; practical ethics, or morality”. The importance of this study to Mill is indicated in the final sentence of the Logic, where after saying that he hopes his efforts will aid in dispelling error and forwarding truth, he comments: “Should this hope be realized, what is probably destined to be the great intellectual achievement of the next two or three generations of European thinkers will have been in some degree forwarded.”]