Moral Progress & Politics The Theory of T. H. Green - Harris

Moral Progress & Politics: The Theory of T. H.
Green
Author(s): Paul Harris
Source: Polity, Vol. 21, No. 3 (Spring, 1989), pp. 538-562
Published by: Palgrave Macmillan Journals
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3234747
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Moral Progress
& Politics:
The Theory of
T. H. Green
Paul Harris
Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand
T. H. Green has become something of a neglected figure among
American political theorists, perhaps because his focus on the social
character of man is not altogether compatible with some of the more
extreme versions of liberal individualism now in vogue. This article examines Green's conception of moral progress and the ways in which
he thought political institutions and political activity contribute to it.
The author argues that Green's theory of moral progress is ultimately
unsatisfactory, but does help to illuminate his political philosophy by
underscoring his gradualist and cautious view of the role of politics in
promoting the "moralisation " of individuals.
Paul Raymond Harris is Senior Lecturer in Politics at Victoria

University of Wellington, New Zealand. He is coeditor of T. H.
Green's Lectures on the Principles of Political Obligation and other
writings (1986) and has authored numerous articles on public policy
and electoral questions as well as philosophical issues.
The idea that history exhibits the moral progress of humanity is likely to
strike the modern reader as rather odd and certainly old-fashioned. It

seems most at home among the prevailing optimism of the eighteenth
and nineteenth centuries about continued progress on all fronts-scientific, artistic, intellectual, and moral-rather than in modern times where
progress is seen almost exclusively in terms of science and its application.
Indeed, there are some who hold that the undoubted advances in science
and technology have in fact brought moral regress rather than progress.
On the other hand, there do seem to be some areas of modern life where
we can claim with some justification to be morally better, or at least

more enlightened, than people in earlier times. Some behavior that was
once morally required or accepted is now considered morally indefensible, e.g., slavery and the brutal treatment of criminals. We now have dif-
ferent moral views about child rearing, about the roles of women. and
Paul Harris 539
about the proper functions of the state and of government. There has
also been an emphasis on individual freedom and rights. Yet, on what
basis can we make such judgments? Do they rest on nothing more than
special pleading for our own moral views, or can the idea of moral progress be given a more solid foundation?
T. H. Green thinks it can, and places a theory of moral progress at the
very core of his moral and political philosophy' in a way that has important parallels with Kantian and Hegelian theory2 and yet retains a liberal
commitment to individualism, although one anchored firmly in com

munity. Green's theory of moral progress, however, is fundamentally
flawed because it does not admit the possibility of the comparative
judgments about motives for action necessary to establish that moral
change has occurred. Moreover, he regarded politics as able to make
only a limited contribution to an uncertain and spasmodic moral pro
gress.3 But while Green's theory of moral progress is ultimately unsatis-
factory, it nevertheless illuminates his political philosophy by underlin

ing his gradualist and cautious view of the role of politics in promoting
the "moralisation" of individuals.
I.
The lectures on moral philosophy which Green gave at Oxford University
following his appointment in 1878 as Whyte's Professor of Moral Philosophy were in the final stages of revision for publication at the time of his
death in 1882 and were published posthumously as Prolegomena to

Ethics. The metaphysical, epistemological, and moral theories developed
in that work provide the essential background for understanding his
1. For a corrected edition of Green's major political writings, see T. H. Green, Lectures
on the Principles of Political Obligation and other writings, ed. Paul Harris and John Morrow (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986). Hereinafter cited as "Harris and
Morrow."
2. There is no space in this paper to discuss these parallels. For a brief discussion
Green's relationship to Kant and Hegel, see Andrew Vincent, "Introduction," The Ph
ophy of T. H. Green, ed. Vincent, (Aldershot: Gower, 1986), pp. 7-10; the influence
Hegel on British idealism is analyzed in Peter Robbins, The British Hegelians 1875-1
(New York: Garland, 1982). It is important, however, not to exaggerate the extent
Green's debts to Kant and Hegel since many of the apparently Kantian and Hege
themes in Green are also found in the work of earlier English writers such as Coleridge
Maurice with which Green was familiar; see Harris and Morrow's "Introduction" to t
edition of Green, p. 5.
3. For an account of liberal views about the role of politics in moral development,
Gerald F. Gaus, The Modern Liberal Theory of Man (London: Croom Helm, 1983), Ch
4, 6.
540 Moral Progress & Politics
political philosophy in the better known Lectures on the Principles of

Political Obligation, the "Lecture on 'Liberal Legislation and Freedom
of Contract,"' and the essay on freedom.
Green's major conclusion in Book 1 of the Prolegomena4 is that the
existence of facts which are not known by any human consciousness requires us to accept the existence of an eternal consciousness which is the
precondition of all human knowledge, and in which human selfconsciousness participates increasingly albeit imperfectly. Since selfconscious action toward a goal conceived by reason is the distinctive
human quality, Green regards this increasing participation as one of
human self-realization. Hence, he argues, the more we know about
ourselves and nature and the more we exercise our human qualities in,
for example, art, literature, philosophy, religion, social organization,
science, and morality, the more we realize ourselves as human beings.
Moreover, when we look at human history and see what has been
achieved in these areas of human life, we will recognize that history is in
fact progressive: human beings have achieved more refined and more
comprehensive ways of expressing their human qualities as the centuries
have passed and hence they have attained progressively more complete
realizations of their own nature. Because individuals know they are less
than they could be, they are aware of themselves as containing further
scope for development in the ways their nature as human beings is expressed, and thus they know that progress in human self-realization can
continue.
Green argues that the exercise of human moral capacity necessarily involves the use of will and reason.5 Complete fulfillment of that capacity
would amount to our complete self-realization and complete freedom as
moral beings; this must therefore be the focus of our moral duties and
must constitute the conscious motive of our actions. It becomes, he says,
"in Kant's language, an imperative, and a categorical imperative."6' But
it is crucial to Green's argument that the categorical imperative is the
only absolutely binding duty; specific actions cannot be binding in

themselves but are only conditionally so according to whether they fulfill
the categorical imperative in the prevailing circumstances.

A person who is aware of the moral capacity in himself will recognize
that others have it too, and hence will not treat others as means to his
4. What follows is a very brief summary of Green's conclusions; for a full discussion of
his arguments, see Melvin Richter, The Politics of Conscience: T. H. Green and His Age
(London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1964), Ch. 6.
5. Prolegomena to Ethics, s. 177; Harris and Morrow, pp. 252-53.
6. Ibid., s. 196; Harris and Morrow, p. 261.
Paul Harris 541
own satisfaction but will have an interest in their self-satisfaction.7 Thus
it is a necessary part of human life in any society that has developed

beyond the primitive' to have a notion of the good that is common to al
individuals in their relations with others, i.e., it is necessary for each individual to conceive and seek a "permanent well-being in which the permanent well-being of others is included."9 The individual's true good
must thus depend on the good of those with whom he forms a community, and hence he can only realize himself in helping them to realize
themselves. The true good must also be noncompetitive and nonmaterial,
since otherwise its attainment by some would preclude its attainment by
others."' But although individuals can only seek and attain self-
realization as members of particular societies, that very membership in

the circumstances in which it occurs must necessarily limit their opportunities to do so. "Each has primarily to fulfil the duties of his
station.""'
This essential social and communitarian dimension to individual self-
realization enables Green to argue that social institutions and practices

can be seen as social efforts after a common good that arise out of the
need to provide the conditions within which human beings may pursue
self-realization in their own ways and, at the same time, meet the need to
harmonize the various ways in which they do so. As such, social institutions and practices are part of the same action of the eternal consciousness that gives rise to self-realization. Individuals must therefore
acknowledge them as deserving their allegiance and consideration as
essential elements in their own self-realization, provided these institutions and practices continue to be means to the common good and are
not impediments to it.
A particular set of social institutions and practices, and the principles

on which they are based, thus represents a particular conception of the
common good and of its relation to individuals, and hence of the rights
to be accorded them. A right for Green is a power of acting, secured to
an individual by social recognition, in the expectation that the exercise of
that power will be for the common good. It is thus a guarantee to an individual of a certain freedom of action through which he may develop his
7. Ibid.,
8. Ibid.,
9. Ibid.,
10. Ibid.,
s. 199; Harris and Morrow, p. 263.

ss. 240-42; Harris and Morrow, pp. 274-77.
s. 201; Harris and Morrow, pp. 263-64.
s. 245; Harris and Morrow, p. 279.
11. Ibid., s. 183; Harris and Morrow, p. 255. Cf. F. H. Bradley, Ethical Studies (1876),
Ch. 5, and the note to Green's sentence, Harris and Morrow, pp. 354-55.
moral personality,12 and thus may further the good of others as well as
his own. The only qualification for entitlement to rights is that the individual has shown a capacity for acting in ways that serve the good of
all. This is satisfied by anyone who has the capacity to reason about his
actions and his relations to his fellows. There is no requirement that a
right will always actually be exercised for social good. The exercise of a
right for selfish reasons does not make it any less a right, even though it
is not used as it should be. Indeed, even exercising a right against the
common good may itself be sufficient evidence of that capacity for
reasoned action to serve the common good as to warrant the continued
recognition of the right.'" Green does allow some circumstances in which
rights may be temporarily removed from an individual or even withdrawn altogether, as in certain cases of punishment of criminals, but
again he emphasizes that wherever possible this should be done in such a
way as to preserve the possibility that the criminal might yet be able to
resume the exercise of rights.14
Because men need rights in order to contribute to the common good,
their rights must be secured by a body capable of reconciling all claims to
rights within the society. This body is of course the state. It carries out its
12. Lectures on the Principles of Political Obligation, ss. 25-26; Harris and Morrow, pp.
25-27.
13. Green also talks explicitly of "the rights of the state"; see Lectures, s. 156; Harris
and Morrow, p. 121. He seems to regard these as analogous to the rights of the individual,
even though he does not regard the state as having a "moral personality" to develop.
14. Green's theory of rights has been heavily criticized on several grounds, particularly
concerning the requirement of social recognition and the related point about how it is possible to have a right that is not recognized, as he expressly permits (Lectures, s. 143; Harris
and Morrow, p. 112). See, for example, J. P. Plamenatz, Consent, Freedom and Political
Obligation, 2nd edition, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1968), pp. 90-97; H. A.
Prichard, Moral Obligation, and Duty and Interest (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1968), pp. 63-64; Richter, The Politics of Conscience, pp. 262-64. Rex Martin, however,
regards Green's Lectures as "perhaps the finest book in the philosophy of rights written to
date"; "Green on natural rights in Hobbes, Spinoza and Locke," The Philosophy of T. H.
Green, ed. Vincent, p. 104. It must be said that Green's language is not altogether clear on
the element of social recognition necessary to a right. At times he speaks as though that
recognition can only be expressed through law; this makes it hard to see how anyone could
claim a right that was not so recognized, yet Green is willing to allow that slaves have certain rights even though they are expressly denied by law (Lectures, s. 145; Harris and Morrow, pp. 114-115). At other times he seems to allow that rights can be recognized in less
formal ways than through law; he talks of the rights of a father within the family which are
recognized by the other members of it, though the range of rights involved is narrow.
Similarly, rights are recognized within other social groupings, and part of the state's role is
to adjust, harmonize, and give "fuller reality" to these rights arising out of narrower
associations (Lectures, s. 132; Harris and Morrow, p. 103).
Paul Harris 543
moral function by removing some of the obstacles to the self-
development of individuals or by being, in the phrase made famous by

Bosanquet, "the hindrance of hindrances"" through criminal and civil
laws which secure individual rights and freedoms and regulate and harmonize some of their various claims on one another, and does so in the
interests of all rather than of elites or classes. The state's role in individual self-realization must therefore be indirect; the state cannot make
men moral, because it can only directly affect their external actions and
thus cannot ensure that they act from the right motive.'6 Indeed, Green
suggests that it may inhibit the growth of the proper motives for action if
it interferes where it is not needed.'7 Its role must be confined to requiring and prohibiting certain actions according to their effects on the com-
mon good; it ought not interfere with individual attempts to pursue the
common good unless it is essential "to the existence of a society in which
the moral end stated can be realised that it is better for [these acts] to be
done or omitted from that unworthy motive which consists in fear or
hope of legal consequences than not to be done at all."'" This provides
Green with a justification for state interference with freedom of contract
if those contracts limit "freedom in the positive sense: in other words,
the liberation of the powers of all men equally for contributions to a
common good.""9
Hence, state action ought to be used only where conventional morality
and the habitual dispositions of individuals cannot be relied upon to promote the common good. And in doing so, Green thinks that the law will
have an educative effect upon those who seek self-satisfaction at the ex-
pense of the rights of others. According to his theory, in the circumstances of mid-Victorian Britain, the state would be justified in having a direct role in providing the social and material bases on which individuals might be able to become moralized. It should, for example, insist that parents meet their duty to educate their children (though
15. Bernard Bosanquet, The Philosophical Theory of the State, 4th edition, (London:
Macmillan, 1958), p. 183. Green did admit that "actual states at best fulfill but partially
their ideal function" (Lectures, s. 143; Harris and Morrow, p. 112), but regarded this as
reason for saying that there is always room for improvement rather than as grounds for
complacency.
16. "That the law cannot make men good-that its business is to set them free to make
themselves good-I quite agree." Green to Sir William Harcourt, quoted in Harris and
Morrow, p. 345, note 24.
17. Lectures, s. 17; Harris and Morrow, p. 21.
19. "Lecture on 'Liberal Legislation and Freedom of Contract,' " Harris and Morrow,
p. 200.

curiously he describes it as a duty parents owe to their neighbors rather
than to the children themselves20) and it may provide the facilities for
them to do so. It should also control inheritance, enforce maximum
hours of work in factories, regulate housing conditions and sanitation,
and control the sale of alcoholic liquor.21
II.
Green holds that there are three broad epochs in human history. Each
represents definite moral progress over its predecessor when analyzed in
terms of true freedom, "which each man exercises through the help or
security given him by his fellowmen, and which he in turn helps to secure
for them."22 First, primitive man was concerned with securing the condi-
tions for material existence and was able to conceive of a good common
only for a relatively small kin-group. The second stage occurred in

classical Greece, where major advances were made in moral and social
theory and institutions upon which our own rest to this day. Green
argues, however, that the Greek efforts in these directions were

hampered by too narrow a conception of the conduct required by the
right motive"2 and by their refusal to extend the benefits secured to a few
to all within their communities. The third stage is the Christian era,
20. "Two Lectures on the Elementary School System of England," quoted in Harris and
Morrow, p. 355, note 5. Green was active in educational matters throughout his life. He
was an Assistant Commissioner on the Taunton Commission on Secondary Education
(1865-1866) and had a long interest in widening opportunities for secondary and further
education in Oxford. For an analysis of the effects of Green and other British idealists on
education, see Peter Gordon and John White, Philosophers as educational reformers. The
influence of idealism on British educational thought and practice (London: Routledge and
Kegan Paul, 1979).
21. "Liberal Legislation," Harris and Morrow, pp. 198-212. Green frequently refers to
the injustice of the condition of the lower strata of the English society of his day, and Nettleship reports him as admitting to having underestimated the extent to which alcohol had
sapped the moral will of the working class and hindered their moral progress ["Memoir,"
Works of Thomas Hill Green, 3 vols., ed. R. L. Nettleship (London: Longmans, Green &
Co., 1855-1858), III: cxvii-cxviiil. Green was a committed temperance campaigner;
for an account of his arguments and his activities, see Peter Nicholson, "T. H. Green and
state action: liquor legislation," The Philosophy of T. H. Green, ed. Vincent, pp. 76-103.
For an analysis of the effects of the theories of Green and his followers on the welfare role
of the state and their influence on its development in Britain, see Andrew Vincent and Ray-
mond Plant, Philosophy, Politics and Citizenship, (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1984).
Green's account of freedom in "Liberal Legislation" is analyzed in Richard Norman, Free
and Equal. A Philosophical Examination of Political Values (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1987), Chs. 2, 3.
22. "Liberal Legislation," Harris and Morrow, p. 199.

23. Prolegomena, esp. s. 268; Harris and Morrow, p. 282.
Paul Harris 545
which for the first time brought a recognition of the principle of th

universal brotherhood of all men. The course of history in the centurie
since the beginning of that era has seen a continuing struggle to imple
ment this recognition in diverse areas of moral and social practice.24
The "extension of the area of the common good" is the first and mos
important of two ways in which moral progress has been made and wi
continue to be made. It is the gradual recognition that all human being
with but a few exceptions, have moral capacity, and hence that it is in
consistent and morally wrong to claim rights for ourselves based on that
capacity but to deny them to others who share it with us.25 The second
and related, aspect of moral progress has been the better understandin
of what the common good requires.26 As more and more people are ex
pressly admitted into the company of the bearers of rights, there arises a
deeper appreciation of the possibilities for human self-realization and o
24. There is a very close relationship between Green's metaphysics and his theology; his
other names for the eternal consciousness are the "eternal mind," and the "divine mind
(e.g., Prolegomena, s. 180; Harris and Morrow, p. 254). Green's attitude toward institu
tionalized Christianity was at best ambivalent. He argued that Christian dogmatic theology
as a system of general beliefs, with the rules derived from them and from the need for th
early institutionalization of Christianity, inevitably brought a departure from the simple
messages of Christ ("Essay on Christian Dogma," Works, III: 161-85; "The Witness o
God," Works, III: 230-52). He thought it possible to forgo the traditional and conventional language of Christianity, with its emphasis on particular historical events (whic
were in fact irrelevant to faith) and its image of God as a lawgiving and punishing father
figure. Yet Green, the first lay tutor at Oxford, gave lay sermons to Oxford undergraduates, and lectured and wrote commentaries on St. Paul. He retained religious language as
useful medium for expressing his religious and metaphysical views. He suggested, however
that an athiest could be just as "religious" as a traditional Christian if he used reason to in
quire into human self-consciousness, since "reason is the source alike of faith and o
knowledge" and "a passionate atheism . . . is often a religion which misunderstands itself.
It is seeking after God, but in the hurry of irritation against the ignorance and fear which
call themselves religious, it cannot recognise its object under the old name. It may limit an
distort the spiritual life, and yet leave the spring of its nobility untouched" ("Faith,"
Works, III: 269, 270-71). For discussions of Green's religious thought, see Andrew Vin
cent, "Introduction" and Bernard M. G. Reardon, "T. H. Green as a Theologian," bot
in The Philosophy of T. H. Green, ed. Vincent, pp. 2-5 and 36-47, respectively; Richter
The Politics of Conscience, Ch. 4; Vincent and Plant, Philosophy, Politics and Citizenshi
Ch. 2.
25. Prolegomena, ss. 206-217; Harris and Morrow, pp. 268-73. Geoffrey Thomas
argues that Green therefore sees moral progress as a "responsiveness to analogies"; The
Moral Philosophy of T. H. Green (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987), p. 327. That may be
true of moral progress within conventional morality, but it seems to me to neglect the role
of the moral reformer in Green's theory, to be discussed below.
26. Ibid., ss. 218-45; Harris and Morrow, pp. 273-79.
the need for further reflective adjustments to ways of harmonizing the

interests of all in the common good.
Green obviously has to find a way to reconcile the progress of social
institutions with his view that only individuals can be moral beings
because only they can exercise will and reason in the requisite senses. He
does so by distinguishing three stages in the moral progress of an individual, corresponding to three stages in his degree of enlightenment
about his relation to, and conception of, the common good. In the first
stage, he merely follows conventional morality, regarding it as an
authority external to him that will inflict sanctions on him if he does not
conform. It is through his relationship to an external authority, rather
than from his own conception of what he ought to do, that he is restrained from acting purely on the basis of inclination. His motive is thus
still essentially self-interested, something inspired from without. But, in
Green's view, this restraint on the individual will lead him to realize
through self-reflection that he does have interests in common with
others.27
Thus begins the moralization of the individual, and when through self-
reflection he arrives at "a conception (under whatever name) of something that universally should be, of something absolutely desirable, of a
single end or object of life,"28 he has reached the second stage. He may
not have a very clear or articulated idea of this end or object of life, and
he may be entirely mistaken about its nature. But he knows that there
must be one, and he knows that social institutions and conventional
morality are at least means to it. Hence he obeys out of conviction rather
than conforms out of fear of sanctions. This is the stage where most men
are in any society regulated by a conception of a common good. A few

may achieve the third and highest stage of reflective morality: "the
growth of a personal interest in the realisation of an ideal of what should
be, in doing what is believed to contribute to the absolutely desirable, or
to human perfection, because it is believed to do so."29 The individual is

now conscious of the absolutely desirable, which becomes his motive for
action as he recognizes its pursuit as his unconditional duty. He is now
truly free and autonomous since reason determines the will directly, not
from outside himself as when he conforms to conventional morality, but
from within as a self-prescribed motive for self-determined action. Such
27. Lectures, ss. 2-5; Harris and Morrow, pp. 13-15.

28. "On the Different Senses of 'Freedom' as Applied to Will and to the Moral Progress
of Man," s. 24; Harris and Morrow, p. 247.
29. Ibid., s. 25; Harris and Mo;row, p. 248.
Paul Harris 547
a person can, in a sense, stand apart from social institutions and conven
tional morality and criticize them according to their own principle.30 In

contrast to the person at the second stage, he can be loyal in the tru
sense-to the spirit rather than to the letter." He obeys out of a sense o
self-imposed duty toward the moral ideal rather than from fear of sanctions or a dimly perceived notion of common interests, though he is still
susceptible to "perplexities of conscience" and apparent conflicts of
duties.32
III.
That the circumstances in which people live have a crucial effect on the
actions they should take to advance the common good is further reflected
in Green's analysis of political activity. Although he is rightly said to

have advocated a religion of citizenship," this must be understood in a
wide sense in which those who are citizens, i.e., who are members of a
society regulated by a conception of the common good, fulfill that role
by contributing to the common good in whatever ways their station in
life requires or permits. That may have little to do with political activity
as such, for a particular person's circumstances, interests, and talents

may not lie in those directions. Green does suggest that the person at the
third state of moral development has an overriding duty to contribute to
the establishment and maintenance of social and political conditions that

will enhance the realization of the common good. He discusses the example of such a person with a talent for music who asks whether he ought to
develop that talent or devote himself to the service of mankind. Green's

reply is, "It depends." It depends on how he might best contribute to
human perfection in the light of "the position and general capabilities of
the individual . . . the circumstances of his time, the claims of surround-
ing society."34 Although excellence in music has a place in human self30. Lectures, s. 3; Harris and Morrow, p. 14.
31. This is the major theme of one of Green's undergraduate essays: "The truly loyal
man is not one who shouts for king and constitution, or who yields a blind obedience to the
routine of existing institutions, but he who looks beyond them to the universal law of the
common reason of men, and in reverence for this yields a willing and hearty obedience to
the rules in which it embodies itself for the establishment of right dealing in society-rules
which except so far as they have been distorted by violence, have only varied to adapt
themselves to the varying affairs of men." "Loyalty," Harris and Morrow, p. 306.
32. Prolegomena, ss. 309, 313, 321-28; Harris and Morrow, pp. 289, 292-301.
33. Andrew Vincent, "T. H. Green and the Religion of Citizenship," The Philosophy of
T. H. Green, ed. Vincent, pp. 48-61.
34. Prolegomena to Ethics, ed. A. C. Bradley, 4th ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1899),
s. 377, p. 478.
realization, Green regards it as less important at times than other

elements of the common good:
In some Italian principality of the last century, for instance, with its
civil life crushed out and its moral energies debased, excellence in
music could hardly be accounted of actual and present value at
all. ... Under such conditions much occupation with music might
imply indifference to claims of the human soul which must be
satisfied in order to the attainment of a life in which the value of
music could be actualised."3

The person at the second state of personal moral development, on the
other hand, will fulfill the duties of his station by conforming, on the
whole, to conventional morality, by doing what is socially expected of
him. Green regards conventional morality, public opinion, public consciousness, and the social institutions and structures with which they are
associated as the outcome of past wisdom, arising out of the attempts of

previous generations to pursue the common good. Conventional morality and "established usage and interests"''6 are thus tangible expressions
of the interest in the common good which each individual shares with the
others in his society, and hence are his best guides to actions which con-
35. Ibid., s. 381, pp. 483-84; cf. Prolegomena, s. 270, Harris and Morrow, pp. 282-83,
where Green considers the "sacrifices constantly witnessed in the nobler lives of Christendom," the calls for which
arise from that enfranchisement of all men which . . . carries with it for the
responsive conscience a claim on the part of all men to such positive help from all
men as is needed to make their freedom real. Where the Greek saw a supply of
possibly serviceable labor, having no end or function but to be made really serviceable to the privileged few, the Christian citizen sees a multitude of persons, who
in their actual present condition may have no advantage over the slaves of an ancient
state, but who in undeveloped possibility, and in the claims which arise out of that
possibility, are all that he himself is. Seeing this, he finds a necessity laid upon him.
It is no time to enjoy the pleasures of eye and ear, of search for knowledge, of
friendly intercourse, of applauded speech or writing, while the mass of men whom
we call our brethren, and whom we declare to be meant with us for eternal destinies,
are left without the chance, which only the help of others can gain for them, of mak-
ing themselves in act what in possibility we believe them to be. Interest in the prob-
lem of social deliverance, in one or other of the innumerable forms in which it

presents itself to us, but in which it could not present itself under such a state of
society as that contemplated by the ancient Greek, forbids a surrender to enjoyments which are not incidental to that work of deliverance, whatever the value
which they, or the activities to which they are incidental, otherwise have.
36. "Four Lectures on the English Revolution," Harris and Morrow, p. 220.
Paul Harris 549
tribute to human self-realization, of himself and others. They and not
force and coercion3" form the major stabilizing elements in society.
Political activity should, therefore, take place within the limits they set,
and should only venture beyond them if public opinion is ready to be ex-
tended in that direction. He argues, for example, that those contemplating resistance to established government, whether majoritarian
or not, must always take into account the state of mind of the majority
since "the presumption must generally be that resistance to a government
is not for the public good when made on grounds which the mass of the
people cannot appreciate; and it must be on the presence of a strong and
intelligent popular sentiment in favour of resistance that the chance of
avoiding anarchy . . . must chiefly depend."''3 Nevertheless, the state of

mind of the majority does not justify resistance, for a hopeless minority
may have a duty to resist the government, "even though there is no hope
of the resistance finding efficient popular support" since "its repeated

renewal and repeated failure may offer the only prospect of ultimately
arousing the public spirit which is necessary for the maintenance of a
government in the public interest."'9
The paramount importance of public sentiment as the foundation of
political institutions is clearly illustrated in Green's analysis of the
English Revolution. He sees the Revolution as resulting from conflict between, on the one hand, the various religious forces unleashed by the
Reformation's notions of justification by faith and the right of private
judgment and, on the other, the Royalist notion of "prescribed institutions, about which no questions are to be asked, and in the maintenance
of which cruelty becomes mercy and falsehood truth."40 Yet the failure
of the Revolution became inevitable, even though it was the creation of
the impulse of freedom, for it was in fact "founded on . . . the opinion
of a few, brought to sudden strength and maturity ... but which had no
hold either on the sentiment or the settled interests of the country."4'1
The Commonwealth's men failed to take account of the popular
reverence for familiar names and a resentment against virtues

which profess to be other than customary and commonplace....
In the pride of triumphant reason they took pleasure in trampling
37. Lectures, s. 113f; Harris and Morrow, p. 89f.
38. Ibid., s. 108; Harris and Morrow, p. 86. For an account of Green's views about civil
disobedience, see Paul Harris, "Green's theory of political obligation and civil disobedience," The Philosophy of T. H. Green, ed. Vincent, pp. 127-42.
40. "English Revolution," Harris and Morrow, pp. 214-15.
41. Ibid., p. 220.
on the common feelings and interests, through which reason must

work if it is to work at all.... [The Commonwealth's] claim was
not gradually to transmute but suddenly to suppress, the feeling of
the many by the reason of the few; a claim which all the while belied
itself, for it appealed to popular, and even natural right, and which
implied no concrete power of political construction. It was a

democracy without a demos, it rested on an assertion of the
supremacy of reason, which from its very exclusiveness gave the
reason no work to do.42
Although the Revolution eventually failed, behind it lay "the universal
spiritual force which as ecstacy, mysticism, quietism, philosophy, is in

permanent collision with the carnal interests of the world, which, if it
conquers them for a moment, yet again sinks under them, that it may
transmute them more thoroughly to its service."43 Despite its failure, its
effects were lasting and beneficial: "It saved [England] from the
Catholic reaction . . . it created the 'dissenting bodies,' [and it gave] the
Church of the sectaries . . . a permanent force which no reaction could
suppress, and which has since been the great spring of political life in
England." It thus began to work gradually to transmute popular feeling,
and as such represents a definite step forward in the progress of English
society toward a truly common good.

IV.
The impulses toward the common good and the particular conceptions of
it contained within the institutions and conventional morality of a society
allow Green to counter an obvious objection to his moral and political
theory. He recognizes, as he must, that some people participate in

political life for personal gain, or to safeguard their social and class positions, or from a desire for self-glorification. He acknowledges that states
are formed and change through violence and for other moral reasons.
The problem he faces is how to reconcile these facts with his theory that
the state is directed toward a common good.

He does so in two ways. First, he readily admits that a particular state
might serve the interests of a few rather than the common good.
Although he seems to think that all states properly so-called serve the
common good to some extent, it may be minimal when compared with
42. Ibid., pp. 220-21.

43. The quotations in this sentence and the next are from "English Revolution," Harris
and Morrow, p. 227.
Paul Harris 551
their potential for good if the interests of the few gave way to those of the
many. He does seem to allow, although again more implicitly than explicitly, that we cannot expect democratic forms of government in
societies which lack either certain social or cultural characteristics or an
adequate economic base. The former cases, of course, follow from his
view that popular consciousness must affect the form of government.
The latter cases are no less important, both in terms of their effects on
circumstances, but also of their influence on popular consciousness.44
Second, Green regards the motives of thoroughly selfish political actors as of limited causal significance when compared with the whole
range of causes which affect political outcomes. How can the selfish actions of important political figures such as Julius Caesar or Napoleon
still serve the common good? Green replies that an action which is bad in
itself, i.e., with respect to motive, may yet have an effect for good. The
distinction between motive and effect is necessary because we cannot

know the real motives of others,45 but we can nevertheless judge whether
their actions have a beneficial effect on the common good. According to

Green, closer examination of particular examples will reveal that the
leader's actions were "but a trifling element in the sum or series of actions which yielded the political movement. The good in the effect of the
movement will readily correspond to the degree of good will which has
been exerted in bringing it about; and the effects of any selfishness in its
promoters will appear in some limitation to the good which it brings to

society . . . while what was good in it was due to higher and purer influences of which he and they were but the medium."46 Those higher and
44. In "The Force of Circumstances," (Works, III: 9), Green writes:

Political constitutions seem often the result merely of physical geography, the
cause, rather than the effect, of the temper of the people. Without coal a country
cannot pursue manufactures to any great extent, and without manufactures, with a
population of scattered agriculturists, can it ever be fit for self-government? Can in-
sular England ever be subject to military tyranny, and can Austria, overhung by
Russia and without a seaboard, ever be free from it?
45. Prolegomena, ed. Bradley, s. 293, pp. 358-60.

46. Prolegomena, s. 295, quoted in Harris and Morrow's note to Lectures, s. 130, p. 332.
Cf. "English Revolution," Harris and Morrow, p. 213:
The historical hero, strong to make the world new, and exulting in his strength, has
inspiration from a past which he knows not, and is constructing a future which is not
that of his own will or imagination. The providence which he serves works by longer
and more ambiguous methods than suit his enthusiasm or impatience. Sooner or
later the fatal web gathers round him too painfully to be longer disregarded, when
he must either waste himself in ineffectual struggle with it, or adjust himself to it by
purer influences in Napoleon's case were the social influences to which

he too was subject, i.e., conventional morality as embodied in popular
opinion and social institutions. Napoleon's "individuality was so far
governed by the action of the national spirit in and upon him that he
could only glorify himself in the greatness of France . . . [which had to
take] the semblance of a deliverance of oppressed peoples.""47 Similarly,
"it was not Caesar that made the Roman law through which chiefly or
soley the Roman Empire became a blessing."48 Thus even though such
men might have been selfish,
it was still not through their selfishness that [they] contributed to
mould the institutions by which nations have been civilised and

developed, but through their fitness to act as organs of impulses
and ideas which had previously gained a hold on some society of
men, and for the realisation of which the means and conditions had
been preparing quite apart from the action of those who became
the most noticeable instruments of their realisation.49
V.
According to Green, then, the essential place of conventional morality

and established interests within a society both does and should regulate
the scope of political activity within it. In Victorian England, for example, "with a popular government and settled methods of enacting and
repealing laws,'"so political activity should be confined to legitimate and
accepted methods even though its goals should be the furtherance of the
common good, for that goal must also be reflected in the methods that
are used to seek it. Conventional morality is the product of influences
which have worked away at social institutions and practices over many
years; it represents the boundaries of what the people will understand or
tolerate, and it embodies a real and dynamic conception of the common

good. Politicians and political activists have to acknowledge its importance, and have to work within the limits it sets, particularly once
a process which to his own conscience and in the judgement of men is one of personal debasement. It is as such a tragic conflict between the creative will of man and
the hidden wisdom of the world, which seems to thwart it, that the 'Great Rebellion'
has its interest.
The same analysis might apply to the struggle of the moral reformer, to be discussed below.

49. Ibid.; cf. Lectures, ss. 164-65; Harris and Morrow, pp. 128-30.
Paul Harris 553
popular government has been established as evidence of an increased,

though still incomplete, recognition of the equality of all.
Nevertheless, conventional morality cannot be the final standard or ar-
biter of right conduct. It may set standards or acknowledge principles

which are not fulfilled in practice, or it may be inconsistent. Green thus
has a dual conception of the contribution of politics to the common

good. First, politics is a way of ensuring that social and political institu
tions and practices lives up to the ideals that conventional morality set
for them, to ensure that practice reflects received theory. It is throug
political activity at this level that democratic ideals are translated into
democratic practice, or that commonly held views about such importan
matters as the proper role and content of education or liquor licensing
can be implemented. Political activity of this type will, after any farreaching moral or political reform, have a particularly important task of
institution-building and public education. Indeed, the failure to
recognize this helped undermine the English Revolution, despite Vane'

warnings of "the need of popularising the Government" in order to
secure the Revolution." Politics at this level may also be mundane, as
Green well knew. As an active member of the Liberal Party and as the
first don to be a popularly elected ward representative on the Oxford
Council, he was well acquainted with both "the drudgeries and th
satisfactions of party politics at the ward and town levels."52

Second, political activity has the important role of pointing to incon
sistencies in conventional morality itself. Green thought this was the case
with slavery, for example, where a section of the population claims rights
for itself yet denies the same rights to others who are no different i
respect of the moral capacity which is the only foundation of rights. The
political reformer thus has the task of advancing conventional moralit
itself by a kind of internal criticism, by making the implications of some

elements of it clearer or more in tune with other elements. Once that task
has been completed, political action in the first sense will be necessary to
make the consequent changes to social institutions and practices.

Political activity may thus contribute to moral progress in both ways
and of course both are likely to be combined in particular cases. The
alignment of institutions and practices with received opinion help

translate that conception of the common good into reality, and henc
helps the processes whereby individuals may grow in their understanding
of the common good and its application to social life. The growth of a
51. "English Revolution," Harris and Morrow, p. 222.
52. John Rodman, "Introduction," The Political Theory of T. H. Green: Selected
Writings, ed. Rodman, (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1964), p. 4.
more coherent conventional morality assists in the refinement and deter-
mination of conceptions of the common good and thus widens its scope
within the members of the society, after which the first process can em-
body those advances in more permanent form.

The importance of relying on conventional morality and not moving
too far beyond popular sentiment thus creates an ideal of a kind of normal politics in the Kuhnian sense of the term, one which involves exploring the implications of received ideas yet without questioning them at a
fundamental level unless popular sentiment is ready for such an inquiry.
This is not to say that normal politics might not be progressive, perhaps
even revolutionary in its effects, at either of the two levels distinguished
above. Once individual equality is accepted as a social and political ideal,
its implementation can have far reaching consequences for social structures and arrangements, particularly in cases where established interests
and class privilege, which Green regards as the main obstacles to political
reform," have to be overcome. Those who agitated for universal adult
suffrage were sowing the seeds of a wider revolution in social and

political arrangements, the extent and effects of which they could not
have imagined. The dynamics of political activity are such that changes
in one area can highlight the need for changes in others, which can in
turn become catalysts for other changes, including even to conventional
morality itself.
Given that, for Green, true morality consists in action from a conscious motive directed toward the common good, and given too that he
holds that such a motive cannot be imposed from outside the individual
but has to come from within, it is clear that political activity can only
have an indirect effect on individuals' motives for action. Instead, Green
hopes that the results of political action will have an educative effect on
those relatively few individuals in a stable and settled society who might
still be generally disposed to disregard the important rights of others.

The moral foci of political activity are thus to promote the transition
53. Cf. "Liberal Legislation," pp. 195-96:

The nature of the genuine political reformer is perhaps always the same. The passion
for improving mankind, in its ultimate object, does not vary. But the immediate object of reformers, and the forms of persuasion by which they seek to advance them,
vary much in different generations. To a hasty observer they might even seem contradictory, and to justify the notion that nothing better than a desire for change,
selfish or perverse, is at the bottom of all reforming movements. Only those who will
think a little longer about it can discern the same old cause of social good against
class interests, for which, under altered names, liberals are fighting now as they were
fifty years ago.
Paul Harris 555
from the first to the second stage of individual moral development, a
the further refinement of the moral understanding of those at the secon
stage. It does so, along with other aspects of social life which contrib
to moral progress, by setting important standards of the rights of
dividuals, by providing the framework within which they may reali
themselves and by coercing compliance with part of that framework
the hope that the need for coercion will eventually lessen or perhaps even
disappear. In carrying out these tasks, political activity expresses a

enhances conventional morality, compliance with which is the best co
tribution those at the second stage of moral development can expect
make to moral progress, even though they might dimly and vague
understand that they contribute to the common good in doing so.54
VI.
The political reformer thus plays an important role in Green's view of

politics, but his influence on moral progress is still limited precisely
because he must work within the confines of popular opinion and feeling. The work of the moral reformer is therefore much more significant
in achieving real moral progress because it results in changes to the basis
of conventional morality itself and thus provides the context within

which the political reformer must work. It is in the growth of conventional morality that the moral progress of mankind is to be found."
Unlike the political reformer, the moral reformer understands, albeit
perhaps somewhat imperfectly, the nature of morality and its relation to
society and its institutions and is thus in a position to criticize social and
political institutions and practices on the basis of what really should be.56
The moral reformer
extracts the higher meaning out of the recognised social code, giving reality to some requirements which it has hitherto only con54. For example, Green regarded Utilitarianism as having been of particular significance
in social and political reform (Prolegomena to Ethics, ed. Bradley, s. 329, p. 410).
Whatever the errors arising from its Hedonistic psychology, no other theory has
been available for the social or political reformer, combining so much truth with
such ready applicability. No other has offered so commanding a point of view from
which to criticise the precepts and institutions presented as authoritative.
Green regarded Utilitarianism as particularly valuable in its insistence on treating every per-
son's claim to pleasure as equal to every other person's. See Harris and Morrow, p. 360,
note 12.

56. Ibid., ss. 2-5; Harris and Morrow, pp. 13-15.
tained potentially. He feels the necessity of rules of conduct which,

though they necessarily rise out of that effort to make human life
perfect which has brought conventional morality into existence, are
not yet a recognised part of that morality, and must have no

authority with those whose highest motive is a sense of what is ex-
pected of them. .. ..7

The moral reformer will often therefore appear as an outsider, a rebel
who will seem to those imbued with conventional morality, in some
respects correctly, to be bent on dislocating existing society. Moral
reformers are likely to be socially ostracized by those, the mass of the
populace, who do not understand what they do and why. They may even
be justly punished if they use illegal actions to promote moral reform.
Yet Green regards moral reformers as truly loyal, and their work as
crucial to moral progress. The activities of the political reformer are
necessarily, and rightly, limited by the need to take account of conventional morality. The moral reformer, on the other hand, may escape that
constraint precisely because he is concerned with challenging conventional morality. In his early essay "The Force of Circumstances," Green
says of the moral reformer, particularly those enlightened by Christianity:
It is one of the effects of our fondness for excessive generalisation

that we identify the reformers of bygone days too much with the
spirit of their age, and seldom sufficiently appreciate the independence of their position, or the isolated eminence of their
greatness. The world is ever claiming as its own those who have indeed been in it but not of it. The very essence of a true reformer
consists in his being the corrector and not the exponent of the com-
mon feeling of his day. The breath of his life is inspired from
above, not drawn up from below. Those flashes of religious
enlightenment which from time to time break on the slumbers of

mankind often resemble in their history the discoveries of scientific
truth. The wants of the age, or some unknown influences from

above, set the minds of thinking men in motion, they know not
whither, till at last the master mind among them reaches the
wished-for light, and reflects it on his fellows. Immediately they
recognise it as that after which they have been striving, while the
world at large finds its darkness broken, but knows not whence the
light has come. It has its own way; its antagonistic forces work
57. Prolegomena, s. 301; Harris and Morrow, p. 289.
Paul Harris 557
along the winding pathway of "human progress," but they move

on a different plane from the spiritual energy which animates the
true reformer. Its rival parties adopt him as their own, or cast him
from them, as may suit their purpose; but he is fulfilling a work

which they know not of, a work which has many points of contact
with the political and social movements of the day, but which is yet
distinct from them both in origin and end. He must needs be raised
above that atmosphere of circumstances, on which he throws the

light of his own being, penetrating even to those who still wander
beneath it.58
Even the moral reformer, one of the men of genius, cannot entirely fre
himself from the "faults of the general mind [and] the spirit of his age,
[and hence] they must check the free development of his power, if it
only by rousing him to constant rebellion against them."59 Still, t

struggle to replace the old orthodoxy with one that better enables t
common good to be pursued is the means by which humanity has so
progressed and will continue to do so. Whereas conventional moral
and its associated social and political institutions and practices exercis
proper restraining influence on those not so enlightened, they do so
the moral reformer to the cost of us all for they thereby inhibit the bett
pursuit of human self-realization.
Depending on circumstances, the moral reformer may be able
achieve more through art, literature, music, or religion than throug

politics. And, of course, once some moral reform has been incorpora
into a new orthodoxy in conventional morality, the process of testi
practice against principle must begin anew. The moral reformer th
58. "The Force of Circumstances," Works, III: 10. Cf. another of Green's undergra
ate essays, "Legislative Interference in Moral Matters," Harris and Morrow, p. 308:
Once or twice in a century there arises some great reformer, literary or religious,
who seems placed above the earth and born of heaven alone, and who thus exercises
an independent influence on the circumstances and destiny of mankind. Such a man
can hardly conform to the ordinary manners of man, or to the status quo of
society. . . . Now if the state is to interfere at all with morals, it can only give legal
effect to the moral tone of society at large, and if it thus interferes to any wide extent, it must come in contact with such a newly-enlightened enthusiast, and the true
moral reformer becomes an offender against state-morality. If society succeed in

crushing him it is at its own cost; if it does not, it will at any rate drive him into
fanaticism.
The influences of "the spirit of the age" in these early analyses of moral reformers should
be contrasted with those at work on Caesar and Napoleon, discussed above.

59. "The Influence of Civilisation on Genius," Works, III: 17.
assists in the process from potentiality to actuality, a process that can

take place only because the conventional morality of a society is overcome in the dialectic of progress.60 Established rules may be initially supported by opinion, but they soon harden into interests and are left behind
as opinion develops toward a better understanding of the common good.

They thus need to be modified or perhaps overthrown as these new
opinions create the need for new interests.
VII.
There is, however, a major flaw in Green's account of moral progress,

which arises out of the basic individualism that is at the center of his ac-
count of morality. If the moral quality of an action depends on the conscious motive from which it was done and if we can never really know the
motives of others' actions, how then can we say that one person's action
is morally better or worse than another's? And if we cannot make that
kind of judgment, how can we tell whether or not there has been moral
progress of the large-scale kind that concerns Green?
Green tries to deal with this problem in two ways. The first is in terms
of conventional morality as the embodiment of the two aspects of moral
progress outlined earlier-the enlargement of the range of people regarded as coming within the scope of the common good and the better
understanding of the particular content that is given to that good-and
as a major influence on individual behavior. But Green must be able to
argue that these aspects of the common good form part of the conscious
motive for individuals' actions, for otherwise they cannot affect the
moral worth of these actions in the way that his argument requires. It is
clear that on his theory this can only be so for those few who are at the
highest stage of moral development.
Green attempts to overcome this difficulty through his account of the
nature of conventional morality as a kind of accumulated wisdom with
respect to the common good and of its influence on the motives of those
at the second stage of moral development. He suggests that the conscious
motives of those individuals need not refer explicitly to the common
60. In some unpublished notes Green writes ". . . the 'established rules of society'
themselves always involve a principle of progress (immanent contradiction). E.g., Property
rests on equality of wills; this equality gives negative freedom. But practically wills not
equal. Hence need of benevolence to make freedom equal. " ["Notes (various) on Moral
Philosophy. Lectures apparently," Green Papers, Balliol College Library, catalogue no.
RLN 15. I am grateful to the Master and Fellows of Balliol College for permission to quote
from the Green Papers.] This theme is also implicit in Green's analysis of the English
Revolution; see, for example, Works III: 278, 285-86.
Paul Harris 559
good in order to have moral value, for they may be expressed in terms of
the reciprocal recognition of rights maintained by the state, and hence

amount to "the needful elementary conception of a common good maintained by law."'' Thus individuals who act in accord with conventional
morality on the basis of some dimly perceived or instinctive notion such
as equality or the Golden Rule, or even one that Green thinks is as erroneous as Hedonistic Utilitarianism, may nevertheless be regarded as
acting from a motive which is truly moral even though they may be
unaware of the connection. While we may never be able to judge with
certainty another's motive for acting, we still know enough about ourselves to be able to make some assessment of others. The judgments we
can therefore make about moral progress may not have the secure foundations enjoyed by scientific knowledge, but they are adequate for the
purpose. Green's argument is plainly unsatisfactory, however, for an individual's actual motive cannot be regarded as really something else, i.e.,
something apart from the individual's conscious motive, and moral
judgments cannot be based upon that imputed motive as though it were
consciously held.
Green's second reply is based on his analysis of ought and its relation
to moral action. Although we cannot know others' motives for action,
we can nevertheless judge those actions by their effects and hence say
whether or not an action ought to be done. This means we are unable to
contemplate such acts in their full nature,62 yet we can abstract the effects of an action from the motive of the agent and assess the former. But
Green also holds that we must assess those effects according to their contribution "to that perfection of mankind, of which the essence is a good
will on the part of all persons."'63 This, however, merely moves the problem to another level, for Green does not tell us how we are to make that
judgment. Given that we cannot know the motives of others, how can we
judge a past action according to its effects on individuals' motives? And
how can we assess a proposed action on that same criterion? It may be

that we are reduced to intuition and self-reflection, but they hardly seem
adequate bases for these judgments.

VIII.
Green's theory of moral progress is thus basically flawed because it relies
on an account of moral action which undercuts the judgments we mu

62. Prolegomena, ed. Bradley, s. 293, p. 359.
63. Ibid., s. 294, p. 362.
make to assess with any confidence the degree to which a particular

society represents an advance over previous societies, or whether a particular social or moral reform would contribute to moral progress. Yet it
is too much to claim as Melvin Richter does that Green regarded his
theory of progress as true a priori.6" Nor did he hold progress to be inevitable, as H. D. Lewis argues.65 Green does say in the Prolegomena
that "the idea [of universal development] . . . does not rest on the
evidence of observation but expresses an inward demand for the recogni-
tion of a unity in the world answering to the unity of ourselves,"66 but

this does not mean that Green thought that no factual evidence could
undermine the theory. A constriction of the range of people recognized
as having rights is, for example, possible under Green's theory and
would be a regression rather than progress.
But despite its flaws, Green's theory of moral progress does help to illuminate the essentially gradualist and cautious nature of his political
theory. In some respects, Green's theory is like Burke's in emphasizing
the importance of social institutions as the repository of accumulated
human wisdom, yet Green regarded Burke as having misunderstood the
dynamic of history and hence as having mistaken the real nature of the
French revolution: Burke "pleaded the ancient rights in vain" because he
did not understand that "the wild outburst of wilfulness" against which
he "let fly . . . with a speculative fury" was not "tearing up the clothes
of humanity . . and was but refashioning the old order into one that
reason could more easily recognise as its own."''67 John MacCunn, who
with Ernest Barker68 is still among the most perceptive commentators on
Green, observes that in certain respects Green is profoundly conservative because he argued that principle must be qualified by the force of
circumstance and because "the subversion or even the shaking of institutions is the last thing he would have desired."''69 MacCunn's conclusion is
true, although he overstates the reasons for it. Green is conservative only
in the sense that he is a conserver of social institutions and practices
64. Richter, The Politics of Conscience, p. 114.
65. H. D. Lewis, Freedom and History (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1962), pp.
36-41.
66. Prolegomena, ed. Bradley, s. 186, p. 221.

67. "Popular Philosophy in its Relation to Life," Works, III: 116-17.
68. Ernest Barker, Political Thought in England, 1848-1914 (London: Oxford University Press, 1915), Ch. 2.
69. John MacCunn, Six Radical Thinkers (London: Edward Arnold, 1910), p. 223.
There is, of course, a distinction to be drawn between "conservative" in the sense
MacCunn is using it, and "Conservative" in a party political sense. Green opposed the
Conservative Party, vehemently at times; see "Memoir," pp. cx-cxiii, cxxx.
Paul Harris 561
which embody past conceptions of the common good and which activ
contribute to that of the present, but he is at the same time a radical
the sense that he has no love for institutions which have come to stand in
the way of a fuller realization of the common good. His support for t
Second Reform Bill, for land reform, and for wider education, includ
university education for women, all arose out of an abiding convicti
that "a true liberal program [required] 'the removal of all distinction
which the law can remove to the free development of English
citizens.' ,70O
Green's emphasis on the role of institutions in both promoting and im-
peding moral progress makes it all the more curious that he offers no
detailed analysis of the nature and role of current political institutions in
relation to the common good. James Bryce writes, "politics were in a

certain sense the strongest of his interests."" Green was a theorist who
was also a practitioner; he went straight from the declaration of the poll
at which he was first elected to the Oxford Council to lecture on Kant's
Critique of Pure Reason.72 He wrote that "man, above all modern man,
must theorise his practice, and the failure adequately to do so, must crip-
ple the practice itself.""3 Green places the state at the center of his
political philosophy, and he has a firm view about its role concerning in-
dividual self-realization. And while he has a lot to say about the nature
and function of law, Green does not assess the detailed principles and
practices which lie behind the processes of lawmaking or the administra-
tive functions of government. He says little about parliamentary

democracy, except in relation to the extension of suffrage. He had to
grapple with institutional questions in examining the English Revolution,
but he has nothing substantial to say about the proper modern role of the
civil service, political parties, or the monarchy.74 He wrote no equivalent
of Mill's Considerations on Representative Government or Bagehot's

English Constitution. Indeed, he mentions neither.
It may be, of course, that he would have come to those topics if he had
not died at the relatively young age of forty-five, but most of the themes
of Green's mature works can be found in his earlier writing, and these
matters do not appear there. Green may have seen his more important
70. "Memoir," p. cxx.
97.
71. James Bryce, Studies in Contemporary Biography (London: Macmillan, 1903), p.
72. Richter, The Politics of Conscience, p. 346.

73. "Popular Philosophy in its Relation to Life," p. 124.
74. Green does, however, discuss the established Church, though his comments are
directed toward its religious rather than its political role; see Harris and Morrow, pp.
363-64, and note 24 above.
task as providing the philosophical foundations for others to apply to

such matters, and that is certainly a necessary task and legitimate aim.
Green's discussion of the ability of the philosopher to advise in situations
of perplexity as to morally right conduct emphasizes that the philosopher's role is not that of advocate, which is the station in life of the
preacher, but of the analyst of "human conduct; the motives which it ex-
presses, the spiritual endowments implied in it, the history of thought,

habits and institutions through which it has come to be what it is. He
does not understand his business as a philosopher, if he claims to do
more than this."" At the same time, Green notes that the philosopher
continues to be a man and a citizen and thus is presumably obligated to
contribute to the advance of the common good in whatever ways his
talents and his station in life allow. Still, an important test of his theories
must be how well they illuminate and inform practice, and-notwithstanding the essays on education, liberal legislation, and his close interest
in current events-Green's silence on the most significant of these matters of practical and institutional politics, though perhaps unavoidable
through the force of circumstances, leaves a major gap in his work.
In the end, Green's radicalism must overcome his conservatism. Green
clearly believes that, for most of us, conforming to conventional morality and fulfilling the duties of our stations on the basis of views about the
common good to which we have been socialized by conventional morality are precisely the ways we contribute to that common good and hence
to moral progress. The moral effects of social and political institutions

and practices can only be uncertain, and the best yardstick we have with
which to assess them is what has evolved in the past, i.e., what is embodied in conventional morality. It is thus entirely proper that conventional morality should constrain political activity, and that the major
steps in the moral progress of mankind should be taken by those who
have broken from its dominance.
75. Prolegomena, s. 313; Harris and Morrow, p. 292.

Moral Progress & Politics The Theory of T. H. Green - Harris

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Moral Progress & Politics The Theory of T. H. Green - Harris

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Moral Progress & Politics: The Theory of T. H.

Paul Raymond Harris is Senior Lecturer in Politics at Victoria

strike the modern reader as rather odd and certainly old-fashioned. It

we can claim with some justification to be morally better, or at least

Paul Harris 539

commitment to individualism, although one anchored firmly in com

factory, it nevertheless illuminates his political philosophy by underlin

The lectures on moral philosophy which Green gave at Oxford University

death in 1882 and were published posthumously as Prolegomena to

540 Moral Progress & Politics

political philosophy in the better known Lectures on the Principles of

only absolutely binding duty; specific actions cannot be binding in

the categorical imperative in the prevailing circumstances.

Paul Harris 541

own satisfaction but will have an interest in their self-satisfaction.7 Thus

it is a necessary part of human life in any society that has developed

realization as members of particular societies, that very membership in

This essential social and communitarian dimension to individual self-

realization enables Green to argue that social institutions and practices

A particular set of social institutions and practices, and the principles

s. 199; Harris and Morrow, p. 263.

542 Moral Progress & Politics

Paul Harris 543

moral function by removing some of the obstacles to the self-

development of individuals or by being, in the phrase made famous by

544 Moral Progress & Politics

only for a relatively small kin-group. The second stage occurred in

argues, however, that the Greek efforts in these directions were

22. "Liberal Legislation," Harris and Morrow, p. 199.

Paul Harris 545

which for the first time brought a recognition of the principle of th

early institutionalization of Christianity, inevitably brought a departure from the simple

26. Ibid., ss. 218-45; Harris and Morrow, pp. 273-79.

546 Moral Progress & Politics

the need for further reflective adjustments to ways of harmonizing the

are in any society regulated by a conception of a common good. A few

to human perfection, because it is believed to do so."29 The individual is

27. Lectures, ss. 2-5; Harris and Morrow, pp. 13-15.

of Man," s. 24; Harris and Morrow, p. 247.

29. Ibid., s. 25; Harris and Mo;row, p. 248.

Paul Harris 547

tional morality and criticize them according to their own principle.30 In

in Green's analysis of political activity. Although he is rightly said to

as such, for a particular person's circumstances, interests, and talents

the establishment and maintenance of social and political conditions that

develop that talent or devote himself to the service of mankind. Green's

548 Moral Progress & Politics

realization, Green regards it as less important at times than other

music could be actualised."3

associated as the outcome of past wisdom, arising out of the attempts of

lem of social deliverance, in one or other of the innumerable forms in which it

Paul Harris 549

tribute to human self-realization, of himself and others. They and not

force and coercion3" form the major stabilizing elements in society.

avoiding anarchy . . . must chiefly depend."''3 Nevertheless, the state of

of the resistance finding efficient popular support" since "its repeated

reverence for familiar names and a resentment against virtues

550 Moral Progress & Politics

on the common feelings and interests, through which reason must

implied no concrete power of political construction. It was a

Although the Revolution eventually failed, behind it lay "the universal

spiritual force which as ecstacy, mysticism, quietism, philosophy, is in

society toward a truly common good.