But,
though the feeling of approbation or disapprobation follows
instantaneously on the act of judgment, the recognition of the character
of the action, or its reference to a class, which constitutes this act
of judgment, may be, and often is, a process of considerable length and
complexity. Take the case of a lie. What did the man really say? In what
sense did he employ the words used? What was the extent of his knowledge
at the time that he made the statement? And what was his intention?
These and possibly other questions have to be answered, before we are
justified in accusing him of having told a lie. When the offence is not
only a moral but a legal one, the act of determining the character of
the action in question is often the result of a prolonged enquiry,
extending over weeks or months. No sooner, however, is the intellectual
process completed, and the action duly labelled as a lie, or a theft, or
a fraud, or an act of cruelty or ingratitude, or the like, than the
appropriate ethical emotion is at once excited. The intellectual process
may also be exceedingly rapid, or even instantaneous, and always is so
when we have no doubt as to the nature either of the action or of the
intention or of the motives, but its characteristic, as distinguished
from the ethical emotion, is that it may take time, and, except in
perfectly clear cases or on very sudden emergencies requiring subsequent
action, always ought to do so.
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