17. The principles of expediency
The rectitude of the distinction between rules that apply to individuals and rules that apply to states is thus maintained by Dr. Paley on the principle of expediency:
“The only distinction,” says he, “that exists between the case of independent states and independent individuals, is founded in this circumstance: that the particular consequence sometimes appears to exceed the value of the general rule.”
Or, in less technical words, a greater disadvantage may arise from obeying the commands of Christianity than from transgressing them.
Expediency, it is said, is the test of moral rectitude, and the standard of our duty:
If we believe that it will be most expedient to disregard the general obligations of Christianity, that belief is the justifying motive of disregarding them.
Dr. Paley proceeds to say:
“In the transactions of private persons, no advantage that results from the breach of a general law of justice can compensate to the public for the violation of the law, but in the concerns of empire this may sometimes be doubted.”
He says there may be cases in which “the magnitude of the particular evil induces us to call in question the obligation of the general rule…
Situations may be feigned, and consequently may possibly arise, in which the general tendency is outweighed by the enormity of the particular mischief.”
Of the doubts which must arise as to the occasions when the “obligation” of Christian laws ceases, he however says that “moral philosophy furnishes no precise solution,”
and he candidly acknowledges
“the danger of leaving it to the sufferer to decide upon the comparison of particular and general consequences, and the still greater danger of such decisions being drawn into future precedents.
If treaties, for instance, are no longer binding unless they are convenient, or until the inconveniency ascends to a certain point (which point must be fixed by the judgment, or rather by the feelings of the complaining party),
one, and almost the only method of averting or closing the calamities of war, of preventing or putting a stop to the destruction of mankind, is lost to the world forever.”
And in retrospect of the indeterminateness of these rules of conduct, he says finally, “These, however, are the principles upon which the calculation is to be formed.”