A Handbook of Ethical Theory

George Stuart Fullerton

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Title: A Handbook of Ethical Theory

Author: George Stuart Fullerton

Release Date: September, 2004 [EBook #6463]

[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]

[This file was first posted on December 17, 2002]

Edition: 10

Language: English

We are all amply provided, with moral maxims, which we hold with more or

less confidence, but an insight into their significance is not attained

without reflection and some serious effort. Yet, surely, in a field in

which there are so many differences of opinion, clearness of insight and

breadth of view are eminently desirable.

It is with a view to helping students of ethics in our universities and

outside of them to a clearer comprehension of the significance of morals

and the end of ethical endeavor, that this book has been written.

I have, in the Notes appended to it, taken the liberty of making a few

suggestions to teachers, some of whom have fewer years of teaching behind

University, for kind assistance, which I have found helpful.

G. S. F. New York, 1921.

CONTENTS

PART I

_THE ACCEPTED CONTENT OF MORALS_

CHAPTER I. IS THERE AN ACCEPTED CONTENT?

1. The Point in Dispute.

2. What Constitutes Substantial Agreement?

3. Dogmatic Assumption.

CHAPTER II. THE CODES OF COMMUNITIES

10. Later Lists of the Virtues.

11. The Stretching of Moral Concepts.

12. The Reflective Mind and the Moral Codes.

PART II

_ETHICS AS SCIENCE_

CHAPTER IV. THE AWAKENING TO REFLECTION

13. The Dogmatism of the Natural Man.

CHAPTER V. ETHICAL METHOD

15. Inductive and Deductive Method.

16 The Authority of the "Given."

CHAPTER VI. THE MATERIALS OF ETHICS

17. How the Moralist should Proceed.

18. The Philosopher as Moralist.

CHAPTER VII. THE AIM OF ETHICS AS SCIENCE

19. The Appeal to Reason.

20. The Appeal to Reason Justified.

PART III

24. The Struggle with Nature.

27. Man is Assigned his Place.

29. Social Organization.

30. Social Order and Human Will.

PART IV

_THE REALM OF ENDS_

CHAPTER XI. IMPULSE, DESIRE, AND WILL

31. Impulse.

32. Desire.

39. The Choice of Ideals.

CHAPTER XIII. THE OBJECT IN DESIRE AND WILL

41. Human Nature and the Objects Chosen.

43. The Study of Man's Instincts Important.

44. The Bewildering Multiplicity of the Objects of Desire, and the Effort

to Find an Underlying Unity.

45. Complex Ends.

46. Intention.

47. Motive.

48. Ethical Significance of Intention and Motive.

CHAPTER XV. FEELING AS MOTIVE

49. Feeling.

50. Feeling and Action.

51. Feeling as Object.

52. Freedom as Object.

CHAPTER XVI. RATIONALITY AND WILL

53. The Irrational Will.

54. One View of Reason.

PART V

_THE SOCIAL WILL_

61. What is the Social Will?

63. Social Will and Social Organization.

65. The Permanent Social Will.

CHAPTER XVIII. EXPRESSIONS OF THE SOCIAL WILL

66. Custom.

67. The Ground for the Authority of Custom.

68. The Origin and the Persistence of Customs.

69. Law.

70. Public Opinion.

CHAPTER XIX. THE SHARERS IN THE SOCIAL WILL

_THE REAL SOCIAL WILL_

CHAPTER XX. THE IMPERFECT SOCIAL WILL

77. The Will of the Majority.

79. Heedlessness and the Social Will.

80. Rational Elements in the Irrational Will.

81. The Social Will and the Selfishness of the Individual.

82. Reasonable Ends.

83. An Objection Answered.

84. Reasonable Social Ends.

85. The Ethics of Reason.

86. The Development of Civilization.

CHAPTER XXII. THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE SOCIAL WILL

87. Man's Multiple Allegiance.

88. The Appeal to Reason.

89. The Ethics of Reason and the Varying Moral Codes.

PART VII

_THE SCHOOLS OF THE MORALISTS_

95. What is Egoism?

98. What is Meant by the Self?

100. Egoism not Unavoidable.

102. The Arguments for Egoism.

103. The Argument against Egoism.

104. The Moralist's Interest in Egoism.

CHAPTER XXV. UTILITARIANISM

105. What is Utilitarianism?

106. Bentham's Doctrine.

107. The Doctrine of J. S. Mill.

108. The Argument for Utilitarianism.

109. The Distribution of Happiness.

115. Human Nature as Accepted Standard.

116. Human Nature and the Law of Nature.

117. Vagueness of the Law of Nature.

119. Perfection and Type.

120. More and Less Perfect Types.

121. Perfectionism and Intuitionism.

122. The Self-realization Doctrine.

123. The Doctrine Akin to that of Following Nature.

124. Is the Doctrine More Egoistic?

125. Why Aim to Realize Capacities?

126. The Problem of Self-sacrifice.

127. Self-satisfaction and Self-sacrifice.

128. Can Moral Self-sacrifice be a Duty?

129. Self-sacrifice and the Identity of Selves.

130. Questions which Seem to be Left Open.

CHAPTER XXVII. THE ETHICS OF EVOLUTION

131. The Significance of the Title.

132. Evolution and the Schools of the Moralists.

133. The Ethics of Individual Evolutionists.

137. Hegel.

_THE ETHICS OF THE SOCIAL WILL_

CHAPTER XXX. ASPECTS OF THE ETHICS OF REASON

140. Its Method of Approach to Problems.

141. Its Solution of Certain Difficulties.

142. The Cultivation of Our Capacities.

CHAPTER XXXI. THE MORAL LAW AND MORAL IDEALS

143. Duties and Virtues.

144. The Negative Aspect of the Moral Law.

145. How Can One Know the Moral Law?

CHAPTER XXXII. THE MORAL CONCEPTS

152. The Virtues of the Individual.

153. Conventional Morality.

154. The Aim of the State.

156. Forms of Organization.

157. The Laws of the State.

158. The Rights and Duties of the State.

159. What is Meant by the Term.

160. Our Method of Approach to the Subject.

161. Some Problems of International Ethics.

162. The Other Side of the Shield.

163. The Solution.

164. The Necessity for Caution.

CHAPTER XXXVI. ETHICS AND OTHER DISCIPLINES

165. Sciences that Concern the Moralist.

166. Ethics and Philosophy.

167. Ethics and Religion.

168. Ethics and Belief.

169. The Last Word.

1. THE POINT IN DISPUTE.--Is there an accepted content of morals? Can we

use the expression without going on to ask: Accepted where, when, and by

whom?

To be sure, certain eminent moralists have inclined to maintain that men

are in substantial agreement in regard to their moral judgments. Joseph

Butler, writing in the first half of the eighteenth century, came to the

conclusion that, however men may dispute about particulars, there is an

wrong. No moralist denies that cruelty, falsity and intemperance are

vicious, or that mercy, truth and temperance are virtuous." [Footnote:

_The Science of Ethics_, chapter i, Sec. 1.]

In other words, these writers would teach us that men are, on the whole,

sufficiently definite to serve as a code of morals. But that there is

such a substantial agreement among men has not impressed all observers to

the same degree. Locke, who wrote before Butler, based his arguments

against the existence of innate moral maxims upon the wide divergencies

wrong. [Footnote: _Essay Concerning Human Understanding_, Book I,

chapter iii.] The historian, the anthropologist and the sociologist

reinforce his reasonings with a wealth of illustration not open to the

men of an earlier time. They present us with codes, not a code; with

multitudinous standards, not a single standard; with what has been

accepted here or there, at this time or at that; and we may well ask

ourselves where, amid this profusion, we are to find the one and

acceptable code.

2. WHAT CONSTITUTES SUBSTANTIAL AGREEMENT?--To be sure, we may be very

generous in our interpretation of what constitutes substantial agreement;

we may deny significance to all sorts of discrepancies by relegating them

to the unimpressive class of "disputes about particulars." Such an

impressionistic indifference to detail may leave us with something on our

with the usages of some race or people?

Those who content themselves with enunciating very general moral

that convert the blur into a picture. Some twenty-four hundred years ago

understanding"; we are often told today that the rule of our lives should

what might properly be meant by nature and by understanding, did we not

ourselves have some rather definite conception of what actions may

properly fall under the caption of doing good, such admonitions could not

lead to the stirring of a finger. Who would appeal to his physician for

advice as to diet, if he expected from him no more than the counsel to

eat, at the proper hours, enough, but not too much, of suitable food?

If, then, we confine our admonitions to the group of abstractions which

constitute the universally acknowledged standard of virtue when all the

individual differences which characterize different codes have been

Obedience

Patience

Benevolence

Humility

Alienation from the "Flesh"

and their lists of the "deadly sins" they select from the following:

Arrogance

Anger

Gluttony

Unchastity

Envy

Vain-Glory

Gloominess

Languid Indifference.

Could there be a more striking contrast than that between the mediaeval

code and those of the great Greek thinkers? Plato recommended as virtues

certain general characteristics of character much admired by the Greek of

his day. Aristotle accepted them and added to them. He has painted much

more in detail the gifts and graces of a well-born and well-situated

to be missing in the latter. Wisdom, insight, has given place to the

to which man feels himself to be subject.

virtuously high-minded man would have been conceived by the mediaeval

arrogance. We find him portrayed as neither seeking nor avoiding danger,

favors, since that implies inferiority; as sluggish and indifferent

except when stimulated by some great honor to be gained or some great

work to be performed; as frank, for this is characteristic of the man who

despises others; as admiring little, for nothing is great to him. His

pride prevents him from harboring resentment, from seeking praise, and

from praising others. This Nietzschean hero would attract attention upon

any stage: "The step of the high-minded man is slow, his voice deep, and

his language stately, for he who feels anxiety about few things is not

apt to be in a hurry; and he who thinks highly of nothing is not

vehement." [Footnote: _Ethics_, Book IV, chapter in, 19, translation

constitutes this virtue or that, may yield ideals of character and of

conduct which bear but a slight family resemblance. Imagine St. Francis

of Assisi lowering his voice, slowing his step, and cultivating "high-

later time are numerous and widely scattering. It is impossible to do

justice to them in any brief compass. A very few instances, selected from

among those most familiar to English readers, must suffice to indicate

the diversity of their nature.

Hobbes [Footnote: _Leviathan_, chapter xv.], deeply concerned to

discover some _modus vivendi_ which should put a check upon strife

between man and his fellow-man, and save us from a life "solitary, poor,

nasty, brutish and short," recommends among other virtues:

Justice

Equity

Requital of benefits

Sociability

A moderate degree of forgiveness

The avoidance of pride and arrogance.

Locke [Footnote: _Essay_, Book IV, chapter iii, Sec. 18; _Of Civil

Government_, Book II, chapter ii.], who believes that moral principles

Men ought not to harm one another.

agreeable or useful to ourselves and those immediately agreeable or

class:

Discretion

Caution

Enterprise

Industry

Frugality

Economy

Good Sense, etc.

Temperance

Sobriety

Patience

Justice

Veracity

Fidelity

Wit

Cleanliness.

Manifestly, the lists may be indefinitely prolonged. Why not add to the

first class the pachydermatous indifference to rebuffs which is of such

habit of not repeating stories?

Thomas Reid lays stress upon the deliverances of the individual

conscience, when consulted in a quiet hour. Nevertheless he proposes five

fundamental maxims: [Footnote: _On the Active Powers of Man_, Essay

V, chapter i.]

We ought to exercise a rational self-love, and prefer a greater to a

lesser good.

We should follow nature, as revealed in the constitution of man.

We should exercise benevolence.

Right and wrong are the same for all in the same circumstances.

We should venerate and obey God.

show that the moralists speak with a variety of tongues. The code of one

been attained by a process of stretching conceptions. Take for example

These virtues were supposed to be fundamental. The name given to them was

of Ethics_, chap, ii, p. 44.] dwelt upon by Plato. The Stoics, who

made use of his list, changed its spirit. Cicero stretches justice so as

to make it cover a watery benevolence. St. Augustine finds the cardinal

virtues to be different aspects of Love to God. The great scholastic

philosopher of the thirteenth century, St. Thomas, places in the first

rank the Christian graces of Faith, Hope and Charity, but still finds it

convenient to use the Platonic scheme in ordering a list of the self-

regarding virtues taken from Aristotle. Thus may the pillars of a pagan

temple be utilized as structural units in, or embellishments of, a

Christian church.

conceives of them as "traits essential to all morality." He treats, under

temperance, of purity and reverence; he makes courage synonymous with

persistent vigor; he extends justice so as to include love and sympathy;

_Ethics_, pp. 404-423.]

This variation in the content of moral concepts may be illustrated from

any quarter in the field of ethics. Cicero's circumspect "benevolence"

advances the doctrine that "whatever one can give without suffering loss

should be given even to an entire stranger." Among such obligations he

to permit anyone who wishes to light fire from fire; to give faithful

advice to one who is in doubt; which things, as he naively remarks, "are

useful to the receiver and do no harm to the giver." [Footnote: De

Officiis, Book I, chapter xvi.]

Compare with this the admonition to love one's neighbor as oneself;

Sidgwick's "self-evident" proposition that "I ought not to prefer my own

lesser good to the greater good of another;" [Footnote: The Methods of

Ethics, Book III, chapter xiii, Sec 3.] Bentham's utilitarian formula,

"everybody to count for one, and nobody for more than one." The

admonition, "be benevolent," may mean many things.

12. THE REFLECTIVE MIND AND THE MORAL CODES.--Even the cursory glance we

have given above to the moral codes of different communities and those

On the other hand, the differences between codes should not be unduly

abstractness it is not enough to live by, it is vastly significant,

"good," "right," "obligation," "approval," etc., or the rudimentary

beings, had a core of identity which could be traced in societies the

enlightened morality of one people and the degraded and undeveloped

morality of another. There could be no history of the development of the

moral ideas. Collections of disparate and disconnected facts do not

constitute a science, nor are they the proper subject of a history.

As a matter of fact, we all do speak of degraded moral conceptions, of a

perverted conscience, of a lofty morality, of a fine sense of duty; we do

not hesitate to compare, i. e., to treat as similar and yet dissimilar,

the customs, laws and ethical maxims of different ages and of different

CHAPTER IV

13. THE DOGMATISM OF THE NATURAL MAN.--In morals and in politics it

seems natural for man to be dogmatic, to take a position without

hesitation, to defend it vehemently, to maintain that others are in the

wrong.

This is not surprising. We are born into a moral environment as into an

all-embracing atmosphere. From the cradle to the grave, we walk with our

heads in a cloud of exhortations and prohibitions. From our earliest

years we have been urged to make decisions and to act, and we have been

furnished with general maxims to guide our action. When, therefore, we

approach the solution of a moral problem, we do not, as a rule, acutely

feel our fitness to solve it, even though we may be judged quite unfit by

taken him a quarter of a century to fit himself to be an authority in

into the field of ethics and has no hesitation in proposing radical

been brought into contact with but one set of opinions. It is

communities, of whole communities primitive in their culture and

14. THE AWAKENING.--Manifestly, even the beginnings of ethical science

are an impossibility where such a spirit prevails. Where there are no

doubts, no questionings, there can be no attempt at rational

construction.

Fortunately for the cause of human enlightenment there are forces at work

which tend to arouse men from this state of lethargy. Horizons are

broadened, new ideas make their appearance, there is a conflict of

authorities, the birth of a doubt, and, finally, a more or less

by children, and differences of opinion may arise. Nor does it take the

child long to discover that the law of its own home is not identical with

that of the house next door. At school the experience is repeated on a

law claim allegiance, the code of the schoolboy and that of the master.

And when, in college, the student for the first time seriously addresses

himself to the task of the study of ethics as science, he comes to it by

no means wholly unprepared. He has had rather a broad experience of the

code of the home, of the school, of the social class, of the religious

community, of the civil community. There sit on the same benches with him

the sensitively conscientious student who doubts whether it is a

permissible deception of one's neighbor to apply a patch to an old

garment so skillfully that it will escape detection; the sporting

character who takes it to be the mutual understanding among men that

truth shall not be demanded of those who deal in horses and dogs; the

youth from Texas who claims that the French philosopher, Janet, cannot be

an authority on morals, since he asserts that he who cheats at cards must

feel a burning shame. With the ethics of the ancient Hebrews, of the

Greeks, of the Romans, our young moralist has had the opportunity to

acquire some familiarity, and he can compare them, if he will, with the

Christian ethics of his own day. He knows something of history and

biography; he has read books of travel, and has some acquaintance with

Material for reflection he has in abundance--and he often remains

only so long as the claims of conflicting authorities are not forced upon

widening of the horizon to arouse men to reflection, to stimulate to

of social classes long laid in chains by custom and tradition may come to

be illuminated by new ideas, and passive acquiescence may give way to

active participation in social endeavor. Nor can primitive peoples remain

wholly primitive except in isolation. With the increased intercourse

between races and peoples, men are brought to a clear consciousness that

the accepted in morals is manifold and diverse; the next step is to

question whether it is, in any given instance, of unquestionable

authority; thus do men become ripe for the search for the

_acceptable_.

15. INDUCTIVE AND DEDUCTIVE METHOD.--Professor Henry Sidgwick has defined

a method of ethics as "any rational procedure by which we determine what

is right for individual human beings to do, or to seek to realize by

chapter i, Sec I.]

He points out that many methods are natural and are habitually used, but

claims that only one can be rational. By which he means that the several

methods of determining right conduct urged by the different schools of

the moralists must be reconciled, or all but one must be rejected.

In this chapter I shall not discuss in detail the schools of the

moralists and the specific methods which characterize them. I am here

concerned only with the general distinction between the scientific

methods of deduction and induction, and its bearing upon ethical

investigations.

How do we discover that, in an isosceles triangle, the sides which

subtend the equal angles are equal? We do not go about collecting the

opinions of individuals upon the subject, nor do we consult the records

of other peoples, past or present. We do not measure a great number of

triangles and arrive at our conclusion after a calculation of the

probable error of our measurements. The appeal to authorities does not

interest us; that measurements are always more or less inaccurate, and

quite a different sort. It is not a mere illustration, unequivocally

instances are observed and compared; uniformities are searched for; it is

authority rests upon the particular facts that have been observed and

It is a commonplace of logic that both induction and deduction may be

employed in many fields of science. We may attain by inductive inquiry to

more or less general truths, which we no longer care to call in question,

and which we accept as a "given," to be exploited and carried out in its

consequences. Indeed, we need not betake ourselves to science to have an

illustration of this method of procedure. In everyday life men have

maxims by which they judge of the probable actions of their fellow-men

and in the light of which they direct their dealings with them. Such

maxims as that men may be counted upon to consult their own interests

indicated, may possess, in certain cases, a very high degree of

authority, and, in others, a very low degree.

fact, find it necessary to call in question the "given," though they may

evidence and whence it draws its apparently indisputable authority. In

certain of the inductive sciences, as in mechanics, physics and

chemistry, generalizations have been attained in which even the critical

repose much confidence. In other fields men are constantly making general

drawing from them inferences the justice of which is in many quarters

disallowed. There are axioms and axioms, maxims and maxims. The

confidence felt by a given individual in a particular "given" does not

guarantee its acceptance by all men of equal intelligence. Where,

however, the evidence upon which a disputed "given" is based is

forthcoming, there is, at least, ground for rational discussion.

Not a few famous writers have treated moral truths as analogous to

mathematical. [Footnote: See the chapter on "Intuitionism," Sec 90, note.]

To take here a single instance. Sidgwick, in his truly admirable work on

"The Methods of Ethics," maintains [Footnote: Book III, chapter xiii, Sec

3.] that "the propositions, 'I ought not to prefer a present lesser good

to a future greater good,' and 'I ought not to prefer my own lesser good

to the greater good of another,' do present themselves as self-evident;

axiom, 'I ought not to prefer my own lesser good to the greater good of

Volume I, chapter i, p. 12.] "if explained to a Fuegian or a Hottentot,

whose greater good I ought not to prefer my own lesser good? A fellow-

distinction?" To Bentham's "everybody to count for one and nobody for

religious persons to the rest of mankind. [Footnote: _Observations on

Man_, Part II, chapter iii, 6.]

The fact that men eminent for their intellectual ability and for the

breadth of their information are, in morals, inclined to accept, as

ultimate, principles not identical, and thus to found different schools,

would seem to indicate that, to one who aims at treating ethics as a

science, principles, as well as the deductions from them, should be

objects of closest scrutiny. They should not be taken for granted. The

history of ethical theory appears to make it clear that the "given" of

17. HOW THE MORALIST SHOULD PROCEED.--The above reflections on method

suggest the materials of which the moralist should avail himself in

(1) Evidently he should reflect upon the moral judgments which he finds

in himself, the moral being with whom he is best acquainted. He should

endeavor to render consistent and luminous moral judgments which, as he

finds, have too often been inconsistent and more or less blind.

(2) He should take cognizance of his own setting--of the social

conscience embodied in the community in which he lives.

(3) And since, as we have seen, the significance, either of the

individual conscience, or of the social conscience revealed in custom,

law and public opinion, can hardly become apparent to one who does not

bring within his horizon many consciences individual and social, he

should enlarge his view so as to include such. The moralists, in our day,

(4) Nor should the student of ethics overlook the work which has been

descriptive anatomy is aware of the immense service which has been done

details of structure that would, without such aid, certainly escape his

acute minds for many centuries. He who approaches the subject naively,

advanced and the acute criticisms to which they have been subjected, will

almost certainly say what someone has said before, and said, perhaps,

much better. The valor of ignorance will involve him in ignominious

defeat.

(5) It is evident that the moralist must make use of materials offered

him by workers in many other fields of science. The biologist may have

valuable suggestions to make touching the impulses and instincts of man.

The psychologist treats of the same, and exhibits the work of the

intellect in ordering and organizing the impulses. He studies the

furnish is so vast that the ethical writer who starts out to master it in

all its details may well dread that he may be overcome by senility before

he is ready to undertake the formulation of an ethical theory.

It does not follow, however, that he should leave to those who occupy

theory of morals. He must have sufficient information to be able to

select with intelligence what has some important bearing upon the problem

of conduct, but there are many details into which he need not go. It is

well to note the following points:

(1) A multitude of details may be illustrative of a comparatively small

number of general principles. It is with these general principles that

the moralist is concerned. The anthropologist may regard it as his duty

to spend much labor in the attempt to discover why this or that act, this

or that article of food, happens in a given community to be taboo to

certain persons. The student of ethics is not bound to take up the

detailed investigation of such matters. Human nature, in its general

constitution, is much the same in different races and peoples. The

influence of environment is everywhere apparent. There are significant

uniformities to be discovered even by one who has a limited amount of

detailed information. "Those who come after us will see nothing new,"

said Antoninus, "nor have those before us seen anything more, but in a

manner he who is forty years old; if he has any understanding at all, has

seen by virtue of the uniformity which prevails all things which have

are inclined to base upon them. Not all men, even when endowed with no

the significance of given facts; nor are all equally capable of weaving

view counts for much also. We have seen that ethics touches many fields

vision range over a broad realm, and to grasp the relations of the

in reflective analysis, and of this ethical theory appears to stand in no

little need.

(3) Finally, the mere fact that ethics has for so many centuries been

regarded as one of the disciplines falling within the domain of the

philosopher is not without its significance. One may deplore the tendency

to base ethics upon this or that metaphysical doctrine, and desire to see

it made an independent science; and yet one may be compelled to admit

that it is not easy to comprehend and to estimate the value of many of

the ethical theories which have been evolved in the past, without having

But the struggle with physical nature, sometimes a spur to progress and

issuing in triumph, may also issue in defeat. Nature may be too strong

for man, or, at least, for man at an early stage of his development. She

that the Athenian state rose and flourished upon the shores of the

the Esquimaux of the frozen North.

25. THE CONQUESTS OF THE MIND.--Physical environment counts for much, but

the physical environment of man is the same as that of the creatures

that he succeeds in bringing about ever new and more complicated

adjustments to his environment.

From the point of view of his animal life in many respects inferior to

other creatures--less strong, less swift, less adequately provided with

natural means of defense, less protected by nature against cold, heat and

the inclemencies of the weather, endowed with instincts less unerring,

less prolific, through a long period of infancy helpless and dependent--

man nevertheless survives and prospers.

He has conquered the strong, overtaken the swift, called upon his

ingenuity to furnish him with means of defence. He has defied cold and

heat, and we find him, with appliances of his own devising, successfully

combating the rigors of Arctic frosts and the torrid sun of the tropics.

which makes it possible for vast numbers of human beings to live and

complicated forms of social organization which reveal themselves in

well. He has created new wants and has satisfied them. He has built up

appear to have the remotest of bearings upon the mere struggle for

existence, but the exercise of which gives him satisfaction. Thus, the

primitive instinct of curiosity, once relatively aimless and

insignificant, has developed into the passion for systematic knowledge

and the persistent search for truth; the rudimentary aesthetic feeling

which is revealed in primitive man, and traces of which are recognizable

in creatures far lower in the scale, has blossomed out in those elaborate

creations, which, at an enormous expense of labor and ingenuity, have

come to enrich the domains of literature, music, painting, sculpture,

architecture. Civilized man is to a great extent occupied with the

offers opportunity. One is tempted to affirm, without stopping to

reflect, that the development of the arts and sciences, the increase of

wealth and of knowledge, must in the nature of things increase human

imply an advance in moralization. Man has a moral nature which exhibits

itself to some degree at every stage of his development. What more

natural to conclude than that, with the progressive unfolding of his

intelligence, with increase in knowledge, with some relaxation of the

subordinates all other considerations to the inexorable law of self-

preservation, his moral nature would have the opportunity to show itself

in a fuller measure?

When we compare man at his very lowest with man at his highest such

judgments appear to be justified. But man is to be found at all sorts of

intermediate stages.

His knowledge may be limited, the development of the arts not far

advanced, his control over nature far from complete, and yet he may live

in comparative security and with such wants as he has reasonably well

satisfied. His competition with his fellows may not be bitter and

absorbing. The simple life is not necessarily an unhappy life, if the

simplicity which characterizes it be not too extreme. In judging broadly

may be accompanied by an enormous expenditure of effort. Where the effort

The higher standard may become as inexorable a task-master as was the

the bondage of the daily anxiety touching the problem of living at all,

and may address itself deliberately to the problem of living well, it

will necessarily take up into its ideal of what constitutes living well

all those goods upon which developed man is apt to set a value. A

civilization may be a grossly material one, even when endowed with no

little wealth. With wealth comes the opportunity for the development of

the arts which embellish life, but that opportunity may not be embraced.

Man may be materially rich and spiritually poor; he may allow some of his

faculties to lie dormant, and may lose the enjoyments which would have

been his had they been developed. The Athenian citizen two millenniums

increase in his control over his material environment, the result is an

advance in moralization. An advance in civilization--in knowledge, in the

control over nature's resources, in the evolution of the industrial and

advance on the part of a given community. New conditions, brought about

degeneration.

What constitutes the moral in human behavior, what marks out right or

wrong conduct from conduct ethically indifferent, we have not yet

morals, and we may here fall back upon such conceptions as men generally

possess before they have evolved a science of morals. In the light of

such conceptions a simple and comparatively undeveloped culture may

compare very favorably with one much higher in the scale of civilization.

In the simplest groups of human beings, justice, veracity and a regard to

common good may be conspicuous; the claim of each man upon his fellow-man

may be generally acknowledged. In communities more advanced, the growth

of class distinctions and the inequalities due to the amassing of wealth

on the part of individuals may go far to nullify the advantage to the

individual of any advance made by the community as a whole. The social

bonds which have obtained between members of the same group may be

relaxed; the devotion to the common good may be replaced by the selfish

calculation of profit to the individual; the exploitation of man by his

considered from the point of view of the moralist, thoroughly rotten in

by the community as a whole, it is quite possible for the individual to

lowest savage. He whose feverish existence is devoted to the nerve-

scheming how he may with impunity exploit his fellow-man, and who rises

in the morning with a strained consciousness of possible fluctuations in

the market which may overwhelm him in irretrievable disaster, lives in

perils which easily bear comparison with those which threaten the

precarious existence of primitive man. To masses of men in civilized

communities the problem of the food supply is all-absorbing, and may

exclude all other and broader interests. The factory-worker, with a mind

stupefied by the mechanical repetition of some few simple physical

movements of no possible interest to him except as resulting in the wage

that keeps him alive, has no share in such light as may be scattered

And a civilization in which the control of the forces of nature has been

carried to the highest pitch of development may furnish a background to

indifference, greed, rapacity, gross sensuality, play their parts naked

passions live in huts and have their noses pierced, and others have taken

up from their environment the habit of dining in evening dress, is to the

moralist a relatively insignificant detail. He looks at the man, and he

finds him in each case essentially the same--a primitive and undeveloped

CHAPTER X

MAN'S SOCIAL ENVIRONMENT

27. MAN IS ASSIGNED HIS PLACE.--The old fable of a social contract, by

virtue of which man becomes a member of a society, agreeing to renounce

certain rights he might exercise if wholly independent, and to receive in

exchange legal rights which guarantee to the individual the protection of

life and property and the manifold advantages to be derived from

a social state of some sort, capable of choice and merely desirous of

of an original contract, lying at the base of all association of man with

particular forms under which that association reveals itself.

No man enters into a contract to be born, or to be born a Kaffir, a

without his own consent, and without his own connivance he is assigned a

place in a social state of some sort. The reception which is accorded to

him is of the utmost moment to him. He may be rejected utterly by the

social forces presiding over his birth. In which case he does not start

life independently, but is snuffed out as is a candle-flame by the wind.

And if accepted, as he usually is in civilized communities, he takes his

place in the definite social order into which he is born, and becomes the

subject of education and training as a member of that particular

community.

His relations to his fellow-man will naturally present themselves to him

in a different light according to the different nature of the social

interests which defines rights, determines expectations, and prescribes

implies cooperation, but the limits of possible cooperation are very

differently estimated by man at different stages of his development. To a

few human beings each man is bound closely at every stage of his

evolution. The family bond is everywhere recognized. But, beyond that,

degrees, as intelligence expands, as economic advance and political

enlightenment make possible a community life on a larger scale, as

sympathy becomes less narrow and exclusive.

It is not easy for a member of a community at a given stage of its

development even to conceive the possibility of such communities as may

come into existence under widely different conditions. The simple,

communistic savage, limited in his outlook, thinks in terms of small

numbers. A handful of individuals enjoy membership in his group; he

recognizes certain relations, more or less loose, to other groups, with

which his group comes into contact; beyond is the stranger, the natural

enemy, upon whom he has no claim and to whom he owes no duty.

At a higher level there comes into being the state, including a greater

such conceptions of rights and duties men are born; they take them up

subject them to the test of criticism.

Plato nor the acute intelligence of an Aristotle could rise to the

each it seemed evident that the group proper must remain a comparatively

number of households in the State shall be limited to five thousand and

forty. Aristotle, less arbitrarily exact, allows a variation within

rather broad limits, holding that a political community should not

comprise a number of citizens smaller than ten, nor one greater than one

hundred thousand. [FOOTNOTE: PLATO, _Laws_, v. ARISTOTLE,

_Ethics_, ix, 10.] That a highly organized state, a state not

composed of a horde of subjects under autocratic control, but one in

which the citizens are, in theory, self-governing, should spread over

half a continent and include a hundred millions of souls, would have

seemed to these men of genius the wildest of dreams. Yet such a dream has

agricultural community, rooted to the soil, looking forward from seed-

time to harvest, capable of foresight in storing and distributing the

fruits of its labors. It may combine some of the above activities; and

have attained to a considerable development. In its life commerce may

with other communities and broadening the circle of its interests. That

human societies at such different stages of their development should

differ greatly in their internal organization, in their relations to

other communities, and in the demands which they make upon the

appropriate to the status of the community, comes to be prescribed. The

ideal of conduct, whether unconsciously admitted or consciously embraced

and inculcated, is not the same in different societies. The virtues which

come to be prized, the defects which are disapproved, vary with their

setting.

Moreover, the process of inner development results in differentiation of

function. Clearly marked social classes come into existence, standing in

more or less sharply defined relations to other social classes, endowed

with special rights and called to the performance of peculiar duties.

Man is not merely born into this or that community; he is born into a

place in the community. In very primitive societies that place may differ

little from other places, save as such are determined by age or sex. But

to others, and whose husbandry, committed to slaves paying a part of the

cares and physical labors, in order that they may devote themselves to

serious work of supervising and controlling the state. Their membership

which should fit them to fulfill them. It is not conceived that the

functions natural and proper to one human being are also natural and

proper to another in the same community.

The flat monotony which obtains in those simplest human societies,

resembling extended families, where there is scarcely a demarcation of

classes, a distinction of occupations and a recognition of private

property in any developed sense, has given place in such a state to sharp

contrasts in the status of man and man. Such contrasts obtain in all

modern civilized communities. Man is not merely a subject or citizen; he

obvious. What he shall know, what habits he shall form, what emotions he

shall experience in this situation and in that, what tasks he shall find

set before him, and what ideals he shall strive to attain, are largely

instincts and impulses and gifted with human intelligence. Nor are all

men alike in their impulses or in the degree of their intelligence.

Within limits the individual may exercise choice, reacting upon and

modifying his environment and himself. But a moment's reflection reveals

which has not been won by independent effort. The information in the

light of which he chooses, the situation in the face of which he acts,

the emotional nature which impels him to effort, the habits of thought

and action which have become part of his being--these are largely due to

the larger whole of which he finds himself a part. He did not build the

stage upon which he is to act. His lines have been learned from others.

He may recite them imperfectly; he may modify them in this or in that

particular. But the drama from which, and from which alone, he gains his

significance, is not his own creation.

The independence of the individual in the face of his material and social

environment makes itself more apparent with the progressive development

of man. But man attains his development as a member of society, and in

the course of a historical evolution. It was pointed out many centuries

individual and of the social will.

PART IV

THE REALM OF ENDS

CHAPTER XI

IMPULSE, DESIRE, AND WILL

31. IMPULSE.--Commands and prohibitions address themselves to man as a

voluntary agent. But it seems right to treat as willed by man much more

than falls under the head of conscious and deliberate volition. We do not

hesitate to make him responsible for vastly more; and yet common sense

when tormented by the intrusive pin, the worm writhing in the beak of a

bird,--these act blindly, but it does not appear meaningless to say that

they act. The impulse is from within.

Some impulses result in actions very nicely adjusted to definite ends.

mechanical response to a given stimulus. They may occur without our being

conscious of them and without our having willed them.

Yet such responses to stimuli are not necessarily unconscious and cut off

before his eyes may become conscious that he has done so, and may, if he

chooses, even acquire some facility in controlling the reflex. One may

resist the tendency to swallow when the throat is dry, may hold back a

sneeze, or may keep rigid the hand that is pricked by a pin. That is to

say, actions in their origin mechanical and independent of choice may be

raised out of their low estate, made the objects of attention, and

brought within the domain of deliberate choice.

Furthermore, many actions which, at the outset, claimed conscious

attention and were deliberately willed may become so habitual that the

doer lapses into unconsciousness or semi-unconsciousness of his deed.

They take on the nature of acquired reflexes. The habit of acting appears

to have been acquired by the mind and then turned over to the body, that

the mind may be free to occupy itself with other activities. The man has

may learn to slander one's neighbor almost as mechanically and

become something more. There are impulses which are no longer anything

appear very mechanical; at its upper, one may hesitate to say that desire

wholly beyond the sphere of will.

32. DESIRE.--At its lower limit, desire is not distinguished by any sharp

line from mere impulse. Is the infant that stretches out its hands toward

a bright object conscious of a desire to possess it? Or does the motion

made follow the visual sensation as the wail follows the wound made by

the pin? At a certain stage of development the phenomena of desire become

unmistakable. The idea of something to be attained, the notion of means

to the attainment of an end, the consciousness of tension, may stand out

clearly. The analysis of the psychologist, which finds in desire a

present one.

Moreover, the consciousness of desire may be faint and fugitive, as it

consciousness of the object and the voluntary release of energy which

unnoticed. The thought of shifting my position when I feel uncomfortable

may be followed by the act with no clear consciousness of a tension and

its voluntary release. The mere thought, itself but faintly and

momentarily in consciousness, appears to be followed at once by the act,

actually eliminated; they may be present as fleeting shadows which fail

to attract attention.

If, however, the desire fails to find its immediate fruition, if it is

frustrated, consciousness of it may become exceedingly intense. There is

the constant thought of the object, a vivid feeling of tension, of a

striving to attain the object. Desire may become an obsession, a torment

filling the horizon, and the volition in which it finds its fruition

stands forth as a marked relief. This condition of things may be brought

about by the inhibition occasioned by the physical impossibility of

attaining the object; but it may also be brought about by the struggle of

incompatible desires among themselves. The man is drawn in different

directions, he is subject to various tensions, and he becomes acutely

conscious that he is impelled to move in several ways and is moving in

desire appears to be an inchoate volition--that which, if ripened

be looked upon as the first step toward action--a step which may or may

physical metaphors, but they do not appear out of place.

33. DESIRE OF THE UNATTAINABLE.--But if a desire may be regarded as an

the unattainable, a sufficiently common experience? I may bitterly regret

some act of my own in the past; I may earnestly wish that I had not

performed it. But the past is irrevocable. Hence, the desire for the

attainment of what is in this case the object, a different past, can

hardly be regarded as even a preparatory step toward attainment.

In this case it can not, and were all desires directed upon what is in

the nature of the case wholly unattainable by effort, it would occur to

no one to speak of desire as a first step toward action. But normally and

usually desires are not of this nature. They usually do constitute a link

strain, the tension, is unmistakably present. Real desire is revealed,

and common speech, as well as the language of science, recognizes the

fact.

This general attraction or repulsion exercised by objects, in spite of

significance. The hindrance to realization may be an accidental one; it

may not be wholly insuperable. The presence of a persistent desire may

result in persistent effort, which may ultimately be crowned by success.

Or it may show itself as a permanent readiness for effort. Were every

show itself in a passivity detrimental to action in general. Where the

object is intrinsically an impossible one, persistent desire is, of

course, futile. The dog baying at the cat in the tree is the prey of such

a desire, but he does not realize it, or he might discontinue his

inefficacious leaps. The man tormented by his unworthy act in the past is

quite aware of the futility of his longings. His condition is

psychologically explicable, but to a rational being, in so far as

rational, it is not normal.

Normally, desire is the intermediate step between the recognition of an

object and the will to attain it. The most futile of desires may be

harbored. The imaginative mind may range over a limitless field, and give

itself up to desires the most extravagant. But indulgence in this habit

serves as a check to action serviceable to the individual and to the

34. WILL.--The natural fruition of a desire is, then, an act of will; the

the attainment of the object or end of the desire.

impulsive action, something faintly corresponding to desire and will?

in view as an idea to be realized, appears to be out of the question. But

and some psychic fact which may be regarded as the shadowy forerunner of

the consciousness of the release of tension which, on a higher plane,

reveals itself as the consciousness of will? There may be: introspection

is not capable of answering the question, and one is forced to fall back

upon an argument from analogy. Blindly impulsive action and action in

which will indubitably and consciously plays a part are not wholly

unlike, but they differ by a very wide interval. The interval is not an

empty gap, however, for, as we have seen, all volitions do not stand out

upon the background of our consciousness with the same unmistakable

distinctness. There are volitions no one would hesitate to call such. And

be a hopeless and profitless task.

I take up my pen, I write, I turn to a book; I look at my watch, change

smile or give vent to irritation; I sit down to a meal, eat of this dish

appeal of the beggar in the street--in short, I fill my day with a

thousand actions the most diverse, which follow each other without

intermission.

however realistic, however prolix in its descriptions, can give us more

than the barest outlines of the course of life followed by the personages

it attempts to portray. A touch here, a touch there, and a character is

indicated. No more, for more would be intolerable.

It is significant, however, that the few points touched upon can serve to

give an idea of a character. Not-withstanding their diversity, volitions

fall into classes; it is quite possible to indicate in a general way the

kind of choices a given creature may be impelled to make. They are a

revelation of the nature of the creature choosing. That beings differing

in their nature should be impelled to different courses of action can

surprise no one. Cats have no temptation to wander in herds; the

exhibition of pugnacity in a sheep would strike us with wonder.

of this distinctively human nature, the psychologist proceeds to an

mentions the instincts of flight, repulsion, curiosity, pugnacity, self-

the instinct for food, that for acquisition, etc. He points out that man

play. In such instincts and inborn general tendencies, blending and

reinforcing or opposing and inhibiting one another, he sees the forces

which give their direction to desire and will; which select, out of all

possible objects, those which are to become objects for man.

It is not necessary here to discuss the nature of instinct, to

distinguish between an instinct and a more general inborn tendency, or to

attempt a complete list of the instincts and inborn tendencies of man.

Nor need I ask whether every choice made by a human being can be traced,

directly or indirectly, to one or more of the instincts and other

instinct were wholly lacking? What would become of a man who never

desired food? Could a human society of any sort exist if there were no

sympathy or tender feeling, no impulse to seek the company of other men?

man, who associate themselves into communities, and the customs and laws

43. THE STUDY OF MAN'S INSTINCTS IMPORTANT.--That a careful study of

human nature is of the utmost importance to the moralist is palpable. He

must not prescribe for man a rule of conduct which it is not in man to

which it is impossible for him to desire and, hence, to choose.

To be sure, the main traits of human nature were pretty well recognized

many centuries before the modern science of psychology had its birth. Had

they not been, man could not have had rational dealings with his fellow-

man; could not effectively have persuaded and threatened, rewarded and

punished, and, in short, set in motion all the machinery which is at the

service of one man when he wants to influence the conduct of another. But

moralists ancient and modern have made serious blunders through an

imperfect understanding of the impulses natural to man; and the modern

psychologist, without claiming to be a wholly original or an infallible

guide, may be of no little service in helping us to detect them.

Thus, it was possible for as shrewd an observer of man as Aristotle to

translated by LONG, London, 1890, pp. 69-70.] in setting before man their

the whole man, but only to a part of him. The normal man, whether savage

or as he prefers to style himself, "immoralist," Nietzsche, [Footnote: A

of less gross a blunder. He rails at morality as commonly understood,

repression of sympathy, and a contempt for one's fellows. To be sure, the

"herd" is a scornful, rhetorical expression,--what Bentham would have

called a "question-begging epithet,"--for men do not, properly speaking,

live in herds; but they do normally live in human societies of some sort,

and they have the instincts and impulses which fit them to do so. The

repression of such instincts and impulses does violence to their nature,

and he who advocates other than a social morality should advocate it for

some creature other than man. Man is a social creature, and, among the

objects of his desire and will, he must give a prominent place to some

which are distinctively social.

And when we call to mind that the concepts of the instincts and

fundamental tendencies of human nature, as thus enumerated, are products

of abstraction and generalization--are general notions gathered from the

observation--we are forced to realize that the objects which individual

varied.

All men are not equally moved by fear, anger, repulsion, tender emotion,

or sympathy. Nor do all men find the same things the objects of their

abstraction; in the concrete, this man eagerly accepts an oyster, and

that one turns from it in disgust. In order to deal successfully with our

fellow-man, we must not merely know man. We must know men.

Furthermore, not only do individuals set their affections upon different

objects, but the same person at different stages of his development

desires widely different things. What is a temptation to the boy has no

attraction for the man. What fills the savage with longings may inspire

in the product of a high civilization no other feeling than repulsion.

And what is true of the individual is true of men in the mass. The

objects of desire and of endeavor are not the same in communities of all

orders. Each kind of man has its own nature, which differs in some

respects from that of each other kind, and dictates what shall be, for

to some extent, at least, the bewildering variety of the phenomena

of all sorts and conditions of men. Men's choices fall into _kinds_;

man, and we know something of men. We have _some_ notion how to go

reference to the fundamental instincts of man stops far short of a

complete unification. We are left with a number of distinct and

apparently irreducible impulses and tendencies on our hands. If it is

useful to go so far, may it not be much more useful to go still farther?

Aristotle divided things eligible into those eligible in themselves and

those eligible for the sake of something else. How it would illuminate

the field of action, if it were discovered that men ultimately desire but

one thing, and choose all other things on account of it! Would the

discovery not facilitate immensely our dealings with our fellows,

CHAPTER XIV

45. COMPLEX ENDS.--I may desire to clear my throat and may do so. The

action is a trivial one, is over in a moment, and is forgotten. On the

other hand, I may desire to spend my summer on the sea-coast, to grow

rich in business, to attain to high social position, or to satisfy

When the object is of this complicated description, there may easily be

elements in it which, considered alone, I should not desire at all.

The summer on the New Jersey coast may make for health. But it may entail

mosquitoes, uncomfortable rooms, unaccustomed food, the lack of wonted

occupations, and a distasteful association at close quarters with

neighbors not of one's choosing. The road to wealth is an arduous one.

The envied social station may imply the swallowing of many rebuffs. The

way of the politician is hard.

One may desire, _on the whole_, one of these objects, or a thousand

like them; but there are, obviously, many things comprised in the whole,

or unavoidably bound up with it, that cannot attract, and are not

its fruit in an excessive application to business, the neglect of the

unscrupulous dealings. These things may be foreseen and accepted as

one's sons, brought up in luxury and without incentive to effort, victims

or not, it is true that they are frequently not foreseen with clearness.

They certainly form no part of the intention of the man who bends his

energies to the attainment of wealth. He does not deliberately intend to

injure his health, to lose the affection of his family, to leave behind

him degenerate children. He does intend to get rich, if he can.

How many of the elements contained in the object chosen, or so bound up

with it that they must be accepted along with it, may fairly be said to

fall within the intention of the chooser? There may easily be dispute

touching the latitude with which the word intention may be used. Some

Evidently the intention--the whole object--gives some revelation of the

character of a man. Many men may will to avoid the mud; but not all of

terms can scarcely be regarded as a thing desirable in itself. If it is

desired, it is because of the complex in which it is an element. Some

other element or elements may exert the whole attractive force which

moves desire and will. In other words, some things are chosen for the

When we have discovered that for the sake of which any object is chosen,