EVOLUTION AND ETHICAL THEORIES.
[Sidenote: Bearing of the theory of evolution on previous ethical
theories.]
Before going on to inquire into the positive contributions to
ethics which the theory of evolution has to offer, it is necessary
to consider the relation it bears to the preceding individualistic
systems of morals. It was by way of investigations in psychology and
in the theory of society, that it first began to influence ethical
thought. And, at first sight, it appeared to come as a natural ally
of one of the opposed schools, dreaded by the side it opposed,[115]
welcomed with open arms by that favoured with its friendship. But
since the first shock of pained and pleased surprise, there have
been rumours of dissension in the allies' camp; and the distribution
of parties has now become a matter of difficulty. The doctrine of
evolution, first seized upon for rebutting the arguments of the
intuitional moralists, has been found to transform rather than to
destroy their system; and the utilitarianism in whose interests the
new controversial weapon was employed, seems to have been subjected
to a parallel process of transformation. The bearing of evolution on
egoism may appear to be even more fundamental. For the inheritance
by an individual of the qualities acquired by his ancestors may be
thought to establish scientifically the theory of the unity of the
race, and, in doing so, to make the selfish system of conduct an
anachronism.
[Sidenote: 1. On theories depending on moral sentiment or intuition.]
It is not necessary to examine at any length the application of
evolution to the theories which construct ethical principles on the
basis of moral sentiment, because these theories have been found
either to resolve themselves into a subtle form of egoistic hedonism,
or else to rest their ethical system on a teleological conception,
which transcends the "naturalistic" view of man. Evolution has its
own explanation to give of the seemingly intuitive character of moral
ideas--showing how their immediate necessity for the individual of
the present day may be reconciled with their empirical origin in the
mental history of the race. It attempts thus to supplant both egoism
and intuitionism by the same doctrine of the organic union between
individuals.
The phenomena of conscience and the moral sentiments had been brought
forward to show that the origin of morality was independent of the
experience of the pleasurable or painful results of action: that
certain actions and traits of character were immediately approved
and pronounced to be right by the individual conscience, and certain
others as inexplicably but infallibly disapproved and pronounced to
be wrong. This phenomenon of moral approbation or disapprobation had
indeed been thought by some--as has been already seen--to be only
a special feeling of pleasure or pain. Even as such, however, it
pointed to a peculiar harmony or sympathy between the feelings of
the individual and the fortunes of society. For the pleasure or pain
of the individual was seen to be excited by actions and dispositions
which might be shown to involve the common interests, but were
without relation to his own.
[Sidenote: Origin and history of moral sentiments and intuitions
traced by evolution.]
Even on the "empirical" interpretation of them, such facts of the
individual mind were in need of explanation; and the theory of
evolution has taken in hand to show how the pre-established harmony
grew up. The results of this explanation are, of course, not put
forward as explaining the facts away, or depriving them of reality,
but as enabling us to see their true place and bearing in the
economy of human nature. In tracing the origin and history of the
"altruistic" and "moral" sentiments of the individual, the theory of
evolution has this end in view. It offers--so it is often said--terms
of compromise between the "intuitional" and the "empirical"
psychology of morals. It will admit the immediate and intuitive
character in the individual of the sentiments which older empiricism
had tried to make out to be composite, growing up in each person out
of the materials afforded by his environment, and the experiences
to which he was subjected. The theory of evolution contends for an
empiricism on a larger scale, which will more closely connect the
individual with the race, and both with their environment.
[Sidenote: Bearing of this on their validity:]
The question thus arises, What bearing has this psychological or
"psychogonical" theory on the ethical validity of moral intuitions
and sentiments? It certainly does not follow that they are of no
moral value, merely because their origin can be traced to simpler
elements of experience. They would lose ethical importance only if
it were first of all shown that their validity depended on their
not being derived from, or compounded out of, other elements. As
Professor Sidgwick says, "Those who dispute the authority of moral or
other intuitions on the ground of their derivation, must be required
to show, not merely that they are the effects of certain causes,
but that these causes are of a kind that tend to produce invalid
belief."[116]
But what the theory of evolution has to determine with regard to
moral intuitions or sensibilities would seem to be not so much their
ethical validity or invalidity, as the range and manner of their
ethical application. It attempts to show that particular moral
beliefs or feelings have been originated and formed by certain
external customs belonging to the conditions of social or family
life. These customs have impressed themselves upon the mental
structure, and reappear in the individual in the shape of organic
tendencies to certain actions, or classes of actions, and of aversion
to other actions, accompanied by a corresponding mental sentiment--or
judgment--of approbation or disapprobation. Thus the individual
comes instinctively to feel--or to judge,--"A ought to be done," "B
ought not to be done." Now the evolutionist, as I conceive, does
not proceed to infer that such judgments are invalid because he has
shown how they originated--does not conclude (to use Mr Sidgwick's
words) that "_all_ propositions of the form 'X is right' or 'good,'
are untrustworthy;" but he does ask in what way the history of these
judgments affects their application.[117]
[Sidenote: (_a_) different social conditions from which they may have
resulted,]
(_a_) He recognises, in the first place, that all such judgments are
the natural result of a certain social condition, and that there
is, therefore, some probability that the same kind of social state
could not continue to exist were those moral judgments habitually
disregarded in conduct. They have resulted from a certain state
of society, and have been assumed--after insufficient experience,
perhaps--to be required for the stability of that state, so that
every action opposed to these moral judgments will probably tend
to weaken social bonds. But the evolutionist's conclusions are not
restricted to such generalities. He may show that certain moral
judgments or sentiments have had their origin from the habits of
union between individuals, and of respect for the rights of property,
which have obtained in every relatively permanent society, and which
may therefore be inferred to be probably necessary for the continued
existence of any community; that certain other sentiments or
intuitions have descended to present individuals from customs which
have not been so universal in the history of societies, although the
communities possessing them have shown greater power of vitality
than those in which they were absent; while others, again, may be
traced to institutions which, from their occasional and unprogressive
character, may be shown to be neither necessary nor beneficial.
[Sidenote: and consequent difference in their value for conduct;]
The evolutionist will therefore contend that different degrees
of value for the regulation of conduct belong to different
moral intuitions or classes of them. If one class is habitually
disregarded, he may assert that historical evidence goes to show
that society will fall to pieces, and the life of man become, in
the expressive words of Hobbes, "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and
short." The disregard of another class will probably lead to a more
precarious existence, or one less filled with the experiences which
make up life; while opposition to a third class, so far from being
hurtful or dangerous, may remove unnecessary restrictions, and aid
the development both of the individual and of society.
[Sidenote: (_b_) their organic character.]
(_b_) There is a second point which will also be recognised by the
evolutionist. Although these intuitions have been derived, they
are now organic, and their disappearance from the human mind as
instinctive tendencies towards or against action can only be slow
and painful. The process must involve a certain amount of loss: at
the same time, it is not a process that can be easily avoided. As
soon as the reason of the instinctive tendency is inquired into, it
is weakened as instinct. We pass from the action itself to the end
it is fitted to subserve; and, if the instinctive action is not the
most appropriate, or has hurtful results, we have already reached the
stage in which the instinct is checked, and begins to yield to action
directed by a principle. Yet it dies out only gradually, and, so to
speak, after a struggle. Nor does it seem possible to assert with
confidence, as mitigating this struggle, that the strongest impulses
will always be those which are necessary or advantageous to the
existence of society. For it is a common experience that the moral
intuitions which lead to conduct that has ceased to serve a purpose,
and the internal sanctions which follow disregard of them, are often
even more powerful than those which protect such virtues as justice
or veracity.
[Sidenote: Resultant attitude of evolutionism to intuitionism.]
From the preceding argument it follows that it cannot be held that
moral intuitions are invalid because evolved. The evolutionist
will certainly go very far wrong, as Mr Sidgwick points out, if
he maintains that a "general demonstration of the derivedness
or developedness of our moral faculty is an adequate ground for
distrusting it." Instead of holding that, if we succeed in tracing
the origin of an intuition, it is thereby discredited, he will admit
that the mere fact of our possessing any moral intuition shows that
the habits of action from which it was derived have been permanent
enough to leave their traces on the mental structure, and that the
conduct to which it leads, like the custom from which it came, will
not destroy society, but, on the contrary, will probably tend to its
permanence. The general attitude of the evolution-theory to moral
intuitions is therefore, after all, very similar to that which Mr
Sidgwick has reached as a result of his elaborate examination of
the maxims of common-sense. It is an attitude of trust modified by
criticism. In both an appeal is made from the axioms themselves: in
the one case, to their historical genesis and the facts in which
they originated; in the other, to the searching test of logical
consistency, and their capability of being applied to conduct. But
the theory of evolution, if it succeeds in tracing the origin of our
moral intuitions, does seem to involve the abandonment of the old
intuitional method which accepted them as rules of conduct from which
no appeal could be taken.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 2. Bearing of the theory of evolution on egoism.]
The theory of evolution transforms intuitionism by the way in which
it connects the individual with the race. Its first effect upon
egoism is similar. The nature of the individual man as now exhibited
is widely different from that which the older individualistic theory
used to deal with. The latter is typified by the marble statue
to which Condillac[118] compares the percipient subject, as yet
unaffected by sense-impressions. The variety of mental life which
is actually met with is accounted for by the different kinds of
experiences different men pass through; and the consequent difference
in the sources of pleasure and pain accounts for the diverse lines of
activity which human beings follow out. But the theory of evolution
shows that human nature is infinitely varied, not only through the
variety of circumstances, but through the variety of inherited
dispositions. One individual is not merely connected with others
through considerable similarity of experience built upon an equally
characterless basis; but he is organically related to all the members
of the race, not only bone of their bone and flesh of their flesh,
but mind of their mind. He is connected with others by a thousand
subtly interwoven threads of emotion which enter into his life, and
unite his desires and activities with the functions of the larger
organism of which he is a member.
[Sidenote: Relation of egoism to altruism as affected by it: (_a_)
nature of the individual social,]
[Sidenote: but not completely social.]
The theory of evolution has thus an important contribution to make
to the question of the relation between egoism and altruism. It
has remained for it to show historically how the individual is so
connected with the community that the good, or the pleasure, of the
one cannot be considered apart from that of the other. From the
non-evolutionist point of view it was always open to show how the
individual depended on society, how his wants could only be supplied
by it, and how the security and happiness of every one were bound up
with those of his fellows. The individualistic theory was thus able
to give all sorts of egoistic reasons why people should indulge in
what is now called altruistic conduct. Self was seen to be "a poor
centre for a man's actions," and only chosen by the short-sighted
person, who thereby missed both the good to himself that followed
from his neighbours' wellbeing, and the peculiar pleasure of sympathy
and benevolent action. But the theory of evolution has shown how the
two things have developed together in the race: first, the actual
solidarity between the individual and the whole; and secondly, the
subjective reflection of the same fact, sympathy with the feelings
of others. When we ask, therefore, whether it is our own pleasure
(or good) or that of others that we ought to aim at, we are pointed
to the gradual obliteration of the distinction between the interest
and feelings of the individual and those of the whole. Were this
completely accomplished, there need be no more question about the
matter. If conduct with an egoistic motive or aim always resulted
in altruistic equally with egoistic effects, and if altruistic
conduct had always egoistic equally with altruistic consequences,
it would even then be little more than vain subtlety to ask whether
egoism or altruism was to be the real end of conduct. But if, in
addition to the identity of interests, there were also an identity
of motive or feeling,[119] the question would be no longer in place
at all. For there would cease to be either a subjective distinction
in motive between egoism and altruism, or an objective distinction
in the courses of conduct to which they led. And it is just because
this identification is manifestly incomplete--because neither the
interests nor the desires of the individual harmonise with any degree
of exactness with those of his fellows--that we must examine how far
the conception of the social organism is a true expression for the
connection of individuals.
[Sidenote: Difference between the individual and social organisms]
At most, the theory of organic evolution can make out that there
is a tendency towards the identification of the interests of the
individual with those of society. It cannot demonstrate a complete
identification. The community has indeed been called an organism,
and the individual spoken of as a cell in the tissue of which it is
composed; but we must avoid pressing this analogy to the point of
breaking. Among so many points of similarity between society and an
individual organism, there is one essential distinction,--the social
organism has no feelings and thoughts but those of its individual
members--the conscious centre is in the unit, not in the whole;
whereas, when we regard the individual organism and its constituent
members, consciousness is seen to exist only in the whole, not in
each several unit. The absence of a "social sensorium"[120] should,
therefore, make us hesitate to identify the ends of individual with
those of collective action. Every cell in the individual body has
a life-history of its own, besides partaking of the life of the
organism; and, did it possess the reason which "looks before and
after," it might probably adopt an egoistic attitude, and object to
the subordination of its private interests to the good of the whole.
In the same way, the many individual lives which make up the social
organism--since each of them possesses a separate consciousness--are
apt to disregard the life of the larger whole whose members they are.
Now what the theory of utilitarianism requires is, that the happiness
or pleasurable consciousness of the community or of the race, not
that of the individual, be made the end; and those who make egoism
the end of ethics, commonly maintain that the general happiness is
the end of politics.[121] The individual is not indeed required to be
entirely unselfish or "altruistic" in action. He is not altogether
forbidden to seek his own things, nor enjoined to seek only the
things of others; and evolutionist utilitarianism, indeed, would tell
him to seek his own happiness in the happiness of the community. But
the obvious remark must be borne in mind, that society, the social
organism, cannot experience happiness. However it may resemble the
individual organism in the manner of its growth, the modes of its
activity, and even its relation to its component members, yet it
cannot feel pleasure or pain as an individual does. The "happiness of
the community" does not mean the happiness of the social organism,
but is only a concise formula for the aggregate happinesses of the
individuals composing it.
[Sidenote: in respect of feeling.]
When it is said, therefore--either as a political or an ethical
theory--that the happiness of society is the end for conduct, the
end prescribed is altruistic rather than social. Its object is not
an organism, but an aggregate of individuals. A certain organisation
of society may lead to an increase in this aggregate happiness, and
so be necessary for the attainment of the end; but if the end is
happiness, the social organism and its wellbeing are no longer the
thing cared for, but the greatest aggregate of pleasures on the part
of its members.
[Sidenote: Theory of obligation simplified, if universalistic end
arrived at.]
So long, therefore, as the end is pleasure, it must have reference
to individuals. The utilitarian may try to persuade the agent to
seek the pleasures of others as if they were his own--requiring
him thus to seek his end out of himself, and the circle of his own
pleasures. And, while we continue to hold pleasure to be the end,
the evolution-theory can go no further than this. It seemed to have
made out an organic unity between different individuals, through
which it might be possible to effect a reconciliation between the
rival ethical principles of egoism and altruism. But the feeling of
pleasure is just the point where individualism is strongest, and in
regard to which mankind, instead of being an organism in which each
part but subserves the purposes of the whole, must rather be regarded
as a collection of competing and co-operating units. It is true that
the social factor in the individual life is brought into scientific
cognisance by the theory of evolution. It shows the way in which
his interests and feelings depend upon others. And if, through the
influence of a political standpoint, or of some intuition of reason,
a universalistic ethics has been already arrived at, it can bring
forward the organic union of individual and society as a means of
enforcing the social end upon the individual agent. In this way the
theory of evolution makes a contribution to ethics at a critical
point where the individualist theory failed. For ethics must not rest
content with pointing out an end for conduct or standard of morality,
without giving a reason to the individual why he should make this
end his own--that is, developing a doctrine of obligation. In many
current theories, notably in the common forms of utilitarianism, the
two things are not necessarily connected, since the standard is fixed
from the point of view of the whole, and obligation has reference to
the individual. The development of morality may appear to show how
the two standpoints can be connected. If it could be made out that
the happiness of the community and of the individual are identical,
a standard of morality which made the aggregate happiness the end
might be regarded as carrying its own obligation within itself:
politics and ethics would (on the hedonistic theory) be harmonised.
And, in so far as evolution has brought the individual and society
into closer reciprocal dependence, it has lessened the practical
difficulty of bringing about this conciliation, or--to speak with the
utilitarians--of making the standard of morality supply a doctrine
of obligation. At present, however, the course of human development
is far from having reached the point at which actual harmony between
the race and each member of it is established; and it would therefore
still be a subject for inquiry whether the theory of evolution could
provide a basis for moral obligation, even were the moral standard or
the end for conduct satisfactorily established. But, in determining
this latter question, we find that the above psychological and
sociological investigations have no longer the same degree of value
as before. In the theory of obligation, every fact brought forward by
evolution to show the harmony of individual and social welfare makes
the way easier for establishing the reasonableness of the pursuit
of social ends by the individual. But from these facts of past
development we have also to determine an end for present and future
action. And this question cannot be solved merely by showing how
morality has developed, though that development may form an important
part of the evidence from which our conclusions are to be drawn.
[Sidenote: (_b_) Limits to complete conciliation of egoism and
altruism:]
[Sidenote: (α) continued existence of competition;]
The harmony of interests and the harmony of feelings required for
the empirical reconciliation of egoism and altruism is a condition
which needs only to be stated to show how far it is from being
realised in present circumstances. The constant struggle involved in
the course of evolution throws doubt even on its ultimate attainment.
The rule has always been that the better-equipped organism asserts
and maintains its supremacy only by vanquishing the organisms which
are not so well equipped. Conflict and competition have been constant
factors in development. The present circumstances of the individual
have been determined for him by the war of hostile interests between
different communities, and between different members of the same
community; and his mental inheritance has been largely formed by
the emotions corresponding to this rivalry. Perhaps the necessity
for conflict has diminished with the advance of evolution; but it
is still sufficiently great to make competition one of the chief
formative influences in industrial and political life. And the causes
from which the struggle of interests arises are so constant--the
multiplication of desires and of desiring individuals keeps so well
in advance of the means of satisfying desires--that it is doubtful
whether the course of evolution is fitted to bring about complete
harmony between different individuals. It would almost seem that the
"moving equilibrium" in human conduct, in which there is no clash of
diverse interests, cannot be expected to be brought about much before
the time when the physical factors of the universe have reached the
stage in which evolution ends.
[Sidenote: (β) different and conflicting degrees of altruism;]
Besides, it does not do to speak as if the only alternative to egoism
were a comprehensive altruism. Man is a member of a family, a tribe,
a nation, the race. His altruism, therefore, may take the narrow
form of family feeling, or it may extend to tribal feeling, or to
patriotism, or even rise to devotion to humanity. And these do not
merely supplement one another: they are often conflicting principles
of conduct. Action for the sake of the family may frequently be most
unsocial; the keen patriot ignores the rights of other peoples;
the "citizen of the world" is too often a stranger to the national
spirit. Further, when civilisation grows complex, the same man is a
member of many intersecting societies--a church, a trade, a party
organisation[122]--and has to balance the claims which each of
these has upon him. The sublation of egoism would still leave to be
determined the different shares which these various social wholes
have in a man's sympathies, and their different claims upon his
conduct.
[Sidenote: (γ) the altruism of interest and the altruism of motive;]
Any theory of society will show how the good of the individual is
not merely a part of the good of the whole, but reacts in various
ways upon the organism of which he is a member. But, in the case of
any one individual, the results of acts done for his own good (or
pleasure), and the results of those done for the good (or pleasure)
of the whole, do not correspond with any exactness, and often widely
diverge. If, then, the individual is consciously aiming at his own
good (or pleasure), it is--if we look from the point of view of
individualistic ethics--only an incidental and fortuitous result of
the action when it promotes the common good. When we recognise the
social factor in the individual, this judgment must be modified. The
evolution-theory shows how he has become so constituted that much
that pleases him individually, must of necessity benefit society at
large. But there are obvious limits to the harmony. The pleasure or
interest of the individual is often the reverse of advantageous to
society. It may be the case that in seeking his own private ends, he
is yet, to use the words of Adam Smith, "led by an invisible hand
to promote an end which was no part of his intention."[123] But,
if so, the end is invisible as well as the hand that points to it.
And the good of society can be said to be the natural and uniform
consequence of the individual's action, only when he consciously
makes it his end. In a word, the true altruism--or, as we might call
it, using a word appropriated to another purpose--the true socialism
is when the good of others or of society is pursued for its own
sake; and this is to be distinguished from the false or imperfect
altruism, in which the same outward result is aimed at, because it
is seen to be the most prudent way of promoting one's own good.
Thus Mr Spencer's elaborate argument[124] to show that conduct of
purely egoistic tendency, equally with conduct of purely altruistic
tendency, is insufficient and self-destructive, does not reach beyond
the external results of action, and leaves it possible for both end
and motive to be still egoistic. If "morality is internal,"[125]
the discussion proves no ethical proposition at all. The egoism of
external prudence may indeed be transcended by recognising that the
pleasures and pains of others are sources of sympathetic feeling
in ourselves. But a subjective or emotional egoism remains. And if
the fact that we "receive pleasure from the pleasure of another
man"[126] is our reason for seeking his pleasure, we shall cease to
seek it when a means of greater pleasure offers. In human life as at
present constituted, no secure principle of conduct can be based on
the agreement of individual with social good; for, if they diverge,
as they often do, there is no standard left for determining their
competing claims.
[Sidenote: (δ) altruistic feelings weak,]
It will not do to divide all men, as Mr Stephen seems to do,[127]
into two classes, typified by the reasonable and therefore
sympathetic man who has struck a bargain with society to take "common
stock of pains and pleasures," and the systematically selfish man
who "must be an idiot." For most men belong to neither of those two
classes: their bargain with society has not been fully completed, and
can be withdrawn from temporarily when circumstances make withdrawal
convenient, though this process cannot be carried on indefinitely
without greatly weakening the sympathetic feelings. The majority
of men are neither entirely sympathetic nor yet "systematically
selfish": they are unsystematically sympathetic and unsystematically
selfish. Such men have the sensibilities that give "leverage"
to the moralist.[128] But it is futile to tell them to be more
sympathetic, or entirely sympathetic. For sympathetic feelings cannot
be produced at will: they can only come with that slow modification
of the character brought about by conduct. Shall we then say that
a man should in all cases of conduct prefer the pleasure of the
whole or of others to his own pleasure? If a man were to do so,
then perhaps, by consistent self-abnegation, altruism might become
pleasant, and both the man himself and his descendants become
more sympathetically constituted? This perfection of altruistic
sympathies is looked forward to by Mr Spencer as characteristic of a
subsequent--the final--stage of evolution. When that period comes,
men will compete with one another for the few remaining opportunities
of self-sacrifice.[129] At present, Mr Spencer argues, pure altruism
is suicidal. The individual whose sympathetic nature is undeveloped
may, however, go further, and ask what right we have to say that "the
moral law" is "conformity to the conditions of social welfare,"[130]
rather than to those of individual welfare? Evolution, it would seem,
does not suffice to prove this proposition, which appears, on the
contrary, to be a survival of the social or political way of looking
at things inherited from the utilitarian theory. But the point to be
proved is why I ought to adopt this standpoint when considering what
the end of my action is to be. And this point stands in need of proof
here as much as in utilitarianism, and seems almost equally destitute
of it.
[Sidenote: and may be restrained by reflection.]
Feelings leading to altruistic conduct are undoubtedly possessed by
the average man at his present stage of development. Yet the being
who is able to reflect on the feelings possessed by him, and compare
the characteristics of different emotional states, and the activities
following from them, has already before him the possibility of
transcending them. He is able to estimate their value in terms of
simpler--or of other--feelings; and the man who rigorously does so by
the test of personal pleasure and pain manifests the spirit of the
egoistic hedonist--a spirit which the theory of empirical evolution
does not seem able to exorcise.
[Sidenote: (_c_) Tendency of evolution to supplant egoism. Evolution
not the basis of psychological hedonism,]
At the same time the _tendency_ of the evolution-theory is not to
support but to supplant egoism. Neither the basis of psychological
hedonism on which egoism is usually made to rest, nor the independent
arguments which have been urged for its ethical theory, are drawn
from the facts of development. The theory of evolution may, indeed,
be made to suggest that non-hedonistic action has arisen out of
hedonistic: "That all affections are generated by association
with experienced pleasure--only that the association is mainly
_ancestral_ in the case of 'affections' proper. The dim remembrance
of ancestral pleasures, the force of ancestral habit, produces that
propension of which Butler speaks, disproportionate to (distinct)
expectation and (personal) experience of pleasure."[131] But this
view will be rejected by the pure egoist,[132] who must maintain
that the pain of acting contrary to ancestral habit would in every
case be greater than the expected pleasure foregone by following
it. According to the view suggested, all deliberate volition would
still be regarded as hedonistically determined, though other motives
than pleasure may affect action through having been inherited
from cases of ancestral conduct in which they tended to personal
pleasure. Even were it shown, however, that altruistic conduct has
been developed out of egoistic, the fact of its development would
not alter its present characteristic. If action now is not always
moved by pleasure and pain alone, it becomes a question of merely
historical interest to trace its genesis to conduct to which our
ancestors were hedonistically impelled. The fact remains that the
original simplicity of motive has been broken into, and something
else than personal pleasure admitted to have sway. But it does not
seem to have been made out that action in the early stages of human
life was completely egoistic, any more than that it is so now. "From
first to last," as Mr Spencer puts it,[133] self-sacrifice seems to
have been involved in the preservation of each successive generation
of individuals. We inherit propensities to action which have been
evolved from an initial stage in which there was no conscious
distinction between egoism and altruism, though both tendencies
were present and were necessary for the continued existence of the
species. The feelings inherited by the egoistic hedonist are assessed
by him at their pleasure-value. But such feelings would never have
been acquired by his ancestors, had they tested each germinal emotion
in the same way, and so restrained self-sacrifice for offspring and
fellow-men. Perhaps they did not clearly see or realise what their
pleasure consisted in, or accurately distinguish it from family or
tribal welfare; but, through this deficiency of imagination, the
feelings were able to grow and perpetuate themselves, which have
tended to the preservation and consolidation of society.
[Sidenote: nor of ethical hedonism.]
Nor can we gather from evolution any ethical argument leading to
egoism as the principle or end for conduct; and it is worthy of
remark that the proof attempted by the late Mr Barratt is unaffected
by his recognition of the theory of evolution as applied to mind,
depending on definitions and axioms which hold (if at all) for
the individual man. Pleasure is defined by him as "that state of
consciousness which follows upon the unimpeded performance (as such)
of its function by one or more of the parts of our organism;"[134]
and the good is forthwith identified with pleasure, by its being
shown that it is a "state of consciousness," and that it "results
from the due performance of function (as such)."[135] But the
"due[136] performance of function" is itself a state or states
of consciousness; and in it, not in any sequent or concomitant
circumstances, the good may consist. The good, we may say, is not
pleasure, but the ἐνέργεια (~energeia~) of which pleasure is only the
consequent or completion. This is not a mere question of words. For
"due performance of function" cannot be measured by the resultant
or accompanying feeling of pleasure: the most perfect functioning,
just because it has become habitual, has often the slightest
accompaniment of pleasant feeling. The way in which the argument
is put in 'Physical Ethics' is thus well fitted to bring out the
fundamental antithesis between ethical systems according as they
place the good in the active element of function, or in the passive
element of pleasurable feeling which accompanies functioning. The
theory of evolution seems to have led many of the writers who have
applied it to ethics to the other side of the antithesis than that
adhered to by Mr Barratt. They recognise ethical value as belonging
to "due performance of function," rather than to the pleased states
of consciousness which follow; and in this way their theory leads
them beyond hedonistic ethics.[137]
[Sidenote: 3. Bearing of the theory of evolution on utilitarianism]
It has been argued that the theory of evolution is, in tendency,
hostile to the egoistic principle. Had egoism been consistently
recognised and acted upon during the course of human development,
the features of social life which most promote co-operation and
progress would never have become persistent. But the same objection
cannot be urged against universalistic hedonism. It is true that
this has not been the end consistently aimed at in the past. Those
from whom our social instincts are inherited cannot be credited with
having had either the general happiness or social evolution in view.
Society and institutions furthering the common good were not the
work of primitive utilitarians plotting for the greatest happiness
of the greatest number. They have come down to us from times when
social organisation was forced upon men by the rude logic of facts
which exterminated tribes in which the bond of union was weak;
and they have been gradually modified by the pressure of external
circumstances and the growing influence of mental conceptions of
what is best. But the adoption of general happiness as the end of
action would not have had the same effect on social evolution, as the
adoption of personal happiness as the end would have had. It would
have aided and not have hindered the growth of the feeling of unity
among the members of a tribe or state, as well as have led to the
recognition of the individual as subordinate to the social organism.
It may thus seem quite natural to look to utilitarianism as giving
the end for reflective action, and yet to hold along with it what is
loosely called the ethics of evolution.
[Sidenote: has led to its modification]
[Sidenote: in method,]
But this first attitude of evolution to utilitarianism was not fitted
to be permanent; and the "start"[138] Mr Spencer got on being classed
with anti-utilitarians must have been repeated in the experience
of other moralists as they found themselves drifting from their
ancient moorings. Mr Spencer's difference from the utilitarians is
not such as to lead him to reject or modify their principle. He
maintains, as strongly as they do, that "the ultimately supreme end"
is "happiness special and general."[139] But he disagrees with them
in method, holding that, owing to the incommensurability of a man's
different pleasures and pains, and to the incommensurability of the
pleasures and pains of one man with those of others, coupled with the
indeterminateness of the means required to reach so indeterminate an
end, happiness is not fitted to be the immediate aim of conduct.[140]
But another method is open to us. For "since evolution has been,
and is still, working towards the highest life, it follows that
conforming to those principles by which the highest life is achieved,
is furthering that end."[141] It is possible "to deduce, from the
laws of life and the conditions of existence, what kinds of action
necessarily tend to produce happiness, and what kinds to produce
unhappiness."[142] Greatest pleasure, that is to say, is the end. But
it is so impossible to compare different kinds of pleasure, different
people's pleasure, and different means for obtaining a maximum of it,
that it is not a practical end for aiming at. No doubt is expressed
that greatest happiness is the ultimate end; although no good reason
is given for holding that it is. But it is an indeterminate end, and
needs to be interpreted by the course of evolution which is held to
tend to it. It is not too much to say, therefore, that Mr Spencer is
only nominally a utilitarian. His ethical principles are not arrived
at by an estimate of the consequences of action, but by deduction
from the laws of that "highest life" which is now in process of
evolution. This alliance between evolutionism and hedonism will be
examined in the following chapter. At present it is necessary to
consider the reasons which have led other evolutionists to look upon
the new morality as superseding the utilitarian end.
[Sidenote: and in principle.]
[Sidenote: (_a_) Ideal of utilitarianism objected to as
unprogressive.]
Mr Spencer's "dissent from the doctrine of utility, as commonly
understood, concerns," he tells us,[143] "not the object to be
reached by men, but the method of reaching it." In other writers,
however, the theory of evolution has not only supplanted the method
of utilitarianism, but also led to a modification of its principle.
The objections they have taken to it may perhaps be summed up by
saying that they consider utilitarianism to look upon conduct
from a mechanical, instead of from an organic point of view. It
prescribed conduct to a man as if he were a machine with a certain
kind and quantity of work to turn out. His nature was looked upon
by it as fixed, and his social conditions as unvarying; and the
ideal set before him was therefore unprogressive--something that
he was to do or to get, not something that he was to become. "If
consistently applied," it has been recently argued, "utilitarianism
seems irrevocably committed to a stereotyped and unprogressive
ideal."[144] According to Mr Stephen, it "considers society to be
formed of an aggregate of similar human beings. The character of
each molecule is regarded as constant." It can, therefore, give a
test which is "approximately accurate" only, which does not allow
for the variation of character and of social relations.[145] To
the same effect Miss Simcox maintains that it "might pass muster
in a theory of social statics, but it breaks down altogether if we
seek its help to construct a theory of social dynamics."[146] These
writers do not seem to have made it quite clear, however, in what
way utilitarianism assumes a stationary condition of human nature,
and so formulates conduct in a way unsuited to a progressive state.
To say simply that the greatest happiness of the greatest number is
the end, is not in itself inconsistent with a progressive state of
human nature. It is true that, in all the enthusiasm for and belief
in progress to be seen in a writer such as J. S. Mill, there is a
constant goal always set to it in the possible maximum of pleasant
feeling. It would not have been inconsistent for him, however, to
look upon human nature as capable of developing new susceptibilities
for pleasure. Progress is made by increasing the amount of pleasure
actually got. And so far, the ideal itself is certainly fixed, while
progress consists in its gradual realisation. But there is no special
virtue in having an ideal which is itself progressive. A progressive
ideal simply means an ideal which is incompletely comprehended, and
the comprehension of which proceeds gradually with its realisation.
At any time the definition of such an ideal can only be tentative:
with the actual assimilation of character to it, the intellect comes
to grasp its nature with increasing clearness. I do not myself think
that we can expect to have more than such a tentative and progressive
comprehension of the moral ideal of humanity. But we must not take
objection to a theory because it gives at once a clear and definite
view of the final end of conduct: though we must not refrain from
inquiring how the end is known.
[Sidenote: Force of the objection when attempt made to interpret
greatest happiness,]
[Sidenote: by showing the way in which men can obtain happiness,]
But the bearing of the objection to utilitarianism becomes apparent
when we try to give some definite meaning to the end greatest
happiness. If we are content to receive it as simply a very
general--or rather abstract--expression for our ideal, nothing need
be said, except to put the question, which has been already asked,
How we came by such an ideal? The difficulty arises when we attempt
to apply the ideal to practice. With men of fixed character in an
unchanging society, our way might be comparatively clear. But,
when both character and social relations vary, and their variation
extends to susceptibility to pleasure and pain, and depends on the
actions adopted to obtain the end, utilitarianism may well appear
to be without a principle by which to determine between different
kinds of conduct. To an objection similar to this, but taken from the
old point of view, that we have no time before acting to sum up the
pleasurable and painful consequences of our actions, Mill replied
that there had been "ample time--namely, the whole past duration
of the human species"[147]--in which to estimate the felicific
results of conduct. The variability of faculty and function makes
this answer lack convincing power. Yet, perhaps, we are apt at
present to disregard the real value of this collective experience
of the race. True, human nature is not a constant; yet certain of
its qualities are persistent and constant enough not to leave us
in doubt as to whether, say, murder and theft are beneficial or
injurious to happiness. There are at least certain actions, and,
still more, certain abstentions, upon which human security--the basis
of happiness--depends. But it would seem that those "secondary laws"
may be more properly regarded as conditions of life than means to
pleasure.
[Sidenote: and a maximum of it.]
The difficulty, however, comes most clearly to the front when we
attempt to define the maximum, and that not for an individual or
generation only, but for the race. It is not happiness merely, but
greatest happiness, that is the utilitarian end. Is there any way,
then, of determining how the maximum of happiness is to be obtained
for generations whose characters, though inherited from present
individuals, may be modified almost indefinitely? The very existence
and numbers of these future generations are problematic; and Mill,
as is well known, spent much of his energy in trying to convince
the present generation to restrict the numbers of the next. Even on
the fundamental question as to whether happiness is to be obtained
by the restriction of desires or by the satisfaction which leads to
their recurrence and increase, no principle can be extracted from
utilitarian ethics. The theory of evolution has shown how desires
may be uprooted in the character of the race, though they remain to
the end in the present individuals; but in each case utilitarianism
would require us to sum up and estimate the relative advantages of
renunciation and satisfaction,--a problem which the modifiability of
human character seems to make impracticable. Thus, even if certain
rules of living may be ascertained, and justified by the utilitarian
principle, it would seem that the end of greatest happiness for
the race of man, or the sentient creation generally, must remain
"abstract." There seems no principle through which it may be applied
to conduct--no hope of an accurate estimate of results--when the
variability of the individual and of social relations is taken into
account.
[Sidenote: (b) Objection to utilitarianism as a theory of
consequences;]
Connected with this is the assertion that morality must have an
inward, not an external standard. The evolutionists are inclined
to condemn utilitarianism as a theory of consequences, dealing
solely with work produced. According to Mill, "utilitarian moralists
have gone beyond almost all others in affirming that the motive
has nothing to do with the morality of the action, though much
with the worth of the agent."[148] And this seems to be just what
evolutionism objects to. Even the worth of the agent is, according to
utilitarianism, only a tendency to perform the actions called moral:
"a good or a bad disposition" is said to be "a bent of character from
which useful or from which hurtful actions are likely to arise."[149]
Against this view Mr Stephen maintains that "the attempt to secure
an absolute and immutable moral law in its external shape must be
illusory. The moral law can be stated unconditionally when it is
stated in the form 'Be this,' but not when it is stated in the form
'Do this.'"[150] This, however, appears to express the matter in a
way not free from difficulty. The organic view of conduct will object
not only to considering action apart from character, but also to
considering character apart from action. We must treat conduct as a
whole: and, in order to do so, we must treat it as both arising out
of and forming character; and we must treat character not as mere
potentiality, but as it realises itself in conduct. The weakness of
the utilitarian theory is its method of treating actions merely in
respect of their results: the evolutionist must show how results are
connected with motives,--how character and conduct are different
aspects of a whole.
[Sidenote: (c) and as related solely to sensibility,]
[Sidenote: of which there is no common measure.]
The difference of the evolutionist view from utilitarianism comes
out at another point. The latter places the standard and test of
conduct in its effects on the sensibility. The best is that which
brings most pleasure. Utilitarians are now, for the most part, ready
to admit that, to be in earnest with their theory, they must reject
Mill's attempt to distinguish qualities among pleasures. "If morality
is to be defined by happiness, we must, of course, allow all kinds
of happiness to count, and to count equally so far as they are
actually equal. We must reckon the pleasures of malevolence as well
as those of benevolence."[151] Of his own pleasures--of the relative
amounts of pleasure he gets from various sources--each man is the
final judge. One man prefers "push-pin" to poetry, another poetry to
"push-pin"; and neither has a right to call the other mistaken. If
we are to aim at the greatest maximum pleasure, therefore, we must
not strive for what are commonly called "high" pleasures rather than
"low" pleasures, except as greater in intensity. If we must have a
standard, the judgment of the φρόνιμος (~phronimos~) for which Mill
contended must be superseded by the judgment of the average man. If
pleasure is the only end, and satisfaction is simply another name
for it, then it is plainly incorrect to say that "it is better to
be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be
Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied."[152] As has been urged
from the evolutionist point of view, "there is no common measure of
happiness to enable us to say that the more perfect being enjoys
more of it than the less."[153] There seems one way only in which
utilitarianism can bring its moral ideal into harmony with the
upward tendency claimed for itself by evolutionist ethics--and that
is, by maintaining that the pleasures incident to what are regarded
as the higher functions are the pleasures which excel others in
respect of "fecundity": they are the source of future pleasures,
and are frequently inexclusive even in their present enjoyment. The
difficulty in making this assertion is just that these "higher"
pleasures are but slightly appreciated by the majority of men, and
can hardly be said to be pleasures for them at all. But here the
theory of evolution, whose adherents have been acting the part of
the candid friend to utilitarianism, must come to its aid, and admit
that human nature may be so modified in the future as to allow of the
"highest" becoming also the "greatest" of pleasures. The argument in
the mouth of the utilitarian is perhaps a somewhat arbitrary one,
since it could be applied equally well to any class of pleasures.
The notion of "higher," as applied either to conduct or to pleasure,
has been accepted from current moral opinion. But the theory of
evolution has set itself to explain this notion, and to develop a
theory of morality in harmony with its own scientific positions, and
free from the defects which it has found in other systems. How far
it contributes to the determination of the ethical end will form the
subject of investigation in the following chapters.
FOOTNOTES:
[115] Cf. Miss Cobbe, in 'Darwinism in Morals, and other Essays'
(1872), p. 5.
[116] Methods of Ethics, III. i. 4, 3d ed., p. 211.
[117] Cf. Professor F. Pollock, "Evolution and Ethics"--Mind, i. pp.
335 ff. Apart from the bearing of a utilitarian test on inherited
instincts, to which Mr Pollock refers, I have tried to show what
meaning they will have for the evolutionist who judges them solely
from the point of view of his theory.
[118] Traité des sensations, Œuvres (1798), vol. iii.
[119] It is to a condition of this sort that a phrase such as
Clifford's "tribal self" (Lectures and Essays, ii. 111) would apply.
[120] Cf. Spencer, Principles of Sociology, i. 479.
[121] Cf. Barratt, "Ethics and Politics"--Mind, ii. 453 ff.
[122] Cf. Stephen, Science of Ethics, p. 113.
[123] Wealth of Nations, book iv. ch. ii.
[124] Data of Ethics, chap. xiii.
[125] Stephen, Science of Ethics, p. 155; cf. Spencer, Data of
Ethics, p. 120.
[126] Stephen, Science of Ethics, p. 226.
[127] Science of Ethics, p. 263.
[128] Cf. Ibid., p. 442.
[129] Data of Ethics, p. 253
[130] Science of Ethics, p. 349.
[131] F. Y. Edgeworth, Old and New Methods of Ethics (1877), p. 11.
[132] Cf. A. Barratt, Mind, iii. 280.
[133] Data of Ethics, chap. xii.
[134] Physical Ethics, p. 12.
[135] Ibid., p. 17.
[136] In the word "due" an idea of worth is involved. Probably
Mr Barratt meant by "due performance" one which made the faculty
correspond with its medium (cf. Physical Ethics, p. 9); but this
introduces a new standard of value.
[137] The transition involved in passing from "pleasure" to
"performance of function" or "life" as the end of conduct, may be
illustrated by the following passage from Mr Pater's 'Marius the
Epicurean' (1885, i. 163): "Really, to the phase of reflection
through which Marius was then passing, the charge of 'hedonism,'
whatever its real weight might be, was not properly applicable at
all. Not pleasure, but fulness of life, and 'insight' as conducting
to that fulness--energy, choice and variety of experience--including
noble pain and sorrow even--loves such as those in the exquisite
old story of Apuleius; such sincere and strenuous forms of the
moral life, as Seneca and Epictetus--whatever form of human life,
in short, was impassioned and ideal: it was from this that the
'new Cyrenaicism' of Marius took its criterion of values. It was a
theory, indeed, which might rightly be regarded as in a great degree
coincident with the main principle of the Stoics themselves, and a
version of the precept 'Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with
all thy might'--a doctrine so widely applicable among the nobler
spirits of that time; and as with that its mistaken tendency would
lie in the direction of a kind of idolatry of mere life, or natural
gift or strength--_l'idolâtrie des talents_."
[138] "The note in question greatly startled me by implicitly
classing me with anti-utilitarians. I have never regarded myself as
an anti-utilitarian."--Mr Spencer's letter to J. S. Mill, printed in
Bain's Mental and Moral Science, p. 721.
[139] Data of Ethics, p. 173; cf. p. 30.
[140] Ibid., pp. 154, 155.
[141] Ibid., p. 171.
[142] Letter to J. S. Mill, in Data of Ethics, p. 57.
[143] Letter to J. S. Mill, in Bain's Mental and Moral Science, p.
721.
[144] J. T. Punnet, "Ethical Alternatives"--Mind, x. 95.
[145] Science of Ethics, p. 363.
[146] Natural Law: An Essay in Ethics (1877), p. 101.
[147] Utilitarianism, p. 34.
[148] Utilitarianism, p. 26.
[149] Ibid., p. 27 n.
[150] Stephen, Science of Ethics, p. 385.
[151] Ibid., p. 361.
[152] Mill, Utilitarianism, p. 14.
[153] Simcox, Natural Law, p. 101.