In its widest sense, the term "ethics" would imply an examination into
the general character or habits of mankind, and would even involve a
description or history of the habits of men in particular societies
living at different periods of time. Such a field of study would
obviously be too wide for any particular science or philosophy to
investigate, and moreover portions of the field are already occupied by
history, by anthropology and by the particular sciences (e.g.
physiology, anatomy, biology), in so far as the habits and character of
men depend upon the material processes which these sciences examine.
Even philosophies such as logic and aesthetic would be necessary for
such an investigation, if thought and artistic production are normal
human habits and elements in character. Ethics then is usually confined
to the particular field of human character and conduct so far as they
depend upon or exhibit certain general principles commonly known as
moral principles. Men in general characterize their own conduct and
character and that of other men by such general adjectives as good, bad,
right and wrong, and it is the meaning and scope of these adjectives,
primarily in relation to human conduct, and ultimately in their final
and absolute sense, that ethics investigates.
A not uncommon definition of ethics as the "science of conduct" is
inexact for various reasons. (1) The sciences are descriptive or
experimental. But a description of what acts or what ends of action men
in the present or the past call, or have called, "good" or "bad" is
clearly beyond human powers. And experiments in morality (apart from the
inconvenient practical consequences likely to ensue) are useless for
purposes of ethics, because the moral consciousness would itself at one
and the same time be required to make the experiment and to provide the
subject upon which the experiment is performed. (2) Ethics is a
philosophy and not a science. Philosophy is a process of reflection upon
the presuppositions involved in unreflective thought. In logic and
metaphysics it investigates either the process of apprehension itself,
or conceptions such as cause, substance, space, time, which the ordinary
scientific consciousness never criticizes. In moral philosophy the place
of the body of sciences, which philosophy as the theory of knowledge
investigates, is taken by the developed moral consciousness, which
already pronounces moral judgment without hesitation, and claims
authority to subject to continual criticism the institutions and forms
of social life which it has itself helped to create.
When ethical speculation first begins, conceptions such as those of
duty, responsibility, the will as the ultimate subject of moral
approbation and disapprobation, are already in existence and already
operative. Moral philosophy in a certain sense adds nothing to these
conceptions, though it sets them in a clearer light. The problems of the
moral consciousness at the time at which it first becomes reflective
are not strictly speaking philosophical problems at all. It is occupied
with just such questions as each individual man who wishes to act
rightly is constantly called upon to answer, e.g. questions such as
"What particular action will meet the claims of justice under such and
such circumstances?" or "What degree of ignorance will excuse this
particular person in this particular case from his responsibility?" It
tries to attain a knowledge as complete as possible of the circumstances
under which the act contemplated must be performed, the personalities of
the persons whom it may affect, and the consequences (so far as they can
be foreseen) which it will produce, and then by virtue of its own power
of moral discrimination pronounces judgment. And the ever-recurring
problem of the moral consciousness, "What ought to be done?" is one
which receives a clearer and more definite answer as men become more
able in the course of moral experience to apply those principles of the
moral consciousness which are yet employed in that experience from the
outset. Nevertheless there is a sense in which moral philosophy may be
said to originate out of difficulties inherent in the nature of morality
itself, although it remains true that the questions which ethics
attempts to answer are never questions with which the moral
consciousness as such is confronted. The fact that men give different
answers to moral problems which seem similar in character, or even the
mere fact that men disregard, when they act immorally, the dictates and
implicit principles of the moral consciousness is certain sooner or
later to produce the desire either, on the one hand, to justify immoral
action by casting doubt upon the authority of the moral consciousness
and the validity of its principles, or, on the other hand, to justify
particular moral judgments either by (the only valid method) an analysis
of the moral principle involved in the judgment and a demonstration of
its universal acceptation, or by some attempted proof that the
particular moral judgment is arrived at by a process of inference from
some universal conception of the Supreme Good or the Final End from
which all particular duties or virtues may be deduced. It may be that
criticism of morality first originates with a criticism of existing
moral institutions or codes of ethics; such a criticism may be due to
the spontaneous activity of the moral consciousness itself. But when
such criticism passes into the attempt to find a universal criterion of
morality--such an attempt being in effect an effort to make morality
scientific--and especially when the attempt is seen, as it must in the
end be seen, to fail (the moral consciousness being superior to all
standards of morality and realizing itself wholly in particular
judgments), then ethics as a _process of reflection_ upon the nature of
the moral consciousness may be said to begin. If this be true it follows
that one of the chief function of ethics must be criticism of mistaken
attempts to find a criterion of morality superior to the pronouncements
of the moral consciousness itself. The ultimate superiority of the moral
consciousness over all other standards is recognized, even by those who
impugn its authority, whenever they claim that all men ought to
recognize the superior value of the standards which they themselves wish
to substitute. Similarly, their opponents refute their arguments by
showing that they are based ultimately upon a recognition of certain
distinctions which are moral distinctions (i.e. imply a moral
consciousness capable of discriminating between right and wrong in
particular cases), and that these moral distinctions conflict with the
conclusions which they reach.
This may briefly be illustrated by reference to some of the great
fundamental controversies of ethics. None of these originates out of
conflicting statements of the moral consciousness, i.e. there is no
fundamental contradiction in morality itself. No one (if
unsophisticated) ever confused the conception of pleasure with the
conception of the Good, or thought that the claims of selfish interest
were identical with those of duty. But the controversy between hedonists
and anti-hedonists originates as soon as men reflect that a good which
is not in some sense "my" good is not good at all, or that no act can be
said to be moral which does not satisfy "me." Or, again, the reflection
that the mark or sign of the perfect performance of a particular
virtuous act or function is the presence of a characteristic pleasure
which always accompanies it, is opposed to the reflection that it is a
mark of the highest morality never to rest satisfied, and out of these
seemingly contradictory statements of the reflective consciousness might
arise a multitude of controversies either concerning pleasure and duty,
or the even more difficult and complex conceptions of merit, progress,
and the nature of the Supreme Good or Final End.
The Sciences.
Theology.
When and how fresh controversies in ethics will begin it would be
impossible for any one to foretell. Sometimes the dominance of a
particular science or branch of study is the occasion of an attempt to
apply to ethics ideas borrowed from or analogous to the conceptions of
that science. False analogies drawn between ethics and mathematics or
between morality and the perception of beauty have wrought much mischief
in modern and to some degree even in ancient ethics. The influence of
ideas borrowed from biology is everywhere manifest in the ethical
speculations of modern times. Sometimes, again, whole theories of ethics
have been formulated which can be seen in the end to be efforts to
subordinate moral conceptions to conceptions belonging properly to
institutions or departments of human thought and activity which the
moral consciousness has itself originated. Law, for instance, depends,
or at least ought to depend, upon men's need for and consciousness of
justice. And such institutions as the family and the state are created
by the social consciousness, which is the moral consciousness from
another aspect. Yet morality has been subordinated to legal and social
sanctions, and moral advance has been held to be conditioned by
political and social necessities which are not moral needs. Similarly no
one since civilization emerged from barbarism has ever really been
willing to yield allegiance to a deity who is not moral in the fullest
and highest sense of the word. God is not superior to moral law. Yet
there have been whole systems of theological ethics which have attempted
to base human morality upon the arbitrary will of God or upon the
supreme authority of a divinely inspired book or code of laws. One of
the greatest of all ethical controversies, that concerning the freedom
of the will, arose directly out of what was in reality a theological
problem--the necessity, namely, of reconciling God's foreknowledge with
human freedom. The unreflective moral consciousness never finds it
difficult to distinguish between a man's power of willing and all the
forces of circumstance, heredity and the like, which combine to form the
temptations to which he may yield or bid defiance; and such facts as
"remorse" and "penitence" are a continual testimony to man's sense of
freedom. But so soon as men perceive upon reflection an apparent
discrepancy between the utterances of their moral consciousness and
certain conclusions to which theological speculation (or at a later
period metaphysical and scientific inquiries) seems inevitably to lead
them, they will not rest satisfied until the belief in the will's
freedom (hitherto unquestioned) is upon further reflection justified or
condemned. It is clear then that the complexity of the subject-matter of
ethics is such that no sharply defined boundary lines can be drawn
between it and other branches of inquiry. Just in so far as it
presupposes the apprehension of moral facts, it must presuppose a
knowledge of the system of social relationships upon which some at least
of those facts depend. No one, for instance, could inquire into the
nature of justice without being further compelled to undertake an
examination of the nature of the state.
Psychology.
It would be difficult to decide how much of the dispute between the
advocates of pleasure theories and their opponents turns upon vexed
questions of psychology, and how much is strictly relevant to ethics.
If, as has already been said, one of the chief tasks of ethics is to
prevent the intrusion into its own sphere of inquiry of ideas borrowed
from other and alien sources, then obviously these sources must be
investigated. One example of this necessity may be given. It is
sometimes maintained that the proper method of ethics is the
psychological method; ethics, we are told, should examine as its
subject-matter moral sentiments wherever found, without raising
ultimate questions as to the nature of obligation or moral authority in
general. Now if in opposition to such arguments the ultimate character
of moral obligation be defended, it will be necessary to point out that
no one feels moral sentiments except in connexion with particular
objects of moral approbation or disapprobation (e.g. gratitude is
inexplicable apart from a particular relationship existing between two
or more persons), and that these objects are objects of the moral
consciousness alone. But such a line of argument is certain to make
necessary an inquiry into the nature of the objects of psychological
study which may produce quite unforeseen results for psychology.
Nothing therefore is to be gained by confining ethics within limits
which must from the nature of the case be arbitrary. The defender at all
events of the supremacy of moral intuitions must be prepared to follow
whither the argument leads, into whatever strange quarters it may direct
him. But this much may be said by way of delimitation of the scope of
ethics: however complicated and involved its arguments and processes of
inference may become, the facts from which they start and the
conclusions to which they point are such as the moral consciousness
alone can understand or warrant. (H. H. W.)