KANT, HEGEL AND NIETZSCHE
136. KANT.---It is impossible, in any brief compass, to treat of the many
individual moralists, some of them men of genius and well worthy of our
study, who offer us ethical systems characterized by differences of more
or less importance. When we refer a man to this or that school and do no
more, we say comparatively little about him, as has become evident in the
preceding chapters. As we have seen, it has been necessary to class
together those who differ rather widely in many of their opinions. Here,
I shall devote a few pages to three men only, partly because of their
prominence, and partly because it is instructive to call attention to the
contrast between them in their fundamental positions. I shall begin with
Kant.
Kant held that the human reason issues "categorial imperatives," that is
to say, unconditional commands to act in certain ways. The motive for
moral action must not be the desire for pleasure, but solely the desire
to do right.
He makes his fundamental rule abstract and formal: "So act that you could
wish your maxim to be universal law." As no man could wish to be himself
neglected when in distress, this law compels him to be benevolent, and a
new form of the fundamental rule is developed: "Treat humanity, in
yourself or any other, as an end always, and never as a means." [Footnote:
_Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals_, Sec 2.]
Now Kant, although he maintains that it is not a man's duty to seek his
own happiness--a thing which natural inclination would prompt him to do--
by no means overlooks happiness altogether. He thinks that virtue and
happiness together constitute the whole and perfect good desired by
rational beings. The attainment of this good must be the supreme end of a
will morally determined. [Footnote: _Dialectic of the Pure Practical
Reason_, chapter ii.] We are morally bound to strive to be virtuous
ourselves and to make others happy.
Still, each man's happiness means much to him; and Kant, convinced that
virtue _ought_ to be rewarded with happiness, holds that our world
is a moral world, where God will reward the virtuous. If we do not assume
such a world, he claims, moral laws are reduced to idle dreams.
[Footnote: Ibid.]
Such utterances as the last may well lead the utilitarian to question
whether Kant was quite whole-hearted in his doctrine of the unconditional
commands of the practical reason of man. They appear to be not
independent of all consideration of human happiness.
I shall not ask whether Kant was consistent. Great men, like lesser men,
seldom are. But, in order that the contrast between his doctrine and
those of the two writers whom I shall next discuss may be brought out
clearly, I shall ask that the following points be kept well in mind:
(1) Kant was an out-and-out intuitionist. He goes directly to the
practical reason of man for an enunciation of the moral law.
(2) Moral rules of lesser generality, such as those touching benevolence,
justice and veracity, he traces to the practical reason, making them
independent of all considerations of expediency. Thus he defends the body
of moral truth accepted by so many of his fellow-moralists.
(3) His "practical reason" speaks directly to the individual. Kant looked
within, not without. We may call him an ethical individualist. Socrates,
when on trial for his life, listened for the voice of the divinity within
him. He needed no other.
137. HEGEL.--In strongest contrast to the individualism of Kant stands
the doctrine of Hegel. To the latter, duty consists in the realization of
the free reasonable will--but this will is identical in all individuals,
[Footnote: _The Philosophy of Right_, Sec 209] and its realization
reveals itself in the customs, laws and institutions of the state. From
this point of view the individual is an accidental thing; the ethical
order revealed in society is permanent, and has absolute authority. It is
true, however, that it is not something foreign to the individual; he is
conscious of it as his own being. In duty he finds his liberation.
[Footnote: _Ibid_., Sec Sec 145-149]
But what is a man's duty? "What a man ought to do," says Hegel,
[Footnote: _Ibid_., Sec 150] "what duties he should fulfill in order
to be virtuous, is in an ethical community easy to say--the man has only
to do what is presented, expressed and recognized in the established
relations in which he finds himself."
In other words, he ought to do just what his community prescribes! This
seems, taken quite literally, a startling doctrine.
It would be a wrong to Hegel to take him quite literally, for he
elsewhere [Footnote: _Ibid_., Introduction.] makes it plain that he
by no means approves of all the laws and customs that have obtained in
various societies. Still, he exalts the law of the state and regards any
opposition to it on the authority of private conviction as "stupendous
presumption." [Footnote: Op. _cit_., Sec 138.] This is a serious
rebuke to the reformer. The individual must, according to Hegel, look for
the moral law outside of himself--of himself as an individual, at least.
He must find it in the State.
138. NIETZSCHE.--Again a startling contrast: after Hegel, Nietzsche--the
voice of one crying in the wilderness, exquisitely, passionately, but
scarcely with articulate scientific utterance. A prophet of revolt and
emancipation; a cave-dweller, who would flee organized society and the
refinements of civilization; the rabid individualist, to whom the
community is the "herd," and common notions of right and wrong are
absurdities to be visited with scorn and denunciation. He makes a strong
appeal to young men, even after the years during which the carrying of
one's own latch-key is a source of elation. He appeals also to those
perennially young persons who never attain to the stature which befits
those who are to take a responsible share in the organized efforts of
communities of men.
With Nietzsche the man, his suffering life, and the melancholy eclipse of
his brilliant intellect, ethics as science is little concerned. In
Nietzsche the marvellous literary artist it can have no interest. These
things are the affair of literature and biography.
Here we are concerned only with his contribution to ethics. Just what
that has been it is more difficult to determine than would be the case in
a writer more systematic and scientific. But he makes it very clear that
he repudiates the morals which have been accepted heretofore by moralists
and communities of men generally.
He confesses himself an "immoralist." He despises man as he is, and hails
the "Superman," a creature inspired by the "will to have power" and free
from all moral prejudices, including that of sympathy with the weak and
the helpless.
"Full is the world of the superfluous," he sings in his famous dithyramb,
[Footnote: _Thus Spake Zarathustra, I, xi_. It is a pity to read
NIETZSCHE in any translation. His diction is exquisite. But those who can
only read him in English may be referred to the translations of his works
edited by LEVY. New York, 1911.] "marred is life by the many-too-
many."... "Many too many are born; for the superfluous ones was the State
devised."..."There, where the State ceaseth--there only commenceth the
man who is not superfluous."
Man, says Nietzsche, should regard himself as a "bridge" over which he
can pass to something higher. [Footnote: _Ibid._, Prologue, and I,
IV, XI, _et passim_.] Upon the fact that the Superman may have the
same reason for regarding himself as a "bridge" as the most commonplace
of mortals, and may begin anew with loathing and self-contempt, he does
not dwell. Yet, as long as progress is possible, man may always be
regarded as a "bridge." The reader of Nietzsche is tempted to believe
that hatred and contempt must always be the predominant emotions in the
mind of the "superior" man. Darwin, who knew much more about man and
nature than did our passionate poet, was still able to regard man as "the
crown and glory of the universe." Not so, Nietzsche.
Those who have read little in ethics are inclined to attribute to
Nietzsche a greater measure of originality than he can reasonably claim.
More than two milleniums before him, Plato conceived an ideal Republic in
which moral laws, as commonly accepted, were to be set aside. Marriage
was to be done away with; births were to be scientifically regulated;
children were to be taken from their mothers; sickly infants were to be
destroyed. In Sparta the committee of the elders did not permit the
promptings of sympathy and the cries of wounded maternal love to
influence the decision touching the life or death of the new-born.
Here was an attempt at bridge-building, but it was conceived as a
scientific matter, to be taken in hand by the State, and for the good of
the State. But Nietzsche would destroy the State. His Superman appears as
individualistic as a "rogue" elephant, a few passages to the contrary
notwithstanding. Are we to regard him as a mere lawless egoist, or as
something more? We are left in the dark. [Footnote: See the volume,
_Beyond Good and Evil,_ "What is Noble?" Sec 265.] But we note that
Nietzsche disagrees with most moralists, in that he refuses to regard
Caesar Borgia as a morbid growth. [Footnote: _Ibid., The Natural
History of Morals,_ Sec 197. DOSTOIEVSKY'S genius has portrayed for us
an admirable Superman in the person of the Russian convict Orloff. See
his _House of the Dead_, chapter v.]
The Superman has always been with us, in somewhat varying types. From
Alexander the Great to Napoleon, and before and after, he adorns the
pages of history. Attila, among others, may enter his claim to
consideration. It remains for the serious student of ethics to estimate
scientifically his value as an ethical ideal, and to judge how far this
type of character may profitably be taken as a pattern. Nietzsche stands
at the farthest possible remove from Hegel. Does he, as an individualist,
stand within hail of Kant? It scarcely seems so. When we examine Kant's
"practical reason," in other words, the moral law as it revealed itself
to Kant, we find that it had taken up into itself the moral development
of the ages preceding. Kant's practical reason, his conscience, to speak
plain English, was not the practical reason of, for example, Aristotle.
The latter could speak of a slave as an "animated tool," and could
believe there were men intended by nature for slavery. Kant could not. In
theory an individualist, the Sage of Konigsberg stands, in reality, not
far from Hegel. He does not break with the past. But Nietzsche is revolt
incarnate.
PART VIII
THE ETHICS OF THE SOCIAL WILL
CHAPTER XXX
ASPECTS OF THE ETHICS OF REASON
139. THE DOCTRINE SUPPORTED BY THE OTHER SCHOOLS.--- I urge the more
confidently the Ethics of Reason, or the Ethics of the Rational Social
Will, because there is so little in it that is really new. It only makes
articulate what we all know already, and strives to get rid of certain
exaggerations into which many men who reason, and who reason well, have
unwittingly fallen.
The fundamentals of the doctrine have been exhibited in Parts V and VI of
this volume, and the exaggerations alluded to have been treated in Part
VII. Hence, I may speak very briefly in indicating how the Ethics of
Reason finds a many-sided support in schools which appear, on the
surface, to be in the opposition.
It is evident, to begin with, that the Ethics of the Social Will cannot
dispense with Moral Intuitions, but must regard them as indispensable;
as, indeed, the very foundation of the moral life. That the individual
may, and if he is properly equipped for the task, ought, to examine
critically his own moral intuitions and those of the community in which
he finds himself, and should, with becoming modesty and hesitation, now
and then suggest an innovation, means no more than that he and the
community are not dead, but are living, and that progress is a
possibility, at least.
As for the Egoist, unless he is an absurd extremist, we must admit that
he says much that is worth listening to. Was not Bentham quite right in
maintaining that if all A's interests were committed to B, and all B's to
A, the world would get on very badly? A charity that begins at the planet
Mars would arrive nowhere. The Ethics of Reason has room for a very
careful consideration of the interests of the self. But it may object to
the position that the moral mathematician may regard as the only
important number the number One.
With the Utilitarian our doctrine need have, as we have seen, no quarrel.
Did not that learned, enlightened, and most fair-minded of utilitarians,
Sidgwick, ultimately resolve the happiness which men seek into anything
which may be the object of the mind in willing? Did not a critical
utilitarianism resolve itself into the doctrine of the Rational Social
Will? Why take less critical utilitarians as the only exponents of the
school? Besides, is there any reason why the social will should be blind
to the fact that men generally do desire to gain pleasure and to avoid
pain? It is only the exaggeration of this truth that we need to combat.
To Nature, properly understood, we can enter no objection. Who objects to
Perfection as a "counsel of perfection?" Can the Social Will object to a
man's striving to Realize his Capacities--under proper control, and with
a regard to others? The Pessimist is an unhealthy creature, and the
Social Will represents normal and healthy humanity. Here we have
disparity. But to Evolution our doctrine offers no opposition. It is only
by a process of development that the Actual Social Will has come to be
what it is; and the Rational Social Will looks to a further development
under the guidance of reason.
The fact is that thoughtful men belonging to different schools tend to
introduce into their statement of their doctrines modifying clauses; and
in the end we find them not as far apart as they seemed at the beginning.
The tendency is, I think, in the direction of the recognition of the
Rational Social Will. This doctrine belongs to nobody in particular; it
is the. common property of us all. It contains little that is startling.
140. ITS METHOD OF APPROACH TO PROBLEMS.---He who looks to the Rational
Social Will for guidance is given a compass which may be of no small
service to him. For example:
(1) He will see that moral phenomena are not to be isolated. He will
accept the historic order of society and judge man and his emotions and
actions in the light of it. He will never feel tempted to say, with
Bentham, that the pleasure which has its roots in malice, envy, cruelty,
"taken by itself, is good." [Footnote: _Principles of Morals and
Legislation,_ chapter x, Sec 10, note.]
He will simply say, it is pleasure. That it is, of course; but he will
maintain that nothing "taken by itself" is either good or bad, from the
moralist's point of view. The cruel man may will to see suffering, and
may enjoy it. The moral man may hold that the cruel man, his act of will,
and his pleasure, should all be snuffed out, in the interest of humanity,
as an unmitigated evil.
(2) The advocate of the Rational Social Will recognizes, as do many
adherents of other schools, that the social will, as expressed at any
given time, is only relatively rational; that men must live in their own
day and generation, although they can, to some degree, reach beyond them;
and that some differences of opinion as to the relative values of
virtues, and the goodness of characters, are to be expected.
(3) Furthermore, he is in a position to explain how a man may be
"subjectively" right and yet "objectively" wrong. The man's character may
be such that it is, on the whole, to be approved by the Rational Social
Will. He may be animated by the desire to adjust himself to that will.
And yet, the accident of ignorance, the accident of prejudice not
recognized by himself as such, may lead him to do what he thinks right
and what those more enlightened recognize to be wrong.
141. ITS SOLUTION OF CERTAIN DIFFICULTIES.--Perhaps it would be better
for me to give this section a heading more nearly like the last. I aim
only to give the reader a point of view from which he can approach the
problem of a solution.
Take the problem which has come up before in the form of the distribution
of pleasures. [Footnote: See Sec 109.] He who dwells, not so much upon
pleasure, as upon the satisfaction of desire and will, must state it
differently, but the problem is much the same. What degree of recognition
should be given to the will of each individual, or to the separate
volitions and desires in the life of the individual? Should everybody
count for one? Should every desire or group of desires receive
recognition? Is no distinction to be made in the intensity of desires?
And how many individuals shall we include in our reckoning?
Light seems to be shed upon this complicated problem or set of problems
when we hold clearly before ourselves what the task of reason is in
regulating the life of man individually and collectively. Its function is
to bring order out of chaos and strife; to substitute harmony and
planfulness for accident; to introduce long views in the place of
momentary impulses; to prevent the barter of permanent good for a mess of
pottage.
Reason must accept the impulses and instincts of man as it finds them,
and do what it can with them. It cannot ignore them. Slowly,
civilizations, to some degree rational, have come into being. In so far
as they are rational, they are justified. Keeping all this in view we may
say, tentatively:
(a) The principle, "everybody to count for one, and nobody for more than
one," must be interpreted as an expression of the conviction that no will
should be _needlessly_ sacrificed.
Reason is bodiless, except as incorporated in human societies, and these
must have their historic development. Can we do away with the special
claims of family, of neighborhood, of the state? They have their place in
the historic rational order. But the whispered "everybody to count for
one" may help us to realize that such special claims cannot take the
place of all others.
(b) Shall a deliberate attempt be made to enlarge the circle of those who
are to share in the social will, not merely by diminishing the number of
deaths, but by promoting the number of births? States have attempted it
often enough. I can only say that, if this be attempted, it should not be
attempted in ways that ignore the historical development of society, with
its social and moral traditions.
(c) Why not justify our attitude toward the brutes by maintaining that
they have, theoretically, rights to recognition, in so far as such
recognition does not interfere with the rights of man in the rational
social order? The brutes outnumber us, to be sure. We are in a hopeless
minority. But were this minority sacrificed, there would be no rational
social order at all--no right, no wrong; nothing but the clash of wills
or impulses which reason now strives to harmonize as it can. [Footnote:
See chapter xxi]
(d) When we turn to the problem of the distribution of satisfactions in
the life of the individual, we find ready to hand a variety of unwise
saws--"A short life and a merry one," and the like.
How should the individual choose his satisfactions? Merely from the
standpoint of the individual? What is _desirable_? Not _desired_,
by this man or by that, but _desirable, reasonable_?
It is an open secret that the house of mirth lacks every convenience
demanded of a permanent residence, and that those who breathlessly pursue
pleasure are seldom pleased. Nor do men, when they stop to think, want
their lives to be very short.
And, in any case, this question of the distribution of satisfactions in
the life of the individual does not concern the individual alone. Is the
man who wants a short life and a merry one an "undesirable" from the
standpoint of the Rational Social Will? Then he should be suppressed. The
manner of distribution of even his own personal satisfactions is not his
affair exclusively. Every ordered society has its notions touching the
type of man which suits its ends.
(e) But shall we, in making up our minds about the "satisfaction on the
whole" which busies the rational individual or the rational community,
take no account at all of the intensity of pleasures and of pains, the
eagerness with which some things are desired and the feebleness of the
impulsion toward others? May not the intense thrill of a moment more than
counterbalance "four lukewarm hours?" Are we not, if we take such things
into consideration, back again face to face with something very like the
calculus of pleasures--that bugbear of the egoist and of the utilitarian?
It would be foolish to maintain that man, either individually or
collectively, places all desires upon the same level. No man of sense
holds that every desire should count as one. On the other hand, no man of
sense pretends to have any accurate unit of measurement by which he can
make unerring estimates of desirability.
Fortunately, he is not compelled to fall back upon such a unit. Even if
he was born yesterday, the race was not. He is born into a system of
values expressed in social organization and social institutions. It is
the resultant of innumerable expressions of preference on the part of
innumerable men. It is a general guide to what, on the whole, man wants.
It is, then, foolish for him to raise such questions as, whether it is
not better to aim at intense happiness on the part of the few, to the
utter ignoring of the mass of mankind. Such questions the Rational Social
Will has already answered in the negative.
142. THE CULTIVATION OF OUR CAPACITIES.--Finally, we may approach the
question whether it is reasonable to awake dormant desires, to call into
being new needs; which, satisfied, may be recognized as a good, but
which, unsatisfied, may result in unhappiness. [Footnote: Compare chapter
xxi, Sec 86.]
A little cup may be filled with what leaves a big one half empty. It is
easy to find grounds upon which to congratulate the "average" man. All
the world caters to him--ready-made clothing is measured to fit his
figure, and it is sold cheap; the average restaurant consults his taste
and his pocket; the average woman just suits him as a help-mate; he is
much at home with his neighbors, most of whom diverge little from the
average. Why strive to rise above the average--and fall into a divine
discontent?
May one not say much the same of a community? Why should it strive to
attain to new conquests, to awaken in its members new wants and strain to
satisfy them? Does it seem self-evident that it is reasonable, in
general, to multiply desires with no guarantee of their satisfaction?
I know no way of approaching the solution of this problem save from the
standpoint of the Rational Social Will. We are confronted with the
general problem of the desirability of civilization, with all that that
implies. The life of man in some rather primitive societies has seemed in
certain respects rather idyllic. The eating of the fruit of the tree, and
the consequent opening of the eyes, has, time and again, seemed to result
in disaster.
But was the idyllic life not an accidental thing, due to a fortuitous
combination of circumstances, rather than to man's intelligent control of
a larger environment? Civilization of some sort seems inevitable. Have we
any other guarantee that we can make it, in the long run, rational, than
a many-sided development of man's capacities? And must we not exercise a
broad faith in the value of enlightenment, increase of knowledge,
farsightedness, the cultivation of complex emotions, even at the risk of
some waste of effort and some suffering to certain individuals?
Perhaps this is as good a place as any to say a word about the
significance of the terms "higher" and "lower," when used in a moral
sense. We have seen that John Stuart Mill made much of the distinction in
his utilitarianism. Bentham appears to sin against the enlightened moral
judgment in holding that, quantities of pleasure being the same, "push-
pin is as good as poetry."
When we realize that the worth of things may be determined from the
standpoint of the Rational Social Will, we can easily understand that
some occupations and their accompanying pleasures should be rated higher
than others, however satisfactory the latter may seem to certain
individuals. It is not unreasonable to rate the pleasure of scientific
discovery as higher than the pleasure of swallowing an oyster; and that,
without following Bentham in falling back upon a quantitative standard,
or following Mill in maintaining that pleasures, as pleasures, differ in
kind. [Footnote: See chapter xxv, Sec 107.]
CHAPTER XXXI
THE MORAL LAW AND MORAL IDEALS
143. DUTIES AND VIRTUES.--We saw, at the very beginning of this volume
[Footnote: Chapter i, Sec 2.] that a single moral law, so abstractly stated
as to cover the whole sphere of conduct, must be something so vague and
indeterminate as to be practically useless as a guide to action. The
admonition, "do right," does not mean anything in particular to the man
who is not already well instructed as to what, in detail, constitutes
right action. Nor do we make ourselves more intelligible, when we say to
him "be good."
It seems to mean something more when we say "act justly" or "be just";
"speak the truth," or "be truthful." And the more we particularize, the
more we help the individual confronted with concrete problems--the only
problems with which life actually confronts us.
This is as it should be. Duties and virtues are expressions of the
Rational Social Will, and that will is a mere abstraction except as it is
incorporated, with a wealth of detail, in human societies. It would be
hard for the small boy to classify, under any ten commandments, the
innumerable company of the "don'ts" which he hears from his mother during
the course of a week. He can leave such work to the moralist. But he is
receiving an education in the moral law, as an expression of the social
will, through the whole seven days.
If we wish, we can emphasize the _moral law_, and dwell upon the
_duties_ of man. On the other hand, we may lay stress upon the
_virtues_, and point to _ideals_. The Greek made much of the
virtues; the Christian moralist had more to say of man's duties. In the
end, there need be little discrepancy in the results. I make the same
recommendation, whether I say to a man, Speak the truth! or whether I say
to him, Be truthful!
It may be claimed that shades of difference make themselves apparent,
where one emphasizes the law and another points to an ideal. Perhaps they
do, in most minds. It certainly sounds more conceited to say: "I am
trying to be virtuous," than to say: "I am trying to do my duty." On the
other hand, the admonition, "Be truthful," appears to leave one a little
latitude. We take the truthful man, so to speak, in the lump. If he has a
strong bias toward truth-speaking, and is felt to be reliable, on the
whole, it is not certain that we should rob him of his title on the
ground of one or two lapses for which weighty reasons could be urged. The
admonition: "Speak the truth!" seems more uncompromising; and yet he who
prefers this legal form may maintain that it is a general admonition
addressed to men of sense who are supposed to be able to exercise reason.
144. THE NEGATIVE ASPECT OF THE MORAL LAW.--Why does the Moral Law, on
the surface at least, appear to be so largely negative? As we look back
upon our early youth, our days appear to be punctuated with punishments.
When we attain to years of discretion, this is not the case, with most of
us, at least.
But when we turn to the law, in our own society or in others, we find
prohibitions and penalties everywhere. Of rewards little is said. Is the
social will meant to be chiefly inhibitory? Is it a check to the action
of the individual?
(1) The negative aspect of the moral law is, to a considerable degree, an
illusion. The social will takes us up into itself and forms us. In our
early youth we are acutely conscious of the process. A vast number of the
things a boy wants to do are things that do not suit the social will at
all. He wants to break windows; he wants to fight other boys; he wants to
be idle; his delight is in adventures not normally within the reach of,
or suited to the taste of, the citizens of an ordered state. It is little
wonder that the boy regards the moral law as a nuisance and the state as
a suitable refuge for those suffering from senile decay.
There are individuals who scarcely get beyond this stage. They remain,
even in their later years, at war with the state. From time to time, we
seize them and incarcerate them. That the law _forbids_ and
_punishes_, they never forget. It is chiefly for such that the
criminal law exists. They are in the state, but they are not of it. They
have small share in the heritage of the civilized man.
For most of us there comes a time when most prohibitions are little
thought of. It has been maintained, that the law is negative partly for
the reason that positive duties are too numerous to be formulated. But
how numerous are the things that ought not to be done which normal men
never think of doing! At this moment, I could swallow a pen, taste the
ink in the ink-well, throw my papers from the window, hurl the porcelain
jar on the chimney-piece at the cat next door, swing on the chandelier. I
am conscious of no constraint in not doing these things. Why? I have
become to some degree adjusted to the type which the social will strives
to produce.
(2) And, having become so far adjusted, I recognize that the social will
is distributing rewards most lavishly. The whole organism of society is
its instrument. Work is found for me, and I am paid for it. If I am
industrious and dependable, I am recompensed. If I am truthful, I am
believed, which is no little convenience. If I am energetic and
persevering, I may grow rich or be elected to office. If I am courteous,
I am liked and am treated with courtesy.
Every day I am paid, in the ordinary course of things, according to my
deserts. Why should society work out an extraordinary system of rewards
for those whom it is already rewarding automatically?
In some cases, recourse is had to extraordinary rewards. We give prizes
to children in the schools; we give medals to soldiers for distinguished
service; we confer honorary degrees upon men for a variety of reasons. In
monarchical countries and in their colonies, the man who earns an
extraordinary reward may even pass it on, in the shape of a title, to his
descendants, as though it were original sin. But the giving of
extraordinary rewards to all ordinary, normal persons would be too much.
The man who markedly offends against the moral law is not an ordinary,
normal person. He is not adjusted to the social will. It is natural that
he should attract especial attention. Thus the "Thou shalt not!" is given
prominence. To this I might add, that punishments are cheaper and easier
than extraordinary rewards. Pains are sharper than pleasures, and are
easily inflicted.
(3) It is worthy of remark that, with the evolution of morality, it tends
to become positive. The enlightened moral man recognizes, not merely the
actual social will, but also the Rational Social Will. He may feel it his
duty to do much more than society formally demands of him.
145. HOW CAN ONE KNOW THE MORAL LAW?--This question has already been
answered in chapters preceding. Every man has three counsellors: (1) The
"objective" morality of his community--custom, law, and public opinion,
which certainly deserve to be taken very seriously; (2) his moral
intuitions, which may be of the finest; and (3) his reason, which
prevents him from making decisions without reflection.
Can a man who listens to these three counsellors be sure that he is right
in a given decision? The sooner a man learns that he is not infallible
and impeccable, the better it will be for him, for his neighbor, and for
the world at large.
CHAPTER XXXII
THE MORAL CONCEPTS
146. GOOD AND BAD; RIGHT AND WRONG.--As a rule, men reflect little
touching the moral terms which are on their lips every day. It is well
worth while to take some of them up and to turn them over for
examination.
We may use the terms "good" and "bad," "right" and "wrong," in a very
broad sense. A "good" trick may be a contemptible action; the "right" way
to crack a bank-safe may be the means to the successful commission of a
crime. Evidently, the words, thus used, are not employed in a moral
sense.
When we pass judgments from the moral point of view, we concern ourselves
with men and with their actions, and measure them by the standard of the
social will. Men and actions are "good," when they can meet the test.
Actions are "right" or "wrong," when they are in accordance with the
dictates of the moral law, or are at variance with them. That an act may
be both right and wrong, when viewed from different standpoints, even on
moral ground, we have seen in Chapter XXX. A man may mean to do right,
and may, through ignorance or error, be guilty of an act that we condemn.
To the intelligent, confusions are here unnecessary. But the history of
ethics is full of confusions in just this field.
147. DUTY AND OBLIGATION.--Verbal usage sometimes justifies the use of
one of these words, and sometimes that of the other. We say: I did my
duty; we do not say: I did my obligation. But this is a mere matter of
verbal expression, and we are really concerned with two names for the
same thing.
(1) There has been much dispute as to whether the sense of duty or moral
obligation can or cannot be analyzed. It has been declared unanalyzable
and unique. Some think this a point of much importance which imparts a
peculiar sacredness to the sense of duty.
There appears no reason why this position should be taken. No one has
been able to analyze into its ultimate sensational elements the peculiar
feeling one has when one is tickled. But this does not make the feeling
sacred or awe-inspiring. The authority of the sense of duty must be
looked for in another direction--and authority it has.
(2) I have spoken of the "sense" of duty. We all recognize that, when we
are faced with a duty, a feeling is normally present. But the whole
argument of this volume has maintained that man is not to be treated only
as the subject of emotions. He is a rational being. In some persons
feeling is very prominent; in others it is less so. It is quite
conceivable that, in a given case, a man capable of reflection should
recognize that he is confronted with a duty, and yet that he should feel
no impulse to perform it. Did no one ever feel any such impulse, the
whole system of duties, the whole rational order of society itself, would
dissolve and disappear.
Fortunately, the normal man does feel an impulse to perform duties
recognized as such. And in the case of those exceptional persons who do
not, society strives to supply surrogates, extraordinary impulses based
upon a system of rewards and punishments. This is a mere supplement, and
could never keep alive a society from which the sense of duty had
disappeared.
Duty _is_ sacred. It is the very foundation of every rational
society. It does not greatly concern ethics whether the impulse, which
makes itself felt in men who want to do their duty, can or cannot be
analyzed. But it is all-important that they should feel the impulse.
(3) Can a man do more than his duty? Is it the duty of everyone to be,
not merely a good, average, honest, faithful, law-abiding citizen, but to
go far beyond this and be conspicuously a saint?
It should be remembered that we are concerned with the connotation
properly to be given to a word in common use.
A certain amount of goodness the social will appears to demand of men
rather peremptorily. Its demands seem to vary somewhat with the
exigencies of the times--for example, in peace and in war. It does not
make the same demands of all men. From those to whom much has been given--
wealth, education, social or political influence,--much is required.
From certain persons it appears to be glad to get anything. If they keep
out of the police-court, it is agreeably surprised.
I have no desire to dissuade anyone from the arduous pursuit of
sainthood; but I submit that the word "duty," as sanctioned by usage,
implies but a limited demand, and takes cognizance of character and
environment. He who comes up to this moderate standard is not condemned;
but he is free to go farther and to become as great a saint as he
pleases. In which case, we admire him. Those who, in the past, have
spoken of "counsels of perfection," have drawn upon a profound knowledge
of human nature and of human societies.
148. REWARD AND PUNISHMENT.--We saw in the last chapter (Sec 144) that it
is something of a criticism upon man and upon societies of men that
extraordinary rewards have to be given and that punishments must be
inflicted.
More attention has been paid to punishments than to rewards, and the
question touching the proper aim of punishment in a civilized state has
received much discussion. The study of the history of the infliction of
punishment is suggestive, but it does not shed a clear light. The social
will has not always been a rational social will, and some of its
decisions may be placed among the curiosities of literature. Still, they
may serve the purpose of the traditional "terrible example."
Should we, in punishing, aim at the prevention of crime? Are punishments
to be "deterrent"? Under this head we must consider, not merely the
criminal himself, but also those who are in more or less danger of
becoming criminals, though they have, as yet, committed no known crime.
Should the aim of punishment be the reformation of the criminal?
Should we punish merely that "justice" be done? He who steals and eats
fruit is visited with punishment, in the course of nature, if the fruit
is unripe. But he suffers equally if he eats his own fruit, under like
conditions. This seems a blind punishment. Should we visit pain upon him
for the theft, merely because it is a theft, and without looking abroad
for any other reason?
Light appears to be thrown upon these problems when we reflect that
punishment is an instrument, employed by the Rational Social Will, in
pursuance of its ends.
(1) It is desirable that men should be deterred from committing crime. If
this cannot be done save by the infliction of punishment, then let men be
punished. But be it remembered that punishment is a regrettable
necessity, and that the occasions for the infliction of penalties may
greatly be diminished by the amelioration of the organism of society.
There is the born criminal, as there is the born inmate of an asylum for
the insane. But there is also the manufactured criminal; the product of
the slum, the victim of ignorance, the prey of the walking-delegate, the
sufferer from over-work and undernourishment, the inhabitant of the
filthy and overcrowded tenement, the man robbed of his self-respect, who
has no share in the sweetness and light of civilization. A society that
first manufactures criminals and then expends great sums in punishing
them is, in so far, not rational.
(2) It is desirable that the criminal should be reformed and returned to
society as a normal man. But this is not the one and only aim of the
social will. The whole flock should not be sacrificed to the one black
sheep, as some sentimental persons appear to believe. There is room here
for the exercise of judgment and of some cool calculation.
(3) As for the demand that a given pain shall be inflicted for a given
wrong done, irrespective of any gain to anybody, and irrespective of
consequences,--it appears to carry one back to ancient and primitive law.
Undoubtedly many punishments have been inflicted in the past to satisfy
the sense of resentment. [Footnote: It may be objected that we are not
concerned here with resentment but with the satisfaction of "justice."
Men's notions of the "justice" of punishments have been touched upon in
chapter ii, Sec 4. Plato suggests, in his Laws, that the slave who steals a
bunch of grapes should receive a blow for every grape in the bunch. This
has an agreeably mathematical flavor of exactitude. But what shall be
done to the man who steals half of a ham or a third of a watermelon?]
Undoubtedly the same is true of the present. Can anything be said in
favor of this impulse? It plays no small part in the life of humanity.
We feel that a bad man _ought_ to be punished. We harbor a certain
resentment against him. The resentment of the individual for personal
injuries we recognize to be wrong. It is not impartial, and it is apt to
be excessive and unreasoning. Public order demands that it be refused
expression.
But is the--we must admit, somewhat more disinterested--resentment of the
community a rational thing? Have men, collectively, no whims, no
prejudices? When a trial is deferred, and public indignation has cooled
off, how do the chances of the prisoner compare with those he enjoyed
just after the commission of the crime? And yet something may be said for
public resentment. It has a certain driving-power. It may be questioned
whether either our desire to deter men from crime, or our benevolent
interest in the criminal, would be quite sufficient to enforce law, if
all sense of resentment against the law-breaker were lacking. Its
usefulness as an instrument of the social will appears to give it a
certain justification. But it also suggests that even public resentment
should not be given free rein.
Before leaving the subject of reward and punishment, it may be well to
say a word touching our use of the terms _credit_ and _discredit_, _merit_
and _demerit_.
We do not give a man credit for an action, we do not think of him as
meritorious, merely because he has done right. Who thinks of praising the
young mother for feeding and washing her first-born? Who shakes the hand
of the Sunday-school teacher and congratulates him upon having stolen
nothing for a week? But the waif from the gutter who wanders through a
department-store and resolutely takes nothing, emerging exhausted with
the struggle, we slap upon the back and call a little man.
Our notions of credit and merit are bound up with our notions of
extraordinary rewards. The creditable action, the meritorious man, have a
certain claim upon us, if only the claim of special recognition. Any man
who makes a notable step forward deserves credit, whatever his actual
position upon the moral scale. He who only "marks time" upon a relatively
high level may be a good man, but we do not give him credit for the act
normally to be expected of him. The recognition of merit is a part of the
machinery of moralization.
149. VIRTUES AND VICES.--One swallow, said Aristotle, does not make a
spring, nor does one happy day make a happy life. Elsewhere he draws our
attention to the fact that one good action does not constitute a virtue.
We may define the virtues as those relatively permanent qualities of
character which it is desirable, from the moral point of view, that a man
should have. The vices are the corresponding defects. I shall not attempt
to draw up a list of the virtues. For a variety of lists, exhibiting
curious and interesting diversities, I refer the reader back to Chapter
III, Sec Sec 9-11.
The Rational Social Will aims to build up a social order which shall do
justice to the fundamental impulses and desires of man, a social and
rational creature. The stones which it must build into its edifice are
human beings. If the human beings are mere lumps of soft clay, incapable
of holding their shape or of bearing any weight, the walls cannot rise.
And a human being may be satisfactory in one respect, and far from
satisfactory in another. No one of us is wholly ignorant of the qualities
desirable in our building-material. Custom, law and public opinion are
there to indicate what qualities have, in fact, proved, on the whole, not
detrimental. Our intuitions help us in forming a judgment. Rational
reflection is of service.
But one thing is very evident. Nowhere is it made clearer than in the
study of the virtues and vices, that the moralist cannot consider the
phenomena, with which he occupies himself, in a state of isolation.
Is courage a virtue? Is, then, the man who is willing to take the risk of
breaking a bank, or holding up a stage-coach, in so far virtuous? Is
perseverance a virtue? Is, then, the woman, who holds out to the bitter
end in her desire to have the last word, in so far virtuous? Is justice a
virtue? Then why not be virtuous in demanding the pound of flesh, if it
is the law--as it once was?
Certain qualities of character have been recognized as, _on the
whole_, and _generally_, serviceable to the social will. But a
man is not a quality of character, and qualities of character are
sometimes gathered into strange bundles. It is of men that the state is
composed; of thinking, feeling men. We cannot isolate qualities of
character, and assess their value in their isolation.
150. CONSCIENCE.--We are all forced to recognize that conscience has its
dual aspect. It is characterized by _feeling_; and the feeling is
seldom blind, or, at least, wholly blind; conscience implies a
_judgment_ that something is right or wrong.
(1) The feeling is, to be sure, very often in the foreground. Those who
say, "My conscience tells me that this is wrong," often mean little more
than, "I feel that it is wrong."
But the word "feeling" is an ambiguous one. It is used to cover all sorts
of intuitive judgments as well as mere emotions. The man who takes the
time to reflect upon his feeling of the rightness or wrongness of an
action can often discover some, perhaps rather vague, reason for his
feeling proper.
(2) In other words, he may come upon an intuitive judgment. And the
thoughtful man who talks about his conscience is rarely satisfied with a
blind intuition; he wants to be sure he is right, and he thinks the whole
matter over.
(3) The feeling and the judgment are not necessarily in accord. The
feeling may lag behind an enlightened judgment. On the other hand, the
feeling of repugnance to acting in certain ways may be a justifiable
protest against a bit of intellectual sophistry.
(4) So much ought to be admitted by everyone who holds that conscience
may be blunted or may be enlightened. Consciences vary indefinitely. Some
we set down as hopelessly below the average; others we reverence as
refined and enlightened. The social worker makes it his aim to "awaken"
conscience, to cultivate it, to bring it up to a high standard. No
practical moralist regards the conscience of the individual as something
which must simply be left to itself and treated as sacred, no matter what
its character.
(5) The above sufficiently explains some of the puzzles which confront
the man who reverences conscience and yet studies the consciences of his
fellow-men. He finds that the individual conscience is not an infallible
guide-post pointing to right action; that it is not a perfect time-
keeper, in complete accord with the watches of other men.
"It's a turrible thing to have killed the wrong man," said the
conscience-stricken illicit distiller in his mountain fastness. "I never
seen good come o' goodness yet; him as strikes first is my fancy," said
the dying pirate in "Treasure Island." Augustine, passing over much worse
offences, exhausts himself in agonies of remorse over a boyish prank.
[Footnote: See chapter xx, Sec 78.] Seneca draws up a list of the most
horrifying crimes, and decides that ingratitude exceeds them all in
enormity. [Footnote: _On Benefits_, i, 10.]
(6) It appears to be quite evident that consciences ought to be
standardized, and that the standard should be made a high one. The true
standard is the one set by the Rational Social Will. It is as much a duty
to have a good conscience as it is to obey the conscience one has.
CHAPTER XXXIII
THE ETHICS OF THE INDIVIDUAL
151. WHAT IS MEANT BY THE TERM?--Men collected into groups and organized
in various ways we call states, and we treat a state as a unit. We look
upon it as having rights and as owing duties both to individuals and to
other states. There are individuals whom we are apt to regard as
representatives of the state; as instruments, rather than as men--
executive officers, legislators, official interpreters of its laws,
whether good or bad. For states and their representatives we often have
especial moral standards, differing more or less from those by which we
judge human beings merely as human beings. It is with the morality of the
latter that I am here concerned.
To be sure, all human beings are to be found in states, or in that
rudimentary social something which foreshadows the state. To talk of the
morality of the isolated individual is nonsense. Morality is the
expression of the social will; and if we think of even Robinson Crusoe as
a good man, it means that we apply to him social standards. Had he not
been moralized, he would have killed and eaten Friday, when the latter
made his appearance.
We must, then, take the individual as we find him in the state, but it is
convenient to consider his morality separately from the ethics of the
state, its institutions and its instruments.
152. THE VIRTUES OF THE INDIVIDUAL.--What moral traits have we a right to
look for in the individual man? What sort of a man is it his duty to be?
Evidently, men's duties must vary somewhat according to the type of the
society to which they belong, and to their definite place in that
society. Still, certain general desirable traits of character unavoidably
suggest themselves. To attempt a complete list seems futile, but the most
salient have been dwelt upon by the moralists of many schools, and for
centuries past.
Does it not appear self-evident that a man should be law-abiding, honest,
industrious, truthful, and capable of unselfishness? Should he not have a
regard for his health and efficiency? Should he not aim to develop his
capacities, and in so far to diminish the dead mass of ignorance and bad
taste which weighs down society?
Of marital fidelity, with all that that implies--personal purity, the
good of one's children, a fine sense of loyalty--it is scarcely necessary
to speak. No man, betrothed or married, can be sure that he will not meet
tomorrow some woman whom the unprejudiced would judge to be more
attractive than the one to whom he has bound himself. Shall he remain
unprejudiced--a floating mine, ready to explode at any accidental
contact? Away with him! He has, in the eyes of the scientific moralist,
"too much ego in his cosmos." Those babble of "affinities" who know
little, and care less, about the long and arduous ascent up which mankind
has toiled, in the effort to attain to civilization.
And what shall we say of such things as religious duties, of
cheerfulness, of good manners, of personal cleanliness? Of religious
duties I shall speak elsewhere. [Footnote: Chapter xxxvi.] As to
cheerfulness and good manners, it is only necessary to reflect upon the
baleful influence exercised upon the young--who have here my entire
sympathy--by a bilious and depressing piety, or by those who are rudely
and superciliously moral.
Cleanliness deserves some special attention, on account of the fact that
it has perplexed even thoughtful scholars to discover why society has
come to regard it as a duty at all. [Footnote: The chapter on cleanliness
by Epictetus is a homily, and not a philosophic argument. See,
_Discourses_, Book IV, chapter xi.] That, if society does regard
cleanliness as important, it should be the duty of the individual to keep
himself and his house clean presents no problem. He has no right to make
himself gratuitously offensive, and gratuitously offensive he will be, if
he is a dirty fellow. But why does anyone object to his being a dirty
fellow? The prejudice in favor of cleanliness does not appear to be
universal--witness the Eskimo and various other peoples.
We have learned that the social will has its foundation in the
fundamental impulses and instincts of man. An admirable scholar has
suggested that the ultimate root of the regard for cleanliness which more
or less characterizes civilized societies may be traced to some such
primitive and inexplicable impulse to cleanliness as we observe, for
example, in the cat. [Footnote: WESTERMARCK, _Origin and Development of
the Moral Ideas_, chapter xxxix.] It must be admitted that it is far
more marked in the cat than in the human being. A kitten is much more
fastidious than is a baby, and a grown cat would tolerate no powder or
rouge.
But, assuming that such an instinct exists, even in weak measure, it
might easily develop with the development of society. And, as man is a
rational being, capable of discovering a connection between cleanliness
and hygiene, the duty of cleanliness would acquire a new authority. Dirt
becomes no longer merely distasteful; it is recognized as a danger.
153. CONVENTIONAL MORALITY.--There are virtues--taking the traits of
character indicated by the names broadly and loosely, and making
allowance for all sorts of variations within wide limits--which appear to
be recognized as such very generally. Bishop Butler regarded justice,
veracity and regard to common good as valued in all societies. Certainly
they have served as expressions of the social will in many societies,
ancient and modern, primitive and highly civilized.
We have seen that the forms under which they appear are not independent
of the degree and kind of the development of the society we may happen to
be contemplating. [Footnote: See chapter ii.] And we have realized that
man is born into a world of ready-made duties which are literally forced
upon his attention. He finds himself a member of a family, somebody's
neighbor, a resident in a town or village, allotted to a social class, an
employer or an employee, a citizen of a state. Justice, veracity and a
regard for common good appear to have their value in all these relations;
but the manner of their interpretation is not independent of the
relations, and the relations with their appropriate demands are
relatively independent of the individual will. One cannot ignore these
demands and fall back, independently, upon metaphysical theory.
Aristotle's claim that a man cannot be unjust to his own child, because
the child is a part of himself, and a man cannot be unjust to himself,
[Footnote: _Ethics_, Book V, chapter vi, Sec 7.] excites our
curiosity. It does not elicit our approval.
It is because the vast majority of our duties are so unequivocally thrust
upon us that I have been able to touch so lightly, in the last section,
upon the duties of the individual. Why dilate upon what everybody knows?
Is it not enough to set him thinking about it?
And, in helping him to think, the reference to the virtue of cleanliness
has its value. Cleanliness is prized by those who know little of hygiene.
If a society cannot be happy without cleanliness, for whatever reason, is
it not the duty of the individual to be clean? But _how_ clean
should he be?
There are virtues--I use the word here broadly to cover approved habits--
which seem to have a very direct reference to chronology and geography.
They are _conventional virtues_; they suit a given society, and
satisfy its actual social will. A Vermont housekeeper in an _igloo_
would be an intolerable nuisance. Imagine an unbroken succession of New
England house-cleanings with the inhabitants of the house sitting in
despair in the snow outside.
Those who live north of the Alps are sometimes criticized for dipping
Zwieback into their tea. Those who live south of the Alps eat macaroni in
ways revolting to other nations. A very pretty Frenchwoman, devouring
snails after the approved fashion of the locality, has driven me out of
an excellent restaurant. And the world opens its eyes in wonder when it
sees the well-bred Anglo-Saxon dispose of his asparagus.
There is a little-recognized virtue called toleration. St. Ambrose was a
wise man when he advised St. Augustine to do, when in Rome, as the Romans
do. Of course, he did not mean this to apply to robbery or to murder. He
was giving an involuntary recognition to the doctrine that there are
conventional virtues, worthy of our notice, as well as virtues of heavier
caliber and wider range.
CHAPTER XXXIV
THE ETHICS OF THE STATE
154. THE AIM OF THE STATE.--He who has resolved to devote but a single
chapter to the Ethics of the State must deliberately sacrifice nine-
tenths, at least, of the material--some of it very good material, and
some of it most curious and interesting--which has heaped itself together
on his hands in the course of his reading and thinking. I have resolved
to write only the one chapter. The State is the background of the
individual, the scaffold which supports his moral life. Without it, he
may be a being; but he is scarcely recognizable as a _human_ being.
It has made the individual what he is, and it is the medium in which he
can give expression to the nature which he now possesses.
Plato maintains that the object of the constitution of the state is the
happiness of the whole, not of any part. [Footnote: _Republic_, II.
It must be borne in mind that both Plato and Aristotle had the Greek
prejudice touching citizenship. Their "citizenship" was enjoyed by a
strictly limited class.] Aristotle, in his "Politics," maintains that it
is the aim of the state to enable men to live well. Sidgwick defines
politics as "the theory of what ought to be (in human affairs) as far as
this depends on the common action of societies of men." [Footnote: _The
Methods of Ethics_, chapter ii.] We may agree with all three, and yet
leave ourselves much latitude in determining the nature of the
organization of, and the limits properly to be set to the activities of,
the State as such. Shall the State only strive to repress grave
disorders? or shall it take a paternal interest in its citizens, making
them virtuous and happy in spite of themselves?
155. ITS ORIGIN AND AUTHORITY.--In Parts III to VI we have seen how and
upon what basis the State has grown up. It is an organism, something that
lives and grows. It is not a machine, deliberately put together at a
definite time by some man or some group of men. The "social contract"
fanatic may have read history, but he has not understood it. Of
psychology he has no comprehension at all.
Herodotus, at some of whose stories we smile, was a wiser man. He writes:
"It appears certain to me, by a great variety of proofs, that Cambyses
was raving mad; he would not else have set himself to make a mock of holy
rites and long-established usages. For, if one were to offer men to
choose out of all the customs in the world such as seemed to them the
best, they would examine the whole number, and end by preferring their
own; so convinced are they that their own usages far surpass those of all
others." [Footnote: _The History of Herodotus_, Book III, chapter
xxxviii, translated by GEORGE RAWLINSON, London, 1910.]
This may be something of an over-statement, for men in one state have
shown themselves to be, within limits, capable of learning from men in
another. But only within limits. Those things which give a state
stability--and without stability we are tossed upon the waves of mere
anarchy--have their roots in the remote past. Strip a man of his past,
and he is little better than an idiot; strip men within the State of
their corporate institutions and ideals, of their loyalties and emotional
leanings, and we have on our hands a mob of savages, something much below
the tribe proper, knit into unity of purpose by custom and tribal law.
The State has its origin in man as a creature desiring and willing, and
at the same time endowed with reason. Its authority is the authority of
reason. Not reason in the abstract, with no ground to stand upon, and no
material for its exercise; but reason as incorporate in institutions and
social usages; reason which takes cognizance of the nature of man, and
recognizes what man has already succeeded in doing.
Where shall we look for a limit to the authority of the State? Surely,
only in the Reason which makes it possible for the State to be. The State
must not defeat its own object.
156. FORMS OF ORGANIZATION.--The special science of politics enters in
detail into the forms of organization of the State. The ethical
philosopher must content himself with certain general reflections.
Everyone knows that States have been organized in divers ways; and that
their citizens, under much the same form of political organization, have
been here happy and contented, and there in a state of ferment. The form
of government counts for something; but its suitability to the population
governed, and the degree of enlightenment and discipline characteristic
of the population, count for much more. It is not every shoe that fits
every foot, and there are feet that are little at home in shoes of any
description.
Monarchies of many sorts, aristocracies, oligarchies, democracies, even
communisms, have been tried; and all, save the last, have managed to hold
their own with some degree of success.
It is easy to bring objections against each form of government, just as
it is easy to say something specious in its favor.
Are the eldest sons of a few families peculiarly fitted by nature to be
governors of the State? Look at history, and wake up to common sense. Of
the divine right of kings I shall not speak, for the adherents of the
doctrine are in our day relegated to museums of antiquities. And have the
members of aristocracies been carefully bred with a view to their
intellectual and moral superiority, as we breed fine varieties of horses
and dogs? Have those who have had their share in oligarchies been
peculiarly wise and peculiarly devoted to the common good? The communist
makes two fatal mistakes. He shuts his eyes to history, and he overlooks
the fact that there is such a thing as human nature.
There remains democracy. Of this, Herodotus, already quoted as a man of
sense, has his opinion. He makes a shrewd Persian, in a political crisis,
thus address his fellow-conspirators:
"There is nothing so void of understanding, nothing so full of
wantonness, as the unwieldy rabble. It were folly not to be borne, for
men, while seeking to escape the wantonness of a tyrant, to give
themselves up to the wantonness of a rude unbridled mob. The tyrant, in
all his doings, at least knows what he is about, but a mob is altogether
devoid of knowledge; for how should there be any knowledge in a rabble,
untaught, and with no natural sense of what is right and fit? It rushes
wildly into state affairs with all the fury of a stream swollen in the
winter, and confuses everything. Let the enemies of the Persians be ruled
by democracies; but let us choose out from the citizens a certain number
of the worthiest, and put the government into their hands." [Footnote:
_Op. cit._ Book III, chapter lxxxi.]
To be sure, we, who belong to a modern, enlightened democracy, would
resent being called "a rude unbridled mob," and being likened to the
populace of ancient Persia. But those of us who reflect recognize the
dangers that lurk in the "psychology of the crowd"; and we are all aware
that, after a popular vote, it is quite possible to discover that few,
except a handful of office-holders, have gotten anything that they really
want. Democracy is not a panacea for all political evils, and there are
democracies of many kinds.
Still, when all is said, it seems as though the Rational Social Will, the
ultimate arbiter of every moral State, should give its authority to a
democratic form of government, rather than to another form. Every
individual will has a _prima facie_ claim to recognition.
But the Rational Social Will can never forget that human nature is in
process of development, and that each nation, at a given time, is a
historical phenomenon. The Rational Social Will is too enlightened to
drape an infant in the raiment appropriate to a college graduate. It is
only an intemperate enthusiasm that is capable of that.
157. THE LAWS OF THE STATE.--The State allots to individuals, and to the
lesser groups of human beings, of which it is composed, _rights_,
and it prescribes to them _duties_. Upon its activities in this
sphere I can touch only by way of illustration, and for the sake of
making clear the nature of the functions of the State.
(1) To whom shall the State grant a share in the formulation and
execution of its laws? Once, in communities very enlightened, in their
own peculiar way, women, children, slaves, mechanics, petty traders, and
hired servants were deemed quite unfit to be entrusted with such
responsibilities. [Footnote: See ARISTOTLE'S _Politics_.]
With us, the position of woman has changed. Slavery, in a technical
sense, has been abolished. The mechanic and the petty trader are much in
evidence at "primaries." Hired servants are by some accused of being
tyrants. Children, and defectives who are grossly and palpably defective,
we bar from elections, and we also reject some criminals.
The times have changed, and our notions of the right of the individual to
an active share in the State have changed with them. The expression of
the social will has undergone modification, and I think we can say that
it is, on the whole, modification in the right direction.
To be sure, the court of last resort is the _Rational_ Social Will.
What is best for the State, and, hence, for those who compose it? What is
practicable in the actual condition in which a given state finds itself
at a given time? It seems too easy a solution of our problems to seek
dogmatic answers to our questionings by having recourse to the "natural
light," that ready oracle of the philosopher, Descartes.
(2) There are certain classes of rights which civilized states generally
guarantee to their citizens with varying degrees of success. They make it
the duty of their citizens to respect these rights in others.
(a) The laws protect life and limb. Much progress has been made in this
respect in the last centuries past. I own no coat of mail; and, when I
walk abroad, I neither carry a sword nor surround myself with armed
retainers.
(b) They protect private property. To be sure, the "promoter" may prey
upon my simplicity; and the state itself does not recognize that I have
any absolute right to my property, any more than it recognizes that I
have an absolute right to my life.
It may send me into the trenches. It may take from me what it will in the
form of taxes. It may even forbid me to increase my income by using my
property in ways which will make me insupportable to my neighbors. But it
will not allow my neighbor, who is stronger than I, to take possession of
my house without form of law. It will even allow me to dispose of my
property by will, after my death.
I suggest that those, to whom this right appears to be rooted in the very
nature of things, and not to be a creation of the State, called into
being at the behest of the social will in a certain stage of its
development, should read and re-read what Sir Henry Maine has to say
about testamentary succession, in his wonderful little book on "Ancient
Law." [Footnote: See chapters vi and vii.]
The State has not always treated a man as an individual, directly and
personally responsible to the state. It has treated him as a member of a
family or some other group; a being endowed, by virtue of his position,
with certain rights, and burdened with certain duties. A being who, when
he drops out of being, is automatically replaced by someone else who is
clothed upon with both his rights and his responsibilities.
Our conceptions have changed. The lesser groups within the State have to
some degree lost their cohesion, and the bond between the individual, as
such, and the state has been correspondingly strengthened. But many
traces of the old conception make themselves apparent. The law compels me
to provide for my wife and children; and, if I die intestate, the law by
no means assumes that my property is left without a claimant.
Have we been moving in the right direction, as judged by the standard of
the Rational Social Will? We think so. But it is well to bear in mind
what Herodotus said about the madness of Cambyses, and the prejudice men
have in favor of their own customs. No state is a mere aggregate of
unrelated individuals. Men are set in families, and the State seems to be
composed of groups within groups. How far the State should recognize the
will of the individual, as over against the claims of the lesser groups
to which he may belong, is a nice question for the Rational Social Will
to settle.
(c) The law must regulate marriage and divorce. Matters so vital to the
interests of society cannot be left at the mercy of the egoistic whims of
the individual. But to what law shall we have recourse? It seems highly
irrational to have forty-eight independent authorities upon this subject
within the limits of a single nation. And, if we turn the matter over to
the churches, we discover that we have committed it to the care of one
hundred and eighty, or more, sects. Add to this, that a state of any sort
cannot be set upon its feet without some difficulty, while any
enterprising man or woman can call a sect into existence any day. There
is a new adherent for sectarian eccentricities born every minute. Surely,
here is a field for the activities of the Rational Social Will.
(d) To paternalism of some sort the modern State, as law-giver, seems
hopelessly pledged. If we ignore this we are simply closing our eyes. The
State seems to be justified in educating its citizens, in protecting
children and women against exploitation, in protecting the working
classes, in stamping out infectious diseases. We are not even allowed to
expectorate when and where we will, a privilege enjoyed by the merest
savage.
(e) In one respect the paternalism of our own State has lagged behind
that of certain others. We do little to secure to a man a decent privacy,
or to safeguard his personal dignity. The newspaper reporter is allowed
to rage unchecked, to unearth scandals in private families, and to cause
great pain by printing the names of individuals.
I have known, in Europe, a man, after a difference of opinion touching
the ventilation of a railway carriage, to break a window with his elbow
and to apply to his fellow-passenger an offensive epithet. The court made
him pay a dollar and a half for breaking the window and six dollars for
giving himself the pleasure of being insulting.
Which was the greater offense? Herodotus would expect this question to be
answered in accordance with the prejudices of the person giving the
answer.
158. THE RIGHTS AND DUTIES OF THE STATE.--The State evidently has rights
over its citizens, and may enforce these rights through the infliction of
punishment. It as evidently has duties. A given state may not be
answerable to any actual given power. Our own State is in such a position
at the present time--there is no other state strong enough to call it to
account.
But this does not free it from duties. No state is anything more than a
brute force, except as it incorporates, in some measure, the Rational
Social Will. And states that fall far short, as judged by this standard,
may overstep their rights and ignore their duties, whether they are
dealing with individuals or with other states.
In punishing, the State should punish rationally. [Footnote: See chapter
xxxii, Sec 148.] And it should not demand of its subjects what will degrade
them as moral beings. "We all recognize," said a pure and candid soul,
"that a rightful sovereign may command his subjects to do what is wrong,
and that it is then their duty to disobey him." [Footnote: Sidgwick,
_Methods of Ethics_, III, vi.]
But how discover what demands are just? It is the whole argument of this
volume that no man should venture an opinion upon this subject without
having come to some appreciation of what is meant by the Rational Social
Will. Man, his instincts, the degree of his intelligence and self-
control, the history of the development of human societies, cannot be
ignored. It is the weakness of good men, endowed with a high degree of
speculative intelligence, to construct Utopias, and to tabulate the
"rights of man," or, as Bentham well expressed it, to make lists of
"anarchical fallacies." [Footnote: See _Works_, Bowring's Edition,
Volume II.] Thus, some may, with Plato and Aristotle, advocate
infanticide. The Greek city-state was a crowded little affair, and in
danger of over-population. Some may propose radical measures to increase
the population. To France and Argentina, in our day, such an increase
appears highly desirable. May any and every method be embraced which
seems adapted to avert a given evil or to attain to a desired end? It is
instructive to note that Francis Galton, the father of "eugenics,"
proposed to leave morals out of the question as "involving too many
hopeless difficulties." [Footnote: Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th edition,
article, "Sociology."] But do men live well who leave morals out of the
question?
The man who falls back upon intuition alone, in his advocacy of the
abolition of capital punishment, may be expected to maintain next that a
state, in going to war, should stop short at the point where the lives of
its citizens are put in jeopardy. Why kill a good man, when it is wrong
to kill a bad one?
It must be admitted that the State and its representatives enjoy some
rights and duties not accorded to individuals. The State may condemn men
to death or to imprisonment; it may take over property; it may make
itself a compulsory arbiter between individuals. On the other hand, its
representatives are not always as free as are private persons. The
individual, if he is a generous soul, may freely forego some of his
advantages and may seek only a fair fight with an opponent. It is
doubtful whether the duty the State owes to its citizens permits of
chivalry. Certainly strong states do not hesitate to attack weak ones;
nor do many hesitate to combine against one, on the score of fair play.
And a private man may temper justice with mercy in ways forbidden to a
judge.
CHAPTER XXXV
INTERNATIONAL ETHICS
159. WHAT IS MEANT BY THE TERM.--I am almost tempted to avoid the
discussion of this thorny subject by simply referring the reader to what
has been said already on "The Spread of the Community," and developed in
the chapters on "The Rational Social Will" and "The Individual and the
Social Will." [Footnote: See Sec 75 and chapters xxi-xxii.]
He who confines himself to generalities avoids many difficulties and can
assure himself of the approval of many. Who, condemns justice and
humanity in the abstract? Who can wax eloquent in his condemnation of
freedom? Who finds the Christian Church on his side, when he advocates
rapacity and the oppression of the helpless, without entering into
details?
On the other hand, who wishes to view his country with a cold
impartiality, and to place its interests exactly on a par with the
interests of other lands? Who, save the Chinaman himself, thinks it as
important that a Chinaman should have enough to eat as that an American
or an Englishman should? Was not the turpitude, that excluded the
Chinaman from Australia, traced to the two deadly sins of undue diligence
and sobriety? [Footnote: Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th edition, article,
"Australia."] As for freedom, men of certain nations regard it as the
highest virtue to be willing to die for it--their own freedom, be it
understood,--while they regard the same desire for freedom on the part of
their colonists as a moral obliquity to be extirpated, root and branch.