The above view of the function of intelligence, and of the synthetic
character of the conscious process may be further defined in certain
aspects by comparison with the view of Professor Fite, who likewise
develops the significance of consciousness and particularly of
intelligence for our ethical concepts and social program.
Professor Fite insists that in contrast with the "functional psychology"
which would make consciousness merely a means to the preservation of the
organic individual in mechanical working order, the whole value of life
from the standpoint of the conscious agent consists in its being
conscious. Creative moments in which there is complete conscious control
of materials and technique represent high and unique individuality.
Extension of range of consciousness makes the agent "a larger and more
inclusive being," for he is living in the future and past as well as in
the present. Consciousness means that a new and original force is
inserted into the economy of the social and the physical world."[78] On
the basis of the importance of consciousness Professor Fite would ground
his justification of rights, his conception of justice, and his social
program. The individual derives his rights simply from the fact that he
knows what he is doing, hence as individuals differ in intelligence they
differ in rights. The problem of justice is that of according to each a
degree of recognition proportioned to his intelligence, that is, treat
others as ends so far as they are intelligent; so far as they are
ignorant treat them as means.[79] "The conscious individual when dealing
with other conscious individuals will take account of their aims, as of
other factors in his situation. This will involve 'adjustment,' but not
abandonment of ends, i.e., self-sacrifice. Obligation to consider these
ends of others is based on 'the same logic that binds me to get out of
the way of an approaching train.'"[80]
The point in which the conception of rights and justice and the implied
social program advocated in this paper differs as I view it from that of
Professor Fite is briefly this. I regard both the individual and his
rights as essentially synthetic and in constant process of
reconstruction. Therefore what is due to any individual at a moment is
not measured by his present stage of consciousness. It is measured
rather by his possibilities than his actualities. This does not mean
that the actual is to be ignored, but it does mean that if we take our
stand upon the actual we are committed to a program with little place
for imagination, with an emphasis all on the side of giving people what
they deserve rather than of making them capable of deserving more.
Professor Fite's position I regard as conceiving consciousness itself
too largely in the category of the identical and the static rather than
in the more "conscious" categories of constant reconstruction. When by
virtue of consciousness you conceive new ends in addition to your former
particular ideas of present good the problem is, he says, "to secure
perfect fulfilment of each of them." The "usefulness" or "advantage" or
"profitableness" of entering into social relations is the central
category for measuring their value and their obligation.
Now the conception of securing perfect fulfilment of all one's aims by
means of society rather than of putting one's own aims into the process
for reciprocal modification and adjustment with the aims of others and
of the new social whole involves a view of these ends as fixed, an
essentially mechanical view. The same is the implication in considering
society from the point of view of use and profit. As previously
suggested these economic terms apply appropriately to things rather than
to intrinsic values. To consider the uses of a fellow-being is to
measure him in terms of some other end than his own intrinsic personal
worth. To consider family life or society as profitable implies in
ordinary language that such life is a means for securing ends already
established rather than that it _proves_ a good to the man who invests
in it and thereby becomes himself a new individual with a new standard
of values. Any object to be chosen must of course have value to the
chooser. But it is one thing to be valued because it appeals to the
actual chooser as already constituted; it is another thing to be valued
because it appeals to a moving self which adventures upon this new
unproved objective. This second is the distinction of taking an interest
instead of being interested.
The second point of divergence is that Professor Fite lays greater
stress upon the intellectual side of intelligence, whereas I should deny
that the intellectual activity in itself is adequate to give either a
basis for obligation or a method of dealing with the social problem. The
primary fact, as Professor Fite well states it, is "that men are
conscious beings and therefore know themselves and one another." It
involves "a mutual recognition of personal ends." "That very knowledge
which shows the individual himself shows him also that he is living in a
world with other persons and other things whose mode of behavior and
whose interests determine for him the conditions through which his own
interests are to be realized."
What kind of "knowledge" is it "which shows the individual himself"?
Professor Fite has two quite different ways of referring to this. He
uses one set of terms when he would contrast his view with the
sentimental, or the "Oriental," or justify exploitation by those who
know better what they are about than the exploited. He uses another set
of terms to characterize it when he wishes to commend his view as human,
and fraternal, and as affording the only firm basis for social reform.
In the first case he speaks of "mere knowing"; of intelligence as
"clear," and "far-sighted," of higher degrees of consciousness as simply
"more in one." "Our test of intelligence would be breadth of vision (in
a coherent view), fineness and keenness of insight."[81]
In the second case it is "generous," it will show an "intelligent
sympathy"; it seeks "fellowship," and would not "elect to live in a
social environment in which the distinction of 'inferiors' were an
essential part of the idea."[82] The type of intelligence is found not
in the man seeking wealth or power, nor in the legal acumen which
forecasts all discoverable consequences and devises means to carry out
purposes, but in literature and art.[83]
The terms which cover both these meanings are the words "consider" and
"considerate." "Breadth of consideration" gives the basis for rights.
The selfish man is the "inconsiderate."[84] This term plays the part of
the _amor intellectualis_ in the system of Spinoza, which enables him at
once to discard all emotion and yet to keep it. For "consideration" is
used in common life, and defined in the dictionaries, as meaning both
"examination," "careful thought," and "appreciative or sympathetic
regard." The ambiguity in the term may well have served to disguise from
the author himself the double role which intelligence is made to play.
The broader use is the only one that does justice to the moral
consciousness, but we cannot include sympathy and still maintain that
"mere knowing" covers the whole. The insistence at times upon the "mere
knowing" is a mechanical element which needs to be removed before the
ethical implications can be accepted.
Once more, how does one know himself and others? Is it the same process
precisely as knowing a mechanical object? Thoughts without percepts are
empty, and what are the "percepts" in the two cases? In the first case,
that of knowing things, the percepts are colors, sounds, resistances; in
the case of persons the percepts are impulses, feelings, desires,
passions, as well as images, purposes, and the reflective process
itself. In the former case we construct objects dehumanized; in the
latter we keep them more or less concrete. But now, just as primitive
man did not so thoroughly de-personalize nature, but left in it an
element of personal aim, so science may view human beings as objects
whose purposes and even feelings may be predicted, and hence may, as
Professor Fite well puts it, view them mechanically. What he fails to
note is that just this mechanical point of view is the view of "mere
knowing"--if "mere" has any significance at all, it is meant to shut out
"sentiment." And this mechanical view is entirely equal to the
adjectives of "clear," "far-sighted," and even "broad" so far as this
means "more in one." For it is not essential to a mechanical point of
view that we consider men in masses or study them by statistics. I may
calculate the purposes and actions, yes, and the emotions and values of
one, or of a thousand, and be increasingly clear, and far-sighted, and
broad, but if it is "mere" knowing--scientific information--it is still
"mechanical," i.e., external. On the other hand, if it is to be a
knowledge that has the qualities of humaneness, or "intelligent
sympathy," it must have some of the stuff of feeling, even as in the
realm of things an artist's forest will differ from that of the most
"far-sighted," "clear," and "broad" statistician, by being rich with
color and moving line.
And this leads to a statement of the way in which my fellow-beings will
find place in "my" self. I grant that if they are there I shall take
some account of them. But they may be there in all sorts of ways. They
may be there as "population" if I am a statistician, or as "consumers,"
or as rivals, or as enemies, or as fellows, or as friends. They will
have a "value" in each case, but it will sometimes be a positive value,
and sometimes a negative value. Which it will be, and how great it will
be, depends not on the mere fact of these objects being "in
consciousness" but on the capacity in which they are there. And this
capacity depends on the dominant interest and not on mere knowing. The
trouble with the selfish man, says Professor Fite, is that he "fails to
consider," "he fails to take account of me."[85] Well, then, _why_ does
he fail? _Why_ does he not take account of me? He probably does
"consider" me in several of the ways that are possible and in the ways
that it suits him to consider me. I call him selfish because he does not
consider me in the one particular way in which I wish to be considered.
And what will get me into his consideration from this point of view? In
some cases it may be that I can speak: "Sir, you are standing on my
toe," and as the message encounters no obstacle in any fixed purpose or
temperamental bent the idea has no difficulty in penetrating his mind.
In other cases it may interfere with his desire to raise himself as high
as possible, but I may convince him by the same logic as that of an
"approaching railway train"--that he must regard me. In still other
cases--and it is these that always test Individualism--I am not myself
aware of the injury, or I am too faint to protest. How shall those who
have no voice to speak get "consideration"? Only by "intelligent
sympathy," and by just those emotions rooted in instinctive social
tendencies which an intellectualistic Individualism excludes or
distrusts.