DISCUSSIONS: The Moral Aspect of “Tips” and “Gratuities.” By
_Christine Ladd Franklin_.
Ideas and facts, says Professor Caird, are continually being woven
together as warp and woof, into the web of man’s intellectual life.
The idea of the unity of mankind has within the last century become
an almost instinctive presupposition of all civilised men. It has
special application to the history of religion. In a man’s religion we
have expressed his ultimate attitude to the universe. Even atheism or
agnosticism involves a definite attitude towards the ultimate problem
of human life. The modern ideas of the organic unity and the organic
evolution of man inevitably compel us to seek for the one principle of
life which is striving towards the full realisation of itself.
Professor Hyslop remarks, that two questions may be asked: (1) Why is
it that any disturbance in ethical speculation at once brings men up
in arms about the consequences? (2) Why is there such a tendency even
in speculative ethics to bring its theories into harmony and sympathy
with “practical” problems? The preliminary answer is the distinction
between science and art. The aim of science is to find causes; the aim
of art to produce ends by means of these causes. But art may be divided
into productive and practical art. Every consideration of the scope and
aim of ethics shows it to be both a science and an art. As a science it
endeavors to explain something; as an art, to realise something. Its
complications are thus two-fold. Ethics may be a science in two distinct
relations. First, it aims to show the general conception which will
reduce the various motives actually governing human conduct to unity.
Secondly, it aims to show the end that ought ideally to govern conduct,
and this is the supreme object of ethics as a science.
In relation to the Morality of Nations, Professor Sorley says that the
relations of the state, diplomatic or military, with other states may be
compared with the relations of one individual to another, but the two
sets of relations are not the same. A crime is an act punishable by law,
and it is absurd therefore to speak as if the state, acting legally,
could commit a crime. But if theft ceased to be a crime it would be as
much an offense against morality as before. Taxation to which the taxed
have not consented and unfair taxation cannot be regarded as theft, as
some suppose. Individual morality becomes mixed with national morality
when those through whom the state acts act for themselves and for their
own interests, instead of for the common good. Within a nation the state
is above all individuals, but there is no corresponding superior power
over nations. What remains is a general obligation upon states to observe
justice in their dealings with one another. National morality differs
from individual morality in that a nation’s first duty may be said to
be to itself. There is no selfishness, there is only patriotism, in its
recognising the fact and acting upon it. The intercourse of nations can
only reach a full measure of development under a common moral law, which
recognises the rights of one nation as of equal value with the rights of
any other.
Mr. Ward points out, that Mill, in his exposition of what he called
Ethology, or the Exact Science of Human Nature, repeated in all the
issues of his “Logic,” remarks that Ethology must first proceed
deductively. The laws of the formation of character “are derivative
laws, resulting from the general laws of mind, and are to be obtained by
deducing them from those general laws.” There was a want of clearness
in Mill’s conception of an individual. The notion of a Self proved,
on his own admission, “the real stumbling block” to his psychological
theory. In discussing the influence of remarkable men, Mill allows that
“whatever depends on the peculiarities of individuals, combined with the
accidents of the positions they hold, is necessarily incapable of being
foreseen.” When we attempt to estimate the influence of circumstances
on individuals, we must often know how the circumstances appear to
_them_,—this personal equation so to say is frequently incalculable.
In the main, says Mr. Black, sin exists intimately in, or as an
inseparable affection or potentiality of, the person as a whole, and to
discourage it is to discourage the person, and tantamount, therefore,
to discouraging his goodness as well. At this point the division of
sin into vice and immorality becomes essential to a rational solution.
Immorality is crime against living moral agents. Vice may be defined as
the spending of the forces of one’s own life to the detriment of its
moral capabilities.
Mr. Francis W. Newman, who began the study of Political Economy seventy
years ago, when he was sixteen, gives in this article his views on the
evils of land tenure in England.
Mrs. Franklin thinks “the subjective feeling of worth and dignity” which
distinguishes the people of this country will be injured by “giving
fees to our inferiors when they perform some service for which they are
(or ought to be) otherwise well paid.” That the matter is not “absolute
ethics” is apparent from the fact that in Japan a totally different
sentiment prevails. The editor, Prof. Josiah Royce (under the signature
of J. R.) in commenting on Mrs. Franklin’s communication after referring
to the evils of the German custom of Trinkgeld as detailed by v. Ihering,
says that if it harms the manhood of our writers to “tip” them the
mischief should be met by organised devices such as v. Ihering proposes,
and not by individual action. (Philadelphia: _International Journal of
Ethics_, 1602 Chestnut Street.)
Ω.