Nothing has been said thus far about a standard. Yet the conception of
a standard, or a measure, is so closely connected with valuation that
its consideration affords a test of the conclusions reached. It must
be admitted that the concepts of the nature of a standard pointed to
by the course of the prior discussion is not in conformity with
current conceptions. For the argument points to a standard which is
determined within the process of valuation, not outside of it, and
hence not capable of being employed ready-made, therefore, to settle
the valuing process. To many persons, this will seem absurd to the
point of self-contradiction. The prevailing conception, however, has
been adopted without examination; it is a preconception. If accepted,
it deprives judgment and knowledge of all significant import in
connection with moral action. If the standard is already given, all
that remains is its mechanical application to the case in hand--as one
would apply a yard rule to dry-goods. Genuine moral uncertainty is
then impossible; where it seems to exist, it is only a name for a
moral unwillingness, due to inherent viciousness, to recognize and
apply the rules already made and provided, or else for a moral
corruption which has enfeebled man's power of moral apprehension. When
the doctrine of standards prior to and independent of moral judgments
is accompanied by these other doctrines of original sin and
corruption, one must respect the thoroughgoing logic of the doctrine.
Such is not, however, the case with the modern theories which make the
same assumption of standards preceding instead of resulting from moral
judgments, and which ignore the question of uncertainty and error in
their apprehension. Such considerations do not, indeed, decide
anything, but they may serve to get a more unprejudiced hearing for a
hypothesis which runs counter to current theories, since it but
formulates the trend of current practices in their increasing tendency
to make the act of intelligence the central factor in morals.
Let us, accordingly, consider the alternatives to regarding the
standard of value as something evolved in the process of reflective
valuation. How can such a standard be known? Either by an a priori
method of intuition, or by abstraction from prior cases. The latter
conception throws us into the arms of hedonism. For the hedonistic
theory of the standard of value derives its logical efficiency from
the consideration that the notion of a prior and fixed standard (one
which is not determined within the situation by reflection) forces us
back upon antecedent irreducible pleasures and pains which alone are
values definite and certain enough to supply standards. They alone are
simple enough to be independent and ultimate. The apparently
common-sense alternative would be to take the "value" of prior
situations _in toto_, say, the value of an act of kindness to a
sufferer. But any such good is a function of the total unanalyzed
situation; it has, consequently, no application to a new situation
unless the new exactly repeats the old one. Only when the "good" is
resolved into simple and unalterable units, in terms of which old
situations can be equated to new ones on the basis of the number of
units contained, can an unambiguous standard be found.
The logic is unimpeachable, and points to irreducible pleasures and
pains as the standard of valuation. The difficulty is not in the logic
but in empirical facts, facts which verify our prior contention.
Conceding, for the sake of argument, that there are definite
existences such as are called pleasures and pains, they are _not_
value-objects, but are only things to be valued. Exactly the same
pleasure or pain, as an existence, has different values at different
times according to the way in which it is judged. What is the value of
the pleasure of eating the lobster as compared with the pains of
indigestion? The rule tells us, of course, to break up the pleasure
and pain into elementary units and count.[87] Such ultimate simple
units seem, however, to be about as much within the reach of ordinary
knowledge as atoms or electrons are within the grasp of the man of the
street. Their resemblance to the ultimate, neutral units which
analytic psychologists have postulated as a methodological necessity
is evident. Since the value of even such a definite entity as a
toothache varies according to the organization constructed and
presented in reflection, it is clear that ordinary empirical pleasures
and pains are highly complex.
This difficulty, however, may be waived. We may even waive the fact
that a theory which set out to be ultra-empirical is now enmeshed in
the need for making empirical facts meet dialectical requirements.
Another difficulty is too insuperable to be waived. In any case the
quantity of elementary existences which constitutes the criterion of
measurement is dependent upon the very judgment which is assumed to be
regulated by it. The standard of valuation is the units which will
_result_ from an act; they are future consequences. Now the character
of the agent judging is one of the conditions of the production of
these consequences. A callous person not only will not foresee certain
consequences, and will not be able to give them proper weight, but he
does not afford the same condition of their occurrence which is
constituted by a sensitive man. It is quite possible to employ
judgment so as to produce acts which will increase this organic
callousness. The analytic conception of the moral criterion
provides--logically--for deliberate blunting of susceptibilities. If
the matter at issue is simply one of number of units of pleasure over
pain, arrange matters so that certain pains will not, as matter of
fact, be felt. While this result may be achieved by manipulation of
extra-organic conditions, it may also be effected by rendering the
organism insensitive. Persistence in a course which in the short run
yields uneasiness and sympathetic pangs, will in the long run
eliminate these pains and leave a net pleasure balance.
This is a time-honored criticism of hedonism. My present concern with
it is purely logical. It shows that the attempt to bring over from
past objects the elements of a standard for valuing future
consequences is a hopeless one. The express object of a
valuation-judgment is to release factors which being new, cannot be
measured on the basis of the past alone. This discussion of the
analytic logic as applied in morals would, however, probably not be
worth while did it not serve to throw into relief the significance of
any appeal to fulfilment of a system or organization as _the_ moral
good--the standard. Such an appeal, if it is wary, is an appeal to the
present situation as _undergoing that reorganization that will confer
upon it the unification which it lacks_; to organization as something
to be brought about, to be made. And it is clear that this appeal
meets all the specifications of judgments of practice as they have
been described. The organization which is to be fulfilled through
action is an organization which, at the time of judging, is present in
conception, in idea--in, that is, reflective inquiry as a phase of
reorganizing activity. And since its presence in conception is both a
condition of the organization aimed at _and_ a function of the
adequacy of the reflective inquiry, it is evident that there is here a
confirmation of our statement that the practical judgment is a
judgment of what and how to judge as an integral part of the
completion of an incomplete temporal situation. More specifically, it
also appears that the standard is a rule for conducting inquiry to its
completion: it is a counsel to make examination of the operative
factors complete, a warning against suppressing recognition of any of
them. However a man may impose upon himself or upon others, a man's
real measure of value is exhibited in what he _does_, not in what he
consciously thinks or says. For the doing is the _actual_ choice. It
is the completed reflection.
It is comparatively easy at the present time in moral theory to slam
both hedonism and apriorism. It is not so easy to see the logical
implications of the alternative to them. The conception of an
organization of interests or tendencies is often treated as if it were
a conception which is definite in subject-matter as well as clear-cut
in form. It is taken not as a rule for procedure in inquiry, a
direction and a warning (which it is), but as something all of whose
constituents are already given for _knowledge_, even though not given
in fact. The act of fulfilling or realizing must then be treated as
devoid of intellectual import. It is a mere doing, not a learning and
a testing. But how can a situation which is incomplete in fact be
completely known until it _is_ complete? Short of the fulfilment of a
conceived organization, how can the conception of the proposed
organization be anything more than a working hypothesis, a method of
treating the given elements in order to see what happens? Does not
every notion which implies the possibility of an apprehension of
knowledge of the end to be reached[88] also imply either an a priori
revelation of the nature of that end, or else that organization is
nothing but a whole composed of elementary parts already given--the
logic of hedonism?
The logic of subsumption in the physical sciences meant that a given
state of things could be compared with a ready-made concept as a
model--the phenomena of the heavens with the implications of, say, the
circle. The methods of experimental science broke down this motion;
they substituted for an alleged regulative model a formula which was
the integrated function of the particular phenomena themselves, a
formula to be used as a method of further observations and experiments
and thereby tested and developed. The unwillingness to believe that,
in a similar fashion, moral standards or models can be trusted to
develop out of the specific situations of action shows how little the
general logical force of the method of science has been grasped.
Physical knowledge did not as matter of fact advance till the dogma of
models or forms as standards of knowledge had been ousted. Yet we hang
tenaciously to a like doctrine in morals for fear of moral chaos. It
once seemed to be impossible that the disordered phenomena of
perception could generate a knowledge of law and order; it was
supposed that independent principles of order must be supplied and the
phenomena measured by approach to or deviation from the fixed models.
The ordinary conception of a standard in practical affairs is a
precise analogue. Physical knowledge started on a secure career when
men had courage to start from the irregular scene and to treat the
suggestions to which it gave rise as methods for instituting new
observations and experiences. Acting upon the suggested conceptions
analyzed, extended, and ordered phenomena and thus made improved
conceptions--methods of inquiry--possible. It is reasonable to believe
that what holds moral knowledge back is above all the conception that
there are standards of good given to knowledge apart from the work of
reflection in constructing methods of action. As the bringer of bad
news gets a bad name, being made to share in the production of the
evil which he reports, so honest acknowledgment of the uncertainty of
the moral situation and of the hypothetical character of all rules of
moral mensuration prior to acting upon them, is treated as if it
originated the uncertainty and created the skepticism.
It may be contended, however, that all this does not justify the
earlier statement that the limiting situation which occasions and cuts
off judgment is not itself a value. Why, it will be asked, does a man
buy a suit of clothes unless that is a value, or at least a proximate
means to a further value? The answer is short and simple: Because he
has to; because the situation in which he lives demands it. The
answer probably seems too summary. But it may suggest that while a man
lives, he never is called upon to judge whether he shall act, but
simply _how_ he shall act. A decision not to act is a decision to act
in a certain way; it is never a judgment not to act, unqualifiedly. It
is a judgment to do something else--to wait, for example. A judgment
that the best thing to do is to retire from active life, to become a
Simon Stylites, is a judgment to act in a certain way, conditioned
upon the necessity that, irrespective of judging, a man will have to
act somehow anyway. A decision to commit suicide is not a decision to
be dead; it is a decision to perform a certain act. The act may depend
upon reaching the conclusion that life is not worth living. But as a
judgment, this is a conclusion to act in a way to terminate the
possibility of further situations requiring judgment and action. And
it does not imply that a judgment about life as a supreme value and
standard underlies all judgments as to how to live. More specifically,
it is not a judgment upon the value of life _per se_, but a judgment
that one does not find at hand the specific means of making life worth
while. As an act to be done, it falls within and assumes life. As a
judgment upon the value of life, by definition it evades the issue. No
one ever influenced a person considering committing suicide by
arguments concerning the value of life, but only by suggesting or
supplying conditions and means which make life worth living; in other
words, by furnishing _direct_ stimuli to living.
However, I fear that all this argument may only obscure a point
obvious without argument, namely, that all deliberation upon what to
do is concerned with the completion and determination of a situation
in some respect incomplete and so indeterminate. Every such situation
is specific; it is not _merely_ incomplete; the incompleteness is _of_
a specific situation. Hence the situation sets limits to the
reflective process; what is judged has reference to it and that which
limits never is judged in the particular situation in which it is
limiting. Now we have in ordinary speech a word which expresses the
nature of the conditions which limit the judgments of value. It is the
word "invaluable." The word does not mean something of supreme value
as compared with other things any more than it means something of zero
value. It means something out of the scope of valuation--something out
of the range of judgment; whatever in the situation at hand is not and
cannot be any part of the subject-matter of judgment and which yet
instigates and cuts short the judgment. It means, in short, that
judgment at some point runs against the brute act of holding something
dear as its limit.
V
The statement that values are determined in the process of judgment of
what to do (that is, in situations where preference depends upon
reflection upon the conditions and possibilities of a situation
requiring action) will be met by the objection that our practical
deliberations usually assume precedent specific values and also a
certain order or grade among them. There is a sense in which I am not
concerned to deny this. Our deliberate choices go on in situations
more or less like those in which we have previously chosen. When
deliberation has reached a valuation, and action has confirmed or
verified the conclusion, the result remains. Situations overlap. The
_m_ which is judged better than _n_ in one situation is found worse
than _l_ in another, and so on; thus a certain order of precedence is
established. And we have to broaden the field to cover the habitual
order of reflective preferences in the community to which we belong.
The valu-eds or valuables thus constituted present themselves as facts
in subsequent situations. Moreover, by the same kind of operation, the
dominating objects of past valuations present themselves as
standardized values.
But we have to note that such value-standards are only presumptive.
Their status depends, on one hand, upon the extent in which the
present situation is like the past. In a progressive or rapidly
altering social life, the presumption of identical present value is
weakened. And while it would be foolish not to avail one's self of the
assistance in present valuations of the valuables established in other
situations, we have to remember that habit operates to make us
overlook differences and presume identity where it does not exist--to
the misleading of judgment. On the other hand, the contributory worth
of past determinations of value is dependent upon the extent in which
_they_ were critically made; especially upon the extent in which the
consequences brought about through acting upon them have been
carefully noted. In other words, the presumptive force of a past value
in present judgment depends upon the pains taken with its
verification.
In any case, so far as judgment takes place (instead of the
reminiscence of a prior good operating as a direct stimulus to present
action) all valuation is in some degree a revaluation. Nietzsche would
probably not have made so much of a sensation, but he would have been
within the limits of wisdom, if he had confined himself to the
assertion that all judgment, in the degree in which it is critically
intelligent, is a transvaluation of prior values. I cannot escape
recognition that any allusion to modification or transformation of an
object through judgment arouses partisan suspicion and hostility. To
many it appears to be a survival of an idealistic epistemology. But I
see only three alternatives. Either there are no practical
judgments--as judgments they are wholly illusory; or the future is
bound to be but a repetition of the past or a reproduction of
something eternally existent in some transcendent realm (which is the
same thing logically),[89] or the object of a practical judgment is
some change, some alteration, to be brought about in the given, the
nature of the change depending upon the judgment and yet constituting
its subject-matter. Unless the epistemological realist accepts one of
the two first alternatives, he seems bound, in accepting the third, to
admit not merely that practical judgments make a difference in things
as an after-effect (this he seems ready enough to admit), but that the
import and validity of judgments is a matter of the difference thus
made. One may, of course, hold that this is just what marks the
distinction of the practical judgment from the scientific judgment.
But one who admits this fact as respects a practical judgment can no
longer claim that it is fatal to the very idea of judgment to suppose
that its proper object is some difference to be brought about in
things, and that the truth of the judgment is constituted by the
differences in consequences actually made. And a logical realist who
takes seriously the notion that moral good is a fulfilment of an
organization or integration must admit that any proposition about such
an object is prospective (for it is something _to be_ attained through
action), and that the proposition is made for the sake of furthering
the fulfilment. Let one start at this point and carry back the
conception into a consideration of other kinds of propositions, and
one will have, I think, the readiest means of apprehending the intent
of the theory that all propositions are but the propoundings of
possible knowledge, not knowledge itself. For unless one marks off the
judgment of good from other judgment by means of an arbitrary division
of the organism from the environment, or of the subjective from the
objective, no ground for any sharp line of division in the
propositional-continuum will appear.
But (to obviate misunderstanding) this does not mean that some psychic
state or act makes the difference in things. In the first place, the
subject-matter of the judgment is a change to be brought about; and,
in the second place, this subject-matter does not become an _object_
until the judgment has issued in act. It is the act which makes the
difference, but nevertheless the act is but the complete object of
judgment and the judgment is complete as a judgment only in the act.
The anti-pragmatists have been asked (notably by Professor A. W.
Moore) how they sharply distinguish between judgment--or
knowledge--and act and yet freely admit and insist that knowledge
makes a difference in action and hence in existence. This is the crux
of the whole matter. And it is a logical question. It is not a query
(as it seems to have been considered) as to how the mental can
influence a physical thing like action--a variant of the old question
of how the mind affects the body. On the contrary, the implication is
that the relation of knowledge to action becomes a problem of the
action of a mental (or logical) entity upon a physical one only when
the logical import of judgment has been misconceived. The positive
contention is that the realm of logical propositions presents in a
realm of _possibility_ the specific rearrangement of things which
overt action presents in actuality. Hence the passage of a proposition
into action is not a miracle, but the realization of its own
character--its own meaning as logical. I do not profess, of course, to
have shown that such is the case for _all_ propositions; that is a
matter which I have not discussed. But in showing the tenability of
the hypothesis that practical judgments are of that nature, I have at
least ruled out any purely dialectic proof that the _nature_ of
knowledge as such forbids entertaining the hypothesis that the
import--indirect if not direct--of all logical propositions is some
difference to be brought about. The road is at least cleared for a
more unprejudiced consideration of this hypothesis on its own merits.