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THE ETHICS OF
HERCULES
_SOME BORZOI TEXT BOOKS_
SOCIOLOGY AND POLITICAL THEORY
_Harry E. Barnes_
THE ORAL STUDY OF LITERATURE
_Algernon Tassin_
THE BASIS OF SOCIAL THEORY
_Albert G. A. Balz_
ESSAYS IN ECONOMIC THEORY
_Simon Nelson Patten_
THE ETHICS OF JOURNALISM
_Nelson A. Crawford_
THE TREND OF ECONOMICS
_Various Writers_
AN ANALYSIS OF WRITING
_Harold P. Scott_
THE ETHICS OF
HERCULES
_A Study of Man’s Body as the Sole
Determinant of Ethical Values_
BY
ROBERT CHENAULT GIVLER, PH.D.
_Professor of Philosophy in Tufts College_
[Illustration: Decoration]
NEW YORK ALFRED · A · KNOPF MCMXXIV
COPYRIGHT, 1924, BY ALFRED A. KNOPF, INC.
_Published, March, 1924_
_Set up, electrotyped, and printed by the Vail-Ballou Press, Inc.,
Binghamton, N. Y._
_Paper furnished by W. F. Etherington & Co., New York._
_Bound by H. Wolff Estate, New York._
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
DEDICATED
TO
THE THOUSAND MEN
OF MY GENERATION
WHOSE THOUGHT I HAVE THE HONOR
OF MAKING ARTICULATE.
“_Waste not free energy; treasure it and make the best use of it._”
WILHELM OSTWALD, “_The Imperative of Energetics_.”
PREFACE
This book deals with ethics as a strictly natural science, and
particularly as a branch of mechanistic psychology. It regards the
realm of ethics as coterminous with the arena of human activity, and
holds that the problems of conduct, being exclusively man’s problems,
are to be solved by the methods of applied science. Moreover, since
human conduct is in the last analysis dependent upon the postures and
manœuvres of our muscle-fabric, he who would understand ethics must
first comprehend something of the mechanics of the human organism.
Indeed, this book attempts to show, not only that ethics and
physiology can no longer be studied apart from one another, but also
that it is the structure and functions of the human body which have
determined just what our ethical values are.
Such a program is not strictly original, for the student of
philosophy will readily find its antecedents. Nevertheless, while
many ethical writers have heretofore given numerous intimations of a
mechanistic scheme in ethics, yet usually as they proceed to discuss
what are called higher things, they seem to forget that it is the
human body which performs every human action, even those deeds which
move us most profoundly. No such faltering, we trust, will be found
in these pages. Indeed, it may be stated at the outset that one of
the fundamental conceptions from which this book originated is that
the well-being of the physiological organism is the final criterion
of whatever is ethically valuable.
The title, “The Ethics of Hercules,” is doubly symbolical. Those
who have heard of this ancient hero will immediately recognize the
emphasis which is placed upon that type of personality who with
strength, skill, and persistence works out the problem that lies
nearest at hand. Moreover, Hercules the valiant, the thoroughbred
who never once shirked from his task, is here contrasted with
Cinderella, the patron goddess of all those ineffectual dreamers,
who, instead of balancing their ethical books day by day, whimper
after the supernatural, and cultivate an inner life of subterfuge and
disorder. We hold here that no man can have freedom given to him,
but that he must earn it by positively constructive, honest efforts
to adjust himself to and gain control of his environment. The motto
of Cinderella is, “Where you are not, there is happiness,” while the
motto of Hercules is, “Friends lost, something lost; honor lost, much
lost; pluck lost, all lost.”
The realization that in all science many false starts are made before
a single true one is achieved, makes for caution and vigilance.
Seeing, however, that the trend of ethical thought has been
continually growing more and more mechanistic, it seems not unlikely
that we are at the beginning rather than at the end of a chapter in
the empirical science of human nature. If this book utters no more
than the first sentence of that chapter, the effort will not have
been in vain.
CONTENTS
I. INTRODUCTION 3
II. A PHYSIOLOGICAL EXPLANATION OF THE ANTAGONISM
BETWEEN ALL SUCH WORDS AS
“GOOD” AND “BAD,” AND “RIGHT” AND
“WRONG” 12
III. THE BIOLOGICAL SIGNIFICATION OF THE
WORD “GOOD” 36
IV. THE ACTION-PATTERNS IMPLIED BY THE
WORD “BAD,” WITH A NOTE ON THE PHYSIOLOGY
OF “EVIL” 58
V. “RIGHT” AS A GESTURAL SIGN 75
VI. THE MEANING OF THE WORD “WRONG” 116
VII. “VIRTUE” AND “VICE” AS FUNCTIONS OF THE
ORGANISM 127
VIII. IS CONSCIENCE ALWAYS A PATHOLOGICAL
PHENOMENON? 155
IX. THE MITIGATION OF THE CONFLICT BETWEEN
FREEDOM AND OBLIGATION 175
X. THE ACQUISITION OF AN ETHICAL TECHNIQUE 189
INDEX 203
THE ETHICS OF
HERCULES
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
It would be an impertinence for an amateur in physiological science
to assert that the significance of ethical values can be understood
only through a study of the mechanics of the human body, were not
the ethical implications of physiology so numerous, so compelling,
and so plainly apparent. Ever since anatomists and physiologists
first began to demonstrate that all the vital functions of man
were dependent upon his intimate structure; and more recently that
conduct and thought are in the strictest sense of the term functions
of man’s flesh, they have been laying the foundations,—even if
unconsciously,—of a scrupulously natural science of ethics. The
purpose of this book is to attempt the formulation of such a science.
There is little need to state that any proposal to deal with ethics
in a thoroughly naturalistic manner will be met with considerable
resistance. Although it has been everlastingly recognized that
human conduct is the direct product of human bodies, especially
as is evidenced by our bestowal of rewards and punishments on
individually specified persons, nevertheless, the opinion still
widely prevails that a man and his actions are two such different
things that the former cannot be defined in terms of the latter.
Against this naturalistic or mechanistic view,—that a man _is_ what
he _does_,—several classes of people tenaciously hold contradictory
opinions.
There are, for example, those who consider ethics as the humble
handmaid of what is curiously termed “revealed religion,” and who
consequently hold that all the knowledge necessary for the conduct of
life has long ago been vouchsafed us by Infallible Wisdom. To such
persons it is of no importance that human nature has actually altered
to such an extent as to make it necessary to find new solutions
even for ancient problems; nor does it seem to occur to them that
the homage devoted to the past may often be simply a pleasant way
of escape from the intellectual responsibilities of the present. A
mechanistic ethics plans to undermine the notion that the ethical
truth of one generation is necessarily sufficient for the problems of
the generation that succeeds it, and aims to supersede it with the
view that man’s progress is dependent, not upon his ability to escape
from his problems, but rather upon his ability to analyse and solve
them.
Again, there are those who regard ethics solely as a subject for
philosophical discussion on the basis of an ideal never illustrated
by any one man, but only conceived in abstract terms. “How should
the ideal man behave?” is the sole burden of their discussion.
Even the mechanist hesitates to condemn this esthetic attitude
toward conduct too severely. For it is well known that thinking may
involve preparation for action, and that consequently he who thinks
out the best course of conduct in advance may be more likely to
act accordingly when a real problem is to be solved. On the other
hand, the human body and brain are so constructed that all fanciful
romancing is necessarily tinged with delusion to such an extent that
he who conceives an ideal apart from the actual is bound to lose
his orientation. And the sequel of this loss is everywhere manifest
in purely philosophical discussions about ethics. In the effort to
extricate themselves from the verbalism in which they are entangled,
ethical theorists have invariably either rejected the world as evil,
or else they have dug themselves in under a mountain of meaningless
words. To all such persons a mechanistic ethics seeks to restore a
glimpse of the reality they have sought in vain, by showing that the
highest ideals need not be in any way fictitious.
Resistance to a naturalistic ethics may also be expected from those
biologists and physiologists who regard the human body essentially as
a corpse animated by a psyche. These people are known as vitalists,
and their number is very great. The customary gloom of these men is
doubtless derived from their attitude toward the human body, which
they know best either in the form of specimens preserved in alcohol,
or microscopic slides of slaughtered tissue. Now, to be sure, such
objects of intense study do not of themselves yield an adequate
picture of a living, thinking man. But these morphologically-minded
persons, instead of pertinaciously remembering what manner of
organism they have slain for research, and instead of keeping ever
in mind that all human tissues actually die while performing their
normal functions, deem it somehow necessary to postulate a vital,
that is, an immortal principle, which makes the organism _go_. A
more perverse logic does not arise even in the realms of theology.
Oddly enough, the conversation of these men is not so happy as
their metaphysic might indicate. “No, no,” they will repeat in a
plaintive outcry, “you can never find the secret of life.” The
sentiment underlying such a remark is not difficult for even a casual
student of psychology to detect. Moreover, logicians know that when
a man states a problem in terms of a mystery, and seeks thereby to
hinder the search for its solution, he commits an error which has
been called “the fallacy of initial predication.”[1] Obviously,
indeed, we have already found out fully a thousand of the secrets
of living matter,—for instance, its principal chemical ingredients,
its dependence upon oxygen, its optimal temperature, its rate of
dying with different vital organs removed, and the like,—and so when
a vitalist speaks of “_the_ Secret of Life,” he simply shows that
he is still a worshipper of magic. Although the way of intellectual
progress lies in another direction, yet, since the majority of
mankind court mystery as a way of escape from the “despotism of
fact,” the vitalist can be expected to lead a voluble resistance
against a mechanistic ethics. Nevertheless, even he can perhaps be
induced to recognize that although Psyche does seem to regulate Homo,
yet it is always the structure of Homo that determines what manner
of function he shall manifest. And if the mechanist can elicit this
admission from the vitalist, he can at least maintain his chief
contention. Otherwise, seeing that the mechanists are on the whole
younger men than the vitalists, nature’s own slow processes will have
to soften the asperities of this conflict.
Having thus begun our outline of a mechanistic ethics by stating the
chief points of its disagreement with certain traditional ways of
thinking, let us now proceed to establish without interruptions the
foundations upon which this science of human conduct is to be built.
And first a word as to its antecedents.
All modern scientific thinking, which is essentially a pertinacity of
attention,—a dogged following upon a clue sagaciously intuited,—is
our heritage from ancient Greek thought, and particularly from
Socrates. And it is quite a significant, though oft-forgotten fact,
that while almost all our scientific inquiry has been directed
toward the conquest of physical nature, Socrates himself scorned to
devote his powers to any but the subjects of ethics and the theory
of knowledge. It is, then, something like a return to the chief
interest of Greek life to employ the methods of general science
in the analysis of the ethical problem. “Know _thyself_” was the
well-known motto of Socrates; but it has required an infinitude of
other knowledge before we could see clearly enough to know ourselves.
Nevertheless, we may now say that in thus employing modern science
strictly in the interest of ethics, the homage to Socrates is no
less profound than the implied confidence in the trend of that
civilization which originated in his brilliant mind.
The antecedents of a naturalistic ethics, however, are not all
located in one man. With varying emphases, we find similar tendencies
appearing in Aristotle, in Leonardo da Vinci, in Hobbes, in Spinoza,
in John Stuart Mill, in Herbert Spencer, and in many other wise and
kind men. Today this same influence is more aggressive and expanding
than ever before. Lucien Levy Brühl, Edwin Holt, John Dewey, William
Morris Davis, George Clarke Cox, and Roy Wood Sellars are typical
representatives of the movement devoted to making ethics as objective
as the science of mechanics. Consequently it would seem that the
attempt we shall make here to define ethical values in terms of man’s
biological functions is not a forlorn hope, either historically
unforeseen, or lacking contemporary sympathizers.
What, then, is implied by the statement that ethical values are to be
defined in terms of man’s biological functions? In the first place,
we imply that just as man’s body, by means of brain, sense organ,
muscle and gland, makes, upon stimulation, all the mind it ever
manifests, so likewise that same body of man, through the mechanisms
just enumerated, creates ethical notions. That is to say, the realm
of ethics is coincident with the realm of human behavior in so far as
that behavior is judged to be good or bad, right or wrong, virtuous
or vicious. Now the body of man performs many and various functions,
some of which are called physical, some chemical, some mental, and
some ethical; and any structure of man’s body, such as an arm or a
leg, can be shown to perform all these four types of function at the
same time. Such a statement will cause no surprise to those who have
followed the trend of psychological and ethical theory in the last
decade. And while it is obviously impossible to prove any theory to
the negatively suggestible obstructionist, it is a very hopeful sign
that today great numbers of even untutored men are disbelieving in
the transcendence of mental and ethical qualities, and are relocating
them among the natural phenomena of the world. Hereafter, then, we
shall also understand ethical values to be achievements of man’s
mind, which is a function of his protoplasm, which is a function of
the sun.
A second implication of our basic assertion is that since our
knowledge of man has, after a hundred false starts, just recently
become in any way accurate, so must our views on ethical questions be
regarded as still in the infancy of their truth. Moreover, just as
scientific inquiry in every other field is subject to revision upon
each new discovery of signal importance, so must ethical science,
during the period of its infancy, be subject countless times to an
equally sweeping revision. In other words, the scientific attitude
toward ethics forestalls any attempt or wish to draw on some
phantom bank account to eke out the ethical resources of mankind,
insufficient though such resources may at times appear to be. He
who, like the mechanist, believes that virtue is a strictly natural
phenomenon, must not carry a-priori standards into his work, but must
believe that an accurate description of human nature will furnish
all the necessary data for an applied science of human conduct. To
be sure, since man is a creature who likes and dislikes, who prefers
and rejects, this very fact precludes an ethics without any mention
of ideals of one sort or another. Nevertheless, it is our particular
business here not to establish or insist on any set of ideals in
advance of an empirical study of human conduct, for it may well be
that what we call our highest ideals are, in the light of science,
in need of considerable revision.
With this by way of introduction, we shall at once proceed with
the work already proposed. And just as a new proprietor of an old
business begins by taking inventory, so shall we at once take stock
of the ethical resources of man. Our method for the time being will
be the method of the statistician. Following the arrangement of
our data as we find them, we shall first seek to answer that most
interesting and, indeed, fundamental question, namely, Why do our
ethical judgments always occur in pairs of antonyms? This enquiry
will bring us to the very center of the ethical problem. Next we
shall ask just what our ten principal ethical concepts really mean,
and shall seek to discover their relationships to one another.
Finally, we shall endeavor to show how the knowledge thus derived,
when combined with insight into the mechanics of body and mind,
furnishes us with an ethical technique which transcends both in scope
and effectiveness all that we have hitherto possessed.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] R. B. Perry, “Present Philosophical Tendencies,” p. 127.