CHAPTER IX

A GENERAL COMPARISON OF CUSTOMARY AND REFLECTIVE MORALITY

To eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil may

result in ultimate gain. A more conscious and individualistic attitude

may result in definite conceptions of duty and rights, of values and

ideals. At the same time, as humanity's eyes have been opened and its

wisdom increased, many forms of nakedness unknown in ruder conditions

have been disclosed. With every increase of opportunity and efficiency

for good there is a corresponding opportunity for evil. An immensely

more complex environment gives scope for correspondingly more capable

and subtle personalities. Some will react to the situation in such a way

as to rise to a higher moral level, both in personal integrity and in

public usefulness. Others will find in facilities for gratifying some

appetite or passion a temptation too strong for their control and will

become vicious, or will seize the chances to exploit others and become

unjust in their acquirement and use of power and wealth. There will be a

Nero as well as an Aurelius, a Caesar Borgia as well as a Savonarola, a

Jeffreys as well as a Sidney, a Bentham, or a Howard. For an Eliot or a

Livingston or an Armstrong, there are the exploiters of lower races; and

for an Elizabeth Fry, the women who trade in the wretchedness of their

kind. By the side of those who use great abilities and resources

unselfishly are those who view indifferently the sacrifice of human

health or life, and pay no heed to human misery. Such contrasts show

that the "evolution of morality" is also an evolution of weakness,

wretchedness, evil, and crime. They suggest some general comparisons

between custom and reflective morality. They require from every age a

renewed analysis of conduct and the social system. As a preliminary to

such an analysis, we review in this chapter some of the general

relations between the morality of custom and the morality of reflection.

Sec. 1. ELEMENTS OF AGREEMENT AND CONTINUITY

The moral life shows its continuity in two ways. First, the earlier type

of group and customary morality persists in part; in the second place,

when the moral is differentiated from the other spheres of life in which

it was embedded, it does not have to find entirely new conceptions. It

borrows its terms from the group life or from the various spheres,

religious, political, aesthetic, economic, which separate out from the

older group unity.

The following quotation from Grote will serve as a vivid restatement of

the regime of custom:

"This aggregate of beliefs and predispositions to believe,

Ethical, Religious, Aesthetical, and Social, respecting what is

true or false, probable or improbable, just or unjust, holy or

unholy, honorable or base, respectable or contemptible, pure or

impure, beautiful or ugly, decent or indecent, obligatory to do or

obligatory to avoid, respecting the status and relations of each

individual in the society, respecting even the admissible fashions

of amusement and recreation--this is an established fact and

condition of things, the real origin of which is for the most part

unknown, but which each new member of the group is born to and

finds subsisting.... It becomes a part of each person's nature, a

standing habit of mind, or fixed set of mental tendencies,

according to which particular experience is interpreted and

particular persons appreciated.... The community hate, despise or

deride any individual member who proclaims his dissent from their

social creed.... Their hatred manifests itself in different ways

... at the very least by exclusion from that amount of

forbearance, good will and estimation without which the life of

an individual becomes insupportable.... 'Nomos (Law and Custom),

king of all' (to borrow the phrase which Herodotus cites from

Pindar) exercises plenary power, spiritual and temporal, over

individual minds; moulding the emotions as well as the intellect,

according to the local type ... and reigning under the appearance

of habitual, self-suggested tendencies."[96]

The important facts brought out are (1) the existence in a social group

of certain habits not only of acting, but of feeling and believing about

actions, of valuing or approving and disapproving. (2) The persistent

forcing of these mental habitudes upon the attention of each new member

of the group. The newcomer, whether by birth or adoption, is introduced

into a social medium whose conditions and regulations he can no more

escape than he can those of his physical environment. (3) Thus the

mental and practical habits of the newly introduced individual are

shaped. The current ways of esteeming and behaving in the community

become a "standing habit" of his own mind; they finally reign as

"habitual, self-suggested tendencies." Thus he becomes a full member of

the social group, interested in the social fabric to which he belongs,

and ready to do his part in maintaining it.

=1. Persistence of Group Morality.=--Comparing this state of affairs

with what obtains to-day in civilized communities, we find certain

obvious points of agreement. The social groups with which an individual

comes in touch are now more numerous and more loosely formed. But

everywhere there are customs not only of acting, but of thinking and

feeling about acting. Each profession, each institution, has a _code_ of

which the individual has to take account. The nature of this code,

unexpressed as well as formulated, is brought to the attention of the

individual in countless ways; by the approval and disapproval of its

public opinion; by his own failures and successes; by his own tendency

to imitate what he sees about him, as well as by deliberate, intentional

instruction.

In other words, group morality does not vanish in order that conscious

and personal morality may take its place. Group and customary morality

is still the morality of many of us most of the time, and of all of us

for a good deal of the time. We do not any of us think out all of our

standards, weigh independently our values, make all our choices in a

rational manner, or form our characters by following a clearly conceived

purpose. As children we all start in a family group. We continue in a

school group and perhaps a church group. We enter an occupation group,

and later, it may be, family, political, social, and neighborhood

groups. In every one of these if we are members, we must to a certain

degree accept standards that are given. We have to play according to the

rules of the game. As children we do this unconsciously. We imitate, or

follow suggestions; we are made to conform by all the agencies of group

morality--group opinion, ritual, pleasure and pain, and even by

taboos;[97] above all, we act as the others act, and cooperate more or

less to a common end. We form habits which persist, many of them as long

as we live. We accept many of the traditions without challenge. Even

when we pass from the early family group to the new situations and

surroundings which make us repeat more or less of the experience of the

race, a large share of our conduct and of our judgments of others is

determined by the influences of group and custom. And it is fortunate

for progress that this is true. If every one had to start anew to frame

all his ideals and make his laws, we should be in as melancholy a plight

morally as we should be intellectually if we had to build each science

anew. The fundamental safeguards which the group provides against

individual impulse and passion, the condition of close association,

interdependence and mutual sympathy which the group affords, the

habituation to certain lines of conduct valued by the group--all this is

a root on which the stem and flower of personal morality may grow.

Individualism and intellectual activity, however necessary to man's

progress, would give no morality did they not start out of this deeper

level of common feeling and common destiny. The rational and personal

agencies of the "third level" come not to destroy, but to fulfill the

meaning of the forces and agencies of the first and second levels

described in Chapters III and IV.

=2. The Moral Conceptions.=--The conceptions for the moral are nearly

all taken from the group relations or from the jural and religious

aspects, as these have been gradually brought to clearer consciousness.

As already noted, the Greek term "ethical," the Latin "moral," the

German "_sittlich_," suggest this--_ethos_ meant the "sum of the

characteristic usages, ideas, standards, and codes by which a group was

differentiated and individualized in character from other groups."[98]

Some specific moral terms come directly from group relations. The "kind"

man acts as one of the kin. When the ruling or privileged group is

contrasted with the man of no family or of inferior birth, we get a

large number of terms implying "superiority" or "inferiority" in birth,

and so of general value. This may or may not be due to some inherent

superiority of the upper class, but it means at least that the upper

class has been most effectual in shaping language and standards of

approval. So "noble" and "gentle" referred to birth before they had

moral value; "duty" in modern usage seems to have been principally what

was due to a superior. Many words for moral disapproval are very

significant of class feeling. The "caitiff" was a captive, and the

Italians have their general term for morally bad, "_cattivo_," from the

same idea. The "villain" was a feudal tenant, the "blackguard" looked

after the kettles, the "rascal" was one of the common herd, the "knave"

was the servant; the "base" and "mean" were opposed to the gentle and

noble. Another set of conceptions reflects the old group _approvals_ or

combines these with conceptions of birth. We have noted the twofold root

of _kalokagathia_ in Greek. "Honor" and "honesty" were what the group

admired, and conversely "_aischros_" and "_turpe_" in Greek and Latin,

like the English "disgraceful" or "shameful," were what the group

condemned. "Virtue" was the manly excellence which called out the praise

of a warlike time, while one of the Greek terms for morally bad

originally meant cowardly, and our "scoundrel" has possibly the same

origin. The "bad" was probably the weak or the womanish. The economic

appears in "merit," what I have earned, and likewise in "duty" and

"ought," what is due or owed--though duty seems to have made itself felt

especially, as noted above, toward a superior. Forethought and skill in

practical affairs provided the conception of "wisdom," which was highest

of the virtues for the Greeks, and as "prudence" stood high in mediaeval

systems. The conception of valuing and thus of forming some permanent

standard of a better and a worse, is also aided, if not created, by

economic exchange. It appears in almost identical terms in Plato and the

New Testament in the challenge, "What shall it profit a man if he gain

the whole world and lose his own life?"[99] From the processes of fine

or useful arts came probably the conceptions of measure, order, and

harmony. A whole mode of considering the moral life is jural. "Moral

law," "authority," "obligation," "responsibility," "justice,"

"righteousness," bring with them the associations of group control and

of the more definitely organized government and law. Finally the last

named terms bear also a religious imprint, and numerous conceptions of

the moral come from that sphere or get their specific flavor from

religious usage. The conceptions of the "soul" have contributed to the

ideal of a good which is permanent, and which is made rather by personal

companionship, than by sensuous gratification. "Purity" began as a

magical and religious idea; it came to symbolize not only freedom from

contamination but singleness of purpose. "Chastity" lends a religious

sacredness to a virtue which had its roots largely in the conception of

property. "Wicked" is from witch.

We have indeed certain conceptions drawn from individual experiences of

instinct, or reflection. From the sense recoil from what was disgusting

such conceptions as "foul," and from kindred imagery of what suits eye

or muscular sense come "straightforward," "upright," "steady." From the

thinking process itself we have "conscience." This word in Greek and

Latin was a general term for consciousness and suggests one of the

distinctive, perhaps the most distinctive characteristic of the moral.

For it implies a "conscious" thoughtful attitude, which operates not

only in forming purposes, but in measuring and valuing action by the

standards it approves. But it is evident that by far the larger part of

our ethical terms are derived from social relations in the broad sense.

Sec. 2. ELEMENTS OF CONTRAST

=Differentiation of the Moral.=--The most obvious difference between the

present and the early attitude is that we now make a clear distinction

between the moral aspect of behavior and other aspects such as the

conventional, the political, the legal; while in customary morality all

activities esteemed by society were put upon the same level and enforced

with the same vigor. Matters which we should regard as purely matters of

fashion or etiquette, or as modes of amusement, such as styles of

wearing the hair, were imperative. To mutilate the body in a certain way

was as exigent as to observe certain marriage customs; to refrain from

speaking to the mother-in-law as binding as to obey the chieftain; not

to step over the shadow of the chief was even more important than not to

murder the member of another tribe. In general we make a clear

distinction between "manners" and morals, while in customary morality

manners _are_ morals, as the very words "ethical," "moral" still

testify.

When Grote speaks of "Ethical, Religious, Aesthetical, and Social"

beliefs, the term "ethical" belongs with the other terms only from a

modern standpoint. The characteristic thing about the condition of which

he is speaking is that the "religious, aesthetical, and social" beliefs

brought to bear upon the individual _constitute_ the ethical. We make

the distinction between them as naturally as the regime of custom failed

to make it. Only by imagining a social set in which failure to observe

punctiliously the fashions of the set as to the proper style of dress

makes the person subject to a disparagement which influences his

feelings and ideas as keenly _and in the same way_ as conviction of

moral delinquency, can we realize the frame of mind characteristic of

the ethics of custom.

=Observing versus Reflecting.=--Customs may be "observed." Indeed,

customary morality made goodness or rightness of character practically

identical with observing the established order of social estimations in

all departments. This word _observe_ is significant: it means to note,

or notice as matter of fact, by perception; and it means to yield

allegiance, to conform to, in action.[100] The element of intelligence,

of reason, is thus reduced to a minimum. The moral values are _there_,

so to speak, palpably, tangibly; and the individual has only to use his

mind enough to notice them. And since they are forced upon his notice by

drastic and unrelaxing methods of discipline, little initiative is

required for even the attitude of attention. But when the moral is

something which is in customs and habits, rather than those customs

themselves, the good and right do not stand out in so obvious and

external fashion. Recognition now demands thought, reflection; the power

of abstraction and generalization. A child may be shown in a pretty

direct and physical fashion the difference between _meum_ and _tuum_ in

its bearing upon his conduct: a fence may be pointed at which divides

his yard from that of a neighbor and which draws as well the moral line

between what is permissible and what is forbidden; a whipping may

intensify the observation. But modern business knows also of

"intangible" property--good will, reputation, credit. These, indeed, can

be bought and sold but the detection of their existence and nature

demands an intelligence which is more than perception. The greater

number of duties and rights of which present morality consists are of

just this type. They are relations, not just outward habits. Their

acknowledgment requires accordingly something more than just to follow

and reproduce existing customs. It involves power to see _why_ certain

habits are to be followed, what _makes_ a thing good or bad.

_Conscience_ is thus substituted for _custom_; _principles_ take the

place of external _rules_.

This is what we mean by calling present morality reflective rather than

customary. It is not that social customs have ceased to be, or even have

been reduced in number. The exact contrary is the case. It is not that

they have shrunk in importance, or that they have less significance for

the individual's activity, or claim less of his attention. Again, the

reverse is the case. But the individual has to grasp the _meaning_ of

these customs over and above the bare fact of their existence, and has

to guide himself by their _meaning_ and not by the mere fact noted.[101]

=Custom is Static.=--This difference introduces a second very important

difference. In customary morality, there is no choice between being

enmeshed in the net of social rules which control activity, and being an

outlaw--one beyond the pale, whose hand is against every man's, and

every man's against him. The extent to which social customs are regarded

as of divine origin and are placed under the protection of the gods,

i.e., the tendency of all sanctions to become religious and

supernatural, is evidence of the binding force of institutions upon the

individual. To violate them is impiety, sacrilege, and calls down the

wrath of gods, as well as of men. The custom cannot be questioned. To

inquire means uncertainty, and hence it is immoral, an attack upon the

very foundations of the life of the group. The apparent exception, which

after all exhibits the rule, is the case of great reforming heroes who

demarcate epochs of history even in customary societies. Such

individuals meet contemporary opposition and persecution; it is only by

victory, by signal success over a rival faction at home, over plague and

famine, or over an enemy abroad, that the hero is justified. Thereby it

is proved that the gods are with him and sanction his changes--indeed

that he is their own chosen instrument. Then the modified or new customs

and institutions have all the binding sacredness and supernatural

sanction of the old. It is not yet an outgrown story for the fathers to

kill the prophets, and for the sons to build and adorn their tombs, and

make them into shrines.

=Reflection Discovers a Higher Law.=--But in so far as the individual's

activity is directed by his comprehension of the _meaning_ of customs,

not by his apprehension of their _existence_, so far the notion of moral

progress or reform in social affairs becomes ethically important and

greater moral responsibility is put upon the individual just as greater

practical freedom is secured to him. For (a) the individual may set the

meaning of a custom _against_ its present form; or (b) he may find the

meaning of some custom much more commanding in value than that of

others, and yet find that its realization is hindered by the existence

of these other customs of less moral importance. On the basis of such

discrimination, the abolition or, at least, the modification of certain

social habits is demanded. So far as this sort of situation frequently

recurs, the individual (c) becomes more or less vaguely aware that he

_must not accept the current standard_ as justification of his own

conduct, unless _it also_ justify itself to his own moral intelligence.

The fact that it exists gives it indeed a certain _prima facie_ claim,

but no ultimate moral warrant. Perhaps the custom is itself wrong--and

the individual is responsible for bearing this possibility in mind.

=Consequent Transformation of Custom.=--Of course the plane of customary

morality still persists; no wholesale divergence of reflective from

customary morality exists. Practically, for example, many business men

do not bother themselves about the morality of certain ways of doing

business. Such and such is the custom of the trade, and if a man is

going to do business at all he must follow its customs--or get out. Law,

medicine, the ministry, journalism, family life, present, in

considerable extent, the same phenomenon. Customary morality persists,

almost as the core of present morality. But there is still a difference.

A few, at least, are actively engaged in a moral criticism of the

custom, in a demand for its transformation; and almost everybody is

sufficiently affected by the discussions and agitations thus called out

to have some lingering and uneasy idea of responsibility for his part in

the maintenance of a questionable custom. The duty of some exercise of

discriminating intelligence as to existing customs for the sake of

improvement and progress, is thus a mark of reflective morality--of the

regime of conscience as over against custom. In the morally more

advanced members of contemporary society, the need of fostering a habit

of examination and judgment, of keeping the mind open, sensitive, to the

defects and the excellences of the existing social order is recognized

as obligation. To reflect on one's own behavior in relation to the

existing order is a standing habit of mind.

=Deepening of Meaning.=--While the materials and conceptions of more

conscious morality are provided by the earlier stages, and taken from

other spheres of life, we find that these conceptions naturally undergo

a deepening of meaning when they are used to express the more intimate

and personal attitude. Take, for example, the conceptions borrowed from

the jural sphere. It is in the school of government and courts that man

has learned to talk and think of right and law, of responsibility and

justice. To make these moral instead of jural terms, the first thing

that is needed is that we make the whole process an inward one. The

person must himself set up a standard, recognize it as "law," judge his

conduct by it, hold himself responsible to himself, and seek to do

justice. It takes several persons to carry on these processes in the

realm of government. Legislators, judges, jury, executive officers, all

represent the State, organized society. That a single person can be

himself lawgiver, judge, and jury, as well as claimant or defendant,

shows that he is himself a complex being. He is a being of passions,

appetites, and individual interests, but he is also a being who has a

rational and social nature. As a member of society he not only feels his

individual interest but recognizes social interests. As a rational

being he not only feels the thrill of passion but responds to the

authority of a law and obeys the voice of duty. Like a member of a

democratic State he finds himself in the sphere of conduct, not only a

subject but a sovereign, and feels the dignity of a _person_. A

conscientious person is in so far one who has made the law of God or man

an inward law of life--a "moral law." But the act of making the process

inward makes possible a deepening of meaning. Governments and courts are

necessarily limited in purview and fallible in decisions. They are

sometimes too lenient, sometimes too severe. Conscience implies a

knowledge of the whole act--purpose, motive, and deed. Its authority

makes claim for absolute obedience. The laws of the State are felt to be

binding just because they are believed to be, on the whole, right and

just as measured by this moral court of appeal. When they conflict, the

power may be with the political sovereign, but the man whose conscience

is clear believes that he follows a "higher law." Much of the great

literature of the world draws its interest from its portrayal of this

fundamental fact of human experience. "Two things fill the mind with

ever new and increasing admiration and awe, the oftener and the more

steadily we reflect on them: the starry heavens above and the moral law

within."

The conceptions taken from the economic sphere show similar deepening.

In the economic world things are good or have value if people want them.

It is in the experience of satisfying wants that man has learned the

language of "good and evil," and to compare one good with another; it is

doubtless by the progress of science and the arts that objective

standards of more permanent, rational, and social "goods" are provided.

When this term is taken up to a higher level and given moral meaning,

two new factors appear. First the individual begins to consider his

various goods and values in relation to each other and to his life as a

whole. In the second place, in thus comparing the various goods and the

desires they satisfy, he begins to realize that in some way he is

himself more than the mere sum of his natural instincts and appetites.

He finds that he can take an interest in certain things, and is not

merely passive. He _gives_ value as well as measures it. He feels that

as such an active and organizing judge and creator of value, he himself

has a higher worth than any of the particular things that gratify

particular desires. "A man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the

things that he possesseth." "The life is more than meat." Or, to use the

phrase which will be explained later, moral good implies purpose,

character, "good will." In common language, it implies being, and not

merely having.

The term good where used in our judgments upon others (as in a "good"

man), may have a different history. As has been noted, it may come from

class feeling, or from the praise we give to acts as they immediately

please. It may be akin to noble or fine or admirable. All such

conceptions undergo a similar transformation as they pass from the

sphere of class or public opinion to become moral terms. As moral they

imply in the first place that we consider not merely outward acts, but

inward purpose and character. They imply in the second place that we who

judge are ourselves acting not as members of a class, not as merely

emotional beings, but as social and rational. Our moral judgments in

this sense are from a general, a universal standard; those of a class

are partial.

Sec. 3. OPPOSITION BETWEEN INDIVIDUAL AND SOCIAL AIMS AND STANDARDS

=Withdrawal from the Social Order.=--The development of reflection tends

to set up a moral opposition between the individual and society.

Sometimes "conscience" goes beyond the need of criticizing, of

discriminating, of interpreting social customs, of following their

spirit rather than their letter; it takes the form of an assertion of a

purely inner, personal morality, so distinct from the conditions of

social life that the latter are conceived to be totally lacking in

positive moral significance. The prescriptions of morality are thought

to be revealed in conscience, as a faculty of pure intuition or

revelation, receiving neither material nor warrant from social

conditions. The distinction already spoken of between the moral and the

economic, legal, or conventional, is conceived as a complete separation;

customs and institutions are external, indifferent, irrelevant, or even

hostile to the ideal and personally perceived demands of morality. Such

a conception of morality is especially likely to arise in a period when

through the clash of ways and standards of living, all customs, except

those maintained by force and authority, are disintegrating or relaxing.

Such a state existed in the early years of the Roman empire when, for

the first time in history, local boundaries were systematically

overstepped; when the empire was a seething mixture of alien and unlike

gods, beliefs, ideals, standards, practices. In the almost universal

flux and confusion, _external_ order was maintained by the crystallized

legislation and administration of Rome; but personal aims and modes of

behavior had to be ascertained by the individual thrown back upon

himself. Christian, Stoic, Epicurean, alike found the political order

wholly external to the moral, or in chronic opposition to it. There was

a withdrawal into the region of personal consciousness. In some cases

the withdrawal was pushed to the point where men felt that they could be

truly righteous only by going by themselves into the desert, to live as

hermits; or by forming separate communities of those who agreed in their

conceptions of life; mental and moral aloofness from prevailing social

standards and habitudes was preached by all.

=Individual Emancipation.=--In other cases, what takes place is a

consciousness of liberation; of assertion of personal rights and

privileges, claims for new modes of activity and new kinds of enjoyment.

The individual feels that he is his own end; that the impulses and

capacities which he finds in himself are sacred, and afford the only

genuine law for his behavior; that whatever restricts the full exercise

of these personal powers and hampers the satisfaction of personal

desires is coercive and morally abnormal. Existing social institutions

may be practically necessary, but they are morally undesirable; they are

to be used, or got around in the interests of personal gratifications.

As some feel that social conditions are hostile to the realization of

the highest moral _obligations_, so others feel that they are hostile to

the full possession of their _rights_, of that to which they are

properly entitled.

=Eventual Transformation of Social Values and Aims.=--In extreme cases,

the individual may come to believe that, either on the basis of his true

obligations or his true rights, the very principle of society is morally

indifferent or even unworthy; that the moral life is eventually or

intrinsically an individual matter, although it happens to be outwardly

led under social conditions. But in the main the opposition is not to

the social relations as such, but to existing institutions and customs

as inadequate. Then the reaction of the individual against the existing

social scheme, whether on the ground of ideals too high to be supported

by it or on the ground of personal claims to which it does not afford

free play, becomes a means to the reconstruction and transformation of

social habits. In this way, _reflective morality is a mark of a

progressive society, just as customary morality is of a stationary

society_. Reflection on values is the method of their modification.

The monastic Christian in his outward withdrawal from social life, still

maintained the conception of a perfected society, of a kingdom of God or

Heaven to be established. This ideal became to some extent the working

method for changing the existing order. The Stoics, who held in light

esteem existing community ties, had the conception of a universal

community, a cosmopolis, ruled by universal law, of which every rational

being was a member and subject. This notion became operative to some

extent in the development of judicial and administrative systems much

more generalized and equitable than the purely local customs, laws, and

standards which it swept away. The Epicurean had the ideal of friendship

on the basis of which were formed groups of congenial associates held

together neither by legal ties, nor by universal laws of reason, nor by

unity of religious aspiration and belief, but by friendship and

companionable intercourse. Thus were afforded other centers of social

reconstruction.

Sec. 4. EFFECTS UPON THE INDIVIDUAL CHARACTER

=General Effects.=--The characteristic differences which have been

pointed out in the preceding section, when taken together with the

specific conditions of change--liberty of action and thought, incentives

to private acquisition, facilities for power and pleasure--enable us to

understand the contrasts referred to at the opening of the chapter. We

have, on the one hand, the inbred craving for power, for acquisition,

for excitement, for gratification of sense and appetite, enhanced by

what it feeds on. We have, on the other hand, the progressive

differentiation of the moral, tearing the individual loose from the

bonds of the external moral order and forcing him to stand on his own

feet--or fall. Note how each of the points brought out in the preceding

section operates.

(1) To separate out the moral as a distinct element from certain spheres

of life, allows the less seriously minded and the less sympathetic

individuals to live complacently a trivial or unscrupulous life.

Fashion, "social duties," amusements, "culture" emptied of all earnest

meaning, "business" and "politics" divorced from any humane or public

considerations, may be regarded as justifiable vocations. A "gentleman"

who no longer has the occupation of his fighting predecessors as an

excuse for a distinct type of life, may find the support of a large

leisure class in declining any useful service to the community and

devoting himself to "sport"; a "lady" may be so engaged by the

multifarious demands of "society" as never to notice what an utterly

worthless round she follows.

(2) The fact that the morality of conscience requires reflection,

progress, and a deeper meaning for its conception, makes it obvious why

many fail to grasp any moral meaning at all. They fail to put forth the

effort, or to break with habit. Under customary morality it was enough

to "observe" and to continue in the mores. It requires a higher degree

of insight and a greater initiative to get any moral attitude at all

when the forms have become mere forms and the habits mere habits. Hence

when a change in personal environment or in general social and economic

conditions comes, many fail to see the principles involved. They remain

completely satisfied with the "old-fashioned virtues" or intrench

themselves in the "righteousness" and "honesty" of a past generation.

This habitual and "painless" morality will often mean a "virtue" or

"righteousness" which involves no conflict with present conditions. A

man who feels honest because he does not break contracts or defraud in

old-fashioned ways, may be quite at ease about watering stock or

adulterating goods. A society which abhors murder with iron and

explosives in the form of daggers and bombs, may feel quite unconcerned

about the preventable homicides by iron machinery, or by explosives used

in coal mines.

(3) The conflict with society which reflective morality requires, works

to thrust some below the general level, while it raises others above it.

To criticize the general moral order may make a man a prophet, but it

may also make him a Pharisee. Practical reaction may make reformers, but

it is likely to make another set of men dissolute; to make them feel

superior to the morality of "Philistines" and therefore exempt from

social restraints.

=Vices Incident to Reflective Stage.=--The vices increase with

civilization, partly because of increased opportunity, partly because of

increased looseness in social restraint. There is a further element.

When any activity of man is cut off from its original and natural

relations and made the object of special attention and pursuit, the

whole adjustment is thrown out of balance. What was before a useful

function becomes pathological. The craving for excitement or stimulation

is normal within certain limits. In the chase or the battle, in the

venture of the explorer or the merchant, it functions as a healthy

incentive. When isolated as an end in itself, taken out of the objective

social situation, it becomes the spring of gambling or drunkenness. The

instincts and emotions of sex, possessing power and interest

necessitated by their place in the continuance of the race, become when

isolated the spring of passion or of obscenity or lubricity. Avarice and

gluttony illustrate the same law. The gladiatorial shows at Rome became

base and cowardly when the Romans were themselves no longer

fighters.[102] Even the aspiration for what is higher and better may

become an "otherworldliness" which leaves this world to its misery and

evil. Such a series of pictures as Balzac has given in his _Comedie

Humaine_, shows better than any labored description the possibilities of

modern civilization.

There is, moreover, in civilized society a further most demoralizing

agency unknown to earlier life. As the vices are specialized and pursued

they become economic and political interests. Vast capital is invested

in the business of ministering to the vicious appetites. It is

pecuniarily desirable that these appetites should be stimulated as

greatly as possible. It makes "business." The tribute levied by public

officials upon the illegal pursuits forms a vast fund for carrying

elections. The multitude engaged in the traffic or dependent upon it for

favors, can be relied upon to cast their votes as a unit for men who

will guarantee protection.

=Relations to Fellow Men.=--The motives and occasions for selfishness

and injustice have been indicated sufficiently perhaps in preceding

chapters. As the general process of increasing individuality and

reflection goes on, it is an increasingly easy matter to be indifferent

or even unjust. When all lead a common life it is easy to enter into the

situation of another, to appreciate his motives, his needs, and in

general to "put yourself in his place." The external nature of the

conduct makes it easy to hold all to a common standard. The game must be

shared; the property--so far as there is property--respected; the

religious rites observed. But when standards becomes more inward the

more intelligent or rigorous may find sympathy less easy. When they

attempt to be "charitable" they may easily become condescending. The

pure will not soil their skirts by contact with the fallen. The

"high-minded citizen" refuses to mix in politics. The scholar thinks the

business man materialistic. The man of breeding, wealth, and education

finds the uneducated laborer lacking in courtesy and refinement and

argues that it is useless to waste sympathy upon the "masses." The class

terms which have become moral terms are illustrations of this attitude.

Finally, the moral process of building up freedom and right easily leads

to a disposition to stand on rights and let other persons look out for

themselves. Kant's doctrine, that since all morality is personal I can

do nothing to promote my neighbor's perfection, is a _laissez faire_ in

ethics which he did not carry out, but it is a not unnatural corollary

of reflective morality. "Am I my brother's keeper?" is much more likely

to be the language of reflective, than of customary and group life.

=Reconstructive Forces.=--We have dwelt at length upon the

disintegrating forces, not because civilization necessarily grows worse,

but because, having pointed out in earlier chapters the positive

advances, it becomes necessary to allude also to the other aspect of the

process. Otherwise it might appear that there is no problem. If the

evolution were supposed to be all in one direction there would be no

seriousness in life. It is only in the pressure of constantly new

difficulties and evils that moral character adds new fiber, and moral

progress emerges. Individualism, self-seeking, and desire for property

force the establishment of governments and courts which protect poor as

well as rich. Luxury and ostentation have not only called out the

asceticism which renounces the world and sees in all gratification of

appetite an evil; they have brought into the fore the serious meaning of

life; they have served to emphasize the demand for social justice. The

countless voluntary associations for the relief of sickness, misfortune,

and poverty; for aiding the defective, dependent, and criminal; for

promoting numberless good causes--enlist a multitude in friendly

co-operation. The rising demand for legislation to embody the new

sentiments of justice is part of the process of reconstruction. And now

when all the arts and goods of civilization are becoming more and more

fully the work, not of any individual's labor or skill, but rather of

the combined labor and intelligence of many, when life in cities is

necessitating greater interdependence, finally when contrasts in

conditions are brought more forcibly to notice by the very progress of

knowledge and the means of knowledge,--the more thoroughly social use of

all that civilization produces becomes more insistent and compelling. It

is not a matter of sentiment but of necessity. If any one is disposed to

deny the claim, it becomes increasingly certain that Carlyle's Irish

widow will prove her sisterhood by infecting the denier with fever;[103]

that the ignorant, or criminal, or miserable will jeopardize his

happiness.

Sec. 5. MORAL DIFFERENTIATION AND THE SOCIAL ORDER

Two processes went on side by side in the movement we have traced. (1)

The primitive group, which was at once a kinship or family, an economic,

a political, a religious, an educational, and a moral unit, was broken

down and replaced by several distinct institutions, each with its own

special character. (2) The moral, which was so largely unreflective that

it could be embodied in every custom and observance, became more

personal and subjective. The result of this was either that the moral

was now more consciously and voluntarily _put into_ the social

relations, thereby raising them all to a higher moral level, or that,

failing such a leavening of the distinct spheres of the social order,

the latter were emptied of moral value and lost moral restraints. We

notice very briefly certain illustrations of this, leaving a fuller

treatment for Part III.

=The Family.=--When the family was largely determined by status, when it

was an economic, a political, and a religious unit, it had a strong

support. But the support was largely external to the true purpose and

meaning of the family. Only as these other elements were separated, and

the family placed on a voluntary basis, could its true significance

emerge. Affection and mutual supplementation of husband and wife, love

and devotion to offspring, must stand the strains formerly distributed

over several ties. The best types of family life which have resulted

from this more moral basis are unquestionably far superior to the older

form. At the same time the difficulties and perversion or subversion of

the more voluntary type are manifest. When no personal attachment was

sought or professed, or when marriage by purchase was the approved

custom, the marriage contracted under these conditions might have all

the value which the general state of intelligence and civilization

allowed. When the essential feature which hallows the union has come to

be recognized as a union of will and affection, then marriage without

these, however "solemnized," almost inevitably means moral degradation.

And if the consent of the parties is regarded as the basis of the tie,

then it is difficult to make sure that this "consent" has within it

enough of steadfast, well-considered purpose and of emotional depth to

take the place of all the older sanctions and to secure permanent

unions. The more complete responsibility for the children which has been

gained by the separation of the family, has also proved susceptible of

abuse as well as of service. For while savages have often practiced

infanticide for economic reasons, it is doubtful if any savage family

ever equaled the more refined selfishness and cruelty of the child

labor which modern families have furnished and modern society has

permitted.

=The Economic and Industrial.=--The economic lost powerful restraints

when it became a separate activity divorced from family, religious, and,

in the view of some, from moral considerations. It has worked out

certain important moral necessities of its own. Honesty, the keeping of

contracts, the steadiness and continuity of character fostered by

economic relations, are important contributions. Modern business, for

example, is the most effective agency in securing sobriety. It is far

more efficient than "temperance societies." Other values of the economic

and industrial process--the increase of production, the interchange of

services and goods, the new means of happiness afforded by the increase

of wealth--are obvious. On the other hand, the honesty required by

business is a most technical and peculiarly limited sort. It does not

interfere with adulteration of goods under certain conditions, nor with

corrupt bargains with public officials. The measurement of values on a

purely pecuniary basis tends to release a large sphere of activity from

any moral restraints. The maxim "Business is business" may be made the

sanction for any kind of conduct not excluded by commercial standards.

Unless there is a constant injection of moral valuation and control,

there is a tendency to subvert all other ends and standards to the

purely economic.

=Law and Government.=--To remove these functions from the kinship group

as such, is at once to bring the important principles of authority and

duty, and gradually of rights and freedom, to consciousness. Only by

such separation could the universality and impartiality of law be

established. And only by universality can the judgment of the society as

a whole be guaranteed its execution as over against the variations in

intelligence and right purpose of individual rulers and judges.

Moreover, the separation of law from morality has likewise its gain or

loss. On the one hand, to separate off a definite sphere of external

acts to which alone physical constraints or penalties may attach, is at

once to free a great sphere of inner thought and purpose and to enable

purely psychical values and restraints to attain far greater power in

conduct. Liberty of thought and religious belief, sincerity and thorough

responsibility, require such a separation. It is also to make possible a

general law which rises above the conscience of the lower even if it

does not always reach the level of the most enlightened and just. To

make a command a "universal law" is itself a steadying and elevating

influence, and it is only by a measure of abstraction from the

individual, inner aspect of conduct that this can be achieved. On the

other hand, the not infrequent contrast between law and justice, the

substitution of technicality for substantials, the conservatism which

made Voltaire characterize lawyers as the "conservators of ancient

barbarous usages," above all the success with which law has been used to

sanction or even facilitate nearly every form of oppression, extortion,

class advantage, or even judicial murder, is a constant attestation of

the twofold possibilities inherent in all institutions. Government in

other functions exhibits similar possibilities. At first it was tyranny

against which the subject had to defend himself. Now it is rather the

use of political machinery for private gain. "Eternal vigilance" is the

price not only of freedom, but of every moral value.

=The Religious Life.=--When freed from interdependence with kinship,

economic, and political association, religion has an opportunity to

become more personal and more universal. When a man's religious attitude

is not fixed by birth, when worship is not so closely bound up with

economic interests, when there is not only religious "toleration," but

religious liberty, the significance of religion as a personal, spiritual

relation comes to view. The kinship tie is sublimated into a conception

of divine fatherhood. It becomes credible that Job does serve God "for

naught." Faith and purity of heart are not secured by magistrates or

laws.

And the universality of religion is no less a gain. So far as religion

was of the group it tended to emphasize the boundary between Jew and

Gentile, Greek and Barbarian, between the "we-group" and the

"others-group." But when this group religion gave place to a more

universal religion, the kingdom of Israel could give place to the

kingdom of God; brotherhood could transcend family or national lines. In

the fierce struggles of the Middle Ages the church was a powerful agency

for restraining the powerful and softening the feuds of hostile clans

and peoples. The "peace of God" was not only a symbol of a far-off

ideal, but an actual relief. The universality might indeed be sought by

force in a crusade of Christian against Moslem, or in the horror of a

thirty years' war between Catholic and Protestant. But as the conception

of religion as a spiritual relation becomes clearer, the tendency must

inevitably be to disclose religion as essentially a unifying rather than

a divisive and discordant force. If any religion becomes universal it

will be because of its universal appeal. And so far as it does make

universal appeal, like science, like art, it invites its followers.

The differentiation of the moral from the religious is often difficult

to trace. For the religious has often been the agency through which

certain of the characteristics of the moral have been brought about. The

inward and voluntary aspect of the moral, as compared with the verdicts

of law or public opinion, has been emphasized. But this is often

developed by the religious conceptions of an all-seeing God, an all-wise

judge. "Man looketh on the outer appearance, but the Lord looketh upon

the heart" has its literary parallels in Xenophon and Plato and

Shakspere. The distinction between higher and lower values has received

its most impressive symbol in the conception of "another world," in

which there is neither pain nor sin, but eternal blessedness and eternal

life. Ideals of character, when embodied in divine persons, command

love, reverence, and devotion in supreme degree. A society in which love

and justice are the law of life has seemed more possible, more potent to

inspire sacrifice and enthusiasm, when envisaged as the Kingdom of God.

But in all these illustrations we have, not the religious as distinct

from the moral, but the religious as modified by the moral and embodying

the moral in concrete examples and imagery. We can see the two possible

types of development, however, in the concrete instances of the Hebrews

and the Greeks. In Israel religion was able to take up the moral ideals

and become itself more completely ethical. The prophets of religion were

at the same time the moral reformers. But in Greece, in spite of the

efforts of some of the great poets, the religious conceptions for the

most part remained set and hence became superstition, or emotional orgy,

or ecstasy, while the moral found a distinct path of its own. Religion

at present is confronting the problem of whether it will be able to take

up into itself the newer ethical values--the scientific spirit which

seeks truth, the enhanced value of human worth which demands higher

types of social justice.

* * * * *

A brief characterization of the respective standpoints of religion and

morality may be added, as they both aim to control and give value to

human conduct. The religious has always implied some relation of man's

life to unseen powers or to the cosmos. The relation may be the social

relation of kin or friend or companion, the political of subject to a

sovereign, the cosmic relation of dependence, or that of seeking in the

divine completer meaning or more perfect fulfillment for what is

fragmentary and imperfect. In its aspect of "faith" it holds all these

ideals of power, wisdom, goodness, justice, to be real and effective.

The moral, on the other hand, concerns itself, not with unseen beings or

cosmic reality, but with human purposes and the relations of a man to

his fellows. For religion, conscience may be the "voice of God"; for

morality, it must be stated in terms of thought and feeling. The "moral

law" must be viewed as a law which is capable of being approved, at

least--and this implies that it may also be criticized--by the mind. The

difference which religion states as a choice between "God and mammon,"

between heaven and earth, morality must state in terms of good and evil,

right and wrong, ideal interests and natural appetites. Instead of

regarding its standards as laws established once for all by a divine

authority, morality seeks to reach _principles_. Instead of embodying

its ideals in persons, the moral seeks to reshape them continually. It

is for religion to hold that "God reigns," and therefore "All's right

with the world." The moral as such must be continually overcoming evil,

continually working out ideals into conduct, and changing the natural

order into a more rational and social order.

FOOTNOTES:

[96] Grote, _Plato and the Other Companions of Sokrates_, Vol. I., p.

249.

[97] Nearly every railway journey or other occasion for observing family

discipline discloses the prevalence of this agency of savage morality.

"If you are not quiet I'll give you to the conductor," "the black man

will get you," "Santa Claus will not give presents to naughty children."

That persons who in many respects are kindly and decent should aim to

cultivate morality by a system of deliberate lying and more or less

brutal cruelty is one of the interesting phenomena of education. The

savages who used taboos believed what they said.

[98] Sumner, _Folkways_, p. 36.

[99] Plato's wording is given on p. 132.

[100] "Recognition" has the same double sense. So has "acknowledgment,"

with greater emphasis upon rendering allegiance in action.

[101] Logically, this means that intelligence works conceptually, not

perceptually alone.

[102] Sumner, _Folkways_, p. 570.

[103] "One of Dr. Alison's Scotch facts struck us much. A poor Irish

Widow, her husband having died in one of the Lanes of Edinburgh, went

forth with her three children, bare of all resources, to solicit help

from the Charitable Establishments of that City. At this Charitable

Establishment and then at that she was refused; referred from one to the

other, helped by none; till she had exhausted them all; till her

strength and heart failed her; she sank down in typhus-fever; died, and

infected her Lane with fever, so that 'seventeen other persons' died of

fever there in consequence.... The forlorn Irish Widow applies to her

fellow creatures, as if saying, 'Behold I am sinking, bare of help; ye

must help me! I am your sister, bone of your bone; one God made us; ye

must help me.' They answer, 'No, impossible; thou art no sister of

ours.' But she proves her sisterhood; her typhus fever kills _them_:"

(_Past and Present_, Book III., ch. ii.)

* * * * *

PART II

THEORY OF THE MORAL LIFE

GENERAL LITERATURE FOR PART II

Among the works which have had the most influence upon the development

of the theory of morals are: Plato, dialogues entitled _Republic, Laws_,

_Protagoras_ and _Gorgias_; Aristotle, _Ethics_; Cicero, _De Finibus_

and _De Officiis_; Marcus Aurelius, _Meditations_; Epictetus,

_Conversations_; Lucretius, _De Rerum Natura_; St. Thomas Aquinas

(selected and translated by Rickaby under title of _Aquinas Ethicus_);

Hobbes, _Leviathan_; Spinoza, _Ethics_; Shaftesbury, _Characteristics_,

and _Inquiry concerning Virtue_; Hutcheson, _System of Moral

Philosophy_; Butler, _Sermons_; Hume, _Essays, Principles of Morals_;

Adam Smith, _Theory of Moral Sentiments_; Bentham, _Principles of Morals

and Legislation_; Kant, _Critique of Practical Reason_, and _Foundations

of the Metaphysics of Ethics_; Comte, Social Physics (in his _Course of

Positive Philosophy_); Mill, _Utilitarianism_; Spencer, _Principles of

Ethics_; Green, _Prolegomena to Ethics_; Sidgwick, _Methods of Ethics_;

Selby-Bigge, _British Moralists_, 2 vols. (a convenient collection of

selections). For contemporary treatises, and histories consult the

literature referred to in ch. i. of Part I.

CHAPTER X

THE MORAL SITUATION

=Object of Part Two and of Present Chapter.=--From the history of

morals, we turn to the theoretical analysis of reflective morality. We

are concerned to discover (1) just what in conduct it is that we judge

good and evil, right and wrong (conduct being a complicated thing); (2)

what we mean by good and evil, right and wrong; (3) on what basis we

apply these conceptions to their appropriate objects in conduct. But

before we attempt these questions, we must detect and identify the

_moral situation_, the situation in which considerations of good and

evil, right and wrong, present themselves and are employed. For some

situations we employ the ideas of true and false; of beautiful and ugly;

of skilful and awkward; of economical and wasteful, etc. We may indeed

apply the terms right and wrong to these same situations; but if so, it

is to them in some other light. What then are the differentiating

traits, the special earmarks, presented by the situation which we

identify as distinctively moral? For we use the term moral in a broad

sense to designate that which is either moral or immoral: i.e., right or

wrong in the narrower sense. It is the moral situation in the broad

sense as distinct from the non-moral, not from the immoral, that we are

now concerned with.

=The Moral Situation Involves Voluntary Activity.=--It will be admitted

on all hands that the moral situation is one which, whatever else it may

or may not be, involves a voluntary factor. Some of the chief traits of

voluntary activity we have already become acquainted with, as in the

account by Aristotle, already noted (_ante_, p. 12). The agent must know

what he is about; he must have some idea of what he is doing; he must

not be a somnambulist, or an imbecile, or insane, or an infant so

immature as to have no idea of what he is doing. He must also have some

wish, some desire, some preference in the matter. A man overpowered by

superior force might be physically compelled by some ingenious device to

shoot a gun at another, knowing what he was doing, but his act would not

be voluntary because he had no choice in the matter, or rather because

his preference was not to do the act which he is aware he is doing. But

if he is ordered to kill another and told if he does not he will himself

be killed, he has _some_ will in the matter. He may do the deed, not

because he likes it or wishes it in itself, but because he wishes to

save his own life. The attendant circumstances may affect our judgment

of the kind and degree of morality attaching to the act; but they do not

take it entirely out of the moral sphere.[104] Aristotle says the act

must also be the expression of a disposition (a habit or [Greek:

hexis]), a more or less settled tendency on the part of the person. It

must bear some relation to his character. Character is not, we may say,

a third factor, It is making clear what is implied in deliberation and

wish. There may be little deliberation in a child's act and little in an

adult's, and yet we may regard the latter as much more voluntary than

the child's. With the child, the thought is superficial and casual,

because of the restricted stage of organization or growth reached (see

p. 10): his act flows from organic instinct or from accidental

circumstances--whim, caprice, and chance suggestion, or fancy. The

adult's act may flow from habitual tendencies and be accompanied by an

equally small amount of conscious reflection. But the tendencies

themselves are the outcome of prior deliberations and choices which have

finally got funded into more or less automatic habits. The child's act

is to a slight extent the expression of character; the adult's to a

large extent. In short, we mean by character whatever lies behind an act

in the way of deliberation and desire, whether these processes be

near-by or remote.

=Not Everything Voluntary is Morally Judged.=--A voluntary act may then

be defined as one _which manifests character_, the test of its presence

being the presence of desire and deliberation; these sometimes being

present directly and immediately, sometimes indirectly and remotely

through their effects upon the agent's standing habits. But we do not

judge all voluntary activity from the moral standpoint. Some acts we

judge from the standpoint of skill or awkwardness; others as amusing or

boring; others as stupid or highly intelligent, and so on. We do not

bring to bear the conceptions of right and wrong. And on the other hand,

there are many things called good and bad which are not voluntary. Since

what we are in search of must lie somewhere between these two limits, we

may begin with cases of the latter sort.

_(1) Not Everything Judged Good or Right is Moral._--We speak, for

example, of an ill-wind; of a good engine; of a watch being wrong; or of

a screw being set right. We speak of good and bad bread, money, or soil.

That is, from the standpoint of value, we judge things as _means_ to

certain results in themselves desirable or undesirable. A "good" machine

does efficiently the work for which it is designed; "bad" money does not

subserve the ends which money is meant to promote; the watch that is

wrong comes short of telling us time correctly. We have to use the

notion of value and of contribution to value; that is a positive

factor. But this contribution to valuable result is not, in inanimate

objects, something meant or intended by the things themselves. If we

thought the ill-wind had an idea of its own destructive effect and took

pleasure in that idea, we should attribute moral quality to it--just as

men did in early times, and so tried to influence its behavior in order

to make it "good." Among things that promote favorable or unfavorable

results a line is drawn between those which just do so as matter of

fact, and those in which meaning so to do, or intention, plays a part.

=(2) Good in Animal Conduct.=--Let us now consider the case of good and

bad animal conduct. We speak of a good watch-dog; of a bad saddle-horse,

and the like. Moreover, we _train_ the dog and the horse to the right or

desired kind of action. We make, we repair the watch; but we do not

_train_ it. Training involves a new factor: enlistment of the animal's

tendencies; of its own conscious attitudes and reactions. We pet, we

reward by feeding, we punish and threaten. By these means we induce

animals to exercise in ways that form the habits we want. We modify the

animal's behavior by modifying its own impulses. But we do not give

moral significance to the good and bad, for we are still thinking of

means to ends. We do not suppose that we have succeeded in supplying the

hunting dog, for example, with _ideas_ that certain results are more

excellent than others, so that henceforth he acts on the basis of his

own discrimination of the less and the more valuable. We just induce

certain habits by managing to make certain ways of acting _feel_ more

agreeable than do others. Thus James says: "Whether the dog has the

notion of your being angry or of your property being valuable in any

such abstract way as _we_ have these notions, is more than doubtful. The

conduct is more likely an impulsive result of a conspiracy of outward

stimuli; the beast _feels like_ acting so when these stimuli are

present, though conscious of no definite reason why"[105]

(_Psychology_, Vol. II., p. 350, note). Or putting it the other way: if

the dog has an idea of the results of guarding the house, and is

controlled in what he does by loyalty to this idea, by the satisfaction

which he takes in it, then in calling the dog good we mean that in being

good for a certain result, he is also morally good.

=(3) Non-moral Human Acts.=--There are also acts evoked by an idea of

value in the results to be reached, which are not judged as coming

within the moral sphere. "Conduct is three-fourths of life," but in some

sense it is more: it is four-fourths. All conscious human life is

concerned with ends, and with selecting, arranging, and employing the

means, intellectual, emotional, and practical, involved in these ends.

This makes _conduct_. But it does not follow that all conduct has

_moral_ import. "As currently conceived, stirring the fire, reading a

newspaper, or eating a meal, are acts with which morality has no

concern. Opening the window to air the room, putting on an overcoat when

the weather is cold, are thought of as having no ethical significance.

These, however, are all portions of conduct" (Spencer, _Principles of

Ethics_, Vol. I., p. 5). They all involve the idea of some result worth

reaching, and the putting forth of energy to reach the result--of

intelligently selected and adapted means. But this may leave the act

morally indifferent--innocent.

=Introduction of Moral Factor.=--A further quotation from Spencer may

introduce discussion of the needed moral qualification:

"As already said, a large part of the ordinary conduct is

indifferent. Shall I walk to the water fall today? or, shall I

ramble along the sea shore? Here the ends are ethically

indifferent. If I go to the water fall, shall I go over the moor

or take the path through the wood? Here the means are ethically

indifferent.... But if a friend who is with me has explored the

sea shore, but has not seen the water fall, the choice of one or

other end is no longer ethically indifferent. Again, if a probable

result of making the one excursion rather than the other, is that

I shall not be back in time to keep an appointment, or if taking

the longer route entails this risk while the shorter does not, the

decision in favor of one end or means acquires in another way an

ethical character" (Spencer, _Principles of Ethics_, pp. 5-6).

This illustration suggests two differing types of conduct; two differing

ways in which activity is induced and guided by ideas of valuable

results. In one case the end presents itself directly as desirable, and

the question is only as to the steps or means of achieving this end.

Here we have conduct which, although excited and directed by

considerations of value, is still morally indifferent. Such is the

condition of things _wherever one end is taken for granted by itself

without any consideration of its relationship to other ends_. It is then

a technical rather than a moral affair. It is a question of taste and of

skill--of personal preference and of practical wisdom, or of economy,

expediency. There are many different roads to most results, and the

selection of this path rather than that, on the assumption that either

path actually leads to the end, is an intellectual, aesthetic, or

executive, rather than an ethical matter. I may happen to prefer a

marine view to that of the uplands--that is an aesthetic interest. I may

wish to utilize the time of the walk for thinking, and may find the moor

path less distracting; here is a matter of intellectual economy. Or I

may conclude that I shall best get the exercise I want by going to the

water fall. Here it is a question of "prudence," of expediency, or

practical wisdom. Let any one of the ends, aesthetic, intellectual,

hygienic, stand alone and it is a fit and proper consideration. The

moral issue does not arise. Or the various ends may be regarded as means

to a further unquestioned end--say a walk with the maximum of combined

aesthetic interest and physical exercise.

=(4) Criterion for Moral Factor.=--But let the value of one proposed end

be felt to be really incompatible with that of another, let it be felt

to be so opposed as to appeal to a different kind of interest and

choice, in other words, to different kinds of disposition and agency,

and we have a moral situation. This is what occurs when one way of

traveling means self-indulgence; another, kindliness or keeping an

engagement. There is no longer one end, nor two ends so homogeneous that

they may be reconciled by both being used as means to some more general

end of undisputed worth. We have alternative ends so heterogeneous that

choice has to be made; an end has to be developed out of conflict. The

problem now becomes what _is_ really valuable. It is the _nature_ of the

valuable, of the desirable, that the individual has to pass upon.[106]

Suppose a person has unhesitatingly accepted an end, has acquiesced in

some suggested purpose. Then, starting to realize it, he finds the

affair not so simple. He is led to review the matter and to consider

what really constitutes worth for him. The process of attainment calls

for toil which is disagreeable, and imposes restraints and abandonments

of accustomed enjoyments. An Indian boy, for example, thinks it

desirable to be a good rider, a skilful shot, a sagacious scout. Then he

"naturally," as we say, disposes of his time and energy so as to realize

his purpose. But in trying to become a "brave," he finds that he has to

submit to deprivation and hardship, to forego other enjoyments and

undergo arduous toil. He finds that the end does not mean in actual

realization what it meant in original contemplation--something that

often happens, for, as Goldsmith said: "In the first place, we cook the

dish to our own appetite; in the latter, nature cooks it for us."

This change in apparent worth raises a new question: Is the aim first

set up of the value it seemed to be? Is it, after all, so important, so

desirable? Are not other results, playing with other boys, convivial

companionship, which are reached more easily and pleasantly, really more

valuable? The labors and pains connected with the means employed to

reach an end, have thrown another and incompatible end into

consciousness. The individual no longer "naturally," but "morally,"

follows the selected end, whichever of the two it be, because it has

been chosen after conscious valuation of competing aims.

Such competitions of values for the position of control of action are

inevitable accompaniments of individual conduct, whether in civilized or

in tribal life. A child, for example, finds that the fulfillment of an

appetite of hunger is not only possible, but that it is desirable--that

fulfillment brings, or is, satisfaction, not mere satiety. Later

on, moved by the idea of this sort of value, he snatches at food.

Then he is made aware of other sorts of values involved in the act

performed--values incompatible with just the value at which he aimed. He

brings down upon himself social disapproval and reproach. He is termed

rude, unmannerly, greedy, selfish. He acted in accordance with an

unhesitatingly accepted idea of value. But while reaching one result he

accomplished also certain other results which he did not intend, results

in the way of being thought ill of, results which are disagreeable:

_negative values_. He is taught to raise the question of what, after

all, in such cases is the _really_ desirable or valuable. Before he is

free to deliberate upon means, he has to form an estimate of the

relative worth of various possible ends, and to be willing to forego

one and select the other. The chapters on Hebrew and Greek moral

development have shown this same process at work in the life of a

people.

=Summary and Definition.=--If we sum up the three classes of instances

thus far considered, we get the following defining traits of a moral

situation, that is, of one which is an appropriate subject of

determinations of right and wrong: Moral experience is (1) a matter of

_conduct_, _behavior_; that is, of activities which are called out by

_ideas of the worth, the desirability of results_. This evocation by an

_idea_ discriminates it from the so-called behavior of a pump, where

there is no recognition of results; and from conduct attributed to the

lower animals, where there are probably feelings and even dim imagery,

but hardly ideas of the comparative desirability or value of various

ends. Moral experience is (2) that kind of conduct in which there are

ends so discrepant, so incompatible, as to require selection of one and

rejection of the other. This perception of, and selection from,

incompatible alternatives, discriminates moral experience from those

cases of conduct which are called out and directed by ideas of value,

but which do not necessitate passing upon the _real worth_, as we say,

of the value selected. It is incompatibility of ends which necessitates

consideration of the true worth of a given end; and such consideration

it is which brings the experience into the moral sphere. Conduct as

moral may thus be defined as _activity called forth and directed by

ideas of value or worth, where the values concerned are so mutually

incompatible as to require consideration and selection before an overt

action is entered upon_.

=End Finally at Issue.=--Many questions about ends are in reality

questions about means: the artist considers whether he will paint a

landscape or a figure; this or that landscape, and so on. The general

character of the end is unchanged: it is to paint. But let this end

persist and be felt as desirable, as valuable; let at the same time an

alternative end presents itself as also desirable (say keeping an

engagement), so that the individual does not find any way of adjusting

and arranging them into a common scheme (like doing first one and then

the other), and the person has a moral problem on his hands. Which shall

he decide for, and why? The appeal is to himself; what does _he_ really

think the desirable end? What makes the supreme appeal to him? What sort

of an agent, of a person, shall he be? This is the question finally at

stake in any genuinely moral situation: What shall the agent _be_? What

sort of a character shall he assume? On its face, the question is what

he shall _do_, shall he act for this or that end. But the

incompatibility of the ends forces the issue back into the question of

the kinds of selfhood, of agency, involved in the respective ends. The

distinctively moral situation is then one in which elements of value and

control are bound up with the processes of deliberation and desire; and

are bound up in a peculiar way: _viz._, they decide what kind of a

character shall control further desires and deliberations. When ends are

genuinely incompatible, no common denominator can be found except by

deciding what sort of character is most highly prized and shall be given

supremacy.

=The Moral and Indifferent Situations.=--This criterion throws lights

upon our earlier discussion of morally indifferent acts. Persons perform

the greater bulk of their activities without any conscious reference to

considerations of right and wrong, as any one may verify for himself by

recollecting the general course of his activity on any ordinary day from

the time he arises in the morning to the time he goes to bed at night.

His deliberations and wants are mostly concerned with the ends involved

in his regular vocation and recreations. But at any time the question of

his character as concerned with what he is doing may arise for

judgment. The person may later on realize that the type or kind of

character which is to prevail in his further activity was involved in

deeds which were performed without any such thought. He _then_ judges

them morally, approving or disapproving. On the other hand, a course of

action which at the time presented a moral crisis even, may afterwards

come to be followed as a matter of course. There is then no _fixed_ line

between the morally indifferent and the morally significant. Every act

is _potential_ subject-matter of moral judgment, for it strengthens or

weakens some habit which influences whole classes of judgments.

LITERATURE

There are comparatively few distinct analyses of the moral situation,

the topic generally being treated as a running part of the theory of the

author, or in connection with an account of character or conduct (see

references at end of ch. xiii.). See, however, Mezes, _Ethics,

Descriptive and Explanatory_, ch. ii.; Martineau, _Types of Ethical

Theory_, Vol. II., pp. 17-54; Spencer, _Principles of Ethics_, Vol. I.;

_Studies in Logical Theory_, Stuart, essay on Valuation as a Logical

Process, pp. 237-241, 257-258, 273-275, 289-293; Dewey, _Logical

Conditions of a Scientific Treatment of Morality_; Mead, _Philosophical

Basis of Ethics_, International Journal of Ethics, April, 1908; Fite,

_Introductory Study of Ethics_, chs. ii., xviii., and xix.

FOOTNOTES:

[104] Aristotle illustrates by a man who throws his goods overboard in a

storm at sea. He does not wish absolutely to lose his goods, but he

prefers losing them to losing the ship or his own life: he wishes it

_under the circumstances_ and his act is so far voluntary.

[105] Of course, this is also true of a large part of human activity.

But these are also the cases in which we do not ascribe moral value; or

at least we do not except when we want to make the agent conscious of

some reason why.

[106] While we have employed Spencer's example, it should be noted that

incompatibility of ends is not the criterion of the distinctively moral

situation which Spencer himself employs.

CHAPTER XI

PROBLEMS OF MORAL THEORY

We have identified in its framework and main outlines the sort of

voluntary activity in which the problem of good and evil appears and in

which the ideas of right and wrong are employed. This task, however, is

only preliminary to theoretical analysis. For it throws no light upon

just what we mean by good and bad; just what elements of complex

voluntary behavior are termed right or wrong; or why they are so termed.

It does not even indicate what must be discovered before such questions

can be answered. It only sets forth the limits of the subject-matter

within which such questions arise and in reference to which they must be

answered. What are the distinctive problems which must be dealt with in

the course of such a discussion?

=Growth of Theory from Practical Problems.=--Of one thing we may be

sure. If inquiries are to have any substantial basis, if they are not to

be wholly up in the air, the theorist must take his departure from the

problems which men actually meet in their own conduct. He may define and

refine these; he may divide and systematize; he may abstract the

problems from their concrete contexts in individual lives; he may

classify them when he has thus detached them; but if he gets away from

them he is talking about something which his own brain has invented, not

about moral realities. On the other hand, the perplexities and

uncertainties of direct and personal behavior invite a more abstract and

systematic impersonal treatment than that which they receive in the

exigencies of their occurrence. The recognition of any end or authority

going beyond what is embodied in existing customs, involves some appeal

to thought, and moral theory makes this appeal more explicit and more

complete. If a child asks why he should tell the truth, and is answered,

"because you ought to and that is reason enough"; or, "because it will

prove profitable for you to do so"; or, "because truth-telling is a

condition of mutual communication and common aims," the answer implies a

principle which requires only to be made explicit to be full-fledged

theory. And when this principle is compared with those employed in other

cases to see if they are mutually consistent; and if not, to find a

still more fundamental reconciling principle, we have passed over the

border into ethical system.

=Types of Theoretical Problems.=--The practical problems which a

thoughtful and progressive individual must consider in his own conduct

will, then, give the clue to the genuine problems of moral theory. The

framework of one is an outline of the other. The man who does not

satisfy himself with sheer conventional conformity to the customs, the

_ethos_, of his class will find such problems as the following forced

upon his attention:--(1) He must consider the _meaning_ of habits which

have been formed more or less unreflectively--by imitation, suggestion,

and inculcation from others--and he must consider the meaning of those

customs about him to which he is invited to conform till they have

become personal habits. This problem of discovering the meaning of these

habits and customs is the problem of stating what, after all, is

_really_ good, or worth while in conduct. (2) The one whose morality is

of the reflective sort will be faced by the problem of moral advance, of

progress beyond the level which has been reached by this more or less

unreflective taking on of the habits and ideas of those about him,

progress up to the level of his own reflective insight. Otherwise put,

he has to face the problem of what is to be the place and role in his

own conduct of ideals and principles generated not by custom but by

deliberation and insight. (3) The individual must consider more

consciously the relation between what is currently regarded as good by

the social groups in which he is placed and in which he has to act, and

that regarded as good by himself. The moment he ceases to accept

conformity to custom as an adequate sanction of behavior, he is met by

discrepancy between his personally conceived goods and those reigning in

the customs about him. Now while this detachment makes possible the

birth of higher and more ideal types of morality, and hence of

systematic effort for social reform and advance; it also makes possible

(as we have seen on the historical side, p. 189) a more generalized and

deliberate selfishness; a less instinctive and more intentional pursuit

of what the individual judges to be good _for himself_ against what

society exacts as good for itself. The same reflective attitude which

generates the conscientious moral reformer may generate also a more

deliberate and resolute anti-social egoism. In any case, the individual

who has acquired the habit of moral reflection, is conscious of a new

problem--the relation of public good to individual good. In short, the

individual who is thoughtfully serious and who aims to bring his habit

of reflection to bear on his conduct, will have occasion (1) to search

for the elements of good and bad, of positive and negative, value in the

situations that confront him; (2) to consider the methods and principles

by which he shall reach conclusions, and (3) to consider the relations

between himself, his own capacities and satisfactions, and the ends and

demands of the social situations in which he is placed.

=The Corresponding Problems of Theory.=--Theory will then have similar

problems to deal with. (1) What is the Good, the end in any voluntary

act? (2) How is this good known? Is it directly perceived, and if so,

how? Or is it worked out through inquiry and reflection? And if so,

how? (3) When the good is known, how is it _acknowledged_; how does it

acquire authority? What is the place of _law_, of control, in the moral

life? Why is it that some ends are attractive of themselves, while

others present themselves as _duties_, as involving subordination of

what is naturally attractive? (4) What is the place of selfhood in the

moral process? And this question assumes two forms: (a) What is the

relation of the good of the self to the good of others? (b) What is the

difference between the morally good and the morally bad in the self?

What are virtues and vices as dispositions of the self? These abstract

and formal questions will become more concrete if we consider them

briefly in the order of their development in the history of the moral

theory.

=Problem of Knowledge of Good Comes First in Theory.=--The clash and

overlapping of customs once so local as to be isolated, brought to

Athenian moral philosophers the problem of discovering the underlying

and final good to which all the conflicting values of customs might be

referred for judgment. The movement initiated by Socrates was precisely

the effort to find out what is the real good, the true end, of all the

various institutions, customs, and procedures current among men. The

explanation of conflict among men's interests, and of lack of

consistency and unity in any given person's behavior, of the division of

classes in the state, of the diverse recommendations of different

would-be moral teachers, was that they were ignorant of their own ends.

Hence the fundamental precept is "Know thyself," one's own end, one's

good and one's proper function. Different followers of Socrates gave

very different accounts of knowledge, and hence proposed very different

final aims. But they all agreed that the problem of knowing the good was

the central problem, and that if this were settled, action in accord

with good would follow of itself. Could it be imagined that man could

know his own good and yet not seek it? Ignorance of good is evil and

the source of evil; insight into the real good will clear up the

confusion and partiality which makes men pursue false ends and thus

straighten out and put in order conduct. Control would follow as a

matter of course from _knowledge_ of the end. Such control would be no

matter of coercion or external restriction, but of subordination and

organization of minor ends with reference to the final end.

=Problem of Motive Force.=[107]--The problem of attaining this knowledge

was seen to be attended, however, by peculiar obstructions and

difficulties, the growing recognition of which led to a shifting of the

problem itself. The dilemma, in brief, was this: The man who is already

good will have no difficulty in knowing the good both in general and in

the specific clothing under which it presents itself in particular

cases. But the one who does not yet know the good, does not know _how_

to know it. His ignorance, moreover, puts positive obstacles in his way,

for it leads him to delight in superficial and transitory ends. This

delight increases the hold of these ends upon the agent; and thus it

builds up an _habitual_ interest in them which renders it impossible for

the individual to get a glimpse of the final end, to say nothing of a

clear and persisting view. _Only if the individual is habituated,

exercised, practiced in good ends so as to take delight in them, while

he is still so immature as to be incapable of really knowing how and why

they are good, will he be capable of knowing the good when he is

mature._ Pleasure in right ends and pain in wrong must operate as a

motive force in order to give experience of the good, before knowledge

can be attained and operate as the motor force.

=Division of Problem.=--But the exercise and training requisite to form

the habits which make the individual rejoice in right activity before he

knows how and why it is right, presuppose adults who already have

knowledge of the good. They presuppose a social order capable not merely

of giving theoretic instruction, but of habituating the young to right

practices. But where shall such adults be found, and where is the social

order so good that it is capable of right training of its own immature

members? Hence the problem again shifts, breaking up into two parts. On

the one hand, attention is fixed upon the irrational appetites, desires,

and impulses, which hinder apprehension of the good; on the other, it is

directed to the political laws and institutions which are capable of

training the members of the State into a right manner of living. For the

most part, these two problems went their own way independently of each

other, a fact which resulted in the momentous breach between the inner

and "spiritual," and the outer and "physical" aspects of behavior.

=Problem of Control of Affections and Desires.=--If it is the lively

movements of natural appetites and desires which make the individual

apprehend false goods as true ones, and which present obstacles to

knowledge of the true good, the serious problem is evidently to check

and so far as possible to abolish the power of desire to move the mind.

Since it is anger, fear, hope, despair, sexual desire which make men

regard particular things instead of the final end as good, the great

thing is wholly to free attention and judgment from the influence of

such passions. It may be impossible to prevent the passions; they are

natural perturbations. But man can at least prevent his judgment of what

is good or bad from being modified by them. The Stoic moral philosophers

most emphasized the misleading influence of desire and passion, and set

up the ideal of apathy (lack of passion) and "ataraxy" (absence of

being stirred up). The other moral schools, the Sceptics and Epicureans,

also made independence of mind from influence of passion the immediate

and working end; the Sceptics because they emphasized the condition of

mental detachment and non-committal, which is the state appropriate to

doubt and uncertainty; the Epicureans because the pleasures of the mind

are the only ones not at the mercy of external circumstances. Mental

pleasures are equable, and hence are the only ones which do not bring

reactions of depression, exhaustion, and subsequent pain. The problem of

moral theory is now in effect, if not in name, that of _control_, of

authority and subordination, of checking and restraining desire and

passion.

=Problem of Control of Private Interests by Law.=--Such views could at

the best, however, affect only a comparatively small number, the

philosophers. For the great masses of men in the Roman Empire, the

problem existed on the other line: by what laws and what administration

of laws to direct the outward acts of men into right courses, courses at

least sufficiently right so as to maintain outward peace and unity

through the vast empire. In the Greek city-state, with its small number

of free citizens all directly participating in public affairs, it was

possible to conceive an ideal of a common good which should bind all

together. But in an Empire covering many languages, religions, local

customs, varied and isolated occupations, a single system of

administration and law exercised from a single central source could

alone maintain the requisite harmony. The problems of legislations,

codification, and administration were congenial to the Latin mind, and

were forced by the actual circumstances. From the external side, then,

as well as from the internal, the problem of control became dominant

over that of value and the good.

=Problem of Unification.=--It was the province of the moral

philosophers, of the theologians, of the church to attempt a fusion of

these elements of inner and outer control. It was their aim to connect,

to synthesize these factors into one commanding and comprehensive view

of life. But the characteristic of their method was to suppose that the

combination could be brought about, whether intellectually or

practically, only upon a supernatural basis, and by supernatural

resources. From the side of the natural constitution of both man and the

State, the various elements of behavior are so hopelessly at war with

one another that there is no health in them nor help from them. The

appetites and desires are directed only upon carnal goods and form the

dominant element in the person. Even when reason gets glimpses of the

good, the good seen is narrow in scope and temporal in duration; and

even then reason is powerless as an adequate motive. "We perceive the

better and we follow the worse." Moreover, it is useless to seek aid

from the habituation, the education, the discipline and restraint of

human institutions. They themselves are corrupt. The product of man's

lower nature cannot be capable of enlightening and improving that

nature; at most it can only restrain outer action by appealing to fear.

Only a divine revelation can make known man's true end; and only divine

assistance, embodied in the ordinances and sacraments of the

supernaturally founded and directed church, can bring this knowledge

home to erring individuals so as to make it effectual. In theory the

conception of the end, the good, was supreme; but man's true good is

supernatural and hence can be achieved only by supernatural assistance

and in the next world. In practice, therefore, the important thing for

man in his present condition is implicit reliance upon and obedience to

the requirements of the church. This represents on earth the divine

sovereign, ultimate source of all moral law. In effect, the moral law

became a net-work of ordinances, prescriptions, commands, rewards,

penalties, penances, and remissions. The jural point of view was

completely enthroned.[108] There was no problem; there was a final,

because a supernatural solution.

=The Problems of Individuality and Citizenship.=--With the Renaissance

began the revolt against the jural view of life. A sense of the joys and

delights which attend the free and varied exercise of human capacities

in this world was reborn. The first results were a demand for natural

satisfaction; the next a profound reawakening of the antique civic and

political consciousness. The first in its reaction against the Middle

Ages was more individualistic than the Greek ideal, to which it was in

some respects allied. The Greek had emphasized the notion of value, but

had conceived this as generic, as the fulfillment of the essential

nature of man as man. But with the moderns, satisfaction, the good,

meant something direct, specific, personal; something the individual as

an individual could lay hold of and possess. It was an individual right;

it was final and inalienable. Nothing had a right to intervene or

deprive the individual of it.

This extreme individualistic tendency was contemporaneous with a

transfer of interest from the supernatural church-state over to the

commercial, social, and political bodies with which the modern man found

himself identified. The rise of the free cities, and more especially the

development of national states, with the growth of commerce and

exchange, opened to the individual a natural social whole. With this his

connections were direct, in this he gained new outlets and joys, and yet

it imposed upon him definite responsibilities and exacted of him

specific burdens. If the individual had gained a new sense of himself as

an individual, he also found himself enmeshed in national states of a

power constantly increasing in range and intensity. The problem of the

moral theorists was to reconcile these two tendencies, the

individualistic and that of political centralization. For a time, the

individual felt the social organization in which he was set to be, with

whatever incidental inconveniences, upon the whole an outlet and

reenforcement of prized personal powers. Hence in observing its

conditions, he was securing the conditions of his own peace and

tranquillity or even of his own freedom and achievement. But the balance

was easily upset, and the problem of the relation of the individual and

the social, the private and the public, was soon forced into prominence;

a problem which in one form or other has been the central problem of

modern ethical theory.

=Individualistic Problem.=--Only for a short time, during the first

flush of new achievement and of hopeful adventure, did extreme

individualism and social interests remain naively combined. The

individualistic tendency found a convenient intellectual tool in a

psychology which resolved the individual into an association or series

of particular states of feeling and sensations; and the good into a like

collection of pleasures also regarded as particular mental states. This

psychological atomism made individuals as separate and disconnected as

the sensations which constituted their selves were isolated and mutually

exclusive. Social arrangements and institutions were, in theory,

justifiable only as they could be shown to augment the sum of

pleasurable states of feeling of individuals. And as, quite independent

of any such precarious theory, the demand for reform of institutions

became more and more imperative, the situation was packed by Rousseau

into a formula that man was naturally both free and good, and that

institutional life had enslaved and thereby depraved him. At the same

time, there grew up an enthusiastic and optimistic faith in "Nature," in

her kindly intentions for the happiness of humanity, and in her potency

to draw it to perfection when artificial restrictions were once out of

the way. Individuals, separate in themselves and in their respective

goods, were thereby brought into a complete coincidence and harmony of

interests. Nature's laws were such that if the individual obeyed them in

seeking his own good he could not fail to further the happiness of

others. While there developed in France (with original initiative from

England) this view of the internal isolation and external harmony of

men, a counterpart movement took place in Germany.

=The Rationalistic Problem.=--German thought inherited through both

Roman law and the natural theology and ethics of the church, the

conception that man's rational nature makes him sociable. Stoicism, with

its materialistic idealism, had taught that all true laws are natural,

while all laws of nature are diffusions and potencies of reason. As they

bind things together in the world, so they bind men together in

societies. Moral theory is "Natural Law" conceived in this sense. From

the laws of reason, regarded as the laws of man's generic and hence

sociable nature, all the principles of jurisprudence and of individual

morals may be deduced. But man has also a sensuous nature, an appetitive

nature which is purely private and exclusive. Since reason is higher

than sense, the authority of the State is magnified. The juristic point

of view was reinstated, but with the important change that the law was

that of a social order which is the realization of man's own rational

being.[109] If the laws of the State were criticized, the reply was that

however unworthy the civic regulations and however desirable their

emendation, still the State is the expression of the idea of reason,

that is of man in his true generic nature. Hence to attempt to overthrow

the government is to attack the fundamental and objective conditions of

moral or rational life. Without the State, the particularistic, private

side of man's nature would have free sway to express itself. Man's true

moral nature is within. We are then left, from both the English-French

and the German sides, with the problem of the relation of the individual

and the social; of the relation of the inner and outer, of the

psychological structure of the person and the social conditions and

results of his behavior.

LITERATURE

See the references on the scope and methods of ethics at the end of ch.

i. of Part I., and also, Sorley, _Ethics of Naturalism_, ch. i., and his

_Recent Tendencies in Ethics_; Fite, _An Introductory Study of Ethics_,

ch. ii.; Bowne, _Principles of Ethics_, ch. i.; Seth, _Ethical

Principles_, ch. i.; Martineau, _Types of Ethical Theory_, Vol. I.,

Introduction; Hensel, _Problems of Ethics_, in Vol. I. of St. Louis

Congress of Arts and Science.

FOOTNOTES:

[107] On the _practical_ side, this was always, as we have seen, the

prominent problem of Hebrew thought. But we are concerned here with the

statement of the problem by Plato and Aristotle from the theoretical

side.

[108] The Ten Commandments, divided and subdivided into all their

conceivable applications, and brought home through the confessional,

were the specific basis.

[109] The idealistic philosophic movement beginning with Kant is in many

important respects the outgrowth of the earlier _Naturrecht_ of the

moral philosophers from Grotius on.

CHAPTER XII

TYPES OF MORAL THEORY

Sec. 1. TYPICAL DIVISIONS OF THEORIES

=Problems and Theories.=--We were concerned in the last chapter with the

typical _problems_ of moral theory. But it was evident that theories

themselves developed and altered as now this, now that, problem was

uppermost. To regard the question of how to know the good as the central

problem of moral inquiry is already to have one type of theory; to

consider the fundamental problem to be either the subordination or the

satisfaction of desire is to have other types. A classification of types

of theory is rendered difficult, a thoroughly satisfactory

classification almost impossible, by the fact that the problems arrange

themselves about separate principles leading to cross-divisions. All

that we may expect to do is somewhat arbitrarily to select that

principle which seems most likely to be useful in conducting inquiry.

=(1) Teleological and Jural.=--One of the fundamental divisions arises

from taking either Value or Duty, Good or Right, as the fundamental

idea. Ethics of the first type is concerned above all with _ends_; hence

it is frequently called _teleological_ theory (Greek [Greek: telos],

end). To the other type of theory, obligations, imperatives, commands,

law, and authority, are the controlling ideas. By this emphasis, arise

the _jural_ theories (Latin, _jus_, law). At some point, of course, each

theory has to deal with the factor emphasized by its rival. If we start

with Law as central, the good resides in these acts which conform to

its obligations. The good is obedience to law, submission to its moral

authority. If we start from the Good, laws, rules, are concerned with

the means of defining or achieving it.

=(2) Individual and Institutional.=--This fundamental division is at

once cut across by another, arising from emphasizing the problem of the

individual and the social. This problem may become so urgent as to force

into the background the conflict between teleological and jural

theories, while in any case it complicates and subdivides them. We have

individualistic and institutional types of theory. Consider, for

example, the following representative quotations: "No school can avoid

taking for the ultimate moral aim a desirable _state of feeling_ called

by whatever name--gratification, enjoyment, happiness. Pleasure

somewhere, at some time, _to some being or beings_, is an element of the

conception";[110] and again,[110] "the good is universally the

pleasurable." And while the emphasis is here upon the good, the

desirable, the same type of statement, _as respects emphasis upon the

individual_, may be made from the side of duty. For example, "it is the

very essence of moral duty to be imposed by a man on himself."[111]

Contrast both of these statements with the following: "What a man ought

to do, or what duties he should fulfill in order to be virtuous, is in

an ethical community not hard to say. He has to do nothing except what

is presented, expressed, and recognized in his established

relations."[112] "The individual has his truth, real existence, and

ethical status only in being a member of the State. His particular

satisfactions, activities, and way of life have in this authenticated,

substantive principle, their origin and result."[113] And in another

connection: "The striving for a morality of one's own is futile and by

its very nature impossible of attainment. In respect to morality the

saying of one of the wisest men of antiquity is the true one. To be

moral is to live in accord with the moral tradition of one's

country."[114] Here both the good and the law of the individual are

placed on a strictly institutional basis.

=(3) Empirical and Intuitional.=--Another cross-division arises from

consideration of the method of ascertaining and determining the nature

of moral distinctions: the method of knowledge. From this standpoint,

the distinction of ethical theories into the _empirical_ ([Greek:

empeirikos]) and the _intuitional_ (Latin, _intueor_, to look at or

upon) represents their most fundamental cleavage. One view makes

knowledge of the good and the right dependent upon recollection of prior

experiences and their conditions and effects. The other view makes it an

immediate apprehension of the quality of an act or motive, a trait so

intrinsic and characteristic it cannot escape being seen. While in

general the empirical school has laid stress upon the consequences, the

consequences to be searched for were considered as either individual or

social. Some, like Hobbes, have held that it was directed upon law; to

knowledge of the commands of the state. And similarly the direct

perception or intuition of moral quality was by some thought to apply to

recognition of differences of value, and by others to acknowledgment of

law and authority, which again might be divine, social, or personal.

This division cleaves straight across our other bases of classification.

To describe a theory definitely, it would then be necessary to state

just where it stood with reference to each possible combination or

permutation of elements of all three divisions. Moreover, there are

theories which attempt to find a deeper principle which will bridge the

gulf between the two opposites.

=Complexity of Subject-matter and Voluntary Activity.=--This brief

survey should at least warn us of the complexity of the attempt to

discriminate types of theory, and put us on our guard against undue

simplification. It may also serve to remind us that various types of

theory are not arbitrary personal devices and constructions, but arise

because, in the complexity of the subject-matter, one element or another

is especially emphasized, and the other elements arranged in different

perspectives. As a rule, all the elements are recognized in some form or

other by all theories; but they are differently placed and accounted

for. In any case, it is voluntary activity with which we are concerned.

The problem of analyzing voluntary activity into its proper elements,

and rightly arranging them, must coincide finally with the problem of

the relation of good and law of control to each other, with the problem

of the nature of moral knowledge, and with that of the relation of the

individual and social aspects of conduct.

Sec. 2. DIVISION OF VOLUNTARY ACTIVITY INTO INNER AND OUTER

=The What and How of Activity.=--Starting from the side of the voluntary

act, we find in it one distinction which when forced into an extreme

separation throws light upon all three divisions in theory which have

been noted. This is the relation between desire and deliberation as

mental or private, and the deed, the doing, as overt and public. Is

there any intrinsic moral connection between the _mental_ and the

_overt_ in activity? We may analyze an act which has been accomplished

into two factors, one of which is said to exist within the agent's own

consciousness; while the other, the external execution, carries the

mental into operation, affects the world, and is appreciable by others.

Now on the face of the matter, these two things, while capable of

intellectual discrimination, are incapable of real separation. The

"mental" side, the desire and the deliberation, is for the sake of

determining what shall be _done_; the overt side is for the sake of

making real certain precedent mental processes, which are partial and

inadequate till carried into effect, and which occur for the sake of

that effect. The "inner" and "outer" are really only the "how" and the

"what" of activity, neither being real or significant apart from the

other. (See _ante_, p. 6).

=Separation into Attitude and Consequences.=--But under the strain of

various theories, this organic unity has been denied; the inner and the

outer side of activity have been severed from one another. When thus

divided, the "inner" side is connected exclusively with the will, the

disposition, the character of the person; the "outer" side is connected

wholly with the consequences which flow from it, the changes it brings

about. Theories will then vary radically according as the so-called

inner or the so-called outer is selected as the bearer and carrier of

moral distinctions. One theory will locate the moral quality of an act

in that _from_ which it issues; the other in that _into_ which it

issues.

The following quotations put the contrast in a nutshell, though

unfortunately the exact meaning of the second is not very apparent apart

from its context.

"A motive is substantially nothing more than pleasure or pain

operating in a certain manner. Now pleasure is in itself a good;

nay, even setting aside immunity from pain, the only good.... It

follows, therefore, immediately and incontestably that there is no

such thing as any sort of motive that is in itself a bad one. If

motives are good or bad, it is only on account of their effects"

(Bentham, _Principles of Morals and Legislation_, ch. x., Sec. 2).

Over against this, place the following from Kant: "Pure reason is

practical of itself alone, and gives to man a universal law which

we call the Moral Law.... If this law determines the will directly

[without any reference to objects and to pleasure or pain] the

action conformed to it is good in itself; a will whose principle

always conforms to this law is good absolutely in every respect

and is the supreme condition of all good."

If now we recur to the distinction between the "what" and the "how" of

action in the light of these quotations, we get a striking result.

"What" one does is to pay money, or speak words, or strike blows, and so

on. The "how" of this action is the spirit, the temper in which it is

done. One pays money with a hope of getting it back, or to avoid arrest

for fraud, or because one wishes to discharge an obligation; one strikes

in anger, or in self-defense, or in love of country, and so on. Now the

view of Bentham says in effect that the "what" is significant, and that

the "what" consists ultimately only of the pleasures it produces; the

"how" is unimportant save as it incidentally affects resulting feelings.

The view of Kant is that the moral core of every act is in its "how,"

that is in its spirit, its actuating motive; and that the law of reason

is the only right motive. _What_ is aimed at is a secondary and (except

as determined by the inner spirit, the "how" of the action) an

irrelevant matter. In short the separation of the mental and the overt

aspects of an act has led to an equally complete separation of its

initial spirit and motive from its final content and consequence. And in

this separation, one type of theory, illustrated by Kant, takes its

stand on the actuating source of the act; the other, that of Bentham, on

its outcome. For convenience, we shall frequently refer to these types

of theories as respectively the "attitude" and the "content"; the formal

and the material; the disposition and the consequences theory. The

fundamental thing is that _both_ theories separate character and

conduct, disposition and behavior; which of the two is most emphasized

being a secondary matter.

=Different Ways of Emphasizing Results.=--There are, however, different

forms of the consequences or "content" theory--as we shall, for

convenience, term it. Some writers, like Spencer as quoted, say the only

consequences that are good are simply pleasures, and that pleasures

differ only in _intensity_, being alike in everything but degree. Others

say, pleasure is the good, but pleasures differ in quality as well as

intensity and that a certain _kind_ of pleasure is the morally good.

Others say that natural satisfaction is not found in any one pleasure,

or in any number of them, but in a more permanent mood of experience,

which is termed _happiness_. Happiness is different from a pleasure or

from a collection of pleasures, in being an abiding consequence or

result, which is not destroyed even by the presence of pains (while a

pain ejects a pleasure). The pleasure view is called Hedonism; the

happiness view, Eudaimonism.[115]

=Different Forms of the "Attitude" Theory.=--The opposite school of

theory holds that the peculiar character of "moral" good is precisely

that it is _not_ found in consequences of action. In this negative

feature of the definition many different writers agree; there is less

harmony in the positive statement of just what the moral good is. It is

an attribute or disposition of character, or the self, not a trait of

results experienced, and in general such an attribute is called

_Virtue_. But there are as many differences of opinion as to what

constitutes virtue as there are on the other side as to what pleasure

and happiness are. In one view, it merges, in its outcome at least, very

closely with one form of eudaimonism. If happiness be defined as the

fulfillment of satisfaction of the characteristic functions of a human

being, while a certain function, that of reason, is regarded as _the_

characteristic human trait whose exercise is _the_ virtue or supreme

excellence, it becomes impossible to maintain any sharp line of

distinction. Kant, however, attempted to cut under this union of

happiness and virtue, which under the form of _perfectionism_ has been

attempted by many writers, by raising the question of _motivation_. Why

does the person aim at perfection? Is it for the sake of the resulting

happiness? Then we have only Hedonism. Is it because the moral law, the

law of reason, requires it? Then we have law morally deeper than the end

aimed at.

We may now consider the bearing of this discussion upon theories of

moral knowledge and (2) of moral authority.[116]

=I. Characteristic Theories of Moral Knowledge.=--(1) Those who set

chief store by the goods naturally experienced, find that past

experiences supply all the data required for moral knowledge. Pleasures

and pains, satisfactions and miseries, are recurrent familiar

experiences. All we have to do is to note them and their occasions (or,

put the other way, to observe the tendency of some of our impulses and

acts to bring pleasure as a consequence, of others to effect misery),

and to make up our ends and aims accordingly. As a theory of moral

knowledge, Hedonism is thus almost always allied with _empiricism_,

understanding by empiricism the theory that particular past experiences

furnish the method of all ideas and beliefs.

(2) The theory that the good is some type of virtuous character requires

a special organ to give moral knowledge. Virtue is none the less the

Good, even when it is not attained, when it is not experienced, that is,

as we experience a pleasure. In any case, it is not good because it is

experienced, but because it _is_ virtue. Thus the "attitude" theory

tends to connect itself with some form of Intuitionalism, Rationalism,

or Transcendentalism, all of these terms meaning that there is something

in knowledge going beyond the particular experiences. Intuitionalism

holds there is a certain special faculty which reveals truths beyond the

scope of experience; Rationalism, that beside the particular elements of

experience there are universal and necessary conceptions which regulate

it; Transcendentalism, that within experience there is a factor derived

from a source transcending experience.[117]

=II. Characteristic Theories of Moral Control.=--The result school tends

to view authority, control, law, obligation from the standpoint of

_means to an end_; the moralistic, or virtue, school to regard the idea

of _law_ as more fundamental than that of the good. From the first

standpoint, the authority of a given rule lies in its power to regulate

desires so that after all pleasures--or a maximum of them, and a minimum

of pains--may be had. At bottom, it is a principle of expediency, of

practical wisdom, of adjustment of means to end. Thus Hume said: "Reason

is, and ought only to be, the slave of the passions"--that is, the

principles and rules made known by reason are, at last, only instruments

for securing the fullest satisfaction of desires. But according to the

point of view of the other school, no satisfaction is _really_ (i.e.,

morally) good unless it is acquired in accordance with a law existing

independently of pleasurable satisfaction. Thus the good depends upon

the law, not the law upon the desirable end.

Sec. 3. GENERAL INTERPRETATION OF THESE THEORIES

=The Opposition in Ordinary Life.=--To some extent, similar oppositions

are latent in our ordinary moral convictions, without regard to theory.

Indeed, we tend, at different times, to pass from one point of view to

the other, without being aware of it. Thus, as against the

identification of goodness with a _mere_ attitude of will; we say, "It

is not enough for a man to be good; he must be good for something." It

is not enough to mean well; one must mean to do well; to excuse a man by

saying "he _means_ well," conveys a shade of depreciation. "Hell is

paved with good intentions." Good "resolutions," in general, are

ridiculed as not modifying overt action. A tree is to be judged by its

fruits. "Faith without works is dead." A man is said "to be too good for

this world" when his motives are not effective. Sometimes we say, "So

and so is a _good_ man," meaning to say that that is about all that can

be said for him--he does not count, or amount to anything, practically.

The objection to identifying goodness with inefficiency also tends to

render suspected a theory which seems to lead logically to such

identification. More positively we dwell upon goodness as involving

_service_; "love is the fulfilling of the law," and while love is a

trait of character, it is one which takes immediate action in order to

bring about certain definite consequences. We call a man Pharisaical who

cherishes his own good character as an end distinct from the common good

for which it may be serviceable.

On the other hand, indicating the supremacy of the voluntary attitude

over consequences, we have, "What shall a man give in exchange for his

soul?" "What shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world and

lose his own life?" "Let us do evil that good may come, whose damnation

is just." The deep-seated objection to the maxim that the end justifies

the means is hard to account for, except upon the basis that it is

possible to attain ends otherwise worthy and desirable at the expense of

conduct which is immoral. Again, compare Shakspere's "There's nothing

right or wrong, but thinking makes it so" with the Biblical "As a man

thinketh in his heart, so is he." And finally we have such sayings as,

"Take the will for the deed"; "His heart is in the right place"; _Pereat

mundus, fiat justitia_.

Passing from this popular aspect of the matter, we find the following

grounds for the "content" theory:

=1. It Makes Morality Really Important.=--Would there be any use or

sense in moral acts if they did not tend to promote welfare, individual

and social? If theft uniformly resulted in great happiness and security

of life, if truth-telling introduced confusion and inefficiency into

men's relations, would we not consider the first a virtue, and the

latter a vice?[118] So far as the identification of goodness with mere

motive (apart from results effected by acts) reduces morality to

nullity, there seems to be furnished a _reductio ad absurdum_ of the

theory that results are not the decisive thing.

=(2) It Makes Morality a Definite, Concrete Thing.=--Morality is found

in consequences; and consequences are definite, observable facts which

the individual can be made responsible for noting and for employing in

the direction of his further behavior. The theory gives morality an

objective, a tangible guarantee and sanction. Moreover, results are

something objective, common to different individuals because outside

them all. But the doctrine that goodness consists in motives formed by

and within the individual without reference to obvious, overt results,

makes goodness something vague or else whimsical and arbitrary. The

latter view makes virtue either something unattainable, or else attained

by merely cultivating certain internal states having no outward results

at all, or even results that are socially harmful. It encourages

fanaticism, moral crankiness, moral isolation or pride; obstinate

persistence in a bad course in spite of its demonstrable evil results.

It makes morality non-progressive, since by its assumption no amount of

experience of consequences can throw any light upon essential moral

elements.