In this way the natural inclination of an individual towards a certain

pleasure, or his natural revulsion from a certain pain, may be checked

and transformed by recognition that if he seeks the pleasure, others

will inflict more than an equivalent pain, or if he bears the pain,

others will reward him with more than compensating pleasures. In such

cases, we have the fact of duty or obligation. There is constraint of

first inclination through recognition of superior power, this power

being asserted in its expressly declared intention of rewarding and

penalizing according as its prescriptions are or are not followed. These

are the factors: (1) demands, expectations, rules externally imposed;

(2) consequences in the way of proffered reward of pleasure, and penalty

of pain; (3) resulting constraint of the natural manifestation of

desires. In the main, the theory is based on the analogy of legal

obligations.[167]

=(a) Bentham's Account.=--Bentham dislikes the very word duty; and

speaks preferably of the "sanctions" of an act. The following quotations

will serve to confirm the foregoing statements.

"The happiness of the individuals of whom a community is composed

is ... the sole standard, in conformity to which each individual

_ought_ to be made to fashion his behavior. But whether it be

this, or anything else that is to be done, there is nothing by

which a man can ultimately be _made_ to do it, but either pain or

pleasure."

A kind of pain or pleasure which tends to _make_ an individual find his

own good in the good of the community is a _sanction_. Of these Bentham

mentions four kinds, of which the first alone is not due to the will of

others, but is _physical_. Thus the individual may check his inclination

to drink by a thought of the ills that flow from drunkenness.

Metaphorically, then, he may be said to have a duty not to drink;

strictly speaking, however, this is his own obvious interest. The

sanctions proper are (a) political, consequences in the way of pleasure

and pain (especially pain) attached to injunctions and prohibitions by a

legal superior; (b) popular, the consequences following from the more

indefinite influence of public opinion--such as being "sent to

Coventry," being shunned, rendered unpopular, losing reputation, or

honor, etc.; and (3) religious, penalties of hell and rewards of heaven

attached to action by a divine being, or similar penances and rewards

by the representatives on earth (church, priests, etc.) of this divine

being.[168]

=Value and Deficiencies of This View.=--The strong point of this

explanation of duty is obviously that it recognizes the large, the very

large, role played by social institutions, regulations, and demands in

bringing home to a person the fact that certain acts, whether he is

naturally so inclined or not, should be performed. But its weak point is

that it tends to identify duty with coercion; to change the "ought" if

not into a physical "must," at least into the psychological "must" of

fear of pain and hope of pleasure. Hope of reward and fear of penalty

are real enough motives in human life; but acts performed mainly or

solely on their account do not, in the unprejudiced judgment of mankind,

rank very high morally. Habitually to appeal to such motives is rather

to weaken than to strengthen the tendencies in the individual which make

for right action. The difficulty lies clearly in the purely _external_

character of the "sanctions," and this in turn is due to the fact that

the obligations imposed by the demands and expectancies of others do not

have any intrinsic connection with the character of the individual of

whom they are exacted. They are wholly external burdens and impositions.

The individual, with his desires and his pleasures, being made up out of

particular states of feeling, is complete in himself. Social

relationships must then be alien and external; if they modify in any way

the existing body of feelings they are artificial constraints. One

individual merely _happens_ to live side by side with other individuals,

who are in themselves isolated, and are complete in their isolation. If

their external acts conflict, it may be necessary to invade and change

the body of feelings which make up the self from which the act flows.

Hence duty.

The later development of utilitarianism tended to get away from this

psychical and atomic individualism; and to conceive the good of an

individual as including _within_ himself relations to others. So far as

this was done, the demands of others, public opinion, laws, etc., became

factors _in the development of the individual, and in arousing him to an

adequate sense of what his good is, and of interest in effecting it_.

Later utilitarianism dwells less than Bentham upon external sanctions,

and more upon an unconscious shaping of the individual's character and

motives through imitation, education, and all the agencies which mould

the individual's desires into natural agreement with the social type.

While it is John Stuart Mill who insists most upon the internal and

qualitative change of disposition that thus takes place,[169] it is Bain

and Spencer who give the most detailed account of the methods by which

it is brought about.

=(b) Bain's Account.=--His basis agrees with Bentham's: "The proper

meaning, or import, of the terms (duty, obligation) refers to that class

of action which is enforced by the sanction of punishment" (Bain,

_Emotions and Will_, p. 286). But he sets less store by political

legislation and the force of vague public opinion, and more by the

gradual and subtle processes of family education. The lesson of

obedience, that there are things to be done whether one wishes or no, is

impressed upon the child almost unremittingly from the very first moment

of life. There are three stages in the complete evolution of the sense

of duty. The first, the lowest and that beyond which some persons never

go, is that in which "susceptibility to pleasure and pain is made use

of to bring about obedience, and a mental association is rapidly formed

between the obedience and apprehended pain, more or less magnified by

fear." The fact that punishment may be kept up until the child desists

from the act "leaves on his mind a certain dread and awful impression as

connected with forbidden actions." Here we have in its germ conscience,

acknowledgment of duty, in its most external form.

A child in a good home (and a citizen in a good state) soon adds other

associations. The command is uttered, the penalty threatened, by those

whom he admires, respects, and loves. This element brings in a new

dread--the fear of giving pain to the beloved object. Such dread is more

disinterested. It centers rather about the point of view from which the

act is held wrong than about the thought of harm to self. As

intelligence develops, the person apprehends the positive ends, the

goods, which are protected by the command put on him; he sees the use

and reason of the prohibition to which he is subject, and approving of

what it safeguards, approves the restriction itself. "A new motive is

added on and begirds the action with a threefold fear.... If the duty

prescribed has been approved of by the mind as _protective of the

general interests of persons engaging our sympathies_, the violation of

this on our part affects us with all the pain that we feel from

inflicting _an injury upon those interests_."

=Transformation into an Internal Power.=--When the child appreciates

"_the reasons for the command, the character of conscience is entirely

transformed_." The fear which began as fear of the penalty that a

superior power may inflict, adds to itself the fear of displeasing a

beloved person; and is finally transformed into the dread of injuring

interests the worth of which the individual appreciates and in which he

shares. The sense of duty now "stands upon an independent foundation."

It is an internal "ideal resemblance of public authority," "an imitation

(or facsimile) within ourselves of the government without us." "Regard

is now had to the intent and meaning of the law and not to the mere fact

of its being prescribed by some power." Thus there is developed a sense

of obligation in general, which may be detached from the particular

deeds which were originally imposed under the sanction of penalty, and

transferred to new ends which have never even been socially imposed,

which the individual has perhaps for the first time conceived within

himself. "The feeling and habit of obligation" which was generated from

social pressure remains, but as a distinct individually cherished thing

(Bain, _Emotions and Will_, p. 319 n.). This view of the _final_ sense

of obligation thus approximates Kant's view of the autonomous character

of duty.

=(c) Spencer's Account.=--Herbert Spencer (like Bentham) lays emphasis

upon the restraining influence of various social influences, but lays

stress, as Bentham does not, upon the _internal_ changes effected by

long-continued, unremitting pressure exercised through the entire period

of human evolution. Taken in itself, the consciousness of duty--the

distinctively moral consciousness--is the control of proximate ends by

remote ones, of simple by complex aims, of the sensory or presentative

by the ideal or representative. An undeveloped individual or race lives

and acts in the present; the mature is controlled by foresight of an

indefinitely distant future. The thief who steals is actuated by a

simple feeling, the mere impulse of acquisition; the business man

conducts his acquisition in view of highly complex considerations of

property and ownership. A low-grade intelligence acts only upon sensory

stimulus, immediately present; a developed mind is moved by elaborate

intellectual constructions, by imaginations and ideas which far outrun

the observed or observable scene. Each step of the development of

intelligence, of culture, whether in the individual or the race, is

dependent upon ability to _subordinate_ the immediate simple,

physically present tendency and aim to the remote, compound, and only

ideally present intention (Spencer, _Principles of Ethics_, Vol. I.,

Part I, ch. vii.).

=Subordination of Near to Remote Good Dependent on Social

Influences.=--"The conscious relinquishment of immediate and special

good to gain distant and general good ... is a cardinal trait of the

self-restraint called moral." But this develops out of forms of

restraint which are not moral; where the "relinquishment" and

subordination of the present and temporary good is not consciously

willed by the individual in view of a conscious appreciation of a

distant and inclusive good; but where action in view of the latter is

forced upon the individual by outside authority, operating by menace,

and having the sanction of fear. These outside controls are three in

number: political or legal; supernatural, priestly, or religious; and

popular. All these external controls, working through dread of pain and

promise of reward, bring about, however, in the individual a habit of

looking to the remote, rather than to the proximate, end. At first the

thought of these extrinsic consequences, those which do not flow from

the act but from the reaction of others to it, is mixed up with the

thought of its own proper consequences. But this association causes

attention at least to be fixed upon intrinsic consequences that, because

of their remoteness and complexity, might otherwise escape attention.

Gradually the thought of them grows in clearness and efficacy and

dissociates itself as a motive from the externally imposed consequences,

and there is a control which alone is truly moral.

=The Internal Sanction.=--

"The truly moral deterrent from murder, is not constituted by a

representation of hanging as a consequence, or by a representation

of tortures in hell as a consequence, or by a representation of

the horror and hatred excited in fellow-men; but by a

representation of the _necessary natural results_--the infliction

of death agony on the victim, the destruction of all his

possibilities of happiness, the entailed sufferings to his

belongings" (Spencer, _Ibid._, p. 120).

The external constraints thus serve as a schoolmaster to bring the race

and the individual to internal restraint. Gradually the abstract sense

of coerciveness, authoritativeness, the need of controlling the present

by the future good is disentangled, and there arises the sense of duty

in general. But even this "is transitory and will diminish as fast as

moralization increases" (_Ibid._, p. 127). Persistence in performance of

a duty makes it a pleasure; an habitually exercised obligation is

naturally agreeable.

In the present state of evolutionary development, obligation, or the

demands made by the external environment, and spontaneous inclination,

or the demand of the organism, cannot coincide. But at the goal of

evolution, the organism and environment will be in perfect adjustment.

Actions congenial to the former and appropriate to the latter will

completely coincide. "In their proper times and places, and proportions,

the moral sentiments will guide men just as spontaneously and adequately

as now do the sensations" (_Ibid._, p. 129).

=Criticism of Utilitarianism.=--The utilitarian account of the

development of the consciousness of duty or its emphasis upon concrete

facts of social arrangements and education affords a much-needed

supplement to the empty and abstract formalism of Kant. (i.) The

individual is certainly brought to his actual recognition of specific

duties and to his consciousness of obligation or moral law in general

through social influences. Bain insists more upon the family training

and discipline of its immature members; Bentham and Spencer more upon

the general institutional conditions, or the organization of government,

law, judicial procedure, crystallized custom, and public opinion. In

reality, these two conditions imply and reenforce each other. It is

through the school of the family, for the most part, that the meaning

of the requirements of the larger and more permanent institutions are

brought home to the individual; while, on the other hand, the family

derives the aims and values which it enforces upon the attention of its

individual members mainly from the larger society in which it finds its

own setting. (ii.) The later utilitarianism, in its insistence upon an

"internal sanction," upon the ideal personal, or free facsimile of

public authority, upon regard for "intrinsic consequences," corrects the

weak point in Bentham (who relies so unduly upon mere threat of

punishment and mere fear of pain) and approximates in practical effect,

though not in theory, Kant's doctrine of the connection of duty with the

rational or "larger" self which is social, even if individual. Even in

its revised version utilitarianism did not wholly escape from the rigid

unreal separation between the selfhood of the agent and his social

surroundings forced upon it by its hedonistic psychology.

=Fictitious Theory of Nature of Self.=--The supposition that the

individual starts with mere love of private pleasure, and that, if he

ever gets beyond to consideration of the good of others, it is because

others have forced their good upon him by interfering with his private

pleasures, is pure fiction. The requirements, encouragements, and

approbations of others react not primarily upon the pleasures and

calculations of the individual, but upon his _activities_, upon his

inclinations, desires, habits. There is a common defect in the

utilitarian and Kantian psychology. Both neglect the importance of the

active, the organically spontaneous and direct tendencies which enter

into the individual. Both assume unreal "_states_ of consciousness,"

passive sensations, and feelings. Active tendencies may be internally

modified and redirected by the very conditions and consequences of their

own exercise. Family discipline, jural influences, public opinion, may

do little, or they may do much. But their educative influence is as far

from the mere association of feelings of pleasure and pain as it is

from Kant's purely abstract law. _Social influences enable an individual

to realize the weight and import of the socially available and helpful

manifestations of the tendencies of his own nature and to discriminate

them from those which are socially harmful or useless._ When the two

conflict, the perception of the former is the recognition of duties as

distinct from _mere_ inclinations.

Sec. 3. FINAL STATEMENT

=Duty and a Growing Character.=--Duty is what is owed by a partial

isolated self embodied in established, facile, and urgent tendencies, to

that ideal self which is presented in aspirations which, since they are

not yet formed into habits, have no organized hold upon the self and

which can get organized into habitual tendencies and interests only by a

more or less painful and difficult reconstruction of the habitual self.

For Kant's fixed and absolute separation between the self of inclination

and the self of reason, we substitute the relative and shifting

distinction between those factors of self which have become so

definitely organized into set habits that they take care of themselves,

and those other factors which are more precarious, less crystallized,

and which depend therefore upon conscious acknowledgment and

intentionally directed affection. The consciousness of duty grows out of

the complex character of the self; the fact that at any given time, it

has tendencies relatively set, ingrained, and embodied in fixed habits,

while it also has tendencies in process of making, looking to the

future, taking account of unachieved possibilities. The former give the

solid relatively formed elements of character; the latter, its ideal or

unrealized possibilities. Each must play into the other; each must help

the other out.

The conflict of duty and desire is thus an accompaniment of a _growing_

self. Spencer's complete disappearance of obligation would mean an

exhausted and fossilized self; wherever there is progress, tension

arises between what is already accomplished and what is possible. In a

being whose "reach should exceed his grasp," a conflict within the self

making for the readjustment of the direction of powers must always be

found. The value of continually _having to meet the expectations and

requirements of others is in keeping the agent from resting on his oars,

from falling back on habits already formed as if they were final_. The

phenomena of duty in all their forms are thus phenomena attendant upon

the expansion of ends and the reconstruction of character. So far,

accordingly, as the recognition of duty is capable of operating as a

distinct reenforcing motive, it operates most effectively, not as an

interest in duty, or law in the abstract, but as an interest in progress

in the face of the obstacles found within character itself.

LITERATURE

The most important references on the subject of duty are given in the

text. To these may be added: Ladd, _Philosophy of Conduct_, chs. v. and

xv.; Mackenzie, _Manual_, Part I., ch. iv.; Green, _Prolegomena_, pp.

315-320, 353-354 and 381-388; Sharp, _International Journal of Ethics_,

Vol. II., pp. 500-513; Muirhead, _Elements of Ethics_, Book II., ch.

ii.; McGilvary, _Philosophical Review_, Vol. XI., pp. 333-352; Stephen,

_Science of Ethics_, pp. 161-171; Sturt, _International Journal of

Ethics_, Vol. VII., 334-345; Schurman, _Philosophical Review_, Vol.

III., pp. 641-654; Guyau, _Sketch of Morals, without Obligation or

Sanction_.

FOOTNOTES:

[166] _Last Essays on Church and Religion_, preface.

[167] Historically it has often taken theological form. Thus Paley

defined virtue as "doing good to mankind in obedience to the will of

God, and for the sake of everlasting happiness." Of obligation he said,

"A man is said to be obliged, when he is urged by a violent motive

resulting from the command of another."

[168] The earlier English utilitarians (though not called by that name),

such as Tucker and Paley, assert that upon this earth there is no exact

coincidence of the right and the pleasure-giving; that it is future

rewards and punishments which make the equilibrium. Sidgwick, among

recent writers, has also held that no complete identification of virtue

and happiness can be found apart from religious considerations. (See

_Methods of Ethics_, p. 505. For theological utilitarianism see Albee,

_History_.)

[169] See his _Utilitarianism_, ch. iii.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE PLACE OF THE SELF IN THE MORAL LIFE

We have reached the conclusion that disposition as manifest in endeavor

is the seat of moral worth, and that this worth itself consists in a

readiness to regard the general happiness even against contrary

promptings of personal comfort and gain. This brings us to the problems

connected with the nature and functions of the self. We shall, in our

search for the moral self, pass in review the conceptions which find

morality in (1) Self-Denial or Self-Sacrifice, (2) Self-Assertion, (3)

Combination of Regard for Self and for Others, (4) Self-Realization.

Sec. 1. THE DOCTRINE OF SELF-DENIAL

=Widespread Currency of the Doctrine.=--The notion that real goodness,

or virtue, consists essentially in abnegation of the self, in denying

and, so far as may be, eliminating everything that is of the nature of

the self, is one of the oldest and most frequently recurring notions of

moral endeavor and religion, as well as of moral theory. It describes

Buddhism and, in large measure, the monastic ideal of Christianity,

while, in Protestantism, Puritanism is permeated with its spirit. It

characterized Cynicism and Stoicism. Kant goes as far as to say that

every rational being must wish to be wholly free from inclinations.

Popular morality, while not going so far as to hold that all moral

goodness is self-denial, yet more or less definitely assumes that

self-denial on its own account, irrespective of what comes out of it, is

morally praiseworthy. A notion so deeply rooted and widely flourishing

must have strong motives in its favor, all the more so because its

practical vogue is always stronger than any reasons which are

theoretically set forth.

=Origin of the Doctrine.=--The notion arises from the tendency to

identify the self with one of its own factors. It is one and the same

self which conceives and is interested in some generous and ideal good

that is also tempted by some near, narrow, and exclusive good. The force

of the latter resides in the _habitual_ self, in purposes which have got

themselves inwrought into the texture of ordinary character. Hence there

is a disposition to overlook the complexity of selfhood, and to identify

it with those factors in the self which resist ideal aspiration, and

which are recalcitrant to the thought of duty; to identify the self with

impulses that are inclined to what is frivolous, sensuous and sensual,

pleasure-seeking. All vice being, then, egoism, selfishness,

self-seeking, the remedy is to check it at its roots; to keep the self

down in its proper place, denying it, chastening it, mortifying it,

refusing to listen to its promptings. Ignoring the variety and subtlety

of the factors that make up the self, all the different elements of

right and of wrong are gathered together and set over against each

other. All the good is placed once for all in some outside source, some

higher law or ideal; and the source of all evil is placed within the

corrupted and vile self. When one has become conscious of the serious

nature of the moral struggle; has found that vice is easy, and to err

"natural," needing only to give way to some habitual impulse or desire;

that virtue is arduous, requiring resistance and strenuous effort, one

is apt to overlook the habitual tendencies which are the ministers of

the higher goods. One forgets that unless ideal ends were also rooted in

some natural tendencies of the self, they could neither occur to the

self nor appeal to the self. Hence everything is swept into the idea

that the self is inherently so evil that it must be denied, snubbed,

sacrificed, mortified.

In general, to point out the truth which this theory perverts, to

emphasize the demand for constant reconstruction and rearrangement of

the habitual powers of the self--is sufficient criticism of it. But in

detail the theory exercises such pervasive influence that it is worth

while to mention specifically some of the evils that accrue from it.

=1. It so Maims and Distorts Human Nature as to Narrow the Conception of

the Good.=--In its legitimate antagonism to pleasure-seeking, it becomes

a foe to happiness, and an implacable enemy of all its elements. Art is

suspected, for beauty appeals to the lust of the eye. Family life roots

in sexual impulses, and property in love of power, gratification, and

luxury. Science springs from the pride of the intellect; the State from

the pride of will. _Asceticism_ is the logical result; a purely negative

conception of virtue. But it surely does dishonor, not honor, to the

moral life to conceive it as mere negative subjection of the flesh, mere

holding under control the lust of desire and the temptations of

appetite. All positive content, all liberal achievement, is cut out and

morality is reduced to a mere struggle _against_ solicitations to sin.

While asceticism is in no danger of becoming a popular doctrine, there

is a common tendency to conceive self-control in this negative fashion;

to fail to see that the important thing is some positive good _for_

which a desire is controlled. In general we overemphasize that side of

morality which consists in abstinence and _not_ doing wrong.

=2. To Make so Much of Conflict with the "Flesh," is to Honor the Latter

too Much.=--It is to fix too much attention on it. It is an open lesson

of psychology that to oppose doing an act by mere injunction not to do

it, is to increase the power of the thing _not_ to be done, and to

weaken the spring and effectiveness of the other motives, which, if

positively attended to, might keep the obnoxious motive from gaining

supremacy. The "expulsive power" of a generous affection is more to be

relied upon than effort to suppress, which keeps alive the very thing to

be suppressed. The history of monks and Puritan saints alike is full of

testimony to the fact that withdrawal from positive generous and

wholesome aims reenforces the vitality of the lower appetites and

stimulates the imagination to play about them. Flagellation and fasting

work as long as the body is exhausted; but the brave organism reasserts

itself, and its capacities for science, art, the life of the family and

the State not having been cultivated, sheer ineradicable physical

instinct is most likely to come to the front.

=3. We Judge Others by Ourselves Because We Have No Other Way to

Judge.=--It is impossible for a man who conceives his own good to be in

"going without," in just restricting himself, to have any large or

adequate idea of the good of others. Unconsciously and inevitably a

hardening and narrowing of the conditions of the lives of others

accompanies the reign of the Puritanic ideal. The man who takes a high

view of the capacities of human nature in itself, who reverences its

possibilities and is jealous for their high maintenance in himself, is

the one most likely to have keen and sensitive appreciation of the needs

of others. There is, moreover, no selfishness, no neglect of others more

thoroughgoing, more effectively cruel than that which comes from

preoccupation with the attainment of personal goodness, and this

interest is an almost inevitable effect of devotion to the negative

ideal of self-denial.

=4. The Principle Radically Violates Human Nature.=--This indeed is its

claim--that human nature, just as human nature, requires to have

violence done it. But the capacities which constitute the self demand

fulfillment. The place, the time, the manner, the degree, and the

proportion of their fulfillment, require infinite care and pains, and to

secure this attention is the business of morals. Morals is a matter of

direction, not of suppression. The urgency of desires and capacities for

expression cannot be got rid of; nature cannot be expelled. If the need

of happiness, of satisfaction of capacity, is checked in one direction,

it will manifest itself in another. If the direction which is checked is

an unconscious and wholesome one, that which is taken will be likely to

be morbid and perverse. The one who is conscious of continually denying

himself cannot rid himself of the idea that it ought to be "made up" to

him; that a compensating happiness is due him for what he has

sacrificed, somewhat increased, if anything, on account of the unnatural

virtue he has displayed.[170] To be self-sacrificing is to "lay up"

merit, and this achievement must surely be rewarded with happiness--if

not now, then later. Those who habitually live on the basis of conscious

self-denial are likely to be exorbitant in the demands which they make

on some one near them, some member of their family or some friend;

likely to blame others if their own "virtue" does not secure for itself

an exacting attention which reduces others to the plane of servility.

Often the doctrine of self-sacrifice leads to an inverted hedonism: we

are to be good--that is, to forego pleasure--now, that we may have a

greater measure of enjoyment in some future paradise of bliss. Or, the

individual who has taken vows of renunciation is entitled by that very

fact to represent spiritual authority on earth and to lord it over

others.

Sec. 2. SELF-ASSERTION

The idea that morality consists in an unbridled assertion of self, in

its forceful aggressive manifestation, rarely receives consistent

theoretical formulation--possibly because most men are so ready to act

upon it practically that explicit acknowledgment would be a hindrance

rather than a help to the idea. But it is a doctrine which tends to be

invoked more or less explicitly as a reaction from the impotency of the

self-denial dogma. In reference to some superior individual or class,

some leader or group of aristocratically ordained leaders, it is always

a more or less conscious principle. Concerning these it is held that

ordinary morality holds eventually only for the "common herd," the

activities of the leader being amenable to a higher law than that of

common morality.[171] Moreover, since the self-sacrifice morality is

almost never carried out consistently--that is, to the point of monastic

asceticism,--much popular morality is an unbalanced combination of

self-sacrifice in some regards and ruthless self-assertion in others. It

is not "practicable" to carry out the principle of self-denial

everywhere; it is reserved for the family life, for special religious

duties; in business (which is business, not morals), the proper thing is

aggressive and unremitting self-assertion. In business, the end is

success, to "make good"; weakness is failure, and failure is disgrace,

dishonor. Thus in practice the two conceptions of self-denial in one

region and self-assertion in another mutually support each other. They

give occasion for the more or less unformulated, yet prevalent, idea

that moral considerations (those of self-denial) apply to a limited

phase of life, but have nothing to do with other regions in which

accordingly the principle of "efficiency" (that is, personal success,

wealth, power obtained in competitive victory) holds supreme sway.

Recently, however, there has sprung up a so-called "naturalistic" school

of ethics which has formulated explicitly the principle of

self-assertion, and which claims to find scientific sanction for it in

the evolutionary doctrine of Darwin. Evolution, it says, is the great

thing, and evolution means the _survival of the fit in the struggle for

existence_. Nature's method of progress is precisely, so it is said,

ruthless self-assertion--to the strong the victory, to the victorious

the spoils, and to the defeated, woe. Nature affords a scene of egoistic

endeavor or pressure, suffer who may, of struggle to get ahead, that is,

ahead of others, even by thrusting them down and out. But the

justification of this scene of rapine and slaughter is that out of it

comes progress, advance, everything that we regard as noble and fair.

Excellence is the sign of excelling; the goal means outrunning others.

The morals of humility, of obedience to law, of pity, sympathy, are

merely a self-protective device on the part of the weak who try to

safeguard their weakness by setting fast limitations to the activities

of the truly strong (compare what was said of the not dissimilar

doctrine among the Greeks, pp. 120-22). But the truly moral man, in whom

the principle of progress is embodied, will break regardlessly through

these meshes and traps. He will carry his own plans through to

victorious achievement. He is the super-man. The mass of men are simply

food for his schemes, valuable as furnishing needed material and

tools.[172]

=Practical Vogue of the Underlying Idea.=--Such a theory, in and of

itself, is a literary diversion for those who, not being competent in

the fields of outer achievement, amuse themselves by idealizing it in

writing. Like most literary versions of science, it rests upon a

pseudo-science, a parody of the real facts. But at a time when economic

conditions are putting an extraordinary emphasis upon outward

achievement, upon success in manipulating natural and social resources,

upon "efficiency" in exploiting both inanimate energies and the minds

and bodies of other persons, the underlying principle of this theory has

a sanction and vogue which is out of all proportion to the number of

those who consciously entertain it as a theory. For a healthy mind, the

frank statement and facing of the theory is its best criticism. Its bald

brutalism flourishes freely only when covered and disguised. But in view

of the forces at present, and especially in America, making for a more

or less unconscious acceptance of its principle in practice, it may be

advisable to say something (1) regarding its alleged scientific

foundation, and (2) the inadequacy of its conception of efficiency.

=1. The Theory Exaggerates the Role of Antagonistic Competitive Struggle

in the Darwinian Theory.=--(a) The initial step in any "progress" is

_variation_; this is not so much struggle _against_ other organisms, as

it is _invention_ or discovery of some _new_ way of acting, involving

better adaptation of hitherto merely latent natural resources, use of

some possible food or shelter not previously utilized. The struggle

against other organisms at work preserves from elimination a species

already fixed--quite a different thing from the variation which

occasions the introduction of a higher or more complex species. (b)

Moreover, so far as the Darwinian theory is concerned, the "struggle for

existence" may take any conceivable form; rivalry in generosity, in

mutual aid and support, may be the kind of competition best fitted to

enable a species to survive. It not only may be so, but it is so within

certain limits. The rage for survival, for power, must not be asserted

indiscriminately; the mate of the other sex, the young, to some extent

other individuals of the same kin, are spared, or, in many cases,

protected and nourished.[173] (c) The higher the form of life, the

_more_ effective the two methods just suggested: namely, the method of

intelligence in discovering and utilizing new methods, tools, and

resources as substituted for the direct method of brute conflict; and

the method of mutual protection and care substituted for mutual attack

and combat. It is among the lower forms of life, not as the theory would

require among the higher types, that conditions approximate its picture

of the gladiatorial show. The higher species among the vertebrates, as

among insects (like ants and bees), are the "sociable" kinds. It is

sometimes argued that Darwinism carried into morals would abolish

charity: all care of the hopelessly invalid, of the economically

dependent, and in general of all the weak and helpless except healthy

infants. It is argued that our current standards are sentimental and

artificial, aiming to make survive those who are unfit, and thus tending

to destroy the conditions that make for advance, and to introduce such

as make towards degeneration. But this argument (1) wholly ignores the

reflex effect of interest in those who are ill and defective in

strengthening social solidarity--in promoting those ties and reciprocal

interests which are as much the prerequisites of strong individual

characters as they are of a strong social group. And (2) it fails to

take into account the stimulus to foresight, to scientific discovery,

and practical invention, which has proceeded from interest in the

helpless, the weak, the sick, the disabled, blind, deaf, and insane.

Taking the most coldly scientific view, the gains in these two respects

have, through the growth of social pity, of care for the unfortunate,

been purchased more cheaply than we can imagine their being bought in

any other way. In other words, the chief objection to this

"naturalistic" ethics is that it overlooks the fact that, even from the

Darwinian point of view, the human _animal_ is a _human_ animal. It

forgets that the sympathetic and social instincts, those which cause the

individual to take the interests of others for his own and thereby to

restrain his sheer brute self-assertiveness, are the highest

achievements, the high-water mark of evolution. The theory urges a

systematic relapse to lower and foregone stages of biological

development.

=2. Its Conception of "Power," "Efficiency," "Achievement" is

Perverse.=--Compared with the gospel of abstinence, of inefficiency,

preached by the self-denial school, there is an element of healthy

reaction in any ethical system which stresses positive power, positive

success, positive attainment. Goodness has been too much identified with

practical feebleness and ineptitude; strength and solidity of

accomplishment, with unscrupulousness. But power for the sake of power

is as unreal an abstraction as self-denial for the sake of sacrifice, or

self-restraint for the sake of the mere restraint. Erected into a

central principle, it takes means for end--the fallacy of all

materialism. It makes little of many of the most important and excellent

_inherent ingredients_ of happiness in its eagerness to master _external

conditions_ of happiness. Sensitive discrimination of complex and

refined distinctions of worth, such as good taste, the resources of

poetry and history, frank and varied social converse among intellectual

equals, the humor of sympathetic contemplation of the spectacle of life,

the capacity to extract happiness from solitude and society, from nature

and from art:--all of these, as well as the more obvious virtues of

sympathy and benevolence, are swept aside for one coarse

undiscriminating ideal of external activity, measured by sheer quantity

of external changes made and external results accumulated. Of such an

ideal we may say, as Mill said, that the judge of good, of happiness, is

the one who has experienced its various forms; and that as "no

intelligent person would consent to be a fool" on account of the

pleasures of the fool, so no man of cultivated spirit would consent to

be a lover of "efficiency" and "power" for the sake of brute command of

the external commodities of nature and man.

=Present Currency of This Ideal.=--In spite of the extraordinary

currency of this ideal at present, there is little fear that it will be

permanently established. Human nature is too rich and varied in its

capacities and demands; the world of nature and society is too fruitful

in sources of stimulus and interest for man to remain indefinitely

content with the idea of power for power's sake, command of means for

the mere sake of the means. Humanity has long lived a precarious and a

stunted life because of its partial and easily shaken hold on natural

resources. Starved by centuries of abstinence enforced through lack of

control of the forces and methods of nature, taught the gospel of the

merit of abstention, it is not surprising that it should be intoxicated

when scientific discovery bears its fruit of power in utilization of

natural forces, or that, temporarily unbalanced, it should take the

external conditions of happiness for happiness itself. But when the

values of material acquisition and achievement become familiar they will

lose the contrast value they now possess; and human endeavor will

concern itself mainly with the problem of rendering its conquests in

power and efficiency tributary to the life of intelligence and art and

of social communication.[174] Such a moral idealism will rest upon a

more secure and extensive natural foundation than that of the past, and

will be more equitable in application and saner in content than that

with which aristocracies have made us familiar. It will be a democratic

ideal, a good for all, not for a noble class; and it will include, not

exclude, those physical and physiological factors which aristocratic

idealisms have excluded as common and unclean.

Sec. 3. SELF-LOVE AND BENEVOLENCE; OR, EGOISM AND ALTRUISM

For the last three centuries, the most discussed point in English

ethical literature (save perhaps whether moral knowledge is intuitive or

derived from experience) has been the relation of regard for one's own

self and for other selves as motives of action--"the crux of all ethical

speculation," Spencer terms it. All views have been represented: (a)

that man naturally acts from purely selfish motives and that morality

consists in an enforced subjection of self-love to the laws of a common

social order, (b) That man is naturally selfish, while morality is an

"enlightened selfishness," or a regard for self based upon recognition

of the extent to which its happiness requires consideration of others.

(c) That the tendencies of the agent are naturally selfish, but that

morality is the subjection of these tendencies to the law of duty.

(d) That man's interests are naturally partly egoistic and partly

sympathetic, while morality is a compromise or adjustment of these

tendencies. (e) That man's interests are naturally both, and morality a

subjection of both to conscience as umpire. (f) That they are both,

while morality is a subjection of egoistic to benevolent sentiments.

(g) That the individual's interests are naturally in objective ends

which primarily are neither egoistic nor altruistic; and these ends

become either selfish or benevolent at special crises, at which times

morality consists in referring them, equally and impartially for

judgment, to a situation in which the interests of the self and of

others concerned are involved: _to a common good_.

=Three Underlying Psychological Principles.=--We shall make no attempt

to discuss these various views in detail; but will bring into relief

some of the factors in the discussion which substantiate the view (g)

stated last. It will be noted that the theories rank themselves under

three heads with reference to the constitution of man's tendencies:

holding they (1) naturally have in view personal ends exclusively or all

fall under the principle of self-love or self-regard; that (2) some of

them contemplate one's own happiness and some of them that of others;

that (3) primarily they are not _consciously_ concerned with either

one's own happiness or that of others. Memory and reflection may show

(just as it shows other things) that their consequences affect both the

self and others, when the recognition of this fact becomes an additional

element, either for good or for evil, in the motivation of the act. We

shall consider, first, the various senses in which action occurs, or is

said to occur, in behalf of the person's own self; and then take up, in

similar fashion, its reference to the interests of others.

=I. Action in Behalf of Self.=--1. _Motives as Selfish_: The Natural

Selfishness of Man is maintained from such different standpoints and

with such different objects in view that it is difficult to state the

doctrine in any one generalized form. By some theologians, it has been

associated with an innate corruption or depravity of human nature and

been made the basis of a demand for supernatural assistance to lead a

truly just and benevolent life. By Hobbes (1588-1679) it was associated

with the anti-social nature of individuals and made the basis for a plea

for a strong and centralized political authority[175] to control the

natural "war of all against all" which flows inevitably from the

psychological egoism. By Kant, it was connected with the purely sense

origin of desires, and made the basis for a demand for the complete

subordination of desire to duty as a motive for action. Morals, like

politics, make strange bedfellows! The common factor in these diverse

notions, however, is that every act of a self must, when left to its

_natural_ or psychological course, have the interest of the self in

view; otherwise there would be no motive for the deed and it would not

be done. This theoretical and _a priori_ view is further supported by

pointing out, sometimes in reprobation of man's sinful nature, sometimes

in a more or less cynical vein, the lurking presence of some subtle

regard for self in acts that apparently are most generous and

"disinterested."[176]

=Ambiguity of the Psychological Basis.=--The notion that all action is

"for the self" is infected with the same ambiguity as the (analogous)

doctrine that all desire is for happiness. Like that doctrine, in one

sense it is a truism, in another a falsity--this latter being the sense

in which its upholders maintain it. Psychologically, any object that

moves us, any object in which we imagine our impulses to rest satisfied

or to find fulfillment, _becomes_, in virtue of that fact, a factor in

the self. If I am enough interested in collecting postage stamps, a

collection of postage stamps becomes a part of my "ego," which is

incomplete and restless till filled out in that way. If my habits are

such that I am not content when I know my neighbor is suffering from a

lack of food until I have relieved him, then relief of his suffering

becomes a part of my selfhood. If my desires are such that I have no

rest of mind until I have beaten my competitor in business, or have

demonstrated my superiority in social gifts by putting my fellow at some

embarrassing disadvantage, then that sort of thing constitutes my self.

Our instincts, impulses, and habits all demand appropriate objects in

order to secure exercise and expression; and these ends in their office

of furnishing outlet and satisfaction to our powers form a cherished

part of the "me." In this sense it is true, and a truism, that all

action involves the interest of self.

=True and False Interpretation.=--But this doctrine is the exact

opposite of that intended by those who claim that all action is from

self-love. The true doctrine says, _the self is constituted and

developed through instincts and interests which are directed upon their

own objects with no conscious regard necessarily for anything except

those objects themselves_. The false doctrine implies that the self

_exists by itself apart from these objective ends, and that they are

merely means for securing it a certain profit or pleasure_.

Suppose, for example, it is a case of being so disturbed in mind by the

thought of another in pain that one is moved to do something to relieve

him. This means that certain native instincts or certain acquired habits

demand relief of others as part of themselves. The well-being of the

other is an interest of the self: is a part of the self. This is

precisely what is meant ordinarily by unselfishness: not lack or absence

of a self, but _such_ a self as identifies itself in action with others'

interests and hence is satisfied only when they are satisfied. To find

pain in the thought of others pained and to take pleasure in the thought

of their relief, is to have and to be moved by personal motives, by

states which are "selfish" in the sense of making up the self; but which

are the exact opposite of selfish in the sense of being the thought of

some private advantage to self.[177] Putting it roundly, then, the

fallacy of the selfish motive theory is that it fails to see that

_instincts and habits directed upon objects are primary_, and that they

come before any conscious thought of self as end, since they are

necessary to the constitution of that thought.

The following quotation from James[178] states the true doctrine:

"When I am led by selflove to keep my seat whilst ladies stand, or

to grab something first and cut out my neighbor, what I really

love is the comfortable seat; it is the thing itself which I grab.

I love _them_ primarily, as the mother loves her babe, or a

generous man an heroic deed. Wherever, as here, selfseeking is the

outcome of simple instinctive propensity, it is but a name for

certain reflex acts. Something rivets my attention fatally and

fatally provokes the 'selfish' response.... It is true I am no

automaton, but a thinker. But my thoughts, like my acts, are here

concerned only with the outward things.... In fact the more

utterly selfish I am in this primitive way, the more blindly

absorbed my thought will be in the objects and impulses of my lust

and the more devoid of any inward looking glance."

=2. Results as Selfish: Ambiguity in the Notion.=--We must then give up

the notion that motives are inherently self-seeking, in the sense that

there is in voluntary acts a thought of the self as the end for the sake

of which the act is performed. The self-seeking doctrine may, however,

be restated in these terms: Although there is no thought of self or its

advantage consciously entertained, yet our original instincts are such

that their objects do as _matter of result_ conduce primarily to the

well-being and advantage of the self. In this sense, anger, fear,

hunger, and thirst, etc., are said to be egoistic or self-seeking--not

that their _conscious_ object is the self, but that their inevitable

effect is to preserve and protect the self. The fact that an instinct

secures self-preservation or self-development does not, however, make it

"egoistic" or "selfish" in the moral sense; nor does it throw any light

upon the moral status of the instinct. _Everything depends upon the sort

of self which is maintained._ There is, indeed, some presumption (see

_ante_, p. 294) that the act sustains a _social_ self, that is, a self

whose maintenance is of social value. If the individual organism did not

struggle for food; strive aggressively against obstacles and

interferences; evade or shelter itself against menacing superior force,

what would become of children, fathers and mothers, lawyers, doctors and

clergymen, citizens and patriots--in short, of society? If we avoid

setting up a purely abstract self, if we keep in mind that every actual

self is a self which _includes_ social relations and offices, both

actual and potential, we shall have no difficulty in seeing that

self-preservative instincts _may_ be, and taken by and large, _must_ be,

socially conservative. Moreover, while it is not true that if "a man

does not look after his own interests no one else will" (if that means

that his interests are no one else's affair in any way), it is true that

no one has a right to neglect his own interests in the hope that some

one else will care for them. "His own interests," properly speaking, are

precisely the ends which concern him more directly than they concern any

one else. Each man is, so to say, nearer himself than is any one else,

and, therefore, has certain duties to and about himself which cannot be

performed by any other one. Others may present food or the conditions of

education, but the individual alone can digest the food or educate

himself. It is profitable for society, not merely for an individual,

that each of us should instinctively have his powers most actively and

intensely called out by the things that distinctively affect him and

his own welfare. Any other arrangement would mean waste of social

energy, inefficiency in securing social results.

The quotation from James also makes it clear, however, that under

certain circumstances the mere absorption in a thing, even without

conscious thought of self, is morally offensive. The "pig" in manners is

not necessarily thinking of himself; all that is required to make him a

pig is that he should have too narrow and exclusive an object of regard.

The man sees simply the seat, not the seat _and_ the lady. The boor in

manners is unconscious of many of the objects in the situation which

_should_ operate as stimuli. One impulse or habit is operating at the

expense of others; the self in play is too petty or narrow. Viewed from

the standpoint of results, the fact which constitutes selfishness in the

moral sense is not that certain impulses and habits secure the

well-being of the self, _but that the well-being secured is a narrow and

exclusive one_. The forms of coarse egoism which offend us most in

ordinary life are not usually due to a deliberate or self-conscious

seeking of advantage for self, but to such preoccupation with certain

ends as blinds the agent to the thought of the interests of others. Many

whose behavior seems to others most selfish would deny indignantly (and,

from the standpoint of their _definite_ consciousness, honestly) any

self-seeking motives: they would point to certain objective results,

which in the abstract are desirable, as the true ends of their

activities. But none the less, they _are_ selfish, because the

limitations of their interests make them overlook the consequences which

affect the freedom and happiness of others.

=3. There are also Cases in Which the Thought of the Resulting

Consequence to the Self Consciously Enters in and Modifies the Motive of

the Act.=--With increasing memory and foresight, one can no more ignore

the lesson of the past as to the consequences of an act upon himself

than he can ignore other consequences. A man who has learned that a

certain act has painful consequences to himself, whether to his body,

his reputation, his comfort, or his character, is quite likely to have

the thought of himself present itself as part of the foreseen

consequences when the question of a similar act recurs. In and of

itself, once more, this fact throws no light upon the moral status of

the act. Everything depends upon what sort of a self moves and how it

moves. A man who hesitated to rush into a burning building to rescue a

suit of clothes because he thought of the danger to himself, would be

sensible; a man who rushed out of the building just because he thought

of saving himself when there were others he might have assisted, would

be contemptible.

The one who began taking exercise because he thought of his own health,

would be commended; but a man who thought so continually of his own

health as to shut out other objects, would become an object of ridicule

or worse. _There is a moral presumption that a man should make

consideration of himself a part of his aim and intent._ A certain care

of health, of body, of property, of mental faculty, because they are

one's own is not only permissible, but obligatory. This is what the

older moral writers spoke of as "prudence," or as "reasonable

self-love."

(i.) It is a stock argument of the universal selfishness theory to point

out that a man's acknowledgment of some _public need or benefit_ is

quite likely to coincide with his recognition of some private advantage.

A statesman's recognition of some measure of public policy happens to

coincide with perceiving that by pressing it he can bring himself into

prominence or gain office. A man is more likely to see the need of

improved conditions of sanitation or transportation in a given locality

if he has property there. A man's indignation at some prevalent public

ill may sleep till he has had a private taste of it. We may admit that

these instances describe a usual, though not universal, state of

affairs. But does it follow that such men are moved _merely_ by the

thought of gain to themselves? Possibly this sometimes happens; then the

act is selfish in the obnoxious sense. The man has isolated his thought

of himself as an end and made the thought of the improvement or reform

merely an external means. The latter is not truly his _end_ at all; he

has not identified it with himself. In other cases, while the individual

would not have recognized the end if the thought of himself had not been

implicated, yet _after_ he has recognized it, the two--the thought of

himself and of the public advantage--may blend. His thought of himself

may lend warmth and intimacy to an object which otherwise would have

been cold, _while, at the same time, the self is broadened and deepened

by taking in the new object of regard_.

(ii.) Take the case of amusement or recreation. To an adult usually

engaged in strenuous pursuits, the thought of a pleasure for the mere

sake of pleasure, of enjoyment, of having a "good time," may appeal as

an end. And if the pleasure is itself "innocent," only the requirements

of a preconceived theory (like the Kantian) would question its

legitimacy. Even its moral necessity is clear when relaxation is

conducive to cheerfulness and efficiency in more serious pursuits. But

if a man discriminates mentally between himself and the play or exercise

in which he finds enjoyment and relief, thinking of himself as a

distinct end to which the latter is merely means, he is not likely to

get the recreation. It is by forgetting the self, that is by taking the

light and easy activity _as_ the self of the situation, that the benefit

comes. To be a "lover of pleasure" in the bad sense is precisely to seek

amusements as excitements for a self which somehow remains outside them

as their fixed and ulterior end.

(iii.) Exactly the same analysis applies to the idea of the moral

culture of the self, of its moral perfecting. Every serious-minded

person has, from time to time, to take stock of his status and progress

in moral matters--to take thought of the moral self just as at other

times he takes thought of the health of the bodily self. But woe betides

that man who, having entered upon a course of reflection which leads to

a clearer conception of his own moral capacities and weaknesses,

maintains that thought as a distinct mental end, and thereby makes his

subsequent acts simply means to improving or perfecting his moral

nature. Such a course defeats itself. At the least, it leads to

priggishness, and its tendency is towards one of the worst forms of

selfishness: a habit of thinking and feeling that persons, that concrete

situations and relations, exist simply to render contributions to one's

own precious moral character. The worst of such selfishness is that

having protected itself with the mantle of interest in moral goodness,

it is proof against that attrition of experience which may always recall

a man to himself in the case of grosser and more unconscious absorption.

A sentimentally refined egoism is always more hopeless than a brutal and

naive one--though a brutal one not infrequently protects itself by

adoption and proclamation of the language of the former.

=II. Benevolence or Regard for Others.=--_Ambiguity in Conception_:

There is the same ambiguity in the idea of sympathetic or altruistic

springs to action that there is in that of egoistic and self-regarding.

Does the phrase refer to their conscious and express intent? or to their

objective results when put into operation, irrespective of explicit

desire and aim? And, if the latter, are we to believe contribution to

the welfare of others to be the sole and exclusive character of some

springs of action, or simply that, under certain circumstances, the

_emphasis_ falls more upon the good resulting to others than upon other

consequences? The discussion will show that the same general principles

hold for "benevolent" as for self-regarding impulses: namely (1) that

there are none which from the start are consciously such; (2) that while

reflection may bring to light their bearing upon the welfare of others

so that it becomes an element in the conscious desire, this is a matter

of relative preponderance, not of absolute nature; and (3) that just as

conscious regard for self is not necessarily bad or "selfish," so

conscious regard for others is not necessarily good: the criterion is

the whole situation in which the desire takes effect.

=1. The Existence of Other-Regarding Springs to Action.=--Only the

preconceptions of hedonistic psychology would ever lead one to deny the

existence of reactions and impulses called out by the sight of others'

misery and joy and which tend to increase the latter and to relieve the

former. Recent psychologists (writing, of course, quite independently of

ethical controversies) offer lists of native instinctive tendencies such

as the following: Anger, jealousy, rivalry, secretiveness,

acquisitiveness, fear, shyness, sympathy, affection, pity, sexual love,

curiosity, imitation, play, constructiveness.[179] In this inventory,

the first seven may be said to be aroused specially by situations having

to do with the preservation of the self; the next four are responses to

stimuli proceeding especially from others and tending to consequences

favorable to them, while the last four are mainly impersonal. But the

division into self-regarding and other-regarding is not exclusive and

absolute. Anger _may_ be wholly other-regarding, as in the case of

hearty indignation at wrongs suffered by others; rivalry may be generous

emulation or be directed toward surpassing one's own past record. Love

between the sexes, which should be the source of steady, far-reaching

interest in others, and which at times expresses itself in supreme

abnegation of devotion, easily becomes the cause of brutal and

persistent egoism. In short, the division into egoistic and altruistic

holds only "other things being equal."

Confining ourselves for the moment to the native psychological

equipment, we may say that man is endowed with instinctive promptings

which naturally (that is, without the intervention of deliberation or

calculation) tend to preserve the self (by aggressive attack as in

anger, or in protective retreat as in fear); and to develop his powers

(as in acquisitiveness, constructiveness, and play); and which equally,

without consideration of resulting ulterior benefit either to self or to

others, tend to bind the self closer to others and to advance the

interests of others--as pity, affectionateness, or again,

constructiveness and play. Any given individual is _naturally_ an

erratic mixture of fierce insistence upon his own welfare and of

profound susceptibility to the happiness of others--different

individuals varying much in the respective intensities and proportions

of the two tendencies.

=2. The Moral Status of Altruistic Tendencies.=--We have expressly

devoted considerable space (ch. xiii.) to showing that there are no

motives which in and of themselves are right; that any tendency, whether

original instinct or acquired habit, requires sanction from the special

consequences which, in the special situation, are likely to flow from

it. The mere fact that pity in general tends to conserve the welfare of

others does not guarantee the rightness of giving way to an impulse of

pity, just as it happens to spring up. This might mean sentimentalism

for the agent, and weakening of the springs of patience, courage,

self-help, and self-respect in others. The persistence with which the

doctrine of the evils of indiscriminate charity has to be taught is

sufficient evidence that the so-called other-regarding impulses require

the same control by reason as do the "egoistic" ones. They have no

inherent sacredness which exempts them from the application of the

standard of the common and reasonable happiness.

=Evils of Unregulated Altruism.=--So much follows from the general

principles already discussed. But there are special dangers and evils

attendant upon an exaggeration of the altruistic idea. (i.) _It tends to

render others dependent_, and thus contradicts its own professed aim:

the helping of others. Almost every one knows some child who is so

continuously "helped" by others, that he loses his initiative and

resourcefulness. Many an invalid is confirmed in a state of helplessness

by the devoted attention of others. In large social matters there is

always danger of the substitution of an ideal of conscious "benevolence"

for justice: it is in aristocratic and feudal periods that the idea

flourishes that "charity" (conceived as conferring benefits _upon_

others, doing things _for_ them) is inherently and absolutely a good.

The idea assumes the continued and necessary existence of a dependent

"lower" class to be the recipients of the kindness of their superiors; a

class which serves as passive material for the cultivation in others of

the virtue of charity, the higher class "acquiring merit" at expense of

the lower, while the lower has gratitude and respect for authority as

its chief virtues.

(ii.) _The erection of the "benevolent" impulse into a virtue in and of

itself tends to build up egoism in others._ The child who finds himself

unremittingly the object of attention from others is likely to develop

an exaggerated sense of the relative importance of his own _ego_. The

chronic invalid, conspicuously the recipient of the conscious altruism

of others, is happy in nature who avoids the slow growth of an insidious

egoism. Men who are the constant subjects of abnegation on the part of

their wives and female relatives rarely fail to develop a self-absorbed

complacency and unconscious conceit.

(iii.) Undue emphasis upon altruism as a motive is quite likely to react

to form a _peculiarly subtle egoism in the person who cultivates it_.

Others cease to be _natural_ objects of interest and regard, and are

converted into excuses for the manifestation and nurture of one's own

generous goodness. Underlying complacency with respect to social ills

grows up because they afford an opportunity for developing and

displaying this finest of virtues. In our interest in the maintenance of

our own benign altruism we cease to be properly disturbed by conditions

which are intrinsically unjust and hateful.[180] (iv.) As present

circumstances amply demonstrate, there is the danger that the erection

of benevolence into a conscious principle in some things will serve to

supply rich persons with a cloak for selfishness in other directions.

Philanthropy is made an offset and compensation for brutal exploitation.

A man who pushes to the breaking-point of legality aggressively selfish

efforts to get ahead of others in business, squares it in his own

self-respect and in the esteem of those classes of the community who

entertain like conceptions, by gifts of hospitals, colleges, missions,

and libraries.

=Genuine and False Altruism.=--These considerations may be met by the

obvious retort that it is not true altruism, genuine benevolence,

sincere charity, which we are concerned with in such cases. This is a

true remark. We are not of course criticizing true but spurious interest

in others. But why is it counterfeit? What is the nature of the genuine

article? The danger is not in benevolence or altruism, but in that

conception of them which makes them equivalent to regard for others _as

others_, irrespective of a social situation to which all alike belong.

There is nothing in the selfhood of others, because they are others,

which gives it any supremacy over selfhood in oneself. Just as it is

exclusiveness of objective ends, the ignoring of relations, which is

objectionable in selfishness, so it is taking the part for the whole

which is obnoxious in so-called altruism. To include in our view of

consequences the needs and possibilities of others on the same basis as

our own, is to take the only course which will give an adequate view of

the situation. There is no situation into which these factors do not

enter. To have a generous view of others is to have a larger world in

which to act. To remember that they, like ourselves, are persons, are

individuals who are centers of joy and suffering, of lack and of

potentiality, is alone to have a just view of the conditions and issues

of behavior. Quickened sympathy means liberality of intelligence and

enlightened understanding.

=The Social Sense versus Altruism.=--There is a great difference in

principle between modern philanthropy and the "charity" which assumes a

superior and an inferior class. The latter principle tries to acquire

merit by employing one's superior resources to lessen, or to mitigate,

the misery of those who are fixed in a dependent status. Its principle,

so far as others are concerned, is negative and palliative merely. The

motive of what is vital in modern philanthropy is constructive and

expansive because it looks to the well-being of society as a whole, not

to soothing or rendering more tolerable the conditions of a class. It

realizes the interdependence of interests: that complex and variegated

interaction of conditions which makes it impossible for any one

individual or "class" really to secure, to assure, its own good as a

separate thing. Its aim is general social advance, constructive social

reform, not merely doing something kind for individuals who are rendered

helpless from sickness or poverty. Its aim is the equity of justice, not

the inequality of conferring benefits. That the sight of the misery that

comes from sickness, from insanity, from defective organic structure (as

among the blind and deaf), from poverty that destroys hope and dulls

initiative, from bad nutrition, should stimulate this general

quickening of the social sense is natural. But just as the activities of

the parent with reference to the welfare of a helpless infant are wisely

directed in the degree in which attention is mainly fixed not upon

weakness, but upon positive opportunities for growth, so the efforts of

those whose activities, by the nature of circumstances, have to be

especially remedial and palliative are most effective when centered on

the social rights and possibilities of the unfortunate individuals,

instead of treating them as separate individuals to whom, in their

separateness, "good is to be done."

The best kind of help to others, whenever possible, is indirect, and

consists in such modifications of the conditions of life, of the general

level of subsistence, as enables them independently to help

themselves.[181] Whenever conditions require purely direct and personal

aid, it is best given when it proceeds from a natural social

relationship, and not from a motive of "benevolence" as a separate

force.[182] The gift that pauperizes when proceeding from a

philanthropist in his special capacity, is a beneficent acknowledgment

of the relationships of the case when it comes from a neighbor or from

one who has other interests in common with the one assisted.

=The Private and the Social Self.=--The contrast between the narrow or

restrictive and the general or expansive good explains why evil presents

itself as a selfish end in contrast with an authoritative, but faint,

good of others. This is not, as we have seen, because regard for the

good of self is inherently bad and regard for that of others

intrinsically right; but because we are apt to identify the self with

the habitual, with that to which we are best adjusted and which

represents the customary occupation. Any moral crisis is thus fairly

pictured as a struggle to overcome selfishness. The tendency under such

circumstances is to contract, to secrete, to hang on to what is already

achieved and possessed. The habitual self needs to go out of the

narrowness of its accustomed grooves into the spacious air of more

generous behavior.

Sec. 4. THE GOOD AS SELF-REALIZATION

We now come to the theory which attempts to do justice to the one-sided

truths we have been engaged with, _viz._, the idea that the moral end is

_self-realization_. Like self-assertion in some respects, it differs in

conceiving the self to be realized as universal and ultimate, involving

the fulfillment of _all_ capacities and the observance of _all_

relations. Such a comprehensive self-realization includes also, it is

urged, the truth of altruism, since the "universal self" is realized

only when the relations that bind one to others are fulfilled. It avoids

also the inconsistencies and defects of the notion of self-sacrifice for

its own sake, while emphasizing that the present incomplete self must be

denied for the sake of attainment of a more complete and final self. A

discussion of this theory accordingly furnishes the means of gathering

together and summarizing various points regarding the role of the self

in the moral life.

=Ambiguity in the Conception.=--Is self-realization the end? As we have

had such frequent occasion to observe, "end" means either the

consequences actually effected, the closing and completing phase of an

act, or the aim held deliberately in view. Now realization of self is an

end (though not the only end) in the former sense. Every moral act in

its outcome marks a development or fulfillment of selfhood. But the very

nature of right action forbids that the self should be the end in the

sense of being the conscious aim of moral activity. For there is no way

of discovering the nature of the self except in terms of objective ends

which fulfill its capacities, and there is no _way_ of realizing the

self except as it is forgotten in devotion to these objective ends.

=1. Self-Realization as Consequence of Moral Action.=--Every good act

realizes the selfhood of the agent who performs it; every bad act tends

to the lowering or destruction of selfhood. This truth is expressed in

Kant's maxim that every personality should be regarded as always an end,

never as a means, with its implication that a wrong intent always

reduces selfhood to the status of a mere tool or device for securing

some end beyond itself--the self-indulgent man treating his personal

powers as mere means to securing ease, comfort, or pleasure. It is

expressed by ordinary moral judgment in its view that all immoral action

is a sort of prostitution, a lowering of the dignity of the self to base

ends. The destructive tendency of evil deeds is witnessed also by our

common language in its conception of wrong as dissipation,

dissoluteness, duplicity. The bad character is one which is shaky,

empty, "naughty," unstable, gone to pieces, just as the good man is

straight, solid, four-square, sound, substantial. This conviction that

at bottom and in the end, in spite of all temporary appearance to the

contrary, the right act effects a realization of the self, is also

evidenced in the common belief that virtue brings its own bliss. No

matter how much suffering from physical loss or from material and mental

inconvenience or loss of social repute virtue may bring with it, the

_quality of happiness_ that accompanies devotion to the right end is so

unique, so _invaluable_, that pains and discomforts do not weigh in the

balance. It is indeed possible to state this truth in such an

exaggerated perspective that it becomes false; but taken just for what

it is, it acknowledges that whatever harm or loss a right act may bring

to the self in some of its aspects,--even extending to destruction of

the bodily self,--the inmost moral self finds fulfillment and

consequent happiness in the good.

=2. Self-Realization as Aim of Moral Action.=--This realization of

selfhood in the right course of action is, however, not _the_ end of a

moral act--that is, it is not the only end. The moral act is one which

sustains a whole complex system of social values; one which keeps vital

and progressive the industrial order, science, art, and the State. The

patriot who dies for his country may find in that devotion his own

supreme realization, but none the less the aim of his act is precisely

that for which he performs it: the conservation of his nation. He dies

_for_ his country, not _for_ himself. He is what he would be in dying

for his country, not in dying for himself. To say that his conscious aim

is self-realization is to put the cart before the horse. That his

willingness to die for his country proves that his country's good is

taken by him to constitute himself and his own good is true; but his aim

is his country's good _as constituting_ his self-realization, not the

self-realization. It is impossible that genuine artistic creation or

execution should not be accompanied with the joy of an expanding

selfhood, but the artist who thinks _of_ himself and allows a view of

himself to intervene between his performance and its result, has the

embarrassment and awkwardness of "self-consciousness," which affects for

the worse his artistic product. And it makes little difference whether

it is the thought of himself as materially profiting, or as famous, or

as technical performer, or as benefiting the public, or as securing his

own complete artistic culture, that comes in between. In any case, there

is loss to the work, and loss in the very thing taken as end, namely,

development of his own powers. The problem of morality, upon the

intellectual side, is the discovery of, the finding of, the self, in the

objective end to be striven for; and then upon the overt practical side,

it is the losing of the self in the endeavor for the objective

realization. This is the lasting truth in the conception of

self-abnegation, self-forgetfulness, disinterested interest.

=The Thought of Self-Realization.=--Since, however, the realization of

selfhood, the strengthening and perfecting of capacity, is as matter of

fact one phase of the objective end, it may, _at times_, be definitely

present in thought as part of the foreseen consequences; and even, _at

times_, may be the most prominent feature of the conceived results. The

artist, for example a musician or painter, may practice for the sake of

acquiring skill, that is, of developing capacity. In this case, the

usual relationship of objective work and personal power is reversed; the

product or performance being subordinated to the perfecting of power,

instead of power being realized in the use it is put to. But the

development of power is not conceived as a final end, but as _desirable

because of an eventual more liberal and effective use_. It is matter of

temporary emphasis. Something of like nature occurs in the moral

life--not that one definitely rehearses or practices moral deeds for the

sake of acquiring more skill and power. At times the effect upon the

self of a deed becomes the conspicuously controlling element in the

forecast of consequences. (See p. 382.) For example, a person may

realize that a certain act is trivial in its effects upon others and in

the changes it impresses upon the world; and yet he may hesitate to

perform it because he realizes it would intensify some tendency of his

own in such a way as, in the delicate economy of character, to disturb

the proper balance of the springs to action. Or, on the other hand, the

agent may apprehend that some consequences that are legitimate and

important in themselves involve, in their attainment, an improper

sacrifice of personal capacity. In such cases, the consideration of the

effect upon self-realization is not only permissible, but imperative as

_a part or phase of the total end_.

=The Problem of Equating Personal and General Happiness.=--Much moral

speculation has been devoted to the problem of equating personal

happiness and regard for the general good. Right moral action, it is

assumed, consists especially of justice and benevolence,--attitudes

which aim at the good of others. But, it is also assumed, a just and

righteous order of the universe requires that the man who seeks the

happiness of others should also himself be a happy man. Much ingenuity

has been directed to explaining away and accounting for the seeming

discrepancies: the cases where men not conspicuous for regard for others

or for maintaining a serious and noble view of life seem to maintain a

banking-credit on the side of happiness; while men devoted to others,

men conspicuous for range of sympathetic affections, seem to have a

debit balance. The problem is the more serious because the respective

good and ill fortunes do not seem to be entirely accidental and

external, but to come as results from the moral factors in behavior. It

would not be difficult to build up an argument to show that while

extreme viciousness or isolated egoism is unfavorable to happiness, so

also are keenness and breadth of affections. The argument would claim

that the most comfortable course of life is one in which the man

cultivates enough intimacies with enough persons to secure for himself

their support and aid, but avoids engaging his sympathies too closely in

their affairs and entangling himself in any associations which would

require self-sacrifice or exposure to the sufferings of others: a course

of life in which the individual shuns those excesses of vice which

injure health, wealth, and lessen the decent esteem of others, but also

shuns enterprises of precarious virtue and devotion to high and

difficult ends.

=Real and Artificial Aspects of the Problem.=--The problem thus put

seems insoluble, or soluble only upon the supposition of some

prolongation of life under conditions very different from those of the

present, in which the present lack of balance between happiness and

goodness will be redressed. _But the problem is insoluble because it is

artificial._[183] It assumes a ready-made self and hence a ready-made

type of satisfaction of happiness. It is not the business of moral

theory to demonstrate the existence of mathematical equations, in this

life or another one, between goodness and virtue. It is the business of

men to develop such capacities and desires, such selves as render them

capable of finding their own satisfaction, their invaluable value, in

fulfilling the demands which grow out of their associated life. Such

happiness may be short in duration and slight in bulk: but that it

outweighs in quality all accompanying discomforts as well as all

enjoyments which may have been missed by not doing something else, is

attested by the simple fact that men do consciously choose it. Such a

person has found _himself_, and has solved the problem in the only place

and in the only way in which it can be solved: _in action_. To demand in

advance of voluntary desire and deliberate choice that it be

demonstrated that an individual shall get happiness in the measure of

the rightness of his act, is to demand the obliteration of the essential

factor in morality: the constant discovery, formation, and reformation

of the self in the ends which an individual is called upon to sustain

and develop in virtue of his membership in a social whole. The solution

of the problem through the individual's voluntary identification of

himself with social relations and aims is neither rare nor utopian. It

is achieved not only by conspicuous social figures, but by multitudes of

"obscure" figures who are faithful to the callings of their social

relationships and offices. That the conditions of life for all should be

enlarged, that wider opportunities and richer fields of activity should

be opened, in order that happiness may be of a more noble and variegated

sort, that those inequalities of status which lead men to find their

advantage in disregard of others should be destroyed--these things are

indeed necessary. But under the most ideal conditions which can be

imagined, if there remain any moral element whatsoever, it will be only

through personal deliberation and personal preference as to objective

and social ends that the individual will discover and constitute

himself, and hence discover the sort of happiness required as his good.

Our final word about the place of the self in the moral life is, then,

that the problem of morality is the formation, out of the body of

original instinctive impulses which compose the natural self, of a

voluntary self in which socialized desires and affections are dominant,

and in which the last and controlling principle of deliberation is the

love of the objects which will make this transformation possible. If we

identify, as we must do, the interests of such a character with the

virtues, we may say with Spinoza that happiness is not the reward of

virtue, but is virtue itself. What, then, are the virtues?

LITERATURE

For asceticism, see Lecky, _History of European Morals_.

For self-denial, Mackenzie, _International Journal of Ethics_, Vol. V.,

pp. 273-295.

For egoism and altruism: Comte, _System of Positive Politics_,

Introduction, ch. iii., and Part II., ch. ii.; Spencer, _Principles of

Ethics_, Vol. I., Part I., chs. xi.-xiv.; Stephen, _Science of Ethics_,

ch. vi.; Paulsen, _System of Ethics_, pp. 379-399; Sorley, _Recent

Tendencies in Ethics_; Sidgwick, _Methods of Ethics_, pp. 494-507.

For the doctrine of self-interest, see Mandeville, _Fable of Bees_;

Sidgwick, _Methods of Ethics_, Book I., ch. vii., and Book II., ch. v.;

Stephen, _Science of Ethics_, ch. x.; Martineau, _Types of Ethical

Theory_, Part II., Book II., Branch I., ch. i.; Fite, _Introductory

Study_, ch. ii.

For historic development of sympathy, see Sutherland, _Origin and Growth

of the Moral Instinct_.

For the doctrine of self-realization, see Aristotle, _Ethics_; Green,

_Prolegomena to Ethics_; Seth, _Principles of Ethics_, Part I., ch.

iii.; Bradley, _Ethical Studies_, Essay II.; Fite, _Introductory Study_,

ch. xi.; Paulsen, _System of Ethics_, Book II., ch. i.; Taylor,

_International Journal of Ethics_, Vol. VI., pp. 356-371; Palmer, _The

Heart of Ethics_, and _The Nature of Goodness_; Calderwood,

_Philosophical Review_, Vol. V., pp. 337-351; Dewey, _Philosophical

Review_, Vol. II., pp. 652-664; Bryant, _Studies in Character_, pp.

97-117.

For the ethics of success, besides the writings of Nietzsche, see Plato,

_Gorgias_ and _Republic_, Book I., and Sumner, _Folkways_, ch. xx.

For the social self: Cooley, _Human Nature and the Social Order_, chs.

v. and vi.; for the antagonistic self, chs. vii.-ix.

For a general discussion of the Moral Self, see Bosanquet, _Psychology

of the Moral Self_; Ladd, _Philosophy of Conduct_, ch. ix. (see also ch.

xviii. on the Good Man).

FOOTNOTES:

[170] Compare the opening words of Emerson's _Essay on Compensation_.

[171] The principle of a "higher law" for the few who are leaders was

first explicitly asserted in modern thought by Machiavelli.

[172] Some phases of the writings of Nietzsche supply relevant material

for this sketch. See especially his _Will for Power, Beyond Good and

Evil_, and such statements as: "The loss of force which suffering has

already brought upon life is still further increased and multiplied by

sympathy. Suffering itself becomes contagious through sympathy"

(overlooking the reaction of sympathy to abolish the source of suffering

and thus increase force). "Sympathy thwarts, on the whole, in general,

the law of development, which is the law of selection."--_Works_, Vol.

XI., p. 242.

[173] This phase of the matter has been brought out (possibly with some

counter-exaggeration) by Kropotkin in his _Mutual Aid_.

[174] Spencer puts the matter truly, if ponderously, in the following:

"The citizens of a large nation industrially organized, have reached

their possible ideal of happiness when the producing, distributing and

other activities, are such in their kinds and amounts, that each

individual finds in them a place for all his energies and aptitudes,

while he obtains the means of satisfying all his desires. Once more we

may recognize as not only possible, but probable, the eventual existence

of a community, also industrial, the members of which, having natures

similarly responding to these requirements, are also characterized by

dominant aesthetic faculties, and achieve complete happiness only when a

large part of life is filled with aesthetic activities" (_Principles of

Ethics_, Vol. I., p. 169).

[175] Machiavelli, transferring from theology to statecraft the notion

of the corruption and selfishness of all men, was the first modern to

preach this doctrine.

[176] See, for example, Hobbes, _Leviathan_; Mandeville, _Fable of the

Bees_; and Rochefoucauld, _Maxims_.

[177] Compare what was said above, p. 273, on the confusion of pleasure

as end, and as motive. Compare also the following from Leslie Stephen,

_Science of Ethics_, p. 241. It is often "insinuated that I dislike your

pain because it is painful to me in some special relation. I do not

dislike it as your pain, but in virtue of some particular consequence,

such, for example, as its making you less able to render me a service.

In that case I do not really object to your pain as your pain at all,

but only to some removable and accidental consequences." The entire

discussion of sympathy (pp. 230-245), which is admirable, should be

consulted.

[178] _Psychology_, Vol. I., p. 320. The whole discussion, pp. 317-329,

is very important.

[179] See, for example, James, _Principles of Psychology_, Vol. II., ch.

xxiv.

[180] Measures of public or state activity in the extension, for

example, of education (furnishing free text-books, adequate medical

inspection, and remedy of defects), are opposed by "good people" because

there are "charitable" agencies for doing these things.

[181] Compare Spencer's criticisms of Bentham's view of happiness as a

social standard in contrast with his own ideal of freedom. See _Ethics_,

Vol. I., pp. 162-168.

[182] See Addams, _Democracy and Social Ethics_, ch. ii.

[183] Compare the following extreme words of Sumner (_Folkways_, p. 9):

"The great question of world philosophy always has been, what is the

real relation between happiness and goodness? It is only within a few

generations that men have found courage to say there is none." But when

Sumner, in the next sentence, says, "The whole strength of the notion

that they are correlated is in the opposite experience which proves that

no evil thing brings happiness," one may well ask what more relation any

reasonable man would want. For it indicates that "goodness" consists in

active interest in those things which really bring happiness; and while

it by no means follows that this interest will _bring_ even a

preponderance of pleasure over pain to the person, it is always open to

him to _find_ and _take_ his dominant happiness in making this interest

dominant in his life.

CHAPTER XIX

THE VIRTUES

INTRODUCTORY

=Definition of Virtue.=--It is upon the self, upon the agent, that

ultimately falls the burden of maintaining and of extending the values

which make life reasonable and good. The worth of science, of art, of

industry, of relationship of man and wife, parent and child, teacher and

pupil, friend and friend, citizen and State, exists only as there are

characters consistently interested in such goods. Hence any trait of

character which makes for these goods is esteemed; it is given positive

value; while any disposition of selfhood found to have a contrary

tendency is condemned--has negative value. The habits of character whose

effect is to sustain and spread the rational or common good are virtues;

the traits of character which have the opposite effect are vices.

=Virtue and Approbation; Vice and Condemnation.=--The approbation and

disapprobation visited upon conduct are never purely intellectual. They

are also emotional and practical. We are stirred to hostility at

whatever disturbs the order of society; we are moved to admiring

sympathy of whatever makes for its welfare. And these emotions express

themselves in appropriate conduct. To disapprove and dislike is to

reprove, blame, and punish. To approve is to encourage, to aid, and

support. Hence the judgments express the character of the one who utters

them--they are traits of his conduct and character; and they react into

the character of the agent upon whom they are directed. They are part

of the process of forming character. The commendation is of the nature

of a reward calculated to confirm the person in the right course of

action. The reprobation is of the nature of punishment, fitted to

dissuade the agent from the wrong course. This encouragement and blame

are not necessarily of an external sort; the reward and the punishment

may not be in material things. It is not from ulterior design that

society esteems and respects those attributes of an agent which tend to

its own peace and welfare; it is from natural, instinctive response to

acknowledge whatever makes for its good. None the less, the social

esteem, the honor which attend certain acts inevitably educate the

individual who performs these acts, and they strengthen, emotionally and

practically, his interest in the right. Similarly, there is an

instinctive reaction of society against an infringement of its customs

and ideals; it naturally "makes it hot" for any one who disturbs its

values. And this disagreeable attention instructs the individual as to

the consequences of his act, and works to hinder the formation of

dispositions of the socially disliked kind.

=Natural Ability and Virtue.=--There is a tendency to use the term

virtue in an abstract "moralistic" sense--a way which makes it almost

Pharisaic in character. Hard and fast lines are drawn between certain

traits of character labeled "virtues" and others called talents, natural

abilities, or gifts of nature. Apart from deliberate or reflective

nurture, modesty or generosity is no less and no more a purely natural

ability than is good-humor, a turn for mechanics, or presence of mind.

Every natural capacity, every talent or ability, whether of inquiring

mind, of gentle affection or of executive skill, becomes a virtue when

it is turned to account in supporting or extending the fabric of social

values; and it turns, if not to vice at least to delinquency, when not

thus utilized. The important habits conventionally reckoned virtues are

barren unless they are the cumulative assemblage of a multitude of

anonymous interests and capacities. Such natural aptitudes vary widely

in different individuals. Their endowments and circumstances occasion

and exact different virtues, and yet one person is not more or less

virtuous than another because his virtues take a different form.

=Changes in Virtues.=--It follows also that the meaning, or content, of

virtues changes from time to time. Their abstract form, the man's

attitude towards the good, remains the same. But when institutions and

customs change and natural abilities are differently stimulated and

evoked, ends vary, and habits of character are differently esteemed both

by the individual agent and by others who judge. No social group could

be maintained without patriotism and chastity, but the actual meaning of

chastity and patriotism is widely different in contemporary society from

what it was in savage tribes or from what we may expect it to be five

hundred years from now. Courage in one society may consist almost wholly

in willingness to face physical danger and death in voluntary devotion

to one's community; in another, it may be willingness to support an

unpopular cause in the face of ridicule.

=Conventional and Genuine Virtue.=--When we take these social changes on

a broad scale, in the gross, the point just made is probably clear

without emphasis. But we are apt to forget that minor changes are going

on all the while. The community's formulated code of esteem and regard

and praise at any given time is likely to lag somewhat behind its

practical level of achievement and possibility. It is more or less

traditional, describing what used to be, rather than what are, virtues.

The "respectable" comes to mean tolerable, passable, conventional.

Accordingly the prevailing scheme of assigning merit and blame, while on

the whole a mainstay of moral guidance and instruction, is also a menace

to moral growth. Hence men must look behind the current valuation to the

real value. Otherwise, mere conformity to custom is conceived to be

virtue;[184] and the individual who deviates from custom in the interest

of wider and deeper good is censured.

=Moral Responsibility for Praise and Blame.=--The practical assigning of

value, of blame and praise, is a measure and exponent of the character

of the one from whom it issues. In judging others, in commending and

condemning, we judge ourselves. What we find to be praiseworthy and

blameworthy is a revelation of our own affections. Very literally the

measure we mete to others is meted to us. To be free in our attributions

of blame is to be censorious and uncharitable; to be unresentful to evil

is to be indifferent, or interested perhaps chiefly in one's own

popularity, so that one avoids giving offense to others. To engage

profusely in blame and approbation in speech without acts which back up

or attack the ends verbally honored or condemned, is to have a

perfunctory morality. To cultivate complacency and remorse apart from

effort to improve is to indulge in sentimentality. In short, to approve

or to condemn is itself a moral act for which we are as much responsible

as we are for any other deed.

=Impossibility of Cataloguing Virtues.=--These last three

considerations: (1) the intimate connection of virtues with all sorts of

individual capacities and endowments, (2) the change in types of habit

required with change of social customs and institutions, (3) the

dependence of judgment of vice and virtue upon the character of the one

judging,[185] make undesirable and impossible a catalogued list of

virtues with an exact definition of each. Virtues are numberless. Every

situation, not of a routine order, brings in some special shading, some

unique adaptation, of disposition.

=Twofold Classification.=--We may, however, classify the chief

institutions of social life--language, scientific investigation,

artistic production, industrial efficiency, family, local community,

nation, humanity--and specify the types of mental disposition and

interest which are fitted to maintain them flourishingly; or, starting

from typical impulsive and instinctive tendencies, we may consider the

form they assume when they become intelligently exercised habits. A

virtue may be defined, accordingly, either as _the settled intelligent

identification of an agent's capacity with some aspect of the reasonable

or common happiness_; or, as _a social custom or tendency organized into

a personal habit of valuation_. From the latter standpoint, truthfulness

is the social institution of language maintained at its best pitch of

efficiency through the habitual purposes of individuals; from the

former, it is an instinctive capacity and tendency to communicate

emotions and ideas directed so as to maintain social peace and

prosperity. In like fashion, one might catalogue all forms of social

custom and institution on one hand; and all the species and varieties of

individual equipment on the other, and enumerate a virtue for each. But

the performance is so formal as not to amount to much.

=Aspects of Virtue.=--Any virtuous disposition of character exhibits,

however, certain main traits, a consideration of which will serve to

review and summarize our analysis of the moral life.

=I. The Interest Must be Entire or Whole-hearted.=--The whole self,

without division or reservation, must go out into the proposed object

and find therein its own satisfaction. Virtue is integrity; vice

duplicity. Goodness is straight, right; badness is crooked, indirect.

Interest that is incomplete is not interest, but (so far as incomplete)

indifference and disregard. This totality of interest we call affection,

love; and love is the fulfilling of the law. A grudging virtue is next

to no virtue at all; thorough heartiness in even a bad cause stirs

admiration, and lukewarmness in every direction is always despised as

meaning lack of character. Surrender, abandonment, is of the essence of

identification of self with an object.

=II. The Interest Must be Energetic and Hence Persistent.=--One swallow

does not make a summer nor a sporadic right act a virtuous habit.

Fair-weather character has a proverbially bad name. Endurance through

discouragement, through good repute and ill, weal and woe, tests the

vigor of interest in the good, and both builds up and expresses a formed

character.

=III. The Interest Must be Pure or Sincere.=--Honesty is, doubtless, the

best policy, and it is better a man should be honest from policy than

not honest at all. If genuinely honest from considerations of prudence,

he is on the road to learn better reasons for honesty. None the less, we

are suspicious of a man if we believe that motives of personal profit

are the only stay of his honesty. For circumstances might arise in

which, in the exceptional case, it would be clear that personal

advantage lay in dishonesty. The motive for honesty would hold in most

cases, in ordinary and routine circumstances and in the glare of

publicity, but not in the dark of secrecy, or in the turmoil of

disturbed circumstance. The eye single to the good, the "disinterested

interest" of moralists, is required. The motive that has to be coaxed or

coerced to its work by some promise or threat is imperfect.

=Cardinal or Indispensable Aspects of Virtue.=--Bearing in mind that we

are not attempting to classify various acts or habits, but only to state

traits essential to all morality, we have the "cardinal virtues" of

moral theory. As whole-hearted, as complete interest, any habit or

attitude of character involves justice and love; as persistently active,

it is courage, fortitude, or vigor; as unmixed and single, it is

temperance--in its classic sense. And since no habitual interest can be

integral, enduring, or sincere, save as it is reasonable, save, that is,

as it is rooted in the deliberate habit of viewing the part in the light

of the whole, the present in the light of the past and future, interest

in the good is also wisdom or conscientiousness:--interest in the

discovery of the true good of the situation. Without this interest, all

our interest is likely to be perverted and misleading--requiring to be

repented of.

Wisdom, or (in modern phrase) conscientiousness, is the nurse of all the

virtues. Our most devoted courage is in the will to know the good and

the fair by unflinching attention to the painful and disagreeable. Our

severest discipline in self-control is that which checks the exorbitant

pretensions of an appetite by insisting upon knowing it in its true

proportions. The most exacting justice is that of an intelligence which

gives due weight to each desire and demand in deliberation before it is

allowed to pass into overt action. That affection and wisdom lie close

to each other is evidenced by our language; thoughtfulness, regard,

consideration for others, recognition of others, attention to others.

Sec. 1. TEMPERANCE

The English word "temperance" (particularly in its local association

with agitation regarding use of intoxicating liquors) is a poor

substitute for the Greek _sophrosyne_ which, through the Latin

_temperantia_, it represents. The Athenian Greek was impressed with the

fact that just as there are lawless, despotically ruled, and

self-governed communities, so there are lawless, and servile, and

self-ruled individuals. Whenever there is a self-governed soul, there

is a happy blending of the authority of reason with the force of

appetite. The individual's diverse nature is tempered into a living

harmony of desire and intelligence. Reason governs not as a tyrant from

without, but as a guide to which the impulses and emotions are gladly

responsive. Such a well-attuned nature, as far from asceticism on one

side as from random indulgence on the other, represented the ideal of

what was fair and graceful in character, an ideal embodied in the notion

of _sophrosyne_. This was a _whole-mindedness_ which resulted from the

happy furtherance of all the elements of human nature under the

self-accepted direction of intelligence. It implied an _aesthetic_ view

of character; of harmony in structure and rhythm in action. It was the

virtue of judgment exercised in the estimate of pleasures:--since it is

the agreeable, the pleasant, which gives an end excessive hold upon us.

=Roman Temperantia.=--The Roman conceived this virtue under the term

_temperantia_, which conveys the same idea, but accommodated to the

Roman genius. It is connected with the word _tempus_, time, which is

connected also with a root meaning divide, distribute; it suggests a

consecutive orderliness of behavior, a freedom from excessive and

reckless action, first this way, and then that. It means seemliness,

decorum, decency. It was "moderation," not as quantity of indulgence,

but as a moderating of each act in a series by the thought of other and

succeeding acts--keeping each in sequence with others in a whole. The

idea of time involves time to think; the sobering second thought

expressed in seriousness and gravity. The negative side, the side of

restraint, of inhibition, is strong, and functions for the consistent

calm and gravity of life.

=Christian Purity.=--Through the Christian influence, the connotation

which is marked in the notion of control of sexual appetite, became most

obvious--_purity_. Passion is not so much something which disturbs the

harmony of man's nature, or which interrupts its orderliness, as it is

something which defiles the purity of spiritual nature. It is the

grossness, the contamination of appetite which is insisted upon, and

temperance is the maintenance of the soul spotless and unsullied.

=Negative Phase=:--Self-control. A negative aspect of self-control,

restraint, inhibition is everywhere involved.[186] It is not, however,

desire, or appetite, or passion, or impulse, which has to be checked

(much less eliminated); it is rather that tendency of desire and passion

so to engross attention as to destroy our sense of the other ends which

have a claim upon us. This moderation of pretension is indispensable for

every desire. In one direction, it is modesty, humility; the restraint

of the tendency of self-conceit to distort the relative importance of

the agent's and others' concerns; in another direction, it is chastity;

in another, "temperance" in the narrower sense of that word--keeping the

indulgence of hunger and thirst from passing reasonable bounds; in

another, it is calmness, self-possession--moderation of the transporting

power of excitement; in yet another, it is discretion, imposing limits

upon the use of the hand, eye, or tongue. In matters of wealth, it is

decent regulation of display and ostentation. In general, it is

prudence, control of the present impulse and desire by a view of the

"long run," of proximate by remote consequences.[187]

=Positive Phase: Reverence.=--The tendency of dominant passion is to

rush us along, to prevent our thinking. The one thing that desire

emphasizes is, for the time being, the most important thing in the

universe. This is necessary to heartiness and effectiveness of interest

and behavior. But it is important that the thing which thus absorbs

desire should be an end capable of justifying its power to absorb. This

is possible only if it expresses the entire self. Otherwise capacities

and desires which will occur later will be inconsistent and

antagonistic, and conduct will be unregulated and unstable. The

underlying idea in "temperance" is then a care of details for the sake

of the whole course of behavior of which they are parts; heedfulness,

painstaking devotion. Laxness in conduct means carelessness; lack of

regard for the whole life permits temporary inclinations to get a sway

that the outcome will not justify. In its more striking forms, we call

this care and respect _reverence_; recognition of the unique, invaluable

worth embodied in any situation or act of life, a recognition which

checks that flippancy of surrender to momentary excitement coming from a

superficial view of behavior. A sense of momentous issues at stake means

a sobering and deepening of the mental attitude. The consciousness that

every deed of life has an import clear beyond its immediate, or first

significance, attaches dignity to every act. To live in the sense of the

larger values attaching to our passing desires and deeds is to be

possessed by the virtue of temperance.

=Control of Excitement.=--What hinders such living is, as we have seen,

the exaggerated intensity, the lack of proportion and perspective, with

which any appetite or desire is likely to present itself. It is this

which moralists of all ages have attacked under the name of

pleasure--the alluring and distracting power of the momentarily

agreeable. Seeing in this the enemy which prevents the rational survey

of the whole field and the calm, steady insight into the true good, it

is hardly surprising that moralists have attacked "pleasure" as the

source of every temptation to stray from the straight path of reason.

But it is not pleasure, it is one form of pleasure, the _pleasure of

excitement_, which is the obstacle and danger.[188] Every impulse and

desire marks a certain disturbance in the order of life, an exaltation

above the existing level, a pressure beyond its existing limit. To give

way to desire, to let it grow, to taste to the full its increasing and

intensifying excitement, is the temptation. The bodily appetites of

hunger and thirst and sex, with which we associate the grossest forms of

indulgence and laxity, exemplify the principle of expanding waves of

organic stimulation. But so also do many of the subtler forms of

unrestraint or intemperate action. The one with a clever and lively

tongue is tempted to let it run away with him; the vain man feeds upon

the excitement of a personality heightened by display and the notice of

others; the angry man, even though he knows he will later regret his

surrender, gives away to the sense of expanding power coincident with

his discharge of rage. The shiftless person finds it easier to take

chances and let consequences take care of themselves, while he enjoys

local and casual stimulations. Trivialities and superficialities

entangle us in a flippant life, because each one as it comes promises to

be "thrilling," while the very fear that this promise will not be kept

hurries us on to new experiences. To think of alternatives and

consequences is not "thrilling," but serious.

=Necessity of Superior Interest.=--Now calculation of the utilitarian

type is not adequate to deal with this temptation. Those who are prone

to reflection upon results are just those who are least likely to be

carried away by excitement--unless, as is the case with some

specialists, thinking is itself the mode of indulgence in

excitement.[189] With those who are carried away habitually by some mode

of excitement, the disease and the incapacity to take the proffered

remedy of reflection are the same thing. Only some _other_ passion will

accomplish the desired control. With the Greeks, it was aesthetic

passion, love of the grace and beauty, the rhythm and harmony, of a

self-controlled life. With the Romans, it was the passion for dignity,

power, honor of personality, evidenced in rule of appetite. Both of

these motives remain among the strong allies of ordered conduct. But the

passion for purity, the sense of something degrading and foul in

surrender to the base, an interest in something spotless, free from

adulteration, are, in some form or other, the chief resource in

overcoming the tendency of excitement to usurp the governance of the

self.[190]

Sec. 2. COURAGE[191] OR PERSISTENT VIGOR

While love of excitement allures man from the path of reason, fear of

pain, dislike to hardship, and laborious effort, hold him back from

entering it. Dislike of the disagreeable inhibits or contracts the

putting forth of energy, just as liking for agreeable stimulation

discharges and exhausts it. Intensity of active interest in the good

alone subdues that instinctive shrinking from the unpleasant and hard

which slackens energy or turns it aside. Such energy of devotion is

courage. Its etymological connection with the Latin word for _heart_,

suggests a certain abundant spontaneity, a certain overflow of positive

energy; the word was applied to this aspect of virtue when the heart was

regarded as literally (not metaphorically) the seat of vital impulse and

abundant forcefulness.

=Courage and the Common Good.=--One of the problems of early Greek

thought was that of discriminating courage as virtuous from a sort of

animal keenness and alacrity, easily running into recklessness and

bravado. It was uniformly differentiated from mere overflow of

physical energy by the fact that it was exhibited in support of some

common or social good. It bore witness to its voluntary character

by abiding in the face of threatened evil. Its simplest form was

patriotism--willingness to brave the danger of death in facing the

country's enemy from love of country. And this basic largeness of spirit

in which the individual sinks considerations of personal loss and harm

in allegiance to an objective good remains a cardinal aspect of all

right disposition.

=Courage is Preeminently the Executive Side of Every Virtue.=--The good

will, as we saw, means endeavor, effort, towards certain ends; unless

the end stirs to strenuous exertion, it is a sentimental, not a moral or

practical end. And endeavor implies obstacles to overcome, resistance to

what diverts, painful labor. It is the degree of threatened harm--in

spite of which one does not swerve--which measures this depth and

sincerity of interest in the good.

=Aspects of Interest in Execution.=--Certain formal traits of courage

follow at once from this general definition. In its onset, willingness

in behalf of the common good to endure attendant private evils is

alacrity, promptness. In its abiding and unswerving devotion, it is

constancy, loyalty, and faithfulness. In its continual resistance to

evil, it is fortitude, patience, perseverance, willingness to abide for

justification an ultimate issue. The _totality_ of commitment of self

to the good is decision and firmness. Conviction and resolution

accompany all true moral endeavor. These various dimensions (intensity,

duration, extent, and fullness) are, however, only differing expressions

of one and the same attitude of vigorous, energetic identification of

agency with the object.

=Goodness and Effectiveness.=--It is the failure to give due weight to

this factor of morality (the "works" of theological discussion) which is

responsible for the not uncommon idea that moral goodness means loss of

practical efficacy. When inner disposition is severed from outer action,

wishing divorced from executive willing, morality is reduced to mere

harmlessness; outwardly speaking, the best that can then be said of

virtue is that it is innocent and innocuous. Unscrupulousness is

identified with energy of execution; and a minute and paralyzing

scrupulosity with goodness. It is in reaction from such futile morality

that the gospel of force and of shrewdness of selecting and adapting

means to the desired end, is preached and gains hearers--as in the Italy

of the Renaissance[192] in reaction against mediaeval piety, and again in

our own day (see _ante_, p. 374).

=Moral Courage and Optimism.=--A characteristic modern development of

courageousness is implied in the phrase "moral courage,"--as if all

genuine courage were not moral. It means devotion to the good in the

face of the customs of one's friends and associates, rather than against

the attacks of one's enemies. It is willingness to brave for sake of a

new idea of the good the unpopularity that attends breach of custom and

convention. It is this type of heroism, manifested in integrity of

memory and foresight, which wins the characteristic admiration of

to-day, rather than the outward heroism of bearing wounds and undergoing

physical dangers. It is _attention_ upon which the stress falls.[193]

This supplies, perhaps, the best vantage point from which to survey

optimism and pessimism in their direct moral bearings. The individual

whose pursuit of the good is colored by honest recognition of existing

and threatening evils is almost always charged with being a pessimist;

with cynical delight in dwelling upon what is morbid, base, or sordid;

and he is urged to be an "optimist," meaning in effect to conceal from

himself and others evils that obtain. Optimism, thus conceived, is a

combination of building rosy-colored castles in the air and hiding,

ostrich-like, from actual facts. As a general thing, it will be those

who have some interest at stake in evils remaining unperceived, and

hence unremedied, who most clamor in the cause of such "optimism." Hope

and aspiration, belief in the supremacy of good in spite of all evil,

belief in the realizability of good in spite of all obstacles, are

necessary inspirations in the life of virtue. The good can never be

demonstrated to the senses, nor be proved by calculations of personal

profit. It involves a radical venture of the will in the interest of

what is unseen and prudentially incalculable. But such optimism of

_will_, such determination of the man that, so far as his choice is

concerned, only the good shall be recognized as real, is very different

from a sentimental refusal to look at the realities of the situation

just as they are. In fact a certain intellectual pessimism, in the sense

of a steadfast willingness to uncover sore points, to acknowledge and

search for abuses, to note how presumed good often serves as a cloak for

actual bad, is a necessary part of the moral optimism which actively

devotes itself to making the right prevail. Any other view reduces the

aspiration and hope, which are the essence of moral courage, to a

cheerful animal buoyancy; and, in its failure to see the evil done to

others in its thoughtless pursuit of what it calls good, is nextdoor to

brutality, to a brutality bathed in the atmosphere of sentimentality and

flourishing the catchwords of idealism.

Sec. 3. JUSTICE

=In Ethical Literature Justice Has Borne at Least Three Different

Senses.=[194]--In its widest sense, it means righteousness, uprightness,

rectitude. It sums up morality. It is not _a_ virtue, but it is virtue.

The just act is the _due_ act; justice is fulfillment of obligation. (2)

This passes over into fairness, equity, impartiality, honesty in all

one's dealing with others. (3) The narrowest meaning is that of

_vindication_ of right through the administration of law.[194] Since

Aristotle's time (and following his treatment) this has been divided

into (i.) the _distributive_, having to do with the assignment of honor,

wealth, etc., in proportion to desert, and (ii.) the _corrective_,

vindicating the law against the transgressor by effecting a requital,

redress, which restores the supremacy of law.

=A Thread of Common Significance Runs through These Various

Meanings.=--The rational good means a comprehensive or complete end, in

which are harmoniously included a variety of special aims and values.

The just man is the man who takes in the whole of a situation and reacts

to it in its wholeness, not being misled by undue respect to some

particular factor. Since the general or inclusive good is a common or

social good, reconciling and combining the ends of a multitude of

private or particular persons, justice is the preeminently social

virtue: that which maintains the due order of individuals in the

interest of the comprehensive or social unity.