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23 Produced by Scott Pfenninger, Charles Franks
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
A HANDBOOK OF ETHICAL THEORY
BY GEORGE STUART FULLERTON
To
MY WIFE
PREFACE
We are all amply provided, with moral maxims, which we hold with more or
less confidence, but an insight into their significance is not attained
without reflection and some serious effort. Yet, surely, in a field in
which there are so many differences of opinion, clearness of insight and
breadth of view are eminently desirable.
It is with a view to helping students of ethics in our universities and
outside of them to a clearer comprehension of the significance of morals
and the end of ethical endeavor, that this book has been written.
I have, in the Notes appended to it, taken the liberty of making a few
suggestions to teachers, some of whom have fewer years of teaching behind
them than I have. I make no apology for writing in a clear and
untechnical style, nor for reducing to a minimum references to
literatures in other tongues than our own. These things are in accord
with the aim of the volume.
I take this opportunity of thanking Professor Margaret F. Washburn, of
Vassar College, and Professor F. J. E. Woodbridge, of Columbia
University, for kind assistance, which I have found helpful.
G. S. F. New York, 1921.
CONTENTS
PART I
_THE ACCEPTED CONTENT OF MORALS_
CHAPTER I. IS THERE AN ACCEPTED CONTENT?
1. The Point in Dispute.
2. What Constitutes Substantial Agreement?
3. Dogmatic Assumption.
CHAPTER II. THE CODES OF COMMUNITIES
4. The Codes of Communities: Justice.
5. The Codes of Communities: Veracity.
6. The Codes of Communities: the Common Good.
CHAPTER III. THE CODES OF THE MORALISTS
7. The Moralists.
8. Epicurean and Stoic.
9. Plato; Aristotle; the Church.
10. Later Lists of the Virtues.
11. The Stretching of Moral Concepts.
12. The Reflective Mind and the Moral Codes.
PART II
_ETHICS AS SCIENCE_
CHAPTER IV. THE AWAKENING TO REFLECTION
13. The Dogmatism of the Natural Man.
14. The Awakening.
CHAPTER V. ETHICAL METHOD
15. Inductive and Deductive Method.
16 The Authority of the "Given."
CHAPTER VI. THE MATERIALS OF ETHICS
17. How the Moralist should Proceed.
18. The Philosopher as Moralist.
CHAPTER VII. THE AIM OF ETHICS AS SCIENCE
19. The Appeal to Reason.
20. The Appeal to Reason Justified.
PART III
_MAN AND HIS ENVIRONMENT_
CHAPTER VIII. MAN'S NATURE
21. The Background of Actions.
22. Man's Nature.
23. How Discover Man's Nature?
CHAPTER IX. MAN'S MATERIAL ENVIRONMENT
24. The Struggle with Nature.
25. The Conquests of the Mind.
26. The Conquest of Nature and the Well-being of Man.
CHAPTER X. MAN'S SOCIAL ENVIRONMENT
27. Man is Assigned his Place.
28. Varieties of the Social Order.
29. Social Organization.
30. Social Order and Human Will.
PART IV
_THE REALM OF ENDS_
CHAPTER XI. IMPULSE, DESIRE, AND WILL
31. Impulse.
32. Desire.
33. Desire of the Unattainable.
34. Will.
35. Desire and Will not Identical.
36. The Will and Deferred Action.
CHAPTER XII. THE PERMANENT WILL
37. Consciously Chosen Ends.
38. Ends not Consciously Chosen.
39. The Choice of Ideals.
CHAPTER XIII. THE OBJECT IN DESIRE AND WILL
40. The Object as End to be Realized.
41. Human Nature and the Objects Chosen.
42. The Instincts and Impulses of Man.
43. The Study of Man's Instincts Important.
44. The Bewildering Multiplicity of the Objects of Desire, and the Effort
to Find an Underlying Unity.
CHAPTER XIV. INTENTION AND MOTIVE
45. Complex Ends.
46. Intention.
47. Motive.
48. Ethical Significance of Intention and Motive.
CHAPTER XV. FEELING AS MOTIVE
49. Feeling.
50. Feeling and Action.
51. Feeling as Object.
52. Freedom as Object.
CHAPTER XVI. RATIONALITY AND WILL
53. The Irrational Will.
54. One View of Reason.
55. Dominant and Subordinate Desires.
56. The Harmonization of Desires.
57. Varieties of Dominant Ends.
58. An Objection Answered.
59. This View of Reason Misconceived.
60. Another View of Reason.
PART V
_THE SOCIAL WILL_
CHAPTER XVII. CHARACTERISTICS OF THE SOCIAL WILL
61. What is the Social Will?
62. Social Will and Social Habits.
63. Social Will and Social Organization.
64. The Social Will and Ideal Ends.
65. The Permanent Social Will.
CHAPTER XVIII. EXPRESSIONS OF THE SOCIAL WILL
66. Custom.
67. The Ground for the Authority of Custom.
68. The Origin and the Persistence of Customs.
69. Law.
70. Public Opinion.
CHAPTER XIX. THE SHARERS IN THE SOCIAL WILL
71. The Community.
72. The Community and the Dead.
73. The Community and the Supernatural.
74. Religion and the Community.
75. The Spread of the Community.
PART VI
_THE REAL SOCIAL WILL_
CHAPTER XX. THE IMPERFECT SOCIAL WILL
76. The Apparent and the Real Social Will.
77. The Will of the Majority.
78. Ignorance and Error and the Social Will.
79. Heedlessness and the Social Will.
80. Rational Elements in the Irrational Will.
81. The Social Will and the Selfishness of the Individual.
CHAPTER XXI. THE RATIONAL SOCIAL WILL
82. Reasonable Ends.
83. An Objection Answered.
84. Reasonable Social Ends.
85. The Ethics of Reason.
86. The Development of Civilization.
CHAPTER XXII. THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE SOCIAL WILL
87. Man's Multiple Allegiance.
88. The Appeal to Reason.
89. The Ethics of Reason and the Varying Moral Codes.
PART VII
_THE SCHOOLS OF THE MORALISTS_
CHAPTER XXIII. INTUITIONISM
90. What is it?
91. Varieties of Intuitionism.
92. Arguments for Intuitionism.
93. Arguments against Intuitionism.
94. The Value of Moral Intuitions.
CHAPTER XXIV. EGOISM
95. What is Egoism?
96. Crass Egoisms.
97. Equivocal Egoism?
98. What is Meant by the Self?
99. Egoism and the Broader Self.
100. Egoism not Unavoidable.
101. Varieties of Egoism.
102. The Arguments for Egoism.
103. The Argument against Egoism.
104. The Moralist's Interest in Egoism.
CHAPTER XXV. UTILITARIANISM
105. What is Utilitarianism?
106. Bentham's Doctrine.
107. The Doctrine of J. S. Mill.
108. The Argument for Utilitarianism.
109. The Distribution of Happiness.
110. The Calculus of Pleasures.
111. The Difficulties of Other Schools.
112. Summary of Arguments for Utilitarianism.
113. Arguments against Utilitarianism.
114. Transfigured Utilitarianism.
CHAPTER XXVI. NATURE, PERFECTION, SELF-REALIZATION
I. _Nature_
115. Human Nature as Accepted Standard.
116. Human Nature and the Law of Nature.
117. Vagueness of the Law of Nature.
118. The Appeal to Nature and Intuitionism.
II. _Perfection_
119. Perfection and Type.
120. More and Less Perfect Types.
121. Perfectionism and Intuitionism.
III. _Self-realization_
122. The Self-realization Doctrine.
123. The Doctrine Akin to that of Following Nature.
124. Is the Doctrine More Egoistic?
125. Why Aim to Realize Capacities?
126. The Problem of Self-sacrifice.
127. Self-satisfaction and Self-sacrifice.
128. Can Moral Self-sacrifice be a Duty?
129. Self-sacrifice and the Identity of Selves.
130. Questions which Seem to be Left Open.
CHAPTER XXVII. THE ETHICS OF EVOLUTION
131. The Significance of the Title.
132. Evolution and the Schools of the Moralists.
133. The Ethics of Individual Evolutionists.
CHAPTER XXVIII. PESSIMISM
134. The Philosophy of the Pessimist.
135. Comment on the Ethics of Pessimism.
CHAPTER XXIX. KANT, HEGEL AND NIETZSCHE
136. Kant.
137. Hegel.
138. Nietzsche.
PART VIII
_THE ETHICS OF THE SOCIAL WILL_
CHAPTER XXX. ASPECTS OF THE ETHICS OF REASON
139. The Doctrine Supported by the Other Schools.
140. Its Method of Approach to Problems.
141. Its Solution of Certain Difficulties.
142. The Cultivation of Our Capacities.
CHAPTER XXXI. THE MORAL LAW AND MORAL IDEALS
143. Duties and Virtues.
144. The Negative Aspect of the Moral Law.
145. How Can One Know the Moral Law?
CHAPTER XXXII. THE MORAL CONCEPTS
146. Good and Bad; Right and Wrong.
147. Duty and Obligation.
148. Reward and Punishment.
149. Virtues and Vices.
150. Conscience.
CHAPTER XXXIII. THE ETHICS OF THE INDIVIDUAL.
151. What is Meant by the Term?
152. The Virtues of the Individual.
153. Conventional Morality.
CHAPTER XXXIV. THE ETHICS OF THE STATE
154. The Aim of the State.
155. Its Origin and Authority.
156. Forms of Organization.
157. The Laws of the State.
158. The Rights and Duties of the State.
CHAPTER XXXV. INTERNATIONAL ETHICS
159. What is Meant by the Term.
160. Our Method of Approach to the Subject.
161. Some Problems of International Ethics.
162. The Other Side of the Shield.
163. The Solution.
164. The Necessity for Caution.
CHAPTER XXXVI. ETHICS AND OTHER DISCIPLINES
165. Sciences that Concern the Moralist.
166. Ethics and Philosophy.
167. Ethics and Religion.
168. Ethics and Belief.
169. The Last Word.
NOTES
INDEX
PART I
THE ACCEPTED CONTENT OF MORALS
CHAPTER I
IS THERE AN ACCEPTED CONTENT?
1. THE POINT IN DISPUTE.--Is there an accepted content of morals? Can we
use the expression without going on to ask: Accepted where, when, and by
whom?
To be sure, certain eminent moralists have inclined to maintain that men
are in substantial agreement in regard to their moral judgments. Joseph
Butler, writing in the first half of the eighteenth century, came to the
conclusion that, however men may dispute about particulars, there is an
universally acknowledged standard of virtue, professed in public in all
ages and all countries, made a show of by all men, enforced by the
primary and fundamental laws of all civil constitutions: namely, justice,
veracity, and regard to common good. [Footnote: _Dissertation on the
Nature of Virtue._] Sir Leslie Stephen, writing in the latter half of
the nineteenth, tells us that "in one sense moralists are almost
unanimous; in another they are hopelessly discordant. They are unanimous
in pronouncing certain classes of conduct to be right and the opposite
wrong. No moralist denies that cruelty, falsity and intemperance are
vicious, or that mercy, truth and temperance are virtuous." [Footnote:
_The Science of Ethics_, chapter i, Sec. 1.]
In other words, these writers would teach us that men are, on the whole,
agreed in approving, explicitly or implicitly, some standard of conduct
sufficiently definite to serve as a code of morals. But that there is
such a substantial agreement among men has not impressed all observers to
the same degree. Locke, who wrote before Butler, based his arguments
against the existence of innate moral maxims upon the wide divergencies
found among various classes of men touching what is right and what is
wrong. [Footnote: _Essay Concerning Human Understanding_, Book I,
chapter iii.] The historian, the anthropologist and the sociologist
reinforce his reasonings with a wealth of illustration not open to the
men of an earlier time. They present us with codes, not a code; with
multitudinous standards, not a single standard; with what has been
accepted here or there, at this time or at that; and we may well ask
ourselves where, amid this profusion, we are to find the one and
acceptable code.
2. WHAT CONSTITUTES SUBSTANTIAL AGREEMENT?--To be sure, we may be very
generous in our interpretation of what constitutes substantial agreement;
we may deny significance to all sorts of discrepancies by relegating them
to the unimpressive class of "disputes about particulars." Such an
impressionistic indifference to detail may leave us with something on our
hands as little serviceable as a composite photograph made from
individual objects which have little in common, a blur lacking all
definite outline and not recognizable as any object at all. No man can
guide his conduct by the common core of many or of all moral codes. Taken
in its bald abstraction, it is not a code or anything like a code. Who
can walk, without walking in some particular way, in some direction, at
some time? Who can mind his manners without being mannerly in accordance
with the usages of some race or people?
Those who content themselves with enunciating very general moral
principles may, it is true, be of no little service to their fellow-men;
but that is only because their fellow-men are able to supply the details
that convert the blur into a picture. Some twenty-four hundred years ago
Heraclitus told his contemporaries "to act according to nature with
understanding"; we are often told today that the rule of our lives should
be "to do good." Had the ancient Greek not possessed his own notions of
what might properly be meant by nature and by understanding, did we not
ourselves have some rather definite conception of what actions may
properly fall under the caption of doing good, such admonitions could not
lead to the stirring of a finger. Who would appeal to his physician for
advice as to diet, if he expected from him no more than the counsel to
eat, at the proper hours, enough, but not too much, of suitable food?
If, then, we confine our admonitions to the group of abstractions which
constitute the universally acknowledged standard of virtue when all the
individual differences which characterize different codes have been
ignored, we preach what, taken alone, no man can live by, and no
community of men has ever attempted to live by. If we leave it to our
hearers to drape our naked abstractions with concrete details, each will
set to work in a different way. The method of the composite photograph
seems unprofitable in attempting to solve the problem of morals.
3. DOGMATIC ASSUMPTION.--There is, however, a second way by which the
variations which characterize different codes may come to be relegated to
a position of relative insignificance. We may assume that our own code is
the ultimate standard by which all others are to be judged, and we may
set down deviations from it to the account of the ignorance or the
perversity of our fellowmen. So regarded, they are aberrations from the
normal, and only true code of conduct; interesting, perhaps, but little
enlightening, for they can have little bearing upon our conception of
what we ought to do.
A presumption against this arbitrary assumption that we have the one and
only desirable code is suggested the unthinking acceptance of the
traditional by those who are lacking in enlightenment and in the capacity
reflection. Is it not significant that a contact with new ways of
thinking has a tendency, at least, to make men broaden their horizon and
to revise some of their views?
In other fields, we hope to attain to a capacity for self-criticism. We
expect to learn from other men. Why should we, in the sphere of morals,
lay claim to the possession of the truth, the whole truth, and nothing
but the truth? Why should we refuse to learn from anyone? Such a position
seems unreasoning. It puts moral judgments beyond the pale of argument
and intelligent discussion. It is an assumption of infallibility little
in harmony with the spirit of science. The fact that a given standard of
conduct is in harmony with our traditions, habits of thought, and
emotional responses, does not prove to other men that it is, not one of a
number of accepted codes, but in a quite peculiar sense acceptable, a
thing to put in a class by itself--the class into which each mother puts
her own child, as over against other children.
Moreover, such an unreasoned assumption of superiority must make one
little sympathetic in one's attitude toward the moral life of other
peoples. Into the significance of their social organization, of their
customs, their laws, one can gain no insight. Their hopes, their fears,
their strivings, their successes and their failures, their approval and
disapproval of their fellows, their peace of conscience and their
remorse, must leave us cold and aloof.
It is not profitable for us to assume at the outset that the differences
exhibited in the moral judgments of individuals or of peoples are of
minor significance. They are facts to be dealt with in the light of some
theory. An ethical theory which ignores them must rest upon a narrow and
insecure foundation. It is exposed to assault from many quarters. It may,
in default of better means of defence, be compelled to take refuge behind
the blind wall of dogmatic assertion. On the other hand, a theory which
gives them frank recognition, and strives to exhibit their real
significance in the life of the individual and of the race, may be able
to show lying among them the golden cord of reason which saves them from
the charge of being incoherent facts. It may even lead us back to a
conservatism no longer unreasoning, but rationally defensible and
conscious of its proper limits. The blindly conservative man seems to be
faced with the alternative of stagnation or revolution. The rationally
conservative may regard the development of the moral life as a Pilgrim's
Progress, not without its untoward accidents, but, in spite of them, a
gradual advance toward a desirable goal.
CHAPTER II
THE CODES OF COMMUNITIES
4. THE CODES OF COMMUNITIES: JUSTICE.--In view of the existing tendency
in the average man, and even in some philosophers, to pass lightly over
the diversities exhibited by different codes, it is well to cast a brief
preliminary glance at the content of morals as accepted, both by
communities of men, and by their more reflective spokesmen, the
moralists. Let us first take a look at the codes of communities.
We have seen that Butler viewed justice, veracity and regard to common
good as virtues accepted among men everywhere. But we may also see, if we
look into his pages, that he neglected to point out that there may be the
widest divergencies in men's notions of what constitutes justice,
veracity and common good. And men differ widely on the score of the
degree of emphasis to be laid upon their observance.
Take justice. Where men possess a code, written or unwritten, that may
properly be called moral, we expect of them the judgment that guilt
should be punished. But what shall be accounted guilt? What shall be the
measure of retribution? Who shall be fixed upon as guilty?
As to what constitutes guilt. We have only to remind ourselves that the
Dyak head-hunter is not condemned by his fellows, but is admired;
[Footnote: WESTERMARCK, _The Origin and Development of the Moral
Ideas_, London, 1906, I, chapter xiv.] that the fattening and eating
of a slave may, in a given primitive community, be accounted no crime;
[Footnote: WESTERMARCK, _op. cit._ II, chapter xlvi.] that
infanticide has been most widely approved, and that not merely in
primitive communities, for Greece and Rome, when they were far from
primitive, practiced certain forms of it with a view to the good of the
state; [Footnote: _Ibid._, I, chapter xvii.] that the holding of a
fellow-creature in bondage, and exploiting him for one's own advantage,
even under the lash, was, until recently, not a crime in the eye of the
law even in the most civilized states. On the other hand, it may be a
crime to eat a female opossum. [Footnote: _Ibid._, I, chapter iv, p.
124.] The impressive imperative: Thou shalt not! appears to bear
unmistakable reference to time and circumstance.
And what is the natural and proper measure of punishment? The ancient and
primitive rule of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth suggests the
figure of the scales, the impartially meting out to each man of his due.
It is obviously a rule that cannot be applied in all cases. One cannot
take the tooth of a toothless man, or compel a thievish beggar to restore
fruit which he has eaten. We should be horrified were any serious attempt
made to make the rule the basis of legislation in any civilized state
today, but men have not always been so fastidious. Approximations to it
have been incorporated into the laws of various peoples.
But all have modified it to some degree, and the modifications have taken
many forms--the punishment of someone not the criminal, compensation in
money or in goods, incarceration, and what not. Nor have the
modifications been made solely on account of the difficulty of applying
the rule baldly stated. Other influences have been at work.
Thus, in the famous Babylonian code, the man who struck out the eye of a
patrician lost his own eye in return, and his tooth answered for the
tooth of an equal--but the rule was not made general. [Footnote: 5
HOBHOUSE, _Morals in Evolution,_ I, chapter iii, Sec 3; New York,
1906.] In state after state it has been found just to treat differently
the patrician, the plebeian, the slave, the man, the woman, the priest.
In the very state to which Butler belonged, benefit of clergy could be
claimed, up to relatively recent times, by those who could read. The
educated criminal escaped hanging for offences for which his illiterate
neighbor had to swing. [Footnote: _Ibid.,_ Sec. 11.]
Nor is there any clear concensus of opinion touching the question of who
shall be selected as the bearer of punishment. If a man has injured
another unintentionally, shall he be held to make amends? It has seemed
just to men that he should. [Footnote: WESTERMARCK, chapter ix.] That one
man should be made responsible for the misdeeds of another, under the
principle of collective responsibility, has commended itself as just to a
multitude of minds. Not merely the sins of the fathers, but those of the
most distant relations, those of neighbors, of fellow-tribesmen, of
fellow-citizens, have been visited upon those whose sole guilt lay in
such a connection with the directly guilty parties. This is not a
sporadic phenomenon. Among the ancient Hebrews, in Babylonia, in Greece,
in the later legislation of Rome, in medieval and even in modern Europe,
the principle of collective responsibility has been accepted and has
seemed acceptable. Asia, Africa and Oceania have cast votes for it. So
have the Americas. [Footnote: WESTERMARCK, I, chapter ii; DEWEY AND
TUFTS, _Ethics_, New York, 1919, Part I, chapter ii.]
5. THE CODES OF COMMUNITES: VERACITY.--As to veracity: It has undoubtedly
been valued to some degree, and with certain limitations, by tribes and
nations the most diverse in their degrees of culture. Did men never speak
the truth they might well never speak at all. But to maintain that
absolute veracity has at all times been greatly valued would be an
exaggeration. The lie of courtesy, the clever lie, the lie to the
stranger, have been and still are, in many communities both uncivilized
and more advanced, not merely condoned, but approved. With the defence
which has been made of the doctrines of mental reservation and pious
fraud students of church history are familiar. In diplomacy and in war
today highly civilized nations find deceptions of many sorts profitable
to them, nor are such generally condemned. [Footnote: WESTERMARCK, II,
chapters xxx and xxxi.]
What modern government does not employ secret service agents, and value
them in proportion to the degree of skill with which they manage to
deceive their fellows, while limiting the exercise of professional good
faith to their intercourse with their paymaster? The secret service agent
of transparent frankness, who could not bear to deceive his neighbor,
would not hold his post for a day. He would be a subject for Homeric
laughter.
Moreover, if the question may be raised: what constitutes justice? may
one not equally well ask: what constitutes veracity or its opposite?
Where does the silence of indifference shade into purposed concealment,
and the latter into what is unequivocally deception? At what point does
deception blossom out into the unmistakable lie? One may take advantage
of an accidental misunderstanding of what one has said; one may use
ambiguous language; one may point instead of speaking. Between going
about with a head of glass, with all one's thoughts displayed as in a
show-case to every comer, and the settled purpose to deceive by the
direct verbal falsification, there is a long series of intermediate
positions. The commercial maxim that one is not bound to teach the man
with whom one is dealing how to conduct his business, and the lawyer's
dictum that the advocate is under no obligation to put himself in the
position of the judge, obviously, will bear much stretching.
6. THE CODES OF COMMUNITIES: THE COMMON GOOD.--Nor are the facts which
confront us less perplexing when we turn to that "regard to the common
good" which Butler finds to be acknowledged and enforced by the primary
and fundamental laws of all civil constitutions. Whether we look at the
past or view the present, whether we study primitive communities or
confine ourselves to civilized nations, we see that common good is not,
apparently, conceived as the good of all men, however much the words
"justice" and "humanity" may be upon men's lips.
Has any modern state as yet succeeded in incorporating in its civil
constitution such provisions as will ensure to all classes of its
subjects any considerable share in the common good? Slaves and animals,
said Aristotle, have no share in happiness, nor do they live after their
own choice. [Footnote: _Politics_, iii, 9.] The pervading unrest of
the modern economic community is due to the widespread conviction that
the existing organization of society does not sufficiently make for the
happiness of all. Some states with a high degree of culture have not even
made a pretence of having any such aim. They have deliberately legislated
for the few. [Footnote: The "citizens" of the ancient Greek state were a
privileged class who legislated in their own interest. Let the reader
look into Plato's _Laws_ and Aristotle's _Politics_ and see how
inconceivable the cultivated Greek found what is now the ideal of a
modern democracy. "Citizens" should own landed property, and work it by
slaves, barbarians and servants. They should not be "ignoble" mechanics
or petty traders. Compare the spirit of Froissart's _Chronicles_, in
the Middle Ages. See what Bryce (_South America_, New York, 1918,
chapters xi and xv) says about the position of the Negro in our Southern
states, and of the Indians in South American republics.]
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