Books: A Handbook of Ethical Theory

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(2) We have seen above [Footnote: See Sec 108.] that the fundamental
principle of utilitarian hedonism, as against egoistic, namely, the
making the Greatest Happiness of the Greatest Number the object of the
endeavors of each individual, has not been satisfactorily established by
leading utilitarians. Bentham assumes the principle; Mill advances a
doubtful argument; Sidgwick falls back upon intuitions which all will not
admit to be indubitable. To his assertion: "Reason shows me that if my
happiness is desirable and a good, the equal happiness of any other
person must be equally desirable," [Footnote: _The Methods of
Ethics_, Book III, chapter xiv, Sec 5.] the doubter may reply: Desirable
to whom? to him or to me?

(3) Finally, it may be objected that the consistent utilitarian, in
making pleasure, abstractly taken, the only ultimate good, and in
regarding as the sole criterion of right actions their tendency to
produce pleasure, really tears pleasure out of its moral setting
altogether.

Thus Bentham's contention [Footnote: Sec 106, above.] that the pleasure a
man may derive from the exercise of malice or cruelty is, "taken by
itself," good--while it lasts, and before any bad consequences have set
in, as good as any other that is not more intense--derives what
plausibility it has, from an ambiguity in the word "good." Pleasure,
taken by itself, is undoubtedly pleasure, whatever be its source. To
affirm this is mere tautology. And, if we chose to make "good" but a
synonym for pleasure, we remain in the same tautology when we affirm that
every pleasure is a good. But Bentham assumed that good in this sense and
moral good are the same thing.

His assumption is not borne out by the moral judgments of mankind. Even a
cursory view of those moral judgments as revealed in customs, laws and
public opinion makes it evident that, under certain circumstances,
pleasure is regarded as, from a moral standpoint, a good, and, under
other circumstances, an evil. Torn out of its setting, it is simply
pleasure, a psychological phenomenon like any other, with no ethical
significance.

Take the case of the pleasure enjoyed by the malignant man. It may be
intense, if he be peculiarly susceptible to such pleasure. The pain
suffered by his victim may conceivably be less intense. Both may die
before the "bad consequences," that is to say, other pains, arrive. There
may be no spectators. Is, in such a case, the pleasure one to be called a
"good"? Can it _be approved?_ No reflective moralist would maintain
that it can. Which means that the moralists, in all ages, have meant by
"good" something more than pleasure, taken abstractly, and that Bentham's
assumption may be regarded as an aberration.

114. TRANSFIGURED UTILITARIANISM.--It is possible to hold to a
utilitarianism more circumspect and less startling than Bentham's. It is
possible, while maintaining that pleasure is the only thing that an
experienced and reasonable being can regard as ultimately desirable, to
maintain at the same time that it is rash for any man to attempt to seek
his own happiness, or to strive to promote the general happiness, without
taking into very careful consideration the instincts and impulses of man
and the nature of the social organization which has resulted from man's
being what he is. One may argue that the experience of the race is, as a
rule, a safer guide than the independent judgment of the individual; and
that, in the secular endeavor to compass the general happiness, it has
discovered the paths to that goal which may most successfully be
followed. Thus, one may distrust Utopian schemes, recognizing the
significance of custom, law, traditional moral maxims, and public
opinion, and yet remain a utilitarian.

But he who does this must still answer the preceding objections. He must
prove: (1) That pleasure is the only thing ultimately desirable; (2) that
each is under obligation to promote the pleasure of all; (3) that its
mere conduciveness to the production of a preponderance of pleasure makes
an action right, even though the pleasure be a malicious one, as in the
illustration above given.

Still, his doctrine has become less startling, and he has moved in the
direction of a greater harmony with the moral judgments of men generally.
The conduct he recommends need not, as a rule, differ greatly from that
recognized as right by moralists of quite different schools.

Such a utilitarian may easily pass over to a form of doctrine which is
not utilitarian at all. Thus, Sidgwick asks whether there is a measurable
quality of feeling expressed by the word "pleasure," which is independent
of its relation to volition, and strictly undefinable from its
simplicity--"like the quality of feeling expressed by 'sweet,' of which
also we are conscious in varying degrees of intensity;" and he answers:
"For my own part, when the term (pleasure) is used in the more extended
sense which I have adopted, to include the most refined and subtle
intellectual and emotional gratifications, no less than the coarser and
more definite sensual enjoyments, I can find no common quality in the
feelings so designated except some relation to desire or volition."
[Footnote: _The Methods of Ethics_, Book II, chapter ii, Sec 2, 4th
Edition. SIDGWICK never appreciably modified this opinion, which is most
clearly expressed in the Edition quoted.]

When we seek, then, to "give pleasure," are we doing nothing else than
giving recognition to the desire and will of our neighbor? What has
become of the Greatest Happiness Principle? Has it not dissolved into the
doctrine of the Real Social Will?

CHAPTER XXVI

NATURE, PERFECTION, SELF-REALIZATION

I. NATURE

115. HUMAN NATURE AS ACCEPTED STANDARD.--The three doctrines, that the
norm of moral action is to follow nature, that it is to aim at the
attainment of perfection, and that it is the realization of one's
capabilities, have much in common. They may conveniently be treated in
the same chapter.

Early in the history of the ethics we find the moralist preaching that it
is the duty of man to follow nature, and branding vice as unnatural and,
hence, to be abhorred.

The word "nature," thus used, has had a fluctuating meaning. Sometimes
the thought has been predominantly of human nature, and sometimes the
appeal has been to nature in a wider sense.

Aristotle, who finds the "good" of man in happiness or "well-being,"
points out that this is something relative to man's nature. The well-
being of a man he conceives as, in large part, "well-doing," and well-
doing he defines as performing the proper functions of a man. [Footnote:
_Nichomachean Ethics_, Book I, chapters iv, vii, viii.] If we ask
him what is proper or natural to man, he refers us to what man, when
fully developed, becomes: "What every being is in its completed state,
that certainly is the nature of that thing, whether it be a man, a house,
or a horse." [Footnote: _Politics_, i, 2.] He conceives man's
nature, thus, as that which it is in man to become. Toward this end man
strives; and it is this which furnishes him with the law of his action.

But, it may be asked, how shall this end be defined in detail? Individual
men, who arrive at mature years, are by no means alike. Some we approve;
some we disapprove. We evidently appeal to a standard by which the
individual is judged. The appeal to the nature of man helps us little
unless we can agree upon what we may accept as a just revelation of that
nature--a pattern of some sort, divergence from which may be called
unnatural, and is to be reprobated.

Neither Aristotle, nor those who, after him, took human nature as the
moral norm, were without some conception of such a pattern. They kept in
view certain things that men may become rather than certain others. They
accepted as their standard a type of human nature which tends, on the
whole, to realize itself more and more in the course of development of
human communities. But as different human societies differ more or less
in the characteristics which they tend to transmit to their members, in
the kind of man whom they tend to form, we find the ideal of human
nature, with which we are presented, somewhat vague and fluctuating.
Different traits are dwelt upon by different moralists. Still, the
appeals to human nature have a good deal in common; upon man's rational
and social qualities especial stress is apt to be laid.

116. HUMAN NATURE AND THE LAW OF NATURE.--"Every nature," said Marcus
Aurelius, [Footnote: _Thoughts_, translated by George Long, viii,
7.] "is contented with itself when it goes on its way well; and a
rational nature goes on its way well, when in its thoughts it assents to
nothing false or uncertain, and when it directs its movements to social
acts only, and when it confines its desires and aversions to the things
which are in its power, and when it is satisfied with everything that is
assigned to it by the common Nature."

In the last clause the Stoic turns from the contemplation of man's
nature, taken by itself, and dwells upon the nature of the universe,
which he conceives to be controlled by reason. He thus gains an added
argument for the obligations laid upon man by his own nature. He writes:

"Every instrument, tool, vessel, if it does that for which it has been
made, is well, and yet he who made it is not there. But in the things
which are held together by Nature there is within and there abides in
them the power which made them; wherefore the more is it fit to reverence
this power, and to think that, if thou dost live and act according to its
will, everything in thee is in conformity to intelligence." [Footnote:
_Ibid_ vi, 40.]

The law of man's nature is, thus, regarded as a part of the law of
Nature--"We are all working together to one end, some with knowledge and
design, and others without knowing what they do." [Footnote: _Ibid_,
vi, 42.] And, this being the case, man may take pattern, when he is
inclined to fall below the standard of duty appropriate to him, by
considering humbler creatures: "Dost thou not see the little plants, the
little birds, the ants, the spiders, the bees working together to put in
order their several parts of the universe? And art thou unwilling to do
the work of a human being? And dost thou not make haste to do that which
is according to thy nature?" [Footnote: Ibid, v, 1. ] The delinquent is,
hence, judged guilty, not merely of derogation from his high estate, but
also of impiety. [Footnote: Ibid, ix, 1. ]

117. VAGUENESS OF THE LAW OF NATURE.--The question of the influence of
religious belief upon a theory of morals I shall discuss elsewhere.
[Footnote: See chapter xxxvi.] Here it is only necessary to point out
that, if there is vagueness in the appeal to human nature, it can
scarcely be dissipated satisfactorily by simply turning to Nature in a
broader sense. Shall we, when in doubt as to human behavior, copy that of
the brutes? The industry of some humble creatures it seems edifying to
dwell upon; but from the fact that bees are stung to death by their
sisters in the hive, or that the spider is given to devouring her mate,
we can hardly draw a moral lesson for man.

The appeal to a Law of Nature so often made in the history of ethical
speculation has furnished but a vague and elusive norm. He who makes it
is apt to fall back upon the moral intuitions with which he is furnished,
and to pack a greater or less number of them into his notion of Natural
Law. [Footnote: See SIR HENRY MAINE'S fascinating chapters on the "Law of
Nature," Ancient Law, chapters in and iv. The innumerable appeals to the
Law of Nature contained in Grotius's famous work on the "Law of War and
Peace" are very illuminating. ]

In Cicero, Nature becomes fairly garrulous to man on all matters of
deportment: "Let us follow Nature, and refrain from whatever lacks the
approval of eye and ear. Let attitude, gait, mode of sitting, posture at
table, countenance, eyes, movement of the hands, preserve the
becomingness of which I speak." [Footnote: _De Officiis_, i, 35,
translated by Peabody,]

118. THE APPEAL TO NATURE AND INTUITIONISM.--The moralists who urge us
to follow nature, whether human nature or Nature in a wider sense, we
may, hence, regard as intuitionists of a sort. Those who emphasize human
nature evidently depend upon their moral intuitions to give them
information as to its characteristics. It is intuition that paints for
them their pattern. They do not take man as they actually find him; they
call for the suppression of some traits, and the exaggeration of others.

Nor are those who appeal to Nature in a wider sense less guided by moral
intuitions. The appeal is never made without restrictions and
limitations. No one dreams that the bird, the ant, the spider, the bee,
can be regarded as satisfactory teachers of morals to human beings. Each
may be occupied in putting in order its corner of the universe; but the
order attained is not a human order, and there is in it much that is
revolting to the moral judgments of mankind. Man must have a standard of
his own. He listens to Nature only when she tells him what he already
approves.

As a form of intuitionism the doctrine of following.. nature may be
criticised in much the same way as other forms. One great merit it has.
It calls attention to the fact that ethics is a discipline which has no
significance abstracted from the nature of man. It appears absurd to say
that man ought to do what it is not in man, under any conceivable
circumstances, to do. And, like other forms of intuitionism, it has the
merit of avoiding that short-circuiting which may easily prove seductive
to the egoist or the utilitarian. He who accepts as his end either his
own happiness or that of men generally may easily be induced to take
short cuts to that end, and pay little attention to moral maxims as such.
He may treat lightly that great system of rules and observances by which
men are guided in their relations with one another, and which prevent
human societies from relapsing into a chaos.

On the other hand, the follower of nature, like other intuitionists, may
easily be thrown into perplexity by the fact that what seems to him
natural, and, hence, right, may not be approved by other men. He cannot
_prove_ that he is right and they are wrong. He appears condemned to
take refuge in subjective conviction, that is, in mere dogmatism.

II. PERFECTION

119. PERFECTION AND TYPE.--When we speak of a thing as more or less
perfect, we commonly mean that it is more or less perfect in its kind. A
good saw makes a poor razor; a good chair, a more than indifferent bed. A
bee crushed by a blow, a bird with a broken wing, we regard as imperfect.
But it scarcely occurs to us to ask ourselves whether the bee is more or
less perfect than the bird, or the bird than the spider. Swift's
Houyhnhnms at their best could not be either perfect horses or perfect
men. They were creatures with a perfection of their own, and one
appropriate to their hybrid nature.

To every creature its own perfection. This principle men seem to assume
tacitly in their judgments. They set up a standard for each kind, and
they conceive the individual to attain or to fall short, according to the
degree of its approach to, or of its divergence from, the allotted
standard.

If we take perfection in this sense--and we usually have no other sense
in mind in our judgments of perfection--the doctrine that it is the
whole duty of man to strive to attain to perfection is none other than
the doctrine that it is his duty to follow nature, his proper nature as
man. And any difficulties which may legitimately be urged upon the
attention of the moralist who recommends the following of nature may with
equal justice be urged upon the attention of him who exhorts us to aim at
perfection.

Thus, if it is doubtful just what nature demands of us, it seems no less
doubtful what obligations are laid upon us when we make perfection our
goal. That goal cannot mean for each man simply the developing to the
utmost of all the capacities which he possesses. There are men rich in
the possibilities of sloth, of indifference to future good, of egoism,
even of malignant feeling. Nor does the average man furnish the pattern
of perfection. The perfectionist does not regard the average man as the
embodiment of his ideal. He seeks to better him.

That, in striving to attain perfection, a man should remain a man, with
essentially human characteristics, seems evident. But what sort of a man
he should be is not as clear. Until we are in a position to give some
reasoned account of what we mean by perfection as an ideal, and to show
that it is a desirable goal for man, we appear to be setting up but a
vague end for human endeavor, and to be assuming intuitively that it is a
desirable end.

120. MORE AND LESS PERFECT TYPES.--So much for perfection as synonymous
with the ideal human nature of which ancient and modern moralists have
treated. It appears, however, possible to use the word "perfection" in a
somewhat different sense.

Man is not merely man; he is a living being, and there are living beings
of many orders. The plants, the simpler forms of animal life, the brutes
which we recognize as standing nearer to us, and man may, from this point
of view, be referred to the one series. Some members of this series we
characterize as lower, and others we speak of as higher in the scale.

Now, such designations as higher and lower cannot be applied
indiscriminately. There is little sense in the assertion that a bit of
string is higher than a straight line, or a hat than a handkerchief. Some
significant basis of comparison must be present. Things must be
recognized as approximating to or diverging from an accepted standard in
varying degrees.

Such a basis of comparison is present when some objects possess the same
qualities in a more marked degree than do others. But this is not the
only possible basis of comparison. We may assume that the possession of
certain qualities marks a creature as higher, and that the creature which
has them not, or has them imperfectly developed, thereby stamps itself as
being of a lower order.

Something like this appears to determine our judgments when we assign to
various creatures their place in the scale of living beings. We do not
mean that the higher possess to a greater degree all the capacities
possessed by the lower. Many things which the plant does man cannot do at
all; and, among the animals, those which we recognize as higher may be
lacking in many capacities present in a marked degree in the lower. In
ranking one living creature as higher, and, thus, as more perfect, than
another, we assume that the "nature" of the one, with its various
capacities and lacks of capacity, is, on the whole, of more _worth_
than the "nature" of another.

It might be maintained that, in his estimate of the worth of different
kinds of beings man is influenced by his partiality for the distinctively
human, rating creatures as lower or higher in proportion to their
divergence from or approximation to his own type. Undoubtedly this plays
a part in men's judgments. We are partial to ourselves. And yet judgments
of perfection and imperfection cannot wholly be explained on this
principle.

"I think we must admit without proof," writes Professor Janet, [Footnote:
The Theory of Morals, Book I, chapter iii, English translation, New York,
1883, p. 48.] a brilliant apostle of the doctrine of perfection, "that
things are good, even independently of the pleasure which they give us,
in themselves and by themselves, because of their intrinsic excellence.
If anyone were to demand that I should prove that thought is worth more
than digestion, a tree more than a heap of stones, liberty than slavery,
maternal love than luxury, I could only reply by asking him to
demonstrate that the whole is greater than one of its parts. No sensible
person denies that, in passing from the mineral kingdom to the vegetable
kingdom, from this to the animal kingdom, from the animal to man, from
the savage to the enlightened citizen of a free country, Nature has made
a continual advance; that is to say, at each step has gained in
excellence and perfection."

One is naturally impelled to ask from what point of view things so
disparate as the mineral, the plant, the brute, man, thought and
digestion, liberty and slavery, can be compared with one another at all,
and referred to any sort of a series. What is, in its essence, this
excellence or perfection of which we have more shining evidence as we go
up in the scale? Janet identifies it with intensity of being, with
activity. The greater the activity, the greater the perfection.

To the identification of perfection and activity we may hesitate to
assent. It does not seem clear that there is greater activity manifested
in a snail than in a burning house, in maternal love than in furious
hate, in quiet thought than in passion. Yet it seems significant that
judgments of worth do not appear out of place in comparing such things.

121. PERFECTIONISM AND INTUITIONISM.--Taking into consideration all that
is said above, it seems not unreasonable to conclude:

(1) That in speaking of the perfection of any creature we very often
judge it only by the standard set by its own type. We regard it as a good
specimen of its kind.

(2) But when we use perfection in a wider sense, we judge different types
after the standard furnished by the distinctively human.

(3) And we take as our standard of the human the "pattern" man held in
view by those who urge us to follow nature.

But why should this pattern man be assumed to be better or worthier than
a man of a different sort? He who finds in him a greater exhibition of
activity may with equal justice address to himself the question: Why is
activity, in itself, of value? The one question, like the other, looks
for its answer in the dictum of some intuition. What may be said for, and
what against, intuitions, we have already considered. [Footnote: See
chapter xxiii]

III. SELF-REALIZATION

122. THE SELF-REALIZATION DOCTRINE.--The ethical school which makes the
realization of the capacities of the self the aim of moral action has for
a generation, especially in England and America, had the support of many
acute and scholarly minds. The doctrine, often spoken of as the Neo-
Kantian or the Neo-Hegelian, may be said to be influenced by Kant, so far
as concerns metaphysical theory, but its ethical character is more
properly Hegelian and suggests in many particulars that great German
philosopher's "Philosophy of Right."

We may conveniently take as the protagonist of the school the Oxford
scholar, Thomas Hill Green, whose "Prolegomena to Ethics" has had,
directly and indirectly, a powerful influence upon the minds of the men
of our generation.

We find the doctrine of self-realization, as set forth by Green, to be as
follows:

(1) In all desire some object is presented to the mind as not yet real,
and there is a striving to make it real, and thus to satisfy, or
extinguish, the desire. [Footnote: Prolegomena to Ethics, Sec 131.]

(2) Self-consciousness knits the desires into a system, and thus attains
to the conception of "well-being," which implies the satisfaction of
desire in general, and not merely of this or that desire. [Footnote:
Prolegomena to Ethics, Sec 128.]

(3) "Good" is that which satisfies some desire. Any good at which an
agent aims must be his own good; and "true good" is nothing else than
"permanent well-being." [Footnote: Prolegomena to Ethics, Sec Sec 190, 92,
203.]

(4) A desire is determined by the nature of the creature desiring; man
can attain satisfaction only in the realization of his capacities. His
true good lies only in their complete realization--in his becoming all
that it is in him to become. [Footnote: Prolegomena to Ethics, Sec
Sec 171-2, 180.]

(5) But man is a social being, and has an interest in other persons than
himself. Hence his complete self-satisfaction implies the satisfaction of
his social as well as of his other impulses. That is, his true good
includes the good of others. [Footnote: Prolegomena to Ethics, Sec Sec 199-
205.]

(6) We can only discover what our "capacities" are by observing them as
so far realized, and thus gaining the idea of future progress. The
ultimate end is unknown to us. [Footnote: Prolegomena to Ethics, Sec 172.]

(7) But we see enough to recognize that man's capacities can be realized,
his self-satisfaction intelligently sought, only in a social state based
upon the notion of the common good. The right reveals itself in the
actual evolution of society. [Footnote: Ibid., Sec Sec 172-76, 205.]

123. THE DOCTRINE AKIN TO THAT OF FOLLOWING NATURE.--The self-
realization doctrine has much in common with the doctrine of following
nature. Thus:

1. It evidently does not recommend the realization of all the capacities
of the individual as such, but holds in view a "pattern" man.

2. This is social man, the true representative of human nature as
conceived by the ancient Stoic. Green holds before himself "the ideal of
a society in which everyone shall treat everyone else as his neighbor, in
which to every rational agent the well-being or perfection of every other
such agent shall be included in that perfection for which he lives."
[Footnote: Prolegomena to Ethics, Sec 205.] The same thought was more
pithily expressed by Marcus Aurelius in the aphorism that "what is good
for the hive is good for the bee."

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