Books: A Handbook of Ethical Theory

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Still, when all is said, it seems as though the Rational Social Will, the
ultimate arbiter of every moral State, should give its authority to a
democratic form of government, rather than to another form. Every
individual will has a _prima facie_ claim to recognition.

But the Rational Social Will can never forget that human nature is in
process of development, and that each nation, at a given time, is a
historical phenomenon. The Rational Social Will is too enlightened to
drape an infant in the raiment appropriate to a college graduate. It is
only an intemperate enthusiasm that is capable of that.

157. THE LAWS OF THE STATE.--The State allots to individuals, and to the
lesser groups of human beings, of which it is composed, _rights_,
and it prescribes to them _duties_. Upon its activities in this
sphere I can touch only by way of illustration, and for the sake of
making clear the nature of the functions of the State.

(1) To whom shall the State grant a share in the formulation and
execution of its laws? Once, in communities very enlightened, in their
own peculiar way, women, children, slaves, mechanics, petty traders, and
hired servants were deemed quite unfit to be entrusted with such
responsibilities. [Footnote: See ARISTOTLE'S _Politics_.]

With us, the position of woman has changed. Slavery, in a technical
sense, has been abolished. The mechanic and the petty trader are much in
evidence at "primaries." Hired servants are by some accused of being
tyrants. Children, and defectives who are grossly and palpably defective,
we bar from elections, and we also reject some criminals.

The times have changed, and our notions of the right of the individual to
an active share in the State have changed with them. The expression of
the social will has undergone modification, and I think we can say that
it is, on the whole, modification in the right direction.

To be sure, the court of last resort is the _Rational_ Social Will.
What is best for the State, and, hence, for those who compose it? What is
practicable in the actual condition in which a given state finds itself
at a given time? It seems too easy a solution of our problems to seek
dogmatic answers to our questionings by having recourse to the "natural
light," that ready oracle of the philosopher, Descartes.

(2) There are certain classes of rights which civilized states generally
guarantee to their citizens with varying degrees of success. They make it
the duty of their citizens to respect these rights in others.

(a) The laws protect life and limb. Much progress has been made in this
respect in the last centuries past. I own no coat of mail; and, when I
walk abroad, I neither carry a sword nor surround myself with armed
retainers.

(b) They protect private property. To be sure, the "promoter" may prey
upon my simplicity; and the state itself does not recognize that I have
any absolute right to my property, any more than it recognizes that I
have an absolute right to my life.

It may send me into the trenches. It may take from me what it will in the
form of taxes. It may even forbid me to increase my income by using my
property in ways which will make me insupportable to my neighbors. But it
will not allow my neighbor, who is stronger than I, to take possession of
my house without form of law. It will even allow me to dispose of my
property by will, after my death.

I suggest that those, to whom this right appears to be rooted in the very
nature of things, and not to be a creation of the State, called into
being at the behest of the social will in a certain stage of its
development, should read and re-read what Sir Henry Maine has to say
about testamentary succession, in his wonderful little book on "Ancient
Law." [Footnote: See chapters vi and vii.]

The State has not always treated a man as an individual, directly and
personally responsible to the state. It has treated him as a member of a
family or some other group; a being endowed, by virtue of his position,
with certain rights, and burdened with certain duties. A being who, when
he drops out of being, is automatically replaced by someone else who is
clothed upon with both his rights and his responsibilities.

Our conceptions have changed. The lesser groups within the State have to
some degree lost their cohesion, and the bond between the individual, as
such, and the state has been correspondingly strengthened. But many
traces of the old conception make themselves apparent. The law compels me
to provide for my wife and children; and, if I die intestate, the law by
no means assumes that my property is left without a claimant.

Have we been moving in the right direction, as judged by the standard of
the Rational Social Will? We think so. But it is well to bear in mind
what Herodotus said about the madness of Cambyses, and the prejudice men
have in favor of their own customs. No state is a mere aggregate of
unrelated individuals. Men are set in families, and the State seems to be
composed of groups within groups. How far the State should recognize the
will of the individual, as over against the claims of the lesser groups
to which he may belong, is a nice question for the Rational Social Will
to settle.

(c) The law must regulate marriage and divorce. Matters so vital to the
interests of society cannot be left at the mercy of the egoistic whims of
the individual. But to what law shall we have recourse? It seems highly
irrational to have forty-eight independent authorities upon this subject
within the limits of a single nation. And, if we turn the matter over to
the churches, we discover that we have committed it to the care of one
hundred and eighty, or more, sects. Add to this, that a state of any sort
cannot be set upon its feet without some difficulty, while any
enterprising man or woman can call a sect into existence any day. There
is a new adherent for sectarian eccentricities born every minute. Surely,
here is a field for the activities of the Rational Social Will.

(d) To paternalism of some sort the modern State, as law-giver, seems
hopelessly pledged. If we ignore this we are simply closing our eyes. The
State seems to be justified in educating its citizens, in protecting
children and women against exploitation, in protecting the working
classes, in stamping out infectious diseases. We are not even allowed to
expectorate when and where we will, a privilege enjoyed by the merest
savage.

(e) In one respect the paternalism of our own State has lagged behind
that of certain others. We do little to secure to a man a decent privacy,
or to safeguard his personal dignity. The newspaper reporter is allowed
to rage unchecked, to unearth scandals in private families, and to cause
great pain by printing the names of individuals.

I have known, in Europe, a man, after a difference of opinion touching
the ventilation of a railway carriage, to break a window with his elbow
and to apply to his fellow-passenger an offensive epithet. The court made
him pay a dollar and a half for breaking the window and six dollars for
giving himself the pleasure of being insulting.

Which was the greater offense? Herodotus would expect this question to be
answered in accordance with the prejudices of the person giving the
answer.

158. THE RIGHTS AND DUTIES OF THE STATE.--The State evidently has rights
over its citizens, and may enforce these rights through the infliction of
punishment. It as evidently has duties. A given state may not be
answerable to any actual given power. Our own State is in such a position
at the present time--there is no other state strong enough to call it to
account.

But this does not free it from duties. No state is anything more than a
brute force, except as it incorporates, in some measure, the Rational
Social Will. And states that fall far short, as judged by this standard,
may overstep their rights and ignore their duties, whether they are
dealing with individuals or with other states.

In punishing, the State should punish rationally. [Footnote: See chapter
xxxii, Sec 148.] And it should not demand of its subjects what will degrade
them as moral beings. "We all recognize," said a pure and candid soul,
"that a rightful sovereign may command his subjects to do what is wrong,
and that it is then their duty to disobey him." [Footnote: Sidgwick,
_Methods of Ethics_, III, vi.]

But how discover what demands are just? It is the whole argument of this
volume that no man should venture an opinion upon this subject without
having come to some appreciation of what is meant by the Rational Social
Will. Man, his instincts, the degree of his intelligence and self-
control, the history of the development of human societies, cannot be
ignored. It is the weakness of good men, endowed with a high degree of
speculative intelligence, to construct Utopias, and to tabulate the
"rights of man," or, as Bentham well expressed it, to make lists of
"anarchical fallacies." [Footnote: See _Works_, Bowring's Edition,
Volume II.] Thus, some may, with Plato and Aristotle, advocate
infanticide. The Greek city-state was a crowded little affair, and in
danger of over-population. Some may propose radical measures to increase
the population. To France and Argentina, in our day, such an increase
appears highly desirable. May any and every method be embraced which
seems adapted to avert a given evil or to attain to a desired end? It is
instructive to note that Francis Galton, the father of "eugenics,"
proposed to leave morals out of the question as "involving too many
hopeless difficulties." [Footnote: Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th edition,
article, "Sociology."] But do men live well who leave morals out of the
question?

The man who falls back upon intuition alone, in his advocacy of the
abolition of capital punishment, may be expected to maintain next that a
state, in going to war, should stop short at the point where the lives of
its citizens are put in jeopardy. Why kill a good man, when it is wrong
to kill a bad one?

It must be admitted that the State and its representatives enjoy some
rights and duties not accorded to individuals. The State may condemn men
to death or to imprisonment; it may take over property; it may make
itself a compulsory arbiter between individuals. On the other hand, its
representatives are not always as free as are private persons. The
individual, if he is a generous soul, may freely forego some of his
advantages and may seek only a fair fight with an opponent. It is
doubtful whether the duty the State owes to its citizens permits of
chivalry. Certainly strong states do not hesitate to attack weak ones;
nor do many hesitate to combine against one, on the score of fair play.
And a private man may temper justice with mercy in ways forbidden to a
judge.

CHAPTER XXXV

INTERNATIONAL ETHICS

159. WHAT IS MEANT BY THE TERM.--I am almost tempted to avoid the
discussion of this thorny subject by simply referring the reader to what
has been said already on "The Spread of the Community," and developed in
the chapters on "The Rational Social Will" and "The Individual and the
Social Will." [Footnote: See Sec 75 and chapters xxi-xxii.]

He who confines himself to generalities avoids many difficulties and can
assure himself of the approval of many. Who, condemns justice and
humanity in the abstract? Who can wax eloquent in his condemnation of
freedom? Who finds the Christian Church on his side, when he advocates
rapacity and the oppression of the helpless, without entering into
details?

On the other hand, who wishes to view his country with a cold
impartiality, and to place its interests exactly on a par with the
interests of other lands? Who, save the Chinaman himself, thinks it as
important that a Chinaman should have enough to eat as that an American
or an Englishman should? Was not the turpitude, that excluded the
Chinaman from Australia, traced to the two deadly sins of undue diligence
and sobriety? [Footnote: Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th edition, article,
"Australia."] As for freedom, men of certain nations regard it as the
highest virtue to be willing to die for it--their own freedom, be it
understood,--while they regard the same desire for freedom on the part of
their colonists as a moral obliquity to be extirpated, root and branch.

That the historian and the sociologist should find much to say touching
the relation of nations to each other and to subject peoples goes without
saying. But the cynic may maintain with some plausibility that the
moralist's chapter on International Ethics must be as void of content as
the traditional chapter on "Snakes in Ireland." In this the cynic is
wrong, as usual; but it is instructive to listen to him, if only that we
may intelligently refute him.

It is not always easy for an individual to determine just what he owes to
his family, to his neighbors, or to his country. Is it surprising that it
should be difficult for men to determine just what one country, or what
one race, owes to another? This is the subject of international ethics.
He who treads upon this ground should walk gingerly, and not feel too
sure of himself. But there is no reason why the moralist should not put
upon paper such reflections as occur to him. He cannot say anything more
devoid of reason than much that is said by others.

The great Grotius, in writing on international law, in the seventeenth
century, drew his illustrations chiefly from Greeks and Romans long dead.
He had much more recent material ready to hand. But he well knew that he,
who would induce another to give him calm and dispassionate attention,
must not begin by treading on the toes of his listener. I shall strive to
profit by his example. It is best to say only what each man can apply to
his neighbor. We are all sensitive in this field.

160. OUR METHOD OF APPROACH TO THE SUBJECT--We have seen (Sec 80) that
rational elements are to be found even in the irrational will, if one
will look below the surface.

Is it rational for the mother to place before all else the interests of
the hairless, toothless and, apparently, mindless little creature that
she clasps to her breast? The very existence of society depends upon her
having the feeling that prompts her to do it. Is it rational to favor
one's neighbor, to be proud of one's native town, which may be a poor
sort of a town? Is it rational to be patriotic, even when one's state is
not much of a state?

We have seen that the Rational Social Will incorporates itself in
societies very gradually, and that it draws into its service lesser
groups of many descriptions. He who detaches himself from these lesser
groups is not a man. He is the mere outline of a man--the "featherless
biped" of the philosopher. It is not of such that a state can be made.

It is the duty of the state to prevent a man from shrinking into being
the mere member of some lesser group, but it is not its duty to
obliterate what is human in him. And the Rational Social Will must see to
it that he does not, on the other hand, forget, in a blind and irrational
patriotism, that he is a human being with a capacity for human
sympathies--sympathies extending far beyond the limits of any state.
Except when they are under the influence of strong passion, I think we
may say that men in civilized states, at least, have already shown
themselves amenable to the influence of the Rational Social Will in this
direction. It must be confessed that that influence has, as yet, been
limited.

The approach to the subject of international ethics must lie in the
recognition that men are set in families, in neighborhoods, in towns or
cities, in states; and are yet human beings with a capacity for
respecting and loving those who belong to none of these particular
organizations. My advice to the man who wishes to abuse his fellow-man is
to do it quickly, and before he is acquainted with him. If he gets to
know him well, he will probably find something lovable in him, and he
will lose the pleasure of being malicious.

161. SOME PROBLEMS OF INTERNATIONAL ETHICS.--The man who reads history
finds, sometimes, things to inspire him; and sometimes, things that are
depressing. He sees that the family must expand into the clan, that the
clan must come into contact with others, that the state must rise, and
that some interrelation of states is an inevitable necessity. He sees
that man's increase in insight, in diligence, in enterprise, must make
him reach out and trade with his fellow-man.

He sees also conquest, with the subjugation of peoples; he sees trade
extended by force, and under the smoke of cannon; he sees a peaceful
economic penetration, which ends in protectorates and annexations, in
defiance of the will of those who do not want to be either protected or
annexed.

What is rational is real, and what is real is rational, said Hegel.
[Footnote: _The Philosophy of Right_, Preface, and see Sec Sec 351 and
347.] He further maintained that civilized nations may treat as
barbarians peoples who are behind them in the "essential elements of the
state"; and also that, in a given epoch, a given nation is dominant, and
"other existing nations are void of right."

Hegel has long been dead, and is turned to dust. He always was as dry as
dust, even when he was alive, but he was a great man. But the famous
Englishman, Sir Thomas More, wrote more engagingly; and does he not tell
us, in his "Utopia," that any nation's holding unused a piece of ground
needed for the nourishment of other people is a just cause of war?

Such doctrines should be most comforting to us Americans. They appear to
teach us that we are, at present, the chosen people; that the rights of
other peoples are as the rights of the Hivites, the Hittites, and all the
rest; that we are justified in taking what we please, for who is there to
withstand us?

Yet ethical Americans shake their heads over such philosophies, and some
of them even speak slightingly of philosophers. This, in spite of the
fact that great men seldom talk pure nonsense, except when carried away
by excitement, as all men may be, at times. If what they say sounds to us
wholly unmeaning, it is probable that we have not fully understood the
voice that speaks within them. What can be said in their defense? and
what can be said in, at least, partial defence of the actual historical
procedure of the nations? They have not been wholly composed of
criminals, and they must possess at least the rudiments of a moral sense.

(1) We have seen that the state maintains its right as against those who
belong to it by controlling, not by destroying, the lesser groups which
exist within the state. Such a control appears to be demanded by the
Rational Social Will, but it often frustrates the will of the individual.

(2) We have seen that the spread of the community is inevitable, and
that, in the interests of rationality, it is desirable.

(3) We have seen that, even in the family, all the members are not
equally free agents. The small boy is not consulted touching the amount
of his punishment, nor can he dictate where it shall be laid on. And the
state does not give to all the individuals in it equal political rights,
nor guarantee to them an equal share of influence. This is desirable, on
the whole, in the interests of the whole, but grave abuses may easily
come into being.

(4) We have seen that the greater whole guarantees to individuals rights,
and assigns to them duties. In so far as it is rational, it cannot do
this arbitrarily. To have recourse to metaphysical abstractions is
futile. Shall we say, without hedging, that a man has a right to the
fruits of his labor, or that first occupation gives a right to the soil?
Then, shall the man who is too weak to work be refused a right to the
ownership of a coat? Or must the discoverer of a continent prove a real
occupancy, by performing the ridiculous task of the abnormal center of
the mythical mathematical infinite circle, by being everywhere at the
same time?

(5) We have seen that the human community, taking the words in a broad
sense, will spread, and already has spread, beyond the limits of several
nationalities. It is in the interest of human society that it should do
so. It is rational, in the sense of the word everywhere used in this
book. But the nations continue to exist, and they often cultivate
selfishly national interests. So do families cultivate selfishly family
interests. So does the egoist selfishly dig about and fertilize the
number One.

(6) It requires little acuteness to see that some communities of men are
miserable exponents of the social will. They are deplorably governed.
Read Slatin's fascinating book, "Fire and Sword in the Soudan,"--it is
better than any novel,--and ask yourself what becomes of the social will
or of rationality of any sort under the rule of a Mahdi. Is it not the
duty of the nations to combine and to relieve suffering humanity?

(7) There are theorists who maintain that, in the nature of things, the
soil belongs to nobody. We find, in the actual state of things, it
usually belongs to somebody, unless it is so poor that it is not worth
owning at all. But it may belong to somebody who can make little more use
of it than an infant can of a gold watch. A handful of Indians, wandering
over a great tract of country in which they chase game in the intervals
of time during which they chase and scalp one another, may have an
immemorial, although unrecorded, title to the land.

Shall they be permitted to keep back settlers from more or less civilized
and densely populated countries? Settlers eager to cultivate the land and
to make it support many, where before it supported few, and supported
those few miserably?

And shall the natural resources of great regions of the earth be
permitted to lie fallow merely because the actual inhabitants are too
ignorant and too indolent to want to produce anything and to trade? He
who finds his happiness in idleness, bananas, and black wives who can be
beaten with impunity, has little interest in international traffic, with
such blessings as it is supposed to bring.

The world is filling up. The losses due to war and pestilence, said no
less an authority than Darwin, are soon made up. There is something
terrifying in what the very modern science of geography has to tell us
about the rapidity with which the remaining part of the earth's surface,
available for the nourishment of man, is being exhausted. What problems
will face the Rational Social Will in the none too distant future?

162. THE OTHER SIDE OF THE SHIELD.--We have seen that something can be
said for the philosopher. The Rational Social Will does not appear to
give carte blanche to the man who wishes to remain ignorant, idle, cut
off from the family of the nations, the possessor of great tracts of land
which he will not develop, the cruel oppressor of such as he finds within
his power. It tends to deal with him, wherever it finds him, as an
enlightened nation treats the idle, the vicious and the irresponsible
within its own borders.

Undoubtedly civilization has made some advance in the course of the
centuries. When the world is at peace, the stranger is not normally an
outlaw. I have sojourned in the cities of many of the nations of Europe
and have made excursions into Africa and Asia. Nowhere have I been
compelled to ask for the protection of an American consul. It has been
recognized that I had rights, although an American. And the ability to
sign my name has procured me a supply of money.

Notwithstanding all this, it is depressing to read of the dealings of the
nations with each other, and with backward peoples--who have been well
defined as peoples who possess gold-mines, but no efficient navy. Is it
not generally taken for granted that it is the duty of more powerful and
more enlightened nations to take the backward nations in hand, to exploit
their resources, and, incidentally, to exploit _them_?

Not that international law has not counted for something. To be sure
Hegel reduced it to the level of "a good intention," [Footnote: _The
Philosophy of Right_, Sec Sec 330-333.] but it has counted for something.
Descartes and Spinoza could, with impunity, be heretics in little
Holland. Switzerland has for centuries been the refuge of the oppressed.
But we cannot forget that our highest authority, Captain Mahan, declared,
in 1889, that certain rights of neutrals were "forever secured,"
[Footnote: _The Influence of Sea Power upon History_, Boston, 1908,
chapter ii, p. 84.] and he has since stood revealed as a false prophet, a
mere man making a guess. International law is a capital thing--when it is
not put under a strain, and when no nation is too powerful.

The depressing thing is that rapacity and oppression become glorified,
when the cloak of patriotism is thrown over their shoulders. I drew my
illustrations in the last section from wild Indians and from African
savages. But there are nations in all stages of their development. How
"backward" must a nation be to give us the right to rule over it by
force? No people were more ingenious than the ancient Romans in finding
plausible reasons for the wars which it pleased them to wage. This has
never been a lost art. Men's enemies are, like the absent, always in the
wrong; and those are apt to become enemies, in whose defeat some
substantial advantage is to be looked for.

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