Rabindranath Tagore (trans.) - "Songs of Kabir"

John Lothrop Motley - "History of the United Netherlands, 1585"

John Kendrick Bangs - "The Pursuit of the House Boat"

Charles de Bernard - "Gerfaut, v3"

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Books: A Handbook of Ethical Theory

G >> George Stuart Fullerton >> A Handbook of Ethical Theory




In simple and primitive societies custom prescribes to the individual his
course of life in the minutest detail. It possesses the authority of the
dictator. In societies upon a higher level it may leave to him some
discretion in deciding upon the details of his daily life, while still
exercising a paramount control over the general trend of his actions.

Thus the will of the community, expressed in custom, determines what the
members of the community _ought_ to do, and it takes measures to
enforce obedience to its decisions. Is it surprising that the names which
have been given to the science which treats of man's rights and duties,
_morals, ethics_ (_mores, ethica, Sitten_), should reflect this
truth? It would be an inadequate statement to maintain that the science
of morals is no more than a systematic exposition of the customary in
human societies. It is not an inadequate statement to assert that, in
many societies, custom has, in fact, furnished the ultimate and complete
standard of obligation, and that in all societies it is of enormous
significance in moulding men's notions of right and wrong.

67. THE GROUND FOR THE AUTHORITY OF CUSTOM.--Habits are as essential to a
society as they are to an individual human being. Without them, society
could not live. In any social state--and no man can live except in a
social state--there must be cooperation. How can there be cooperation if
there are no social habits upon which men may count in their dealings
with one another?

Try to conceive all the tacit mutual conventions, the unconscious
adaptations to custom, which guide our daily lives, suspended for twenty-
four hours. When should one rise in the morning? How should one dress?
What and how should one eat? Of business there could be no question, nor
could there be cooperation in pleasures. Public order there could not be,
for there would be no public worthy of the name. Protection of life and
limb would be the creature of accident. Between civility and insult there
would be no recognizable distinction. In short, men could not behave
either well or ill, for there would be no rule to follow or to violate,
nothing to expect, and, hence, no ground for disappointment.

In such a chaotic condition no society of men has ever lived. No actual
state of anarchy has ever been complete, nor could it be, and endure. A
"reign of terror" is a reign of law in comparison with such a dissolution
of all the bonds which knit man to man. When we pass from one community
to another, we find one set of public habits exchanged for another. Some
sets impress us as better, some as worse. But there is no set which is
not better than none. It makes it possible for men to live, if not to
live well.

Customs are, then, a necessity. It is equally necessary that they should,
in general, have binding force for the individual. But there are customs
good and bad. The individual may fall into habits which he, upon
reflection, concludes to be injurious to him, and which others see
clearly to be injurious. A community sufficiently enlightened to
criticize itself at all, may come to disapprove some of its customs and
may endeavor to abolish them.

This means that a new act of the social will may set itself in opposition
to the social will already crystallized into custom. In a given instance,
and where there are differences of opinion, it may be a nice question
whether the new or the old should be regarded as the authoritative
expression of the social will.

68. THE ORIGIN AND THE PERSISTENCE OF CUSTOMS.--From the fact that
customs are, in general, to be regarded as expressions of the social
will, it might be assumed that their purposive character and social
utility should be a sufficient explanation of their coming into being.
But the matter is not so simple. A man may fall into habits which are no
indication of what he regards as useful to him. Such habits have not been
formed independently of his will, and yet they may appear to be
purposeless, or even detrimental. Who wishes to have the inveterate habit
of cracking the joints of his fingers or of biting his finger-nails? What
purpose do such habits serve?

Although the social utility of customs, taken generally, is easily
apparent, yet there are many customs which seem inexplicable upon such a
principle. Why, for example, should the king of a primitive community be
prohibited from sleeping lying down? or why should it be forbidden that
he gaze upon the sea? [Footnote: _Encyclopedia Britannica_, Eleventh
edition, article "Taboo."] The origin of such customs is hidden in
obscurity. That their adoption was not without its reason, we may assume.
That the reason was a reasonable one cannot be maintained. It seems
probable, however, that it at some time seemed reasonable to some one.
The persistence of habit, social as well as individual, would account for
the perpetuation of the custom long after the occasion which gave rise to
it had been forgotten.

69. LAW.--Between custom and law, taken generally, it is by no means easy
to draw a sharp distinction, although, in some instances, the
distinction, may be clearly marked. In primitive communities, laws
reduced to writing, and administered by persons deliberately chosen for
that end, may be wholly lacking; and yet who would say that such
communities do not live under the reign of law in a broad sense of the
term? A course of life is prescribed to the individual; failure to come
up to the standard meets with punishment.

Nevertheless, as social life rises in the scale and as communities become
developed, custom and law become differentiated. The latter stands out
upon the background of the former as something more sharply defined.
Penalties and the method of their infliction are more exactly fixed. Not
all violations of what is customary are taken up into the legal code as
punishable offences, although they meet with that indefinite measure of
punishment entailed by social disapproval.

Those public habits which it seems to a community it is of especial
importance to preserve and enforce come to be embodied in laws. The
selection is a matter of more or less deliberate choice, and is an
expression of will. The choice is not, normally, an arbitrary one. The
laws of a people are, unless accident has intervened, the outcome and
expression of its corporate life. For their ultimate authority they rest
upon the acquiescence of the social will. Laws contrary to deep-seated
and widely accepted custom are not apt to be regarded as of binding
force. They are felt to be tyrannous, and are obeyed, if at all,
unwillingly, and because of pressure from without.

In a later chapter [Footnote: Chapter XX.] I shall dwell upon the fact
that the accidental may play a very significant role in law. In given
instances the laws of a community may be, not the outcome of its will in
any sense, but something imposed upon it. Such laws cannot but be felt to
be oppressive and a restriction of freedom.

Laws, like customs, may cease to have a significance, and they may be
modified or allowed to fall into desuetude. There is, however, much
conservatism, as all who are familiar with legal usage know. And laws may
fail of their purpose. They may aim to diminish crime, and their
undiscriminating severity may foster crime. So may the individual select
an end, fall into error in his choice of means, and, as a result of
experience, resolve to substitute for such means others which are better
adapted to carry out his purpose.

70. PUBLIC OPINION.--Public opinion is manifestly a force broader and
more vague than established custom, and still broader than law. Public
opinion may approve or condemn what no law touches, and it makes its
influence felt beyond the sphere of what is customary.

Where customs and laws come to be imperfect expressions of the social
will, they may stand condemned by public opinion. In such a case their
authority is undermined and violations of them are condoned. Where public
opinion is strongly against a law; the law becomes ineffective. The
conservatism of law is such that a law may be allowed to stand unchanged,
and yet may fail to be carried into effect. Juries may refuse to convict,
or the unpalatable infliction of punishment may be avoided by granting to
the judge a wide discretion in pronouncing sentence.

The gradual development of a strong public sentiment may lead to the
passage of new laws, not based upon previously established customs, but
deliberately framed with a view to the public weal. Old customs may be
modified and new customs may be introduced. That the recommendations of
public opinion extend beyond the sphere of the customary is manifest. It
is not the custom of most men to leave any large part of their estate to
public charity. Except in the case of the very rich, the failure to do so
is not, as a rule, expressly condemned. Yet such bequests are approved,
the testators are praised, and the attitude of public opinion has no
small influence upon the conduct of individuals. Again, extreme self-
sacrifice is not customary; it is exceptional; and yet shining examples
of unselfishness excite a warm sympathy. The expression of this sympathy
is not without its influence.

Public opinion is more palpably an expression of the actual social will
than are custom and law. We have seen that the last two may represent, in
given instances, rather the inherited will of the past than the living
will of the present. But when we call public opinion an expression of the
social will we cannot mean that it necessarily reflects the sentiment of
all the members of a given community.

In primitive communities custom may be a public habit which embraces all,
or nearly all, individuals. Public opinion may scarcely have a separate
existence. In communities more developed, some individuals may disapprove
and refuse to follow many customs which are characteristic of the society
to which they belong. Laws are not approved by all, and, in progressive
states, there is usually some agitation which has as its object the
repeal of old laws or the passage of new ones. In communities where there
is independence of thought, public opinion is usually divided.

Furthermore, the communities to which civilized men belong are not
homogeneous aggregations of units. There is the public opinion which
obtains within single groups within the state. The adherents of a
religious sect may have notions peculiar to themselves of the conduct
proper to the individual, and such notions may extend far beyond what is
actually prescribed by the tenets of the sect. The several trades and
professions, the social classes, neighborhoods, even lesser voluntary
associations of men, such as clubs, may be pervaded by a public sentiment
which varies with each group. When we speak of public opinion generally
we have in mind something broader, a resultant. But the public sentiment
of the lesser groups cannot be ignored. The individual feels himself
especially influenced by the opinions of those most nearly associated
with him.

Under the head of public opinion it is convenient to speak of the
opinions of moral teachers who have influenced the race. Such a thinker
may enunciate truths far in advance of the opinions of his fellows. His
teachings are not, hence, fairly representative of the social will as it
reveals itself in his time. But the sentiments of the more enlightened
never are completely in accord with those of the mass of their fellows.
They are not mere aberrations from the social will; they are its
forerunners. The moralist and the religious teacher initiate new choices,
which may become the choices of large bodies of men. From them proceed
influences which have their issue in new expressions of the social will,
characterizing whole societies, and giving birth to new customs, new
laws, and a new form of public opinion. One can scarcely imagine what
China would be without her Confucius; or the Arabic world, with Mahomet
abstracted.




CHAPTER XIX

THE SHARERS IN THE SOCIAL WILL


71. THE COMMUNITY.--It is difficult to state with absolute exactness what
constitutes a community.

We may define it as a group of human beings associated in a common life,
depending upon and cooperating with each other. This definition will
apply, to be sure, to lesser groups within a tribe or state; and even to
a collection of tribes or states in so far as such enter into alliances
and cooperate to their mutual advantage. As, however, the bond of union
is, in the former case, subordinate to the higher authority of a larger
group (for the family is subject to the tribe or state); and as, in the
latter case, the bond of union is a relatively loose one, and evidently
subordinate to that which binds the citizens of individual states, the
community proper may be regarded as that group which is characterized by
a relatively great degree of inner coherence and by relative external
independence.

The type of such communities is, among the more primitive peoples, the
tribe, and among the more developed, the state. The authority of such
groups over their own members is, theoretically, paramount, although it
may be suspended or abolished by the exertion of force from without.

Such a community may be said to be inspired by a social will expressed in
its customs, its laws and the public opinion prevalent in it. Its members
may be said to be sharers in the social will of the community. Their
participation in it is marked by their being endowed with rights and
charged with duties.

It has not been characteristic of communities generally that all who find
their place in them should be like sharers in the social will. The
distinction has been made between the citizen, who enjoys the fullest
rights and may, perhaps, directly take part in the government of the
state, and those who, while _in_ the state, are not _of_ it, as
they do not enjoy citizenship. Where slavery, in any of its forms, has
prevailed, the distinction between those who are significant factors in
determining the social will, and those who have not this prerogative, has
been very marked. Social classes have often enjoyed, even before the law,
privileges of great moment. Women have, as a rule, not been treated as
citizens, and have been refused a share in the government of the
community. Children are cared for and are protected, but political rights
are denied them. Their status before the law is a peculiar one. The
mentally defective, both in primitive communities and in developed ones,
stand in a relation to the community peculiar to themselves. They are not
excluded from it; they are accorded rights; but they are assigned in the
community a place of their own. Wherever we look, we find inequality. The
sharers in the social will do not share equally, nor do they share in the
same way. This is true of communities of every description, but the
differences are more marked in some than in others.

72. THE COMMUNITY AND THE DEAD.--It is not merely of the living human
beings which compose a community that the social will takes cognizance.
Other wills are made participants in the body of rights and duties
peculiar to the community.

In many communities the dead are still counted among its members. They
are conceived as affecting its welfare, and as demanding services from
the living. Duties towards the dead are a well-recognized division of the
sum of a man's obligations in communities the most diverse in their
character. In some, they occupy a very prominent place; in no community
are they wholly overlooked. A striking illustration of the recognition by
the social will of the rights of the dead is to be found in the whole
modern law of testamentary succession. The will expressed by a man while
he is alive is given effect as though he were still in the flesh and
insisted upon the fulfillment of his desire. It appears to work as a
permanent factor in the community life, making its influence felt for
generations. Witness its influence in charitable foundations, in the law
of entail, and the like.

73. THE COMMUNITY AND THE SUPERNATURAL.--Nor is it merely in recognizing
the wills of the dead that the social will extends its sphere beyond the
community of living human beings. To primitive man, and to man far from
primitive, his social environment has not seemed to be limited to the
living and the dead who have, or who have had, an undeniable and
unequivocal place in the community.

The part played in the life of man by supernatural beings of various
orders has been a most significant one. Demons and gods, spirits of a
lower or of a higher order, have occupied his mind and have influenced
his actions. Such beings have been conceived to be, sometimes, malevolent
and needing to be placated, sometimes, benevolent and fit objects of
gratitude. Their wills man has regarded as forces to be taken into
account, a something to which the individual and the community must
adjust themselves.

Man's relation, or supposed relation, to such beings has been a source of
classes of duties upon which great stress has been laid. The influence of
this admission of supernatural beings into the circle of those directly
concerned in the community life has found its expression in the
organization of the state, in custom, in law, in public opinion. We know
little of a community when we overlook this factor.

Between magic and religion it is not easy to draw a sharp line,
especially when we view religion in the lower stages of its development.
In both we have to do with what may be called the supernatural. Magic has
been defined as the employment of mechanical means to attain the desired
end. In religion, when it so far develops that its specific character
seems clearly revealed, we have left the sphere of the mechanical.

The distinction between the mechanical and the spiritual is familiar to
us in our dealings with our fellow-men. In such dealings we may employ
physical force. On the other hand, we may appeal to their intelligence
and their emotions, and thus influence their action. In so far as we do
not make such an appeal, we deal with our fellows, not as though they
belonged to our social environment, but to our physical.

At the lowest stages of his development, man does not distinguish clearly
between persons and things. This means that he cannot distinguish clearly
between his material environment and his social. But the distinction
becomes gradually clearer, and it is, in the end, a marked one. Religion
becomes differentiated from magic. To confound religion, in its higher
developments, with magic is an inexcusable confusion.

74. RELIGION AND THE COMMUNITY.--The denotation of the term religion is a
broad one, and there will probably always be dispute as to the justice of
its extension to this or to that particular form of faith. But it seems
clear that it is typical of religion to extend what may not unjustly be
called the social environment of man.

Will is recognized other than the wills of the human beings constituting
the community. To the part played by such wills a very great prominence
may be given.

States may be theocratic, as among the ancient Hebrews; or church and
state may share the dominion, or struggle between themselves for the
supremacy, as in Europe in the Middle Ages; or the state may be
theoretically supreme in authority and yet maintain and lend authority to
a church. Even where church and state are, in theory, quite divorced--a
modern conception--the church with its ordinances and prescriptions, its
sacred days, its ceremonial, its educational institutions, remains a very
significant factor in the social environment of man. Religious duties
have at all times and in all sorts of societies been regarded as
constituting an important aspect of conduct. They color strongly the
_mores_ of the community. Whole codes of morals may be referred to
the teachings of certain religious leaders. They claim their authority on
religious grounds.

The great significance of the role played by religion in the sphere of
morals is impressed upon one who glances over the works of those writers
who have approached the subject of ethics from the side of anthropology
or sociology. A review of the facts has even tempted one of the most
learned to seek the origin of morals almost wholly in religion.
[Footnote: WUNDT, _Ethics_, Vol. I. "The Facts of the Moral Life";
see chapters ii and iii. English Translation, London, 1897.]

That religion should play an important part in giving birth to or
modifying moral codes is not surprising. Man adjusts himself to his
social environment as he conceives it. If the community of wills which he
recognizes includes the wills of supernatural beings, it is natural that
the social will which finds its expression in the organization of the
state, in custom, in law and in public opinion, should be modified by
such inclusion.

Nor is it surprising that the supernatural element should, at times,
dwarf and render insignificant the other elements which enter into the
social will. It may seem to man the all-important factor in his life.

Within the human community some individuals count for much more than do
others. There are those who scarcely seem to have any voice in
contributing to the character and direction of the social will. Others
are influential; and, in extreme cases, the wills of the few, or even
that of a single individual, may be the source of law for the many. If
men come to the conclusion that the weal and woe of the community are
dependent upon the will of the gods, or of God, they will unavoidably
give frank recognition to that will above others, and such recognition
will dictate conduct. The gods of Epicurus, leading a lazy existence in
the interstellar spaces, indifferent to man and in no wise affecting his
life, could scarcely become the objects of a cult. But the God of the
Mahometan, of the Jew, or of the Christian, is a ruler to be feared,
loved, obeyed. His will is law, and is determinative of conduct.

75. THE SPREAD OF THE COMMUNITY.--So far I have been speaking of the
community properly so called, of the single group of human beings living
its corporate life. But such groups do not normally remain in isolation.
As the isolation of the group diminishes, as contacts between it and
others become more numerous and more important, the necessity of
conventions controlling the relations of groups becomes more pressing.

This implies the development of a broader social will, inclusive of the
social wills of the several communities. This social will may be very
feeble, and the bond between men belonging to different communities may
be a weak one; or it may be vigorous, and furnish an intimate bond. The
savage, to whom those beyond the pale of his tribe or small confederation
are mere strangers, and probably enemies, stands at the lower limit of
the scale; the trader, to whom the stranger is co-partner in a mutually
profitable transaction, stands higher; the Stoic philosopher,
cosmopolitan in thought and feeling, rating the claims of kindred and
country as less significant than the bonds which unite all men in virtue
of their common humanity, marks the other extreme. The spread of the
social will grows marked as man rises in the scale of civilization.
Barriers are broken down and limits are transcended.

This broader social will, like the narrower, reveals itself in the
organization of society. We find confederations of tribes or states;
alliances temporary or relatively permanent. And the broader social will
modifies customs, gives birth to systems of law, and encourages the
development of an inclusive humanitarian sentiment.

It does not necessarily obliterate old distinctions. The family,
neighborhood, kindred, have their claims even under the most firmly
organized of states; but those claims are limited and controlled. Even
so, the broader social will may come to regard states as answerable for
their decisions. International law remains to the present day what has
aptly been called a pious wish. But public opinion prepares the way for
law; and all states, whatever be their real aims, now attempt to justify
their actions by an appeal to the more or less nebulous tribunal of
international public opinion. In this they recognize its claim to act as
arbiter. Within the jurisdiction of a state, the motto, "my family, right
or wrong," would not be a maxim approved in a court of justice.
International law is made a mock of by the frank enunciation of the
maxim, "my country, right or wrong." Hence, such frankness is, in
international relations, not encouraged.

The more or less skillfully made appeal to the moral sense of mankind--to
the broader social will as public opinion--implies a certain recognition
of its authority, or, at least, of its influence. Whether this is a
definite step toward the granting of a real authority to the broader
social will, an authority which will curb impartially the selfishness of
individual states, it remains for the future to decide.




PART VI

THE REAL SOCIAL WILL