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.
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, whileinthe state, are notofit, 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 themoresof 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.
76. THE APPARENT AND THE REAL SOCIAL WILL.—It is important to distinguish between the apparent and the real social will. We may begin by pointing out that the question "apparent to whom?" is a pertinent one.
The social will is brought to bear upon the individual through a variety of agencies. The family, the neighborhood, the church, the trade or profession, the political party, the social class—all these have their habits and maxims. They tend to mold to their type those whom they count among their members. The pressure which they bring to bear is felt as a sense of moral obligation. Naturally, individuals with different affiliations will be sensible of the pressure in different ways, and may differ widely in their conceptions of the obligations actually laid upon the individual by the will of the greater organism of which he is a part.
But even he who rises above minor distinctions and takes a broad view of society is forced to recognize that the distinction between the apparent and the real social will may be a most significant one.
We have found the expression of the social will in custom, law and public opinion. This is just; but the statement must be accepted with reservations.
There are instances in which neither the organization of the state, nor the laws according to which it is governed, can be considered as in any sense an expression of the social will. An autocracy, established by force, and ruling without the free consent of the governed, is an external and overruling power. It may be obeyed, but it is not consented to. Nor is any body of law or system of government imposed upon a subject people by an alien and dominant race a fair exponent of the social will of the people thus governed. Custom and public opinion are at variance with law. However just and enlightened the government, as judged from the standpoint of some other race or nation, its control must be felt as oppressive by those upon whom it is imposed. Traditions felt to be the most sacred may be violated; moral laws, as understood by those thus under dictation, may be transgressed by obedience to the law of the land.
Where custom, law and public opinion are more nearly the spontaneous outcome of the life of a community, they may with more justice be taken as expressions of the social will of that community as it is at the time. Yet, even here, we must make reservations.
The organization of a state represents rather the crystallized will of the past than the free choice of the present. To be sure, it is accepted in the present; but this is little more than the acquiescence of inertia. And public opinion may be at variance both with custom and with law long before it succeeds in modifying either. What is the actual social will of a community during the interval?
The past may be felt as exercising a certain tyranny over the present. That the present cannot be cut wholly loose from it is manifest, but how far should its dependence be accepted? In the past there have been historical causes for the rise of dictatorships, of oligarchies, of dominant social classes. The men of a later time inherit such social institutions, may accept them as desirable, or may feel them as instruments of tyranny. Shall we say that they represent the actual social will of the community until such time as they are done away with by a successful revolution? Or shall we say that they are in harmony with the apparent social will only, and really stand condemned?
77. THE WILL OF THE MAJORITY.—Our own democratic institutions rest upon the theory that the social will is to be determined by the majority vote. To be sure, we seem to find it necessary to limit the application of this doctrine, and to seek stability of government by fixing, in certain cases rather arbitrarily, the size of the majority that shall count. [Footnote: See the Constitution of the United States, Article V.] But the doctrine, taken generally, does seem in harmony with the test of rationality developed above. [Footnote: Chapter xvi.] It aims at the satisfaction of many desires—at what may be termed satisfactionon the whole.
Nevertheless, it is possible to question whether the vote of the majority represents, in a given instance, the actual will of the community.
No one knows better than the practical politician how the votes of the majority are obtained. No one knows better than he that, in the most democratic of communities, it is the wills of the few that count. The organization of a party, clever leadership, the command of the press, the catching phrases of the popular orator, the street procession, the brass band, the possession of the ability to cajole and to threaten—these play no mean role in the outcome, which may be the adoption of a state policy of which a large proportion of the majority voting may be quite unable to comprehend the significance. Shall we say, in such a case, that the will of the majority was for the ultimate end? Or shall we say that the vote was in pursuance of a multitude of minor ends, many of which had but an accidental connection with the ultimate end?
78. IGNORANCE AND ERROR AND THE SOCIAL WILL.—The apparent will of the community appears to be, in large measure, an accidental thing. That is to say, men will what they would not will were they not hampered by ignorance and error, and were they not incapable of taking long views of their own interests.
The decisions of the social will may be the outcome of ignorance and superstition.
Where it is thought necessary to punish the accidental homicide in order to appease the ghost of the dead man, which might otherwise become a cause of harm, the course of justice, if one may call it such, deviates from what the enlightened man must regard as normal. The belief that sin is an infection, communicable by heredity or even by contact, must lead to similar aberrations of primitive justice. Animals, and even material things, have, and not by peoples the most primitive, been treated as rational, responsible and amenable to law. This seems to do the brutes more than justice. On the other hand, the philosophical tenet of the Cartesians, which denied a mind to the brutes, resulted in no little cruelty. The treatment of drunkards, and of the mentally defective, has, at times, been based upon the notion that they are possessed by god or demon, and, hence, have a right to peculiar consideration, or may be treated with extreme rigor.
It is worth while to follow up the above reference to the Cartesians by a reference to St. Augustine. Trains of reasoning based upon theological or philosophical tenets have more than once given rise to aberrations of the moral judgment.
The intellectual subtlety of Augustine betrays him into magnifying to enormous proportions the guilt of the boyish prank of stealing green pears from the garden of a neighbor, inspired by the agreeable thought of the irritation which would be caused by the theft. The pears were not edible, and were thrown to the pigs, which circumstance seduces this father of the Church into the reflection that the sin must have been committed for no other end than for the sake of sinning. A greater crime than this he cannot conceive.
Many years after the event, in writing his Confessions, he expresses in unmeasured terms his horror of the deed, filling seven chapters [Footnote:Confessions, chapters iv-x.] with his reflections and lamentations: "Behold my heart, O God, behold my heart, upon which thou hadst mercy when in the depths of this bottomless pit." "O corruption! O monster of life and depth of death! Is it possible that I liked to do what I might not, simply and for no other reason than because I might not?"
Saint as he was, Augustine would have made a sorry schoolmaster. It is evident that the enlightened mind cannot regard schoolboys as unique monsters of iniquity for making a raid on an orchard.
The community whose decisions are made under the influence of erroneous preconceptions undoubtedly wills, but its will is determined by the accident of ignorance. It is to be likened to the man who, in unfamiliar surroundings, takes the wrong road in his desire to get home. He chooses, but he does not choose what he would if he knew what he was about.
79. HEEDLESSNESS AND THE SOCIAL WILL.—Numberless illustrations might be given of the fact that, not merely ignorance and error, but also a short- sighted heedlessness plays no small part in introducing elements of the accidental and irrational into the social will. The man who spends freely with no thought for the morrow is not more irrational than the state that permits a squandering of its resources, and wakes up too late only to discover that it has lost what cannot easily be replaced.
The life of the community is a long one, and calls for long views of the interests of the community. These are too often lacking. Heedlessness and indifference are a fertile source of abuses. In which case, the will of the community resembles that of the impulsive and erratic man, who has too little foresight and self-control to consult consistently his own interests. We may say that he desires his own good on the whole, but we cannot say that he desires it at all times. Future goods disappear from his view. His choices clash. His actual will at any given moment appears to be the creature of accident. So it may be with the community.
80. RATIONAL ELEMENTS IN THE IRRATIONAL WILL.—The actual social will, as revealed in custom, law and public opinion, often appears, thus, highly irrational, and we may be justified in distinguishing between it and the real will which we conceive of as struggling to get itself expressed. Nevertheless, in justice to custom, law and public opinion, we must look below the surface of things. Even where the decisions of the community seem most irrational, and where there appears to be little consciousness of the ends pursued by the real will, the discriminating observer may see that pure irrationality does not prevail. The individual may show by his actions that he has comprehensive ends, and may yet not be distinctly aware of them. So may a community of men.
"The true meaning of ethical obligations," says Hobhouse, [Footnote:Morals in Evolution, New York, 1906, p. 30.] "—their bearing on human purposes, their function in social life—only emerges by slow degrees. The onlooker, investigating a primitive custom, can see that moral elements have helped to build it up, so that it embodies something of moral truth. Yet these elements of moral truth were perhaps never present to the minds of those who built it. Instead thereof we are likely to find some obscure reference to magic or to the world of spirits. The custom which we can see, perhaps, to be excellently devised in the interests of social order or for the promotion of mutual aid is by those who practice it based on some taboo, or preserved from violation from fear of the resentment of somebody's ghost." It is not wholly irrational that, in the laws of various peoples, an allowance should be made for the sudden resentment which flames up when wrong has been suffered, and that an offence grown cold should be treated more leniently than one which is fresh and the smart caused by which has not had time to suffer diminution. Society has to do with men as they are. It is its task to bend the will of the individual into conformity with the social will. That resentment for wrongs suffered is an important element in the establishment of order in the community can scarcely be denied, nor is it wholly unreasonable, men being what they are, for the community to make some concessions to the natural feeling of the individual. Moreover, the offender caught in the act is indubitably the real offender; and settled animosities are more injurious to the social order than are fugitive gusts of passion.
And if it is true that the arbitrary laws of hospitality, as recognized by some primitive and half-civilized communities, are reinforced by the superstitious fear of the stranger's curse, it is none the less true that they serve certain social needs. The fact that hospitality tends to decline when it becomes superfluous is sufficient to indicate its social significance.
Again, collective responsibility—the making of a man responsible for the delinquencies of those connected with him, even when he could in no way have prevented the evils in question—appears to modern civilized man, in most instances, [Footnote: Only under normal conditions. We have recently had abundant opportunity to see that in time of war civilized nations have no scruples in making the innocent suffer with the guilty, or even for the guilty.] an irrational thing. Yet men are actually knit into groups with common interests and accustomed to cooperation. To treat them as wholly independent units, responsible only to some higher organization such as the state, is to overlook actual relationships which have no small influence in determining the course of their lives. Within each lesser group the members can and do encourage or repress given types of action beneficial or the reverse. Is it irrational for the larger group to set such influences to work by holding the lesser group responsible in its collective capacity? In China the principle has worked with some measure of success as an instrument of order for many centuries. In an enlightened society some better method of attaining order may obtain, but it would be a mistake to assume that there is nothing behind the principle of collective responsibility save the unintelligent attempt to satisfy resentment by striking indirectly at the offender through those connected with him, or the mental confusion that identifies the culprit, through mere association of ideas, with other members of the group to which he belongs.
81. THE SOCIAL WILL AND THE SELFISHNESS OF THE INDIVIDUAL.—There is, then, often some reason to be discovered even in what appears at first sight to be wholly irrational. But no small part of the irrationality of the actual social will must be set down, in the last instance, to that peculiar form of irrationality in the individual or in groups of individuals which we call selfishness.
That some degree of inequality should be necessary in communities of men, in view of the differentiation of function implied in cooperative effort, may be admitted. How far the inherited organization or the existing environment of a given community may make it necessary, in the interests of all, to grant a large measure of power or prerogative to a single individual, or to the few, is fair matter for investigation. But the most cursory glance at the pages of history, the most superficial survey of the present condition of mankind, must make it evident that a far-seeing and enlightened social will has not been the determining factor in bringing into existence many of the institutions which are accepted by the actual social will of a given epoch.
Neither Alexander the Great nor Napoleon can be regarded as true exponents of the social will. The rule of the oligarchy is based upon selfish considerations. The institution of slavery overrides the will of the bondsman in the interests of his possessor. The perennial struggle between the "haves" and the "have nots"—the rich and the poor—is, unfortunately, carried on by those engaged in it with a view to their own interests and not with a view to the good of society as a whole.
That those to whom especial opportunities are, by the accident of their position, open, or by whom special rights are inherited, should accept the situation as right and proper is not to be wondered at. All rights and duties have their roots in the past, and conceptions of what is feasible and desirable are always influenced by tradition. While from the standpoint of the real social will anomalous and accidental it is nevertheless psychologically explicable and natural that the mediaeval knight should be bound by the rules of chivalry only in his dealings with those of his own rank; that the murder of a priest should be regarded as a crime of a special class; that benefit of clergy should be extended to a limited number of those guilty of the same offence; that the lists of the deadly sins should, in an age dominated by the monastic idea, smack so strongly of the cloister.
Natural it is, and, perhaps, inevitable, that such expressions of the social will should make their appearance. They have their place in the historic evolution of society. But they betray the fact that man is imperfectly rational. They cannot be regarded as expressions of the permanent rational will which belongs to man as man.
82. REASONABLE ENDS.—We have seen in the chapter on "Rationality and Will," that we cannot consider a man rational unless his choices are harmonized and converge upon some comprehensive end. It has been hinted, furthermore, that not all comprehensive ends can be described as reasonable or rational.
A child may be consistently disobedient to its parents, and, given parents of a certain kind, it may find its life highly satisfactory. A man may consistently be a bad neighbor, and may harbor the conviction that, on the whole, he gains by it. A miser may be consistent; he may come to joy in denying himself luxuries and even comforts, repaid in the consciousness of an increasing store. The philosophical egoist may reason with admirable consistency, and may habitually act in accordance with his convictions, leading, for him, a very endurable life.
All these may be intelligent, even acutely intelligent, and may reason clearly and well. Nevertheless, men generally refuse to consider their behavior reasonable. There are ends which we regard as rational, and others which we condemn as irrational.
It is not enough, hence, that a man's volitions should be intelligently harmonized and unified. His will must be adjusted to ends which themselves can be judged rational.
And in deciding whether the ends he chooses are rational or not, we proceed just as we do in judging the rationality of his individual choices. If the latter are made in the light of information, if their significance is realized, if they converge upon some comprehensive end and do not merely clash and defeat one another, we have seen that they are made under the guidance of reason or intelligence. The individual volitions are congruous with the permanent set of the man's will. They are judged by their background, by their harmony with the "pattern" which is revealed in the man's volitional life.
Even so, each such volitional pattern, the harmonized and unified will of the individual as directed upon some comprehensive end, is judged to be rational or not according as it does or does not accord with the ends pursued by the social will. Individuals, whose wills are thoroughly unified and harmonized by the dominant influence of given chosen ends, may be thoroughly out of harmony with the chosen ends of the larger organism of which they are a part. They may be out of harmony with each other. Considered alone, each may display an internal order and unity. Taken together they may be seen to be in open strife.
We have found the social will to be something relatively permanent and moving with more or less consistency toward certain comprehensive ends. That the ends chosen by given individuals may be very much out of harmony with these is palpable. The deliberate idler, the whole-hearted epicure, the habitually untruthful man, the miser, the cold egoist—these and such as these are condemned in enlightened communities. Their lives do not help to further, but serve to frustrate, the ends approved by the social will. In so far they may be regarded as consistently irrational.
83. AN OBJECTION ANSWERED.—Consistently irrational! it may be exclaimed; how can that be? is not a far-sighted consistency the very mark of rational choice?
The difficulty is only an apparent one. Many forms of consistency may indicate a certain degree of rationality, and yet too slight a degree to win approval. There is such a thing as a narrow consistency. He who devotes his life to the purpose of revenge, may live consistently, but he loses much. A bitter and angry life is not a desirable thing, even from the standpoint of the individual.
But why should we limit ourselves to the standpoint of the individual, in judging of the rationality of ends? There are those to whom it appears self-evident that this should be done; those to whom it does not seem reasonable for a man to do anything by which he, on the whole, loses; those who deny the reasonableness of self-sacrifice in any form. This doctrine will be examined later. [Footnote: See Sec 102 and 128.]
Here it is enough to point out that men do not actually limit the notion of rationality in this way. In every, even moderately, rational life some desires must be suppressed. All desires cannot be satisfied. Why should it not be regarded as rational and reasonable that, to attain the comprehensive ends of the social will, certain ends consistently chosen by certain kinds of individuals should deliberately be denied?
As a matter of fact, men generally do so regard it. They employ the terms rational and irrational, reasonable and unreasonable, to indicate the harmony or lack of harmony between the individual and the social will. We call the man unreasonable who insists upon having his own way regardless of his fellows; and this, even in instances in which his fellows cannot punish him for his selfish attitude.
It is not a matter of accident that this should be so. The analogy between the relation of separate volitions to the dominant ends which control action on the part of the individual, and the relation of the ultimate choices of individuals to the ends pursued by the social will, is a close one. In the well-ordered mind the clash of conflicting desires is reduced to a minimum. In a well-ordered community the conflict of individual wills is also reduced to a minimum. In each case, we are concerned with the work of reason, and judgments as to rationality and irrationality are equally in place.
84. REASONABLE SOCIAL ENDS.—The will of the individual, when affirmed to be rational or irrational, is, therefore, referred to the background of the social will. But the social will is more or less different in different communities, and in the one community at different stages of its development. Is there any measure of the degree of rationality of the social will itself? is there any standard to which its different expressions may be referred?
We may criticise a community as we criticise an individual man even when he is taken as abstracted from his social setting. The man's choices may be blind, conflicting, wayward, and ill-adapted to serve his interests taken as a whole. In the last chapter we saw that a community may resemble such a man. It may be ignorant, superstitious, short-sighted, and in conflict with itself. The social will as actually revealed may be an imperfect and inconsistent thing. Here enlightenment and inner harmonization are called for, to set the social will free.
But even where the will of a community is something more definite and consistent than this, it may be condemned by the moral judgment of the enlightened. An appeal may be made from the will of the community in the narrower sense to that of the larger community. The limits of nation, race and religion may be transcended, and we may appeal to humanity as such, refusing to recognize the will of any lesser unit as really ultimate. He who occupies the one standpoint is apt to speak of defending his legitimate rights, or of extending to subject races the blessings of civilization. He who takes his stand upon the other may talk of lust of dominion, or desire for economic advantage. The one may use the term righteous indignation; the other, the word anger. The moral judgment passed upon an act depends upon the concept under which men manage to bring it. What is approved by the tribal ethics may be abhorrent to the ethics of humanity.
But the larger social will, so far as it has gotten itself expressed at all, seems to remain something vague and indefinite. It is appealed to as rational; but how indicate clearly the end which it sets before itself and the obligations which it lays upon mankind?
The difficulty of describing in detail the ultimate ends of the real social will has led some writers to speak in terms of exaggerated vagueness. The mere idea in a man "of something, he knows not what, which he may and should become" can give little guidance to action; nor can one aim with much confidence at a goal of which "we can only speak or think in negatives." [Footnote:Prolegomena to Ethics, Sec Sec 192, 172, 180. But GREEN is not always so indefinite. He is on the right track. He reverences the social will and the historical development of the social order.]
But it is not necessary to speak in this way. We may form some conception of the real, rational social will, without being compelled to know all that man is capable of becoming and without being able to forecast the details of his environment in the distant future.
We may attain to our conception by determining clearly the nature of the aims man sets before himself in proportion to his growing rationality. We can see in what direction man moves as he develops and becomes enlightened. From this standpoint, the aims of the rational social will appear to be as follows:
(1) The harmonious satisfaction of the impulses and desires of man.
(2) Such an unfolding of his powers as will increase their range and variety, broaden man's horizon, and give him an increased control over erratic impulses.
(3) The bringing about of a social state in which the will of each individual within a community counts for something, and not merely the will of a chosen few.
(4) The broadening of the conception of what constitutes a community, so that ever increasing numbers are regarded as having claims that must be recognized.
(5) The taking into consideration of the whole of life; the whole life of individuals and of communities, so that the insistent present shall not be given undue weight, as against the future.
85. THE ETHICS OF REASON.—The doctrine of the Rational Social Will might very properly be called the Ethics of Reason. It is not to be confounded with the so-called "tribal" or "group" ethics. To be sure, it has to do with man as a social being; but this is characteristic of ethical systems generally. Man is a social being; he is one essentially, and not accidentally. That he should be a member of a tribe, or of any lesser group than the whole body of sentient and reasonable beings, may not unjustly be regarded as an historical accident, as a function of his position in the scale of development.
In judging the doctrine of the rational social will, bear in mind the following:
(1) It rests upon the basis of the impulsive and volitional nature of man.
(2) It recognizes reason in the individual, and declares that only so far as he is rational is he the proper subject of ethics at all. Erratic and uncontrolled impulse knows no moral law.
(3) It sees reason in the customs, laws and public opinion of the tribe or the state, while recognizing a higher tribunal before the bar of which all these are summoned.
(4) It appeals to the reason of the race—the reason appropriate to the race as enlightened and freed from the shackles of local prejudice and restricted sympathy.
(5) It recognizes that man can give expression to his nature, can satisfy his desires and exercise his reason, only as aided by his physical and social environment. It emphasizes the necessity of a certain reverence for the actual historical development of human societies, with their institutions. Such institutions are the embodiment of reason—not pure reason, but reason struggling to get itself expressed as it can. He who would legislate for man independently of such institutions has left the solid earth and man far behind. He is suspended in the void.
86. THE DEVELOPMENT OF CIVILIZATION.—Civilizations differ; some are more material, laying stress upon man's conquest of his material environment. Others exhibit a greater appreciation of idealistic elements, the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake, the cultivation of the fine arts, the development of humanitarian sentiment. For civilization in general it is not necessary to advance an argument. But there are elements in many civilizations which the thoughtful man may feel called upon to defend.
Civilization, taken generally, scarcely needs a labored justification because it is only in a civilization of some kind or other that we can look for a guarantee of the broad social will, for the reign of reason. Undeveloped man is at the mercy of nature; he is the sport of history. Where developed man can raise his voice, man possessed of power and capable of taking broad views of things, the rule of reason may be set up. A deliberate attempt may be made to recognize many wills, harmonize discords. Order may be brought out of chaos, and the limits of the realm within the borders of which order reigns may be indefinitely extended.
Such is the general ethical justification for the rise of a civilization. It is an expression of, and an instrument for the realization of, the broader social will. That a given civilization may be imperfect in both respects has been made clear in the last chapter. In the light of the general justification for civilization many questions may be raised touching this or that element in civilizations as we observe them.
Thus, it may be pointed out that as man progresses in civilization he calls into being a multitude of new wants, many of which may have to remain unsatisfied. [Footnote: Compare chapter xxx, Sec 142.] It may be asserted that literature, art and science are, in fact, cherished as though they were ends in themselves, and not means called into existence to serve the interests of man. Absorbing as it may be to him, how can the philologist prove that his science is useful to humanity either present or prospective? How shall the astronomer, who may frankly admit that he cannot conceive that nine tenths of the work with which he occupies himself can ever be of any actual use to anyone, justify himself in devoting his life to it? Shall a curiosity, which seems to lead nowhere, be satisfied? And if so, on what ground?
Moreover, every civilization recognizes that some wills are to be given a more unequivocal recognition than others. Inequality is the rule. A man does not put his own children upon a level with those of his neighbor. Even in the most democratic of states men do not stand upon the same level. In dealing with our own fellows we do not employ the same weights and measures as in dealing with foreigners. Who loses his appetite for his breakfast when he reads that there have been inundations in China or that an African tribe has come under the "protection" of a race of another color? The white man has added to his burden—the burden of economic advantage present or prospective—and we find it as it should be. Finally, when we bring within our horizon the "interests" of humbler sentient creatures, we see that they are unhesitatingly subordinated to our own. Some attention is paid to them in civilized communities. They are recognized, not merely by custom and public opinion, but, to some degree, even by law. Men are punished for treating certain animals in certain ways. But why? Have the animals rights? There is no topic within the sphere of morals upon which moralists speak with more wavering and uncertain accents. [Footnote: See chapter XXX, Sec 141.]
I know of no way in which such problems as the above can be approached other than by the appeal to reason, as reason has been understood in the pages preceding. The reign of reason implies the recognition of all wills,so far as such a recognition is within the bounds of possibility. The escape from chaos lies in the evolution of the enlightened social will. Man must be raised in the scale, in order that he may have control; control over himself, over other men, over the brutes. And he cannot rise except through the historical evolution of a social order. This implies the development of the capacities latent in man.
To decide that any of his capacities shall be allowed to remain dormant may threaten future development. To cut off certain arts and sciences as not palpably serving the interests of man is a dangerous thing. To ignore the actual history of man's efforts to become a rational being, and to place, hence, all wills upon the one level, is to frustrate the desired end. It is not thus that the reign of reason can be established.
87. MAN'S MULTIPLE ALLEGIANCE.—We have seen that each man has his place in a social order. This order is the expression and the embodiment of the social will, which accepts him, protects him, gives him a share in the goods the community has so far attained, recognizes his individual will in that it accords to him rights, and prescribes his course of conduct, that is, defines his duties or obligations.
The social will is authoritative; it issues commands and enforces obedience. With its commands the individual may be in sympathy or he may not. But upon obedience the social will insists, and it compasses its ends by the bestowal of rewards or the infliction of punishment. The moral law to which man thus finds himself subject is something not wholly foreign to the nature of the individual. It has come into being as an expression of the nature of man. That nature the individual shares with his fellows.
Obedience to the social will would be a relatively simple matter were that will always unequivocally and unmistakably expressed, and did all the members of a community feel the pressure of the social will in the same manner and to the same degree. But the whole matter is indefinitely complicated by what may be called man's multiple allegiance.
Organized societies do not consist of undifferentiated units. They are not mere aggregates, both are highly complex in their internal constitution. A conscientious man may feel that he owes duties to himself, to his immediate family, to his kindred, to his neighborhood, to his social class, to his political party, to his church, to his country, to its allies, to humanity. The social will does not bring its pressure to bear upon the man who holds one place in the social order just as it does upon him who holds another.
Nor are the injunctions laid upon a man always in harmony. The demands of family may seem to conflict with those of neighborhood or of profession; duties to the church may seem to conflict with duties to the state; patriotism may appear to be more or less in conflict with an interest in humanity taken broadly. That the individual should often approach in doubt and hesitation the decision as to what it is, on the whole, his duty to do, is not surprising. Nor is it surprising that individuals the most conscientious should find it impossible to be at one on the subject of rights and duties. Two men may agree perfectly that it is right to "do good," and be quite unable to agree just what good it is right to do now, or with whom one should make a beginning.
88. THE APPEAL TO REASON.—Were there no appeal save to the social will as it happens to make its pressure felt upon this person or that, in this situation or that, there could be no issue to dispute. Dispute would be useless and sheer dogmatism would prevail. But there is such an appeal and men do make it, where they are in any degree enlightened. It is the appeal to Reason.
He who says: "I have especial rights, just because I am Smith, and so has my father, because he is my father," has no ground of argument with Jones, who says: "I have especial rights because I am Jones, and so has my father, because he is my father." Upon such a basis, or lack of basis, all discussion becomes fatuous. But if Smith and Jones agree that duties to self should only within limits be recognized, and that duties to family have their place upon the larger background of the will of the state, they may, at least, begin to talk.
The multiple allegiance of the individual does not mean that a man is subject to a multitude of independent masters whose several claims have no relation to one another. An appeal may be made from lower to higher.
We have seen that, in the organization of a given society, the social will may be imperfectly expressed. It may come about that the place in the social order assigned to a man cramps and pains him, or forces him to exertions which seem intolerable. He may passively accept it, or he may set himself in opposition to the social will as it is, appealing to a better social will. The fact that an individual finds himself out of harmony with given aspects of the social will characteristic of his age and country is no proof that he desires to set himself up in opposition to the social will in general.
In a given instance, he may be, from the standpoint of existing law, a criminal. Yet he may reverence the law above his fellows. His aberrations need not be arbitrary wanderings, prompted by selfish impulses. He may leave the beaten track because he does not approve of it, which is a very different thing from disliking it. Some will judge him to be a pestilent fellow; some will rate him as a reformer, a prophet, perhaps a martyr. Neither judgment is of the least value so long as it reflects merely the tastes or prejudices of the individual. Each must justify itself before the bar of reason, if it would have a respectful hearing. A reason must be given for conservatism and a reason must be given for reform.
89. THE ETHICS OF REASON AND THE VARYING MORAL CODES.—Several advantages may be claimed for the ethical doctrine I have been advocating:
(1) It gives a relative justification to the varying moral codes of communities of men in the past and in the present. A code may, even when imperfect from some higher point of view, fit well a community at a given stage of its development. It may be a man's duty to obey its injunctions, even where they are not seen to be the wisest possible. One reason for bowing to custom is that itiscustom; one reason for obeying laws is that theyarelaws. They embody the permanence and stability of the social will, and have aprima facieclaim to our reverence.
(2) In recognizing the social will as something deeper and broader than the will of the individual, as having its roots in the remote past and as reaching into the distant future, it admits the futility of devising utopian schemes which would bless humanity in defiance of the actual expressions of the social will revealed in the development of human societies. The whim of the individual cannot well be substituted for the settled purpose of the community—a purpose ripened by generations of experience, and adjusted to what is possible under existing conditions.
(3) On the other hand, it distinguishes between lower and higher ethical codes, or codes lower or higher in certain of their aspects. It sets a standard of comparison; it recognizes progress towards a goal.
(4) And, in all this, it does not appear to decidearbitrarilyeither what is the goal of man's moral efforts or what means must be adopted to attain to it. It rests upon a study of man; man as he has been, man as he is, in all the manifold relations in which he stands to his environment, physical and social.
There are other ethical theories in the field, of course. Some of them are advocated by men of original genius and of no little learning. Some deserve more attention than others, but all should have a hearing, at least. A close scrutiny will often reveal that advocates of different theories are by no means so far apart as a hasty reading of their works would suggest. Writers the most diverse may assist one to a comprehension of one's own theory. Its implications may be developed, objections to it may be suggested, its strong points may stand revealed. By no means the least important part of a work on ethics is its treatment of the schools of the moralists. If it be written with any degree of fairness, it may contain what will serve the reader with an antidote to erroneous opinions on the part of the writer. To a study of the most important schools of the moralists I shall now turn.
90. WHAT IS IT?—"We come into the world," said Epictetus, "with no natural notion of a right-angled triangle, or of a quarter-tone, or of a half-tone; but we learn each of these things by a certain transmission according to art; and for this reason those who do not know them do not think that they know them. But as to good and evil, and beautiful and ugly, and becoming and unbecoming, and happiness and misfortune, and proper and improper, and what we ought to do and what we ought not to do, who ever came into the world without having an innate idea of them?" [Footnote:Discourses, Book II, chapter xi, translation by GEORGE LONG.] Seneca adds his testimony to the self-luminous character of moral truth: "Whatever things tend to make us better or happier are either obvious or easily discovered." [Footnote:On Benefits, Book VII, chapter i.]
With the general spirit of these utterances the typical intuitionist is in sympathy, although he need not assent to the doctrine of innate ideas, nor need he hold that all moral truths are equally self-evident. There are intuitionists of various classes, and there are sufficiently notable differences of opinion. Still, all intuitionists believe that some moral truth, at least, is revealed to the individual by direct inspection (intueor), and that we must be content with such evidence and must not seek for proof. It may be maintained that our moral judgments—or some of them—are the result of "an immediate discernment of the natures of things by the understanding." and appeal may be made to the analogy furnished by mathematical truths. [Footnote: This appeal has been made by famous intuitionists from the seventeenth century to the nineteenth— Cudworth, More, Locke, Clarke, Price, Whewell.]
91. VARIETIES OF INTUITIONISM.—Forms of intuitionism have been conveniently classified as Perceptional, Dogmatic and Philosophical. [Footnote: SIDGWICK, The Methods of Ethics, Book I, chapter viii, Sec 4.] To this nomenclature it may be objected that the term "dogmatic" carries with it a certain flavor of disapprobation, and predisposes one to the assumption of a critical attitude, while the term "philosophical" has the reverse suggestion, and smacks of special pleading. While admitting that there is something in the objection, I retain the convenient terms, merely warning the reader to be on his guard.
(1) Perceptional Intuitionism falls back upon the analogy of perception in general. I seem to perceive by direct inspection that my blotter is green, and that my penholder is longer than my pencil. I do not seek for evidence; I do not have recourse to any chain of reasonings to establish the fact. And I am concerned here with facts, not with some general proposition applicable to many facts. Even so, I may maintain that, in specific situations, the rightness or wrongness of given courses of action may be perceived immediately.
He who accepts the spontaneous deliverances of his conscience, when confronted with the necessity of making a decision, as revelations of moral truth, may be called a perceptional intuitionist. The deliverances must, however, be spontaneous and immediate, not the result of reasoning. If a man reasons, if he falls back upon general considerations, if he looks into the future and weighs the consequences of his act, and, as a result, decides what he ought to do, he is no longer a perceptional intuitionist.
The perceptional intuitionist, consistently and unreservedly such, is rather an ideal construction than an actually existing person. Most men, on certain occasions, are inclined to say, "I feel this to be right, and will do it, although I cannot support my decision by giving reasons." Many men are, at times, tempted to maintain that a given course of action is evidently right and should be followed irrespective of consequences. But this is not the habitual attitude even of men very little gifted with reflection, and it is highly unsatisfactory to those who have the habit of thinking.
Primitive man supports his decisions by an appeal to custom. Civilized man turns to custom, to law, or to general principles of some sort, which he accepts as authoritative, and which he regards as having a bearing upon the particular instance in question. That individual decisions should be capable of some sort of justification by the adduction of a reason or reasons is generally admitted. No sane man would maintain the general proposition that the consequences of acts should be wholly disregarded in determining whether they are or are not desirable.
(2) Thus, Perceptional Intuitionism gives place to what has been called Dogmatic Intuitionism—to the doctrine that certain general moral rules can be immediately perceived to be valid. The application of such general rules to particular instances implies discrimination and the use of reason.
Here decisions are not wholly unsupported. Reasons may be asked for and given. In answer to the question: Why should I say this or that? it may be said: Because the law of veracity demands it. In answer to the question: Why should I act thus? it may be said: Because it is just, or is in accordance with the dictates of benevolence. The general rule is accepted as intuitively evident, but it is incumbent upon the individual to use his judgment in determining what may properly fall under the general rule.
But there are rules and rules. It is not easy to draw a sharp line between Perceptional Intuitionism and Dogmatic, just as it is not easy in other fields to distinguish sharply between knowledge given directly in perception, and knowledge in which more or less conscious processes of inference play a part. Do I perceive the man whom I see, when I look into a mirror, to be behind the mirror or in front of it? Do I perceive the whereabouts of the coach which I hear rattling by my window, or does reasoning play its part in giving me information? And if I follow my conscience in not withholding from the cabman the small customary fee in addition to his fare, am I prompted by an unreasoned perception of the rightness of my act, or am I influenced by general considerations—the thought of what is customary, the belief that gratuities should not be withheld where services of a certain kind are rendered, etc.?
Even so, it is difficult to draw a sharp line between Dogmatic Intuitionists and Philosophical, or to regard Dogmatic Intuitionists as a clearly defined class of any sort. A man may accept it as self-evident that a waiter should receive ten per cent of the amount of his bill; a woman may find it obviously proper that an old lady should wear purple. Those little given to reflection may accept such maxims as these without attempting to justify them by falling back upon any more general rule. We all find about us human beings who have their minds stored with a multitude of maxims not greatly different from those adduced, and who find them serviceable in guiding their actions. But thoughtful men can scarcely be content with such a modicum of reason, and they distinguish between ultimate principles and minor maxims which stand in need of justification by their reference to principles.
The intuitional moralists by profession draw this distinction. We find them setting forth as ultimate a limited number of ethical principles of a high degree of generality. It is obvious that, the more general the principle, the more room for conscious reasoning in its interpretation and application. The man to whom it appears as in the nature of things suitable that the waiter should receive his ten per cent is relieved from many perplexities which may beset the man who feels assured only of the general truth that it is right to be benevolent.
A glance at a few of the moralists who are treated in the history of ethics as representative intuitionists reveals that they are little in harmony as touching the particular moral intuitions which they urge as the foundation of ethics.
Thus, John Locke maintains that from the idea of God, and of ourselves as rational beings, a science of morality may be deduced demonstratively; a science: "wherein I doubt not but from self-evident propositions, by necessary consequences, as incontestible as those in mathematics, the measures of right and wrong might be made out to anyone that will apply himself with the same indifferency and attention to the one, as he does to the other of those sciences." [Footnote:Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Book IV, chapter iii, Sec 18.]
Among Locke's self-evident propositions or moral axioms we find: where there is no property there is no injustice; no government allows absolute liberty; all men are originally free and equal; parents have the power to control their children till they come of age; the right of property is based upon work, but is limited by the supply of property left for others to enjoy. [Footnote: See above, chapter iii, Sec 10.]
These axioms cannot be identified with Samuel Clarke's four chief rules of righteousness, which inculcate: piety toward God, equity in our dealings with men, benevolence, and sobriety. [Footnote:A Discourse concerning the Unalterable Relations of Natural Religion, Prop. I.] Richard Price gives us still another choice, in dwelling upon our obligation as regards piety, prudence, beneficence, gratitude, veracity, the fulfillment of promises, and justice. [Footnote:A Review of the Principal Questions and Difficulties in Morals, chapter vii.] And Whewell, emulating the performance of Euclid, tried to build up a system of morals upon axioms embodying the seven principles of benevolence, justice, truth, purity, order, earnestness, and moral purpose. [Footnote:The Elements of Morality, Book III, chapter iv.]
These moralists press the analogy of mathematical truth. It must be confessed, however, that a row of text-books on geometry, with so scattering and indefinite a collection of axioms, would do little to support one another; and little to convince us that they represented a coherent and consistent body of truth in which we might have unquestioning faith.
(3) It is not unnatural that some thoughtful intuitionists, dissatisfied with a considerable number of independent moral principles, should aim at a further simplification. Such a simplification Kant finds in the Categorical Imperative, or unconditional command of the Practical Reason: "Act only on that maxim whereby thou canst at the same time will that it should become a universal law." [Footnote:Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals, Sec 2.] And Henry Sidgwick, refusing to regard all intuitions as of equal authority, selects two only as ultimately and independently valid—that which recommends a far-seeing prudence, and that which urges a rational benevolence. [Footnote:The Methods of Ethics, Book III, chapter xiii, Sec 3.] Those who make their ultimate moral rules so broad and inclusive base upon them the multitude of minor maxims to which men are apt to have recourse in justifying their actions. Whether their doctrine may be called philosophical in a sense implying commendation is matter for discussion.
92. ARGUMENTS FOR INTUITIONISM.—What may be said in favor of intuitionism?
(1) It may be urged that it is the doctrine which appeals most directly to common sense, and that it is found reasonably satisfactory in practice by men generally.
Intuition appears to be, in fact, man's guide in an overwhelming majority of the situations in which he is called upon to act. In the face of the concrete situation hefeelsthat he should say a kind word, help a neighbor, stand his ground courageously, speak the truth, and a thousand other things which a moralist might, upon reflection, approve.
That he "feels" this does not mean merely that he is influenced by an emotion. We constantly employ the word to indicate the presence of a judgment which presents itself spontaneously and for which men cannot or do not seek support by having recourse to reasons.
He who, without reflection, affirms, "this action is right," has framed a moral judgment. He has in a given instance distinguished between right and wrong, although he has not raised the general problem of what constitutes right and wrong. He has exercised the prerogative of a moral being, though not of a very thoughtful one.
We have seen above, that perceptional intuitionism tends to pass over into dogmatic intuitionism of some sort, even in the case of minds little developed. The egoistic rustic may defend his selfishness by citing the proverb, "my shirt is closer to me than my coat." If he does so, it means that a doubt has been suggested, a conflict of some sort called into being. Were such conflicts, causing hesitation and deliberation, of very frequent occurrence, life could scarcely go on at all. Conversation would be impossible were no word placed and no inflection chosen without conscious reference to the rules of grammar. No man could conduct himself properly in a drawing-room or at a table, were his mind harking back at every moment to the instructions contained in some volume on etiquette. He who must justify every act by reflection is condemned to the jerkiest and most hesitant of moral lives. Perceptional moral intuition must stand our friend, if there is to be a flow of conduct worthy of the name.
There are, however, occasions for checking the flow by reflection. Then men are forced to think, and we find them appealing to custom, citing proverbs, quoting maxims, taking their stand upon principles. Recourse may be had to generalizations of a very low or of a very high degree of generality.
But low or high, it is upon intuitions that men actually fall back in justifying their actions. Benevolence, justice, honesty, truthfulness, purity, honor, modesty, courtesy, and what not, are intuitively perceived to be right, and an effort is made to bring the individual act under some one of these headings. The mass of men, even in enlightened communities, do not feel impelled to justify these general moral maxims, to reduce them to a harmonious system, or to reconcile with each other the different lists of them which have been drawn up. They find it possible in practice to resolve most of their doubts by an appeal to this maxim or to that. From such doubts as refuse to be resolved they are apt to turn away their attention. But the moral life goes on, and to intuitions it owes its guidance.
As to the few who reduce the moral intuitions to a minimum, and, like Kant and Sidgwick, end with one or two ultimate intuitional moral principles, we may say that they, like other men, are compelled, in the actual conduct of life, to turn to intuitions of lower orders. All sorts of moral intuitions are actually found helpful by all sorts of men.