139. THE DOCTRINE SUPPORTED BY THE OTHER SCHOOLS.—- I urge the more confidently the Ethics of Reason, or the Ethics of the Rational Social Will, because there is so little in it that is really new. It only makes articulate what we all know already, and strives to get rid of certain exaggerations into which many men who reason, and who reason well, have unwittingly fallen.
The fundamentals of the doctrine have been exhibited in Parts V and VI of this volume, and the exaggerations alluded to have been treated in Part VII. Hence, I may speak very briefly in indicating how the Ethics of Reason finds a many-sided support in schools which appear, on the surface, to be in the opposition.
It is evident, to begin with, that the Ethics of the Social Will cannot dispense with Moral Intuitions, but must regard them as indispensable; as, indeed, the very foundation of the moral life. That the individual may, and if he is properly equipped for the task, ought, to examine critically his own moral intuitions and those of the community in which he finds himself, and should, with becoming modesty and hesitation, now and then suggest an innovation, means no more than that he and the community are not dead, but are living, and that progress is a possibility, at least.
As for the Egoist, unless he is an absurd extremist, we must admit that he says much that is worth listening to. Was not Bentham quite right in maintaining that if all A's interests were committed to B, and all B's to A, the world would get on very badly? A charity that begins at the planet Mars would arrive nowhere. The Ethics of Reason has room for a very careful consideration of the interests of the self. But it may object to the position that the moral mathematician may regard as the only important number the number One.
With the Utilitarian our doctrine need have, as we have seen, no quarrel. Did not that learned, enlightened, and most fair-minded of utilitarians, Sidgwick, ultimately resolve the happiness which men seek into anything which may be the object of the mind in willing? Did not a critical utilitarianism resolve itself into the doctrine of the Rational Social Will? Why take less critical utilitarians as the only exponents of the school? Besides, is there any reason why the social will should be blind to the fact that men generally do desire to gain pleasure and to avoid pain? It is only the exaggeration of this truth that we need to combat.
To Nature, properly understood, we can enter no objection. Who objects to Perfection as a "counsel of perfection?" Can the Social Will object to a man's striving to Realize his Capacities—under proper control, and with a regard to others? The Pessimist is an unhealthy creature, and the Social Will represents normal and healthy humanity. Here we have disparity. But to Evolution our doctrine offers no opposition. It is only by a process of development that the Actual Social Will has come to be what it is; and the Rational Social Will looks to a further development under the guidance of reason.
The fact is that thoughtful men belonging to different schools tend to introduce into their statement of their doctrines modifying clauses; and in the end we find them not as far apart as they seemed at the beginning. The tendency is, I think, in the direction of the recognition of the Rational Social Will. This doctrine belongs to nobody in particular; it is the. common property of us all. It contains little that is startling.
140. ITS METHOD OF APPROACH TO PROBLEMS.—-He who looks to the Rational Social Will for guidance is given a compass which may be of no small service to him. For example:
(1) He will see that moral phenomena are not to be isolated. He will accept the historic order of society and judge man and his emotions and actions in the light of it. He will never feel tempted to say, with Bentham, that the pleasure which has its roots in malice, envy, cruelty, "taken by itself, is good." [Footnote:Principles of Morals and Legislation,chapter x, Sec 10, note.]
He will simply say, it is pleasure. That it is, of course; but he will maintain that nothing "taken by itself" is either good or bad, from the moralist's point of view. The cruel man may will to see suffering, and may enjoy it. The moral man may hold that the cruel man, his act of will, and his pleasure, should all be snuffed out, in the interest of humanity, as an unmitigated evil.
(2) The advocate of the Rational Social Will recognizes, as do many adherents of other schools, that the social will, as expressed at any given time, is only relatively rational; that men must live in their own day and generation, although they can, to some degree, reach beyond them; and that some differences of opinion as to the relative values of virtues, and the goodness of characters, are to be expected.
(3) Furthermore, he is in a position to explain how a man may be "subjectively" right and yet "objectively" wrong. The man's character may be such that it is, on the whole, to be approved by the Rational Social Will. He may be animated by the desire to adjust himself to that will. And yet, the accident of ignorance, the accident of prejudice not recognized by himself as such, may lead him to do what he thinks right and what those more enlightened recognize to be wrong.
141. ITS SOLUTION OF CERTAIN DIFFICULTIES.—Perhaps it would be better for me to give this section a heading more nearly like the last. I aim only to give the reader a point of view from which he can approach the problem of a solution.
Take the problem which has come up before in the form of the distribution of pleasures. [Footnote: See Sec 109.] He who dwells, not so much upon pleasure, as upon the satisfaction of desire and will, must state it differently, but the problem is much the same. What degree of recognition should be given to the will of each individual, or to the separate volitions and desires in the life of the individual? Should everybody count for one? Should every desire or group of desires receive recognition? Is no distinction to be made in the intensity of desires? And how many individuals shall we include in our reckoning?
Light seems to be shed upon this complicated problem or set of problems when we hold clearly before ourselves what the task of reason is in regulating the life of man individually and collectively. Its function is to bring order out of chaos and strife; to substitute harmony and planfulness for accident; to introduce long views in the place of momentary impulses; to prevent the barter of permanent good for a mess of pottage.
Reason must accept the impulses and instincts of man as it finds them, and do what it can with them. It cannot ignore them. Slowly, civilizations, to some degree rational, have come into being. In so far as they are rational, they are justified. Keeping all this in view we may say, tentatively:
(a) The principle, "everybody to count for one, and nobody for more than one," must be interpreted as an expression of the conviction that no will should beneedlesslysacrificed.
Reason is bodiless, except as incorporated in human societies, and these must have their historic development. Can we do away with the special claims of family, of neighborhood, of the state? They have their place in the historic rational order. But the whispered "everybody to count for one" may help us to realize that such special claims cannot take the place of all others.
(b) Shall a deliberate attempt be made to enlarge the circle of those who are to share in the social will, not merely by diminishing the number of deaths, but by promoting the number of births? States have attempted it often enough. I can only say that, if this be attempted, it should not be attempted in ways that ignore the historical development of society, with its social and moral traditions.
(c) Why not justify our attitude toward the brutes by maintaining that they have, theoretically, rights to recognition, in so far as such recognition does not interfere with the rights of man in the rational social order? The brutes outnumber us, to be sure. We are in a hopeless minority. But were this minority sacrificed, there would be no rational social order at all—no right, no wrong; nothing but the clash of wills or impulses which reason now strives to harmonize as it can. [Footnote: See chapter xxi]
(d) When we turn to the problem of the distribution of satisfactions in the life of the individual, we find ready to hand a variety of unwise saws—"A short life and a merry one," and the like.
How should the individual choose his satisfactions? Merely from the standpoint of the individual? What isdesirable? Notdesired, by this man or by that, butdesirable, reasonable?
It is an open secret that the house of mirth lacks every convenience demanded of a permanent residence, and that those who breathlessly pursue pleasure are seldom pleased. Nor do men, when they stop to think, want their lives to be very short.
And, in any case, this question of the distribution of satisfactions in the life of the individual does not concern the individual alone. Is the man who wants a short life and a merry one an "undesirable" from the standpoint of the Rational Social Will? Then he should be suppressed. The manner of distribution of even his own personal satisfactions is not his affair exclusively. Every ordered society has its notions touching the type of man which suits its ends.
(e) But shall we, in making up our minds about the "satisfaction on the whole" which busies the rational individual or the rational community, take no account at all of the intensity of pleasures and of pains, the eagerness with which some things are desired and the feebleness of the impulsion toward others? May not the intense thrill of a moment more than counterbalance "four lukewarm hours?" Are we not, if we take such things into consideration, back again face to face with something very like the calculus of pleasures—that bugbear of the egoist and of the utilitarian?
It would be foolish to maintain that man, either individually or collectively, places all desires upon the same level. No man of sense holds that every desire should count as one. On the other hand, no man of sense pretends to have any accurate unit of measurement by which he can make unerring estimates of desirability.
Fortunately, he is not compelled to fall back upon such a unit. Even if he was born yesterday, the race was not. He is born into a system of values expressed in social organization and social institutions. It is the resultant of innumerable expressions of preference on the part of innumerable men. It is a general guide to what, on the whole, man wants.
It is, then, foolish for him to raise such questions as, whether it is not better to aim at intense happiness on the part of the few, to the utter ignoring of the mass of mankind. Such questions the Rational Social Will has already answered in the negative.
142. THE CULTIVATION OF OUR CAPACITIES.—Finally, we may approach the question whether it is reasonable to awake dormant desires, to call into being new needs; which, satisfied, may be recognized as a good, but which, unsatisfied, may result in unhappiness. [Footnote: Compare chapter xxi, Sec 86.]
A little cup may be filled with what leaves a big one half empty. It is easy to find grounds upon which to congratulate the "average" man. All the world caters to him—ready-made clothing is measured to fit his figure, and it is sold cheap; the average restaurant consults his taste and his pocket; the average woman just suits him as a help-mate; he is much at home with his neighbors, most of whom diverge little from the average. Why strive to rise above the average—and fall into a divine discontent?
May one not say much the same of a community? Why should it strive to attain to new conquests, to awaken in its members new wants and strain to satisfy them? Does it seem self-evident that it is reasonable, in general, to multiply desires with no guarantee of their satisfaction?
I know no way of approaching the solution of this problem save from the standpoint of the Rational Social Will. We are confronted with the general problem of the desirability of civilization, with all that that implies. The life of man in some rather primitive societies has seemed in certain respects rather idyllic. The eating of the fruit of the tree, and the consequent opening of the eyes, has, time and again, seemed to result in disaster.
But was the idyllic life not an accidental thing, due to a fortuitous combination of circumstances, rather than to man's intelligent control of a larger environment? Civilization of some sort seems inevitable. Have we any other guarantee that we can make it, in the long run, rational, than a many-sided development of man's capacities? And must we not exercise a broad faith in the value of enlightenment, increase of knowledge, farsightedness, the cultivation of complex emotions, even at the risk of some waste of effort and some suffering to certain individuals?
Perhaps this is as good a place as any to say a word about the significance of the terms "higher" and "lower," when used in a moral sense. We have seen that John Stuart Mill made much of the distinction in his utilitarianism. Bentham appears to sin against the enlightened moral judgment in holding that, quantities of pleasure being the same, "push- pin is as good as poetry."
When we realize that the worth of things may be determined from the standpoint of the Rational Social Will, we can easily understand that some occupations and their accompanying pleasures should be rated higher than others, however satisfactory the latter may seem to certain individuals. It is not unreasonable to rate the pleasure of scientific discovery as higher than the pleasure of swallowing an oyster; and that, without following Bentham in falling back upon a quantitative standard, or following Mill in maintaining that pleasures, as pleasures, differ in kind. [Footnote: See chapter xxv, Sec 107.]
143. DUTIES AND VIRTUES.—We saw, at the very beginning of this volume [Footnote: Chapter i, Sec 2.] that a single moral law, so abstractly stated as to cover the whole sphere of conduct, must be something so vague and indeterminate as to be practically useless as a guide to action. The admonition, "do right," does not mean anything in particular to the man who is not already well instructed as to what, in detail, constitutes right action. Nor do we make ourselves more intelligible, when we say to him "be good."
It seems to mean something more when we say "act justly" or "be just"; "speak the truth," or "be truthful." And the more we particularize, the more we help the individual confronted with concrete problems—the only problems with which life actually confronts us.
This is as it should be. Duties and virtues are expressions of the Rational Social Will, and that will is a mere abstraction except as it is incorporated, with a wealth of detail, in human societies. It would be hard for the small boy to classify, under any ten commandments, the innumerable company of the "don'ts" which he hears from his mother during the course of a week. He can leave such work to the moralist. But he is receiving an education in the moral law, as an expression of the social will, through the whole seven days.
If we wish, we can emphasize themoral law, and dwell upon thedutiesof man. On the other hand, we may lay stress upon thevirtues, and point toideals. The Greek made much of the virtues; the Christian moralist had more to say of man's duties. In the end, there need be little discrepancy in the results. I make the same recommendation, whether I say to a man, Speak the truth! or whether I say to him, Be truthful!
It may be claimed that shades of difference make themselves apparent, where one emphasizes the law and another points to an ideal. Perhaps they do, in most minds. It certainly sounds more conceited to say: "I am trying to be virtuous," than to say: "I am trying to do my duty." On the other hand, the admonition, "Be truthful," appears to leave one a little latitude. We take the truthful man, so to speak, in the lump. If he has a strong bias toward truth-speaking, and is felt to be reliable, on the whole, it is not certain that we should rob him of his title on the ground of one or two lapses for which weighty reasons could be urged. The admonition: "Speak the truth!" seems more uncompromising; and yet he who prefers this legal form may maintain that it is a general admonition addressed to men of sense who are supposed to be able to exercise reason.
144. THE NEGATIVE ASPECT OF THE MORAL LAW.—Why does the Moral Law, on the surface at least, appear to be so largely negative? As we look back upon our early youth, our days appear to be punctuated with punishments. When we attain to years of discretion, this is not the case, with most of us, at least.
But when we turn to the law, in our own society or in others, we find prohibitions and penalties everywhere. Of rewards little is said. Is the social will meant to be chiefly inhibitory? Is it a check to the action of the individual?
(1) The negative aspect of the moral law is, to a considerable degree, an illusion. The social will takes us up into itself and forms us. In our early youth we are acutely conscious of the process. A vast number of the things a boy wants to do are things that do not suit the social will at all. He wants to break windows; he wants to fight other boys; he wants to be idle; his delight is in adventures not normally within the reach of, or suited to the taste of, the citizens of an ordered state. It is little wonder that the boy regards the moral law as a nuisance and the state as a suitable refuge for those suffering from senile decay.
There are individuals who scarcely get beyond this stage. They remain, even in their later years, at war with the state. From time to time, we seize them and incarcerate them. That the lawforbidsandpunishes, they never forget. It is chiefly for such that the criminal law exists. They are in the state, but they are not of it. They have small share in the heritage of the civilized man.
For most of us there comes a time when most prohibitions are little thought of. It has been maintained, that the law is negative partly for the reason that positive duties are too numerous to be formulated. But how numerous are the things that ought not to be done which normal men never think of doing! At this moment, I could swallow a pen, taste the ink in the ink-well, throw my papers from the window, hurl the porcelain jar on the chimney-piece at the cat next door, swing on the chandelier. I am conscious of no constraint in not doing these things. Why? I have become to some degree adjusted to the type which the social will strives to produce.
(2) And, having become so far adjusted, I recognize that the social will is distributing rewards most lavishly. The whole organism of society is its instrument. Work is found for me, and I am paid for it. If I am industrious and dependable, I am recompensed. If I am truthful, I am believed, which is no little convenience. If I am energetic and persevering, I may grow rich or be elected to office. If I am courteous, I am liked and am treated with courtesy.
Every day I am paid, in the ordinary course of things, according to my deserts. Why should society work out an extraordinary system of rewards for those whom it is already rewarding automatically?
In some cases, recourse is had to extraordinary rewards. We give prizes to children in the schools; we give medals to soldiers for distinguished service; we confer honorary degrees upon men for a variety of reasons. In monarchical countries and in their colonies, the man who earns an extraordinary reward may even pass it on, in the shape of a title, to his descendants, as though it were original sin. But the giving of extraordinary rewards to all ordinary, normal persons would be too much.
The man who markedly offends against the moral law is not an ordinary, normal person. He is not adjusted to the social will. It is natural that he should attract especial attention. Thus the "Thou shalt not!" is given prominence. To this I might add, that punishments are cheaper and easier than extraordinary rewards. Pains are sharper than pleasures, and are easily inflicted.
(3) It is worthy of remark that, with the evolution of morality, it tends to become positive. The enlightened moral man recognizes, not merely the actual social will, but also the Rational Social Will. He may feel it his duty to do much more than society formally demands of him.
145. HOW CAN ONE KNOW THE MORAL LAW?—This question has already been answered in chapters preceding. Every man has three counsellors: (1) The "objective" morality of his community—custom, law, and public opinion, which certainly deserve to be taken very seriously; (2) his moral intuitions, which may be of the finest; and (3) his reason, which prevents him from making decisions without reflection.
Can a man who listens to these three counsellors be sure that he is right in a given decision? The sooner a man learns that he is not infallible and impeccable, the better it will be for him, for his neighbor, and for the world at large.
146. GOOD AND BAD; RIGHT AND WRONG.—As a rule, men reflect little touching the moral terms which are on their lips every day. It is well worth while to take some of them up and to turn them over for examination.
We may use the terms "good" and "bad," "right" and "wrong," in a very broad sense. A "good" trick may be a contemptible action; the "right" way to crack a bank-safe may be the means to the successful commission of a crime. Evidently, the words, thus used, are not employed in a moral sense.
When we pass judgments from the moral point of view, we concern ourselves with men and with their actions, and measure them by the standard of the social will. Men and actions are "good," when they can meet the test. Actions are "right" or "wrong," when they are in accordance with the dictates of the moral law, or are at variance with them. That an act may be both right and wrong, when viewed from different standpoints, even on moral ground, we have seen in Chapter XXX. A man may mean to do right, and may, through ignorance or error, be guilty of an act that we condemn. To the intelligent, confusions are here unnecessary. But the history of ethics is full of confusions in just this field.
147. DUTY AND OBLIGATION.—Verbal usage sometimes justifies the use of one of these words, and sometimes that of the other. We say: I did my duty; we do not say: I did my obligation. But this is a mere matter of verbal expression, and we are really concerned with two names for the same thing.
(1) There has been much dispute as to whether the sense of duty or moral obligation can or cannot be analyzed. It has been declared unanalyzable and unique. Some think this a point of much importance which imparts a peculiar sacredness to the sense of duty.
There appears no reason why this position should be taken. No one has been able to analyze into its ultimate sensational elements the peculiar feeling one has when one is tickled. But this does not make the feeling sacred or awe-inspiring. The authority of the sense of duty must be looked for in another direction—and authority it has.
(2) I have spoken of the "sense" of duty. We all recognize that, when we are faced with a duty, a feeling is normally present. But the whole argument of this volume has maintained that man is not to be treated only as the subject of emotions. He is a rational being. In some persons feeling is very prominent; in others it is less so. It is quite conceivable that, in a given case, a man capable of reflection should recognize that he is confronted with a duty, and yet that he should feel no impulse to perform it. Did no one ever feel any such impulse, the whole system of duties, the whole rational order of society itself, would dissolve and disappear.
Fortunately, the normal man does feel an impulse to perform duties recognized as such. And in the case of those exceptional persons who do not, society strives to supply surrogates, extraordinary impulses based upon a system of rewards and punishments. This is a mere supplement, and could never keep alive a society from which the sense of duty had disappeared.
Dutyissacred. It is the very foundation of every rational society. It does not greatly concern ethics whether the impulse, which makes itself felt in men who want to do their duty, can or cannot be analyzed. But it is all-important that they should feel the impulse.
(3) Can a man do more than his duty? Is it the duty of everyone to be, not merely a good, average, honest, faithful, law-abiding citizen, but to go far beyond this and be conspicuously a saint?
It should be remembered that we are concerned with the connotation properly to be given to a word in common use.
A certain amount of goodness the social will appears to demand of men rather peremptorily. Its demands seem to vary somewhat with the exigencies of the times—for example, in peace and in war. It does not make the same demands of all men. From those to whom much has been given— wealth, education, social or political influence,—much is required. From certain persons it appears to be glad to get anything. If they keep out of the police-court, it is agreeably surprised.
I have no desire to dissuade anyone from the arduous pursuit of sainthood; but I submit that the word "duty," as sanctioned by usage, implies but a limited demand, and takes cognizance of character and environment. He who comes up to this moderate standard is not condemned; but he is free to go farther and to become as great a saint as he pleases. In which case, we admire him. Those who, in the past, have spoken of "counsels of perfection," have drawn upon a profound knowledge of human nature and of human societies.
148. REWARD AND PUNISHMENT.—We saw in the last chapter (Sec 144) that it is something of a criticism upon man and upon societies of men that extraordinary rewards have to be given and that punishments must be inflicted.
More attention has been paid to punishments than to rewards, and the question touching the proper aim of punishment in a civilized state has received much discussion. The study of the history of the infliction of punishment is suggestive, but it does not shed a clear light. The social will has not always been a rational social will, and some of its decisions may be placed among the curiosities of literature. Still, they may serve the purpose of the traditional "terrible example."
Should we, in punishing, aim at the prevention of crime? Are punishments to be "deterrent"? Under this head we must consider, not merely the criminal himself, but also those who are in more or less danger of becoming criminals, though they have, as yet, committed no known crime.
Should the aim of punishment be the reformation of the criminal?
Should we punish merely that "justice" be done? He who steals and eats fruit is visited with punishment, in the course of nature, if the fruit is unripe. But he suffers equally if he eats his own fruit, under like conditions. This seems a blind punishment. Should we visit pain upon him for the theft, merely because it is a theft, and without looking abroad for any other reason?
Light appears to be thrown upon these problems when we reflect that punishment is an instrument, employed by the Rational Social Will, in pursuance of its ends.
(1) It is desirable that men should be deterred from committing crime. If this cannot be done save by the infliction of punishment, then let men be punished. But be it remembered that punishment is a regrettable necessity, and that the occasions for the infliction of penalties may greatly be diminished by the amelioration of the organism of society. There is the born criminal, as there is the born inmate of an asylum for the insane. But there is also the manufactured criminal; the product of the slum, the victim of ignorance, the prey of the walking-delegate, the sufferer from over-work and undernourishment, the inhabitant of the filthy and overcrowded tenement, the man robbed of his self-respect, who has no share in the sweetness and light of civilization. A society that first manufactures criminals and then expends great sums in punishing them is, in so far, not rational.
(2) It is desirable that the criminal should be reformed and returned to society as a normal man. But this is not the one and only aim of the social will. The whole flock should not be sacrificed to the one black sheep, as some sentimental persons appear to believe. There is room here for the exercise of judgment and of some cool calculation.
(3) As for the demand that a given pain shall be inflicted for a given wrong done, irrespective of any gain to anybody, and irrespective of consequences,—it appears to carry one back to ancient and primitive law.
Undoubtedly many punishments have been inflicted in the past to satisfy the sense of resentment. [Footnote: It may be objected that we are not concerned here with resentment but with the satisfaction of "justice." Men's notions of the "justice" of punishments have been touched upon in chapter ii, Sec 4. Plato suggests, in his Laws, that the slave who steals a bunch of grapes should receive a blow for every grape in the bunch. This has an agreeably mathematical flavor of exactitude. But what shall be done to the man who steals half of a ham or a third of a watermelon?] Undoubtedly the same is true of the present. Can anything be said in favor of this impulse? It plays no small part in the life of humanity.
We feel that a bad manoughtto be punished. We harbor a certain resentment against him. The resentment of the individual for personal injuries we recognize to be wrong. It is not impartial, and it is apt to be excessive and unreasoning. Public order demands that it be refused expression.
But is the—we must admit, somewhat more disinterested—resentment of the community a rational thing? Have men, collectively, no whims, no prejudices? When a trial is deferred, and public indignation has cooled off, how do the chances of the prisoner compare with those he enjoyed just after the commission of the crime? And yet something may be said for public resentment. It has a certain driving-power. It may be questioned whether either our desire to deter men from crime, or our benevolent interest in the criminal, would be quite sufficient to enforce law, if all sense of resentment against the law-breaker were lacking. Its usefulness as an instrument of the social will appears to give it a certain justification. But it also suggests that even public resentment should not be given free rein.
Before leaving the subject of reward and punishment, it may be well to say a word touching our use of the termscreditanddiscredit,meritanddemerit.
We do not give a man credit for an action, we do not think of him as meritorious, merely because he has done right. Who thinks of praising the young mother for feeding and washing her first-born? Who shakes the hand of the Sunday-school teacher and congratulates him upon having stolen nothing for a week? But the waif from the gutter who wanders through a department-store and resolutely takes nothing, emerging exhausted with the struggle, we slap upon the back and call a little man.
Our notions of credit and merit are bound up with our notions of extraordinary rewards. The creditable action, the meritorious man, have a certain claim upon us, if only the claim of special recognition. Any man who makes a notable step forward deserves credit, whatever his actual position upon the moral scale. He who only "marks time" upon a relatively high level may be a good man, but we do not give him credit for the act normally to be expected of him. The recognition of merit is a part of the machinery of moralization.
149. VIRTUES AND VICES.—One swallow, said Aristotle, does not make a spring, nor does one happy day make a happy life. Elsewhere he draws our attention to the fact that one good action does not constitute a virtue.
We may define the virtues as those relatively permanent qualities of character which it is desirable, from the moral point of view, that a man should have. The vices are the corresponding defects. I shall not attempt to draw up a list of the virtues. For a variety of lists, exhibiting curious and interesting diversities, I refer the reader back to Chapter III, Sec Sec 9-11.
The Rational Social Will aims to build up a social order which shall do justice to the fundamental impulses and desires of man, a social and rational creature. The stones which it must build into its edifice are human beings. If the human beings are mere lumps of soft clay, incapable of holding their shape or of bearing any weight, the walls cannot rise. And a human being may be satisfactory in one respect, and far from satisfactory in another. No one of us is wholly ignorant of the qualities desirable in our building-material. Custom, law and public opinion are there to indicate what qualities have, in fact, proved, on the whole, not detrimental. Our intuitions help us in forming a judgment. Rational reflection is of service.
But one thing is very evident. Nowhere is it made clearer than in the study of the virtues and vices, that the moralist cannot consider the phenomena, with which he occupies himself, in a state of isolation.
Is courage a virtue? Is, then, the man who is willing to take the risk of breaking a bank, or holding up a stage-coach, in so far virtuous? Is perseverance a virtue? Is, then, the woman, who holds out to the bitter end in her desire to have the last word, in so far virtuous? Is justice a virtue? Then why not be virtuous in demanding the pound of flesh, if it is the law—as it once was?
Certain qualities of character have been recognized as,on the whole, andgenerally, serviceable to the social will. But a man is not a quality of character, and qualities of character are sometimes gathered into strange bundles. It is of men that the state is composed; of thinking, feeling men. We cannot isolate qualities of character, and assess their value in their isolation.
150. CONSCIENCE.—We are all forced to recognize that conscience has its dual aspect. It is characterized byfeeling; and the feeling is seldom blind, or, at least, wholly blind; conscience implies ajudgmentthat something is right or wrong.
(1) The feeling is, to be sure, very often in the foreground. Those who say, "My conscience tells me that this is wrong," often mean little more than, "I feel that it is wrong."
But the word "feeling" is an ambiguous one. It is used to cover all sorts of intuitive judgments as well as mere emotions. The man who takes the time to reflect upon his feeling of the rightness or wrongness of an action can often discover some, perhaps rather vague, reason for his feeling proper.
(2) In other words, he may come upon an intuitive judgment. And the thoughtful man who talks about his conscience is rarely satisfied with a blind intuition; he wants to be sure he is right, and he thinks the whole matter over.
(3) The feeling and the judgment are not necessarily in accord. The feeling may lag behind an enlightened judgment. On the other hand, the feeling of repugnance to acting in certain ways may be a justifiable protest against a bit of intellectual sophistry.
(4) So much ought to be admitted by everyone who holds that conscience may be blunted or may be enlightened. Consciences vary indefinitely. Some we set down as hopelessly below the average; others we reverence as refined and enlightened. The social worker makes it his aim to "awaken" conscience, to cultivate it, to bring it up to a high standard. No practical moralist regards the conscience of the individual as something which must simply be left to itself and treated as sacred, no matter what its character.
(5) The above sufficiently explains some of the puzzles which confront the man who reverences conscience and yet studies the consciences of his fellow-men. He finds that the individual conscience is not an infallible guide-post pointing to right action; that it is not a perfect time- keeper, in complete accord with the watches of other men.
"It's a turrible thing to have killed the wrong man," said the conscience-stricken illicit distiller in his mountain fastness. "I never seen good come o' goodness yet; him as strikes first is my fancy," said the dying pirate in "Treasure Island." Augustine, passing over much worse offences, exhausts himself in agonies of remorse over a boyish prank. [Footnote: See chapter xx, Sec 78.] Seneca draws up a list of the most horrifying crimes, and decides that ingratitude exceeds them all in enormity. [Footnote:On Benefits, i, 10.]
(6) It appears to be quite evident that consciences ought to be standardized, and that the standard should be made a high one. The true standard is the one set by the Rational Social Will. It is as much a duty to have a good conscience as it is to obey the conscience one has.
151. WHAT IS MEANT BY THE TERM?—Men collected into groups and organized in various ways we call states, and we treat a state as a unit. We look upon it as having rights and as owing duties both to individuals and to other states. There are individuals whom we are apt to regard as representatives of the state; as instruments, rather than as men— executive officers, legislators, official interpreters of its laws, whether good or bad. For states and their representatives we often have especial moral standards, differing more or less from those by which we judge human beings merely as human beings. It is with the morality of the latter that I am here concerned.
To be sure, all human beings are to be found in states, or in that rudimentary social something which foreshadows the state. To talk of the morality of the isolated individual is nonsense. Morality is the expression of the social will; and if we think of even Robinson Crusoe as a good man, it means that we apply to him social standards. Had he not been moralized, he would have killed and eaten Friday, when the latter made his appearance.
We must, then, take the individual as we find him in the state, but it is convenient to consider his morality separately from the ethics of the state, its institutions and its instruments.
152. THE VIRTUES OF THE INDIVIDUAL.—What moral traits have we a right to look for in the individual man? What sort of a man is it his duty to be?
Evidently, men's duties must vary somewhat according to the type of the society to which they belong, and to their definite place in that society. Still, certain general desirable traits of character unavoidably suggest themselves. To attempt a complete list seems futile, but the most salient have been dwelt upon by the moralists of many schools, and for centuries past.
Does it not appear self-evident that a man should be law-abiding, honest, industrious, truthful, and capable of unselfishness? Should he not have a regard for his health and efficiency? Should he not aim to develop his capacities, and in so far to diminish the dead mass of ignorance and bad taste which weighs down society?
Of marital fidelity, with all that that implies—personal purity, the good of one's children, a fine sense of loyalty—it is scarcely necessary to speak. No man, betrothed or married, can be sure that he will not meet tomorrow some woman whom the unprejudiced would judge to be more attractive than the one to whom he has bound himself. Shall he remain unprejudiced—a floating mine, ready to explode at any accidental contact? Away with him! He has, in the eyes of the scientific moralist, "too much ego in his cosmos." Those babble of "affinities" who know little, and care less, about the long and arduous ascent up which mankind has toiled, in the effort to attain to civilization.
And what shall we say of such things as religious duties, of cheerfulness, of good manners, of personal cleanliness? Of religious duties I shall speak elsewhere. [Footnote: Chapter xxxvi.] As to cheerfulness and good manners, it is only necessary to reflect upon the baleful influence exercised upon the young—who have here my entire sympathy—by a bilious and depressing piety, or by those who are rudely and superciliously moral.
Cleanliness deserves some special attention, on account of the fact that it has perplexed even thoughtful scholars to discover why society has come to regard it as a duty at all. [Footnote: The chapter on cleanliness by Epictetus is a homily, and not a philosophic argument. See,Discourses, Book IV, chapter xi.] That, if society does regard cleanliness as important, it should be the duty of the individual to keep himself and his house clean presents no problem. He has no right to make himself gratuitously offensive, and gratuitously offensive he will be, if he is a dirty fellow. But why does anyone object to his being a dirty fellow? The prejudice in favor of cleanliness does not appear to be universal—witness the Eskimo and various other peoples.
We have learned that the social will has its foundation in the fundamental impulses and instincts of man. An admirable scholar has suggested that the ultimate root of the regard for cleanliness which more or less characterizes civilized societies may be traced to some such primitive and inexplicable impulse to cleanliness as we observe, for example, in the cat. [Footnote: WESTERMARCK,Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas, chapter xxxix.] It must be admitted that it is far more marked in the cat than in the human being. A kitten is much more fastidious than is a baby, and a grown cat would tolerate no powder or rouge.
But, assuming that such an instinct exists, even in weak measure, it might easily develop with the development of society. And, as man is a rational being, capable of discovering a connection between cleanliness and hygiene, the duty of cleanliness would acquire a new authority. Dirt becomes no longer merely distasteful; it is recognized as a danger.
153. CONVENTIONAL MORALITY.—There are virtues—taking the traits of character indicated by the names broadly and loosely, and making allowance for all sorts of variations within wide limits—which appear to be recognized as such very generally. Bishop Butler regarded justice, veracity and regard to common good as valued in all societies. Certainly they have served as expressions of the social will in many societies, ancient and modern, primitive and highly civilized.
We have seen that the forms under which they appear are not independent of the degree and kind of the development of the society we may happen to be contemplating. [Footnote: See chapter ii.] And we have realized that man is born into a world of ready-made duties which are literally forced upon his attention. He finds himself a member of a family, somebody's neighbor, a resident in a town or village, allotted to a social class, an employer or an employee, a citizen of a state. Justice, veracity and a regard for common good appear to have their value in all these relations; but the manner of their interpretation is not independent of the relations, and the relations with their appropriate demands are relatively independent of the individual will. One cannot ignore these demands and fall back, independently, upon metaphysical theory. Aristotle's claim that a man cannot be unjust to his own child, because the child is a part of himself, and a man cannot be unjust to himself, [Footnote:Ethics, Book V, chapter vi, Sec 7.] excites our curiosity. It does not elicit our approval.
It is because the vast majority of our duties are so unequivocally thrust upon us that I have been able to touch so lightly, in the last section, upon the duties of the individual. Why dilate upon what everybody knows? Is it not enough to set him thinking about it?
And, in helping him to think, the reference to the virtue of cleanliness has its value. Cleanliness is prized by those who know little of hygiene. If a society cannot be happy without cleanliness, for whatever reason, is it not the duty of the individual to be clean? Buthowclean should he be?
There are virtues—I use the word here broadly to cover approved habits— which seem to have a very direct reference to chronology and geography. They areconventional virtues; they suit a given society, and satisfy its actual social will. A Vermont housekeeper in anigloowould be an intolerable nuisance. Imagine an unbroken succession of New England house-cleanings with the inhabitants of the house sitting in despair in the snow outside.
Those who live north of the Alps are sometimes criticized for dipping Zwieback into their tea. Those who live south of the Alps eat macaroni in ways revolting to other nations. A very pretty Frenchwoman, devouring snails after the approved fashion of the locality, has driven me out of an excellent restaurant. And the world opens its eyes in wonder when it sees the well-bred Anglo-Saxon dispose of his asparagus.
There is a little-recognized virtue called toleration. St. Ambrose was a wise man when he advised St. Augustine to do, when in Rome, as the Romans do. Of course, he did not mean this to apply to robbery or to murder. He was giving an involuntary recognition to the doctrine that there are conventional virtues, worthy of our notice, as well as virtues of heavier caliber and wider range.
154. THE AIM OF THE STATE.—He who has resolved to devote but a single chapter to the Ethics of the State must deliberately sacrifice nine- tenths, at least, of the material—some of it very good material, and some of it most curious and interesting—which has heaped itself together on his hands in the course of his reading and thinking. I have resolved to write only the one chapter. The State is the background of the individual, the scaffold which supports his moral life. Without it, he may be a being; but he is scarcely recognizable as ahumanbeing. It has made the individual what he is, and it is the medium in which he can give expression to the nature which he now possesses.
Plato maintains that the object of the constitution of the state is the happiness of the whole, not of any part. [Footnote:Republic, II. It must be borne in mind that both Plato and Aristotle had the Greek prejudice touching citizenship. Their "citizenship" was enjoyed by a strictly limited class.] Aristotle, in his "Politics," maintains that it is the aim of the state to enable men to live well. Sidgwick defines politics as "the theory of what ought to be (in human affairs) as far as this depends on the common action of societies of men." [Footnote:The Methods of Ethics, chapter ii.] We may agree with all three, and yet leave ourselves much latitude in determining the nature of the organization of, and the limits properly to be set to the activities of, the State as such. Shall the State only strive to repress grave disorders? or shall it take a paternal interest in its citizens, making them virtuous and happy in spite of themselves?
155. ITS ORIGIN AND AUTHORITY.—In Parts III to VI we have seen how and upon what basis the State has grown up. It is an organism, something that lives and grows. It is not a machine, deliberately put together at a definite time by some man or some group of men. The "social contract" fanatic may have read history, but he has not understood it. Of psychology he has no comprehension at all.
Herodotus, at some of whose stories we smile, was a wiser man. He writes: "It appears certain to me, by a great variety of proofs, that Cambyses was raving mad; he would not else have set himself to make a mock of holy rites and long-established usages. For, if one were to offer men to choose out of all the customs in the world such as seemed to them the best, they would examine the whole number, and end by preferring their own; so convinced are they that their own usages far surpass those of all others." [Footnote:The History of Herodotus, Book III, chapter xxxviii, translated by GEORGE RAWLINSON, London, 1910.]
This may be something of an over-statement, for men in one state have shown themselves to be, within limits, capable of learning from men in another. But only within limits. Those things which give a state stability—and without stability we are tossed upon the waves of mere anarchy—have their roots in the remote past. Strip a man of his past, and he is little better than an idiot; strip men within the State of their corporate institutions and ideals, of their loyalties and emotional leanings, and we have on our hands a mob of savages, something much below the tribe proper, knit into unity of purpose by custom and tribal law.
The State has its origin in man as a creature desiring and willing, and at the same time endowed with reason. Its authority is the authority of reason. Not reason in the abstract, with no ground to stand upon, and no material for its exercise; but reason as incorporate in institutions and social usages; reason which takes cognizance of the nature of man, and recognizes what man has already succeeded in doing.
Where shall we look for a limit to the authority of the State? Surely, only in the Reason which makes it possible for the State to be. The State must not defeat its own object.
156. FORMS OF ORGANIZATION.—The special science of politics enters in detail into the forms of organization of the State. The ethical philosopher must content himself with certain general reflections. Everyone knows that States have been organized in divers ways; and that their citizens, under much the same form of political organization, have been here happy and contented, and there in a state of ferment. The form of government counts for something; but its suitability to the population governed, and the degree of enlightenment and discipline characteristic of the population, count for much more. It is not every shoe that fits every foot, and there are feet that are little at home in shoes of any description.
Monarchies of many sorts, aristocracies, oligarchies, democracies, even communisms, have been tried; and all, save the last, have managed to hold their own with some degree of success.
It is easy to bring objections against each form of government, just as it is easy to say something specious in its favor.
Are the eldest sons of a few families peculiarly fitted by nature to be governors of the State? Look at history, and wake up to common sense. Of the divine right of kings I shall not speak, for the adherents of the doctrine are in our day relegated to museums of antiquities. And have the members of aristocracies been carefully bred with a view to their intellectual and moral superiority, as we breed fine varieties of horses and dogs? Have those who have had their share in oligarchies been peculiarly wise and peculiarly devoted to the common good? The communist makes two fatal mistakes. He shuts his eyes to history, and he overlooks the fact that there is such a thing as human nature.
There remains democracy. Of this, Herodotus, already quoted as a man of sense, has his opinion. He makes a shrewd Persian, in a political crisis, thus address his fellow-conspirators:
"There is nothing so void of understanding, nothing so full of wantonness, as the unwieldy rabble. It were folly not to be borne, for men, while seeking to escape the wantonness of a tyrant, to give themselves up to the wantonness of a rude unbridled mob. The tyrant, in all his doings, at least knows what he is about, but a mob is altogether devoid of knowledge; for how should there be any knowledge in a rabble, untaught, and with no natural sense of what is right and fit? It rushes wildly into state affairs with all the fury of a stream swollen in the winter, and confuses everything. Let the enemies of the Persians be ruled by democracies; but let us choose out from the citizens a certain number of the worthiest, and put the government into their hands." [Footnote:Op. cit.Book III, chapter lxxxi.]
To be sure, we, who belong to a modern, enlightened democracy, would resent being called "a rude unbridled mob," and being likened to the populace of ancient Persia. But those of us who reflect recognize the dangers that lurk in the "psychology of the crowd"; and we are all aware that, after a popular vote, it is quite possible to discover that few, except a handful of office-holders, have gotten anything that they really want. Democracy is not a panacea for all political evils, and there are democracies of many kinds.
Still, when all is said, it seems as though the Rational Social Will, the ultimate arbiter of every moral State, should give its authority to a democratic form of government, rather than to another form. Every individual will has aprima facieclaim to recognition.
But the Rational Social Will can never forget that human nature is in process of development, and that each nation, at a given time, is a historical phenomenon. The Rational Social Will is too enlightened to drape an infant in the raiment appropriate to a college graduate. It is only an intemperate enthusiasm that is capable of that.
157. THE LAWS OF THE STATE.—The State allots to individuals, and to the lesser groups of human beings, of which it is composed,rights, and it prescribes to themduties. Upon its activities in this sphere I can touch only by way of illustration, and for the sake of making clear the nature of the functions of the State.
(1) To whom shall the State grant a share in the formulation and execution of its laws? Once, in communities very enlightened, in their own peculiar way, women, children, slaves, mechanics, petty traders, and hired servants were deemed quite unfit to be entrusted with such responsibilities. [Footnote: See ARISTOTLE'SPolitics.]
With us, the position of woman has changed. Slavery, in a technical sense, has been abolished. The mechanic and the petty trader are much in evidence at "primaries." Hired servants are by some accused of being tyrants. Children, and defectives who are grossly and palpably defective, we bar from elections, and we also reject some criminals.
The times have changed, and our notions of the right of the individual to an active share in the State have changed with them. The expression of the social will has undergone modification, and I think we can say that it is, on the whole, modification in the right direction.
To be sure, the court of last resort is theRationalSocial Will. What is best for the State, and, hence, for those who compose it? What is practicable in the actual condition in which a given state finds itself at a given time? It seems too easy a solution of our problems to seek dogmatic answers to our questionings by having recourse to the "natural light," that ready oracle of the philosopher, Descartes.
(2) There are certain classes of rights which civilized states generally guarantee to their citizens with varying degrees of success. They make it the duty of their citizens to respect these rights in others.
(a) The laws protect life and limb. Much progress has been made in this respect in the last centuries past. I own no coat of mail; and, when I walk abroad, I neither carry a sword nor surround myself with armed retainers.
(b) They protect private property. To be sure, the "promoter" may prey upon my simplicity; and the state itself does not recognize that I have any absolute right to my property, any more than it recognizes that I have an absolute right to my life.
It may send me into the trenches. It may take from me what it will in the form of taxes. It may even forbid me to increase my income by using my property in ways which will make me insupportable to my neighbors. But it will not allow my neighbor, who is stronger than I, to take possession of my house without form of law. It will even allow me to dispose of my property by will, after my death.
I suggest that those, to whom this right appears to be rooted in the very nature of things, and not to be a creation of the State, called into being at the behest of the social will in a certain stage of its development, should read and re-read what Sir Henry Maine has to say about testamentary succession, in his wonderful little book on "Ancient Law." [Footnote: See chapters vi and vii.]
The State has not always treated a man as an individual, directly and personally responsible to the state. It has treated him as a member of a family or some other group; a being endowed, by virtue of his position, with certain rights, and burdened with certain duties. A being who, when he drops out of being, is automatically replaced by someone else who is clothed upon with both his rights and his responsibilities.
Our conceptions have changed. The lesser groups within the State have to some degree lost their cohesion, and the bond between the individual, as such, and the state has been correspondingly strengthened. But many traces of the old conception make themselves apparent. The law compels me to provide for my wife and children; and, if I die intestate, the law by no means assumes that my property is left without a claimant.
Have we been moving in the right direction, as judged by the standard of the Rational Social Will? We think so. But it is well to bear in mind what Herodotus said about the madness of Cambyses, and the prejudice men have in favor of their own customs. No state is a mere aggregate of unrelated individuals. Men are set in families, and the State seems to be composed of groups within groups. How far the State should recognize the will of the individual, as over against the claims of the lesser groups to which he may belong, is a nice question for the Rational Social Will to settle.
(c) The law must regulate marriage and divorce. Matters so vital to the interests of society cannot be left at the mercy of the egoistic whims of the individual. But to what law shall we have recourse? It seems highly irrational to have forty-eight independent authorities upon this subject within the limits of a single nation. And, if we turn the matter over to the churches, we discover that we have committed it to the care of one hundred and eighty, or more, sects. Add to this, that a state of any sort cannot be set upon its feet without some difficulty, while any enterprising man or woman can call a sect into existence any day. There is a new adherent for sectarian eccentricities born every minute. Surely, here is a field for the activities of the Rational Social Will.
(d) To paternalism of some sort the modern State, as law-giver, seems hopelessly pledged. If we ignore this we are simply closing our eyes. The State seems to be justified in educating its citizens, in protecting children and women against exploitation, in protecting the working classes, in stamping out infectious diseases. We are not even allowed to expectorate when and where we will, a privilege enjoyed by the merest savage.
(e) In one respect the paternalism of our own State has lagged behind that of certain others. We do little to secure to a man a decent privacy, or to safeguard his personal dignity. The newspaper reporter is allowed to rage unchecked, to unearth scandals in private families, and to cause great pain by printing the names of individuals.
I have known, in Europe, a man, after a difference of opinion touching the ventilation of a railway carriage, to break a window with his elbow and to apply to his fellow-passenger an offensive epithet. The court made him pay a dollar and a half for breaking the window and six dollars for giving himself the pleasure of being insulting.
Which was the greater offense? Herodotus would expect this question to be answered in accordance with the prejudices of the person giving the answer.
158. THE RIGHTS AND DUTIES OF THE STATE.—The State evidently has rights over its citizens, and may enforce these rights through the infliction of punishment. It as evidently has duties. A given state may not be answerable to any actual given power. Our own State is in such a position at the present time—there is no other state strong enough to call it to account.
But this does not free it from duties. No state is anything more than a brute force, except as it incorporates, in some measure, the Rational Social Will. And states that fall far short, as judged by this standard, may overstep their rights and ignore their duties, whether they are dealing with individuals or with other states.
In punishing, the State should punish rationally. [Footnote: See chapter xxxii, Sec 148.] And it should not demand of its subjects what will degrade them as moral beings. "We all recognize," said a pure and candid soul, "that a rightful sovereign may command his subjects to do what is wrong, and that it is then their duty to disobey him." [Footnote: Sidgwick,Methods of Ethics, III, vi.]
But how discover what demands are just? It is the whole argument of this volume that no man should venture an opinion upon this subject without having come to some appreciation of what is meant by the Rational Social Will. Man, his instincts, the degree of his intelligence and self- control, the history of the development of human societies, cannot be ignored. It is the weakness of good men, endowed with a high degree of speculative intelligence, to construct Utopias, and to tabulate the "rights of man," or, as Bentham well expressed it, to make lists of "anarchical fallacies." [Footnote: SeeWorks, Bowring's Edition, Volume II.] Thus, some may, with Plato and Aristotle, advocate infanticide. The Greek city-state was a crowded little affair, and in danger of over-population. Some may propose radical measures to increase the population. To France and Argentina, in our day, such an increase appears highly desirable. May any and every method be embraced which seems adapted to avert a given evil or to attain to a desired end? It is instructive to note that Francis Galton, the father of "eugenics," proposed to leave morals out of the question as "involving too many hopeless difficulties." [Footnote: Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th edition, article, "Sociology."] But do men live well who leave morals out of the question?
The man who falls back upon intuition alone, in his advocacy of the abolition of capital punishment, may be expected to maintain next that a state, in going to war, should stop short at the point where the lives of its citizens are put in jeopardy. Why kill a good man, when it is wrong to kill a bad one?
It must be admitted that the State and its representatives enjoy some rights and duties not accorded to individuals. The State may condemn men to death or to imprisonment; it may take over property; it may make itself a compulsory arbiter between individuals. On the other hand, its representatives are not always as free as are private persons. The individual, if he is a generous soul, may freely forego some of his advantages and may seek only a fair fight with an opponent. It is doubtful whether the duty the State owes to its citizens permits of chivalry. Certainly strong states do not hesitate to attack weak ones; nor do many hesitate to combine against one, on the score of fair play. And a private man may temper justice with mercy in ways forbidden to a judge.