PART IITHEORY OF THE MORAL LIFE

A brief characterization of the respective standpoints of religion and morality may be added, as they both aim to control and give value to human conduct. The religious has always implied some relation of man's life to unseen powers or to the cosmos. The relation may be the social relation of kin or friend or companion, the political of subject to a sovereign, the cosmic relation ofdependence, or that of seeking in the divine completer meaning or more perfect fulfillment for what is fragmentary and imperfect. In its aspect of "faith" it holds all these ideals of power, wisdom, goodness, justice, to be real and effective. The moral, on the other hand, concerns itself, not with unseen beings or cosmic reality, but with human purposes and the relations of a man to his fellows. For religion, conscience may be the "voice of God"; for morality, it must be stated in terms of thought and feeling. The "moral law" must be viewed as a law which is capable of being approved, at least—and this implies that it may also be criticized—by the mind. The difference which religion states as a choice between "God and mammon," between heaven and earth, morality must state in terms of good and evil, right and wrong, ideal interests and natural appetites. Instead of regarding its standards as laws established once for all by a divine authority, morality seeks to reachprinciples. Instead of embodying its ideals in persons, the moral seeks to reshape them continually. It is for religion to hold that "God reigns," and therefore "All's right with the world." The moral as such must be continually overcoming evil, continually working out ideals into conduct, and changing the natural order into a more rational and social order.

FOOTNOTES:[96]Grote,Plato and the Other Companions of Sokrates, Vol. I., p. 249.[97]Nearly every railway journey or other occasion for observing family discipline discloses the prevalence of this agency of savage morality. "If you are not quiet I'll give you to the conductor," "the black man will get you," "Santa Claus will not give presents to naughty children." That persons who in many respects are kindly and decent should aim to cultivate morality by a system of deliberate lying and more or less brutal cruelty is one of the interesting phenomena of education. The savages who used taboos believed what they said.[98]Sumner,Folkways, p. 36.[99]Plato's wording is given on p. 132.[100]"Recognition" has the same double sense. So has "acknowledgment," with greater emphasis upon rendering allegiance in action.[101]Logically, this means that intelligence works conceptually, not perceptually alone.[102]Sumner,Folkways, p. 570.[103]"One of Dr. Alison's Scotch facts struck us much. A poor Irish Widow, her husband having died in one of the Lanes of Edinburgh, went forth with her three children, bare of all resources, to solicit help from the Charitable Establishments of that City. At this Charitable Establishment and then at that she was refused; referred from one to the other, helped by none; till she had exhausted them all; till her strength and heart failed her; she sank down in typhus-fever; died, and infected her Lane with fever, so that 'seventeen other persons' died of fever there in consequence.... The forlorn Irish Widow applies to her fellow creatures, as if saying, 'Behold I am sinking, bare of help; ye must help me! I am your sister, bone of your bone; one God made us; ye must help me.' They answer, 'No, impossible; thou art no sister of ours.' But she proves her sisterhood; her typhus fever killsthem:" (Past and Present, Book III., ch. ii.)

[96]Grote,Plato and the Other Companions of Sokrates, Vol. I., p. 249.

[97]Nearly every railway journey or other occasion for observing family discipline discloses the prevalence of this agency of savage morality. "If you are not quiet I'll give you to the conductor," "the black man will get you," "Santa Claus will not give presents to naughty children." That persons who in many respects are kindly and decent should aim to cultivate morality by a system of deliberate lying and more or less brutal cruelty is one of the interesting phenomena of education. The savages who used taboos believed what they said.

[98]Sumner,Folkways, p. 36.

[99]Plato's wording is given on p. 132.

[100]"Recognition" has the same double sense. So has "acknowledgment," with greater emphasis upon rendering allegiance in action.

[101]Logically, this means that intelligence works conceptually, not perceptually alone.

[102]Sumner,Folkways, p. 570.

[103]"One of Dr. Alison's Scotch facts struck us much. A poor Irish Widow, her husband having died in one of the Lanes of Edinburgh, went forth with her three children, bare of all resources, to solicit help from the Charitable Establishments of that City. At this Charitable Establishment and then at that she was refused; referred from one to the other, helped by none; till she had exhausted them all; till her strength and heart failed her; she sank down in typhus-fever; died, and infected her Lane with fever, so that 'seventeen other persons' died of fever there in consequence.... The forlorn Irish Widow applies to her fellow creatures, as if saying, 'Behold I am sinking, bare of help; ye must help me! I am your sister, bone of your bone; one God made us; ye must help me.' They answer, 'No, impossible; thou art no sister of ours.' But she proves her sisterhood; her typhus fever killsthem:" (Past and Present, Book III., ch. ii.)

GENERAL LITERATURE FOR PART IIAmong the works which have had the most influence upon the development of the theory of morals are: Plato, dialogues entitledRepublic, Laws,ProtagorasandGorgias; Aristotle,Ethics; Cicero,De FinibusandDe Officiis; Marcus Aurelius,Meditations; Epictetus,Conversations; Lucretius,De Rerum Natura; St. Thomas Aquinas (selected and translated by Rickaby under title ofAquinas Ethicus); Hobbes,Leviathan; Spinoza,Ethics; Shaftesbury,Characteristics, andInquiry concerning Virtue; Hutcheson,System of Moral Philosophy; Butler,Sermons; Hume,Essays, Principles of Morals; Adam Smith,Theory of Moral Sentiments; Bentham,Principles of Morals and Legislation; Kant,Critique of Practical Reason, andFoundations of the Metaphysics of Ethics; Comte, Social Physics (in hisCourse of Positive Philosophy); Mill,Utilitarianism; Spencer,Principles of Ethics; Green,Prolegomena to Ethics; Sidgwick,Methods of Ethics; Selby-Bigge,British Moralists, 2 vols. (a convenient collection of selections). For contemporary treatises, and histories consult the literature referred to in ch. i. of Part I.

Among the works which have had the most influence upon the development of the theory of morals are: Plato, dialogues entitledRepublic, Laws,ProtagorasandGorgias; Aristotle,Ethics; Cicero,De FinibusandDe Officiis; Marcus Aurelius,Meditations; Epictetus,Conversations; Lucretius,De Rerum Natura; St. Thomas Aquinas (selected and translated by Rickaby under title ofAquinas Ethicus); Hobbes,Leviathan; Spinoza,Ethics; Shaftesbury,Characteristics, andInquiry concerning Virtue; Hutcheson,System of Moral Philosophy; Butler,Sermons; Hume,Essays, Principles of Morals; Adam Smith,Theory of Moral Sentiments; Bentham,Principles of Morals and Legislation; Kant,Critique of Practical Reason, andFoundations of the Metaphysics of Ethics; Comte, Social Physics (in hisCourse of Positive Philosophy); Mill,Utilitarianism; Spencer,Principles of Ethics; Green,Prolegomena to Ethics; Sidgwick,Methods of Ethics; Selby-Bigge,British Moralists, 2 vols. (a convenient collection of selections). For contemporary treatises, and histories consult the literature referred to in ch. i. of Part I.

Object of Part Two and of Present Chapter.—From the history of morals, we turn to the theoretical analysis of reflective morality. We are concerned to discover (1) just what in conduct it is that we judge good and evil, right and wrong (conduct being a complicated thing); (2) what we mean by good and evil, right and wrong; (3) on what basis we apply these conceptions to their appropriate objects in conduct. But before we attempt these questions, we must detect and identify themoral situation, the situation in which considerations of good and evil, right and wrong, present themselves and are employed. For some situations we employ the ideas of true and false; of beautiful and ugly; of skilful and awkward; of economical and wasteful, etc. We may indeed apply the terms right and wrong to these same situations; but if so, it is to them in some other light. What then are the differentiating traits, the special earmarks, presented by the situation which we identify as distinctively moral? For we use the term moral in a broad sense to designate that which is either moral or immoral: i.e., right or wrong in the narrower sense. It is the moral situation in the broad sense as distinct from the non-moral, not from the immoral, that we are now concerned with.

The Moral Situation Involves Voluntary Activity.—It will be admitted on all hands that the moral situation is one which, whatever else it may or may not be,involves a voluntary factor. Some of the chief traits of voluntary activity we have already become acquainted with, as in the account by Aristotle, already noted (ante, p. 12). The agent must know what he is about; he must have some idea of what he is doing; he must not be a somnambulist, or an imbecile, or insane, or an infant so immature as to have no idea of what he is doing. He must also have some wish, some desire, some preference in the matter. A man overpowered by superior force might be physically compelled by some ingenious device to shoot a gun at another, knowing what he was doing, but his act would not be voluntary because he had no choice in the matter, or rather because his preference was not to do the act which he is aware he is doing. But if he is ordered to kill another and told if he does not he will himself be killed, he hassomewill in the matter. He may do the deed, not because he likes it or wishes it in itself, but because he wishes to save his own life. The attendant circumstances may affect our judgment of the kind and degree of morality attaching to the act; but they do not take it entirely out of the moral sphere.[104]Aristotle says the act must also be the expression of a disposition (a habit or ἕξις), a more or less settled tendency on the part of the person. It must bear some relation to his character. Character is not, we may say, a third factor, It is making clear what is implied in deliberation and wish. There may be little deliberation in a child's act and little in an adult's, and yet we may regard the latter as much more voluntary than the child's. With the child, the thought is superficial and casual, because of the restricted stage of organization or growth reached (see p. 10): his act flows from organic instinct or from accidental circumstances—whim, caprice, and chance suggestion, orfancy. The adult's act may flow from habitual tendencies and be accompanied by an equally small amount of conscious reflection. But the tendencies themselves are the outcome of prior deliberations and choices which have finally got funded into more or less automatic habits. The child's act is to a slight extent the expression of character; the adult's to a large extent. In short, we mean by character whatever lies behind an act in the way of deliberation and desire, whether these processes be near-by or remote.

Not Everything Voluntary is Morally Judged.—A voluntary act may then be defined as onewhich manifests character, the test of its presence being the presence of desire and deliberation; these sometimes being present directly and immediately, sometimes indirectly and remotely through their effects upon the agent's standing habits. But we do not judge all voluntary activity from the moral standpoint. Some acts we judge from the standpoint of skill or awkwardness; others as amusing or boring; others as stupid or highly intelligent, and so on. We do not bring to bear the conceptions of right and wrong. And on the other hand, there are many things called good and bad which are not voluntary. Since what we are in search of must lie somewhere between these two limits, we may begin with cases of the latter sort.

(1) Not Everything Judged Good or Right is Moral.—We speak, for example, of an ill-wind; of a good engine; of a watch being wrong; or of a screw being set right. We speak of good and bad bread, money, or soil. That is, from the standpoint of value, we judge things asmeansto certain results in themselves desirable or undesirable. A "good" machine does efficiently the work for which it is designed; "bad" money does not subserve the ends which money is meant to promote; the watch that is wrong comes short of telling us time correctly. We have to use the notion of value andof contribution to value; that is a positive factor. But this contribution to valuable result is not, in inanimate objects, something meant or intended by the things themselves. If we thought the ill-wind had an idea of its own destructive effect and took pleasure in that idea, we should attribute moral quality to it—just as men did in early times, and so tried to influence its behavior in order to make it "good." Among things that promote favorable or unfavorable results a line is drawn between those which just do so as matter of fact, and those in which meaning so to do, or intention, plays a part.

(2) Good in Animal Conduct.—Let us now consider the case of good and bad animal conduct. We speak of a good watch-dog; of a bad saddle-horse, and the like. Moreover, wetrainthe dog and the horse to the right or desired kind of action. We make, we repair the watch; but we do nottrainit. Training involves a new factor: enlistment of the animal's tendencies; of its own conscious attitudes and reactions. We pet, we reward by feeding, we punish and threaten. By these means we induce animals to exercise in ways that form the habits we want. We modify the animal's behavior by modifying its own impulses. But we do not give moral significance to the good and bad, for we are still thinking of means to ends. We do not suppose that we have succeeded in supplying the hunting dog, for example, withideasthat certain results are more excellent than others, so that henceforth he acts on the basis of his own discrimination of the less and the more valuable. We just induce certain habits by managing to make certain ways of actingfeelmore agreeable than do others. Thus James says: "Whether the dog has the notion of your being angry or of your property being valuable in any such abstract way aswehave these notions, is more than doubtful. The conduct is more likely an impulsive result of a conspiracy of outward stimuli; the beastfeels likeacting so when these stimuli are present, though conscious of no definite reason why"[105](Psychology, Vol. II., p. 350, note). Or putting it the other way: if the dog has an idea of the results of guarding the house, and is controlled in what he does by loyalty to this idea, by the satisfaction which he takes in it, then in calling the dog good we mean that in being good for a certain result, he is also morally good.

(3) Non-moral Human Acts.—There are also acts evoked by an idea of value in the results to be reached, which are not judged as coming within the moral sphere. "Conduct is three-fourths of life," but in some sense it is more: it is four-fourths. All conscious human life is concerned with ends, and with selecting, arranging, and employing the means, intellectual, emotional, and practical, involved in these ends. This makesconduct. But it does not follow that all conduct hasmoralimport. "As currently conceived, stirring the fire, reading a newspaper, or eating a meal, are acts with which morality has no concern. Opening the window to air the room, putting on an overcoat when the weather is cold, are thought of as having no ethical significance. These, however, are all portions of conduct" (Spencer,Principles of Ethics, Vol. I., p. 5). They all involve the idea of some result worth reaching, and the putting forth of energy to reach the result—of intelligently selected and adapted means. But this may leave the act morally indifferent—innocent.

Introduction of Moral Factor.—A further quotation from Spencer may introduce discussion of the needed moral qualification:

"As already said, a large part of the ordinary conduct is indifferent. Shall I walk to the water fall today? or, shall Iramble along the sea shore? Here the ends are ethically indifferent. If I go to the water fall, shall I go over the moor or take the path through the wood? Here the means are ethically indifferent.... But if a friend who is with me has explored the sea shore, but has not seen the water fall, the choice of one or other end is no longer ethically indifferent. Again, if a probable result of making the one excursion rather than the other, is that I shall not be back in time to keep an appointment, or if taking the longer route entails this risk while the shorter does not, the decision in favor of one end or means acquires in another way an ethical character" (Spencer,Principles of Ethics, pp. 5-6).

This illustration suggests two differing types of conduct; two differing ways in which activity is induced and guided by ideas of valuable results. In one case the end presents itself directly as desirable, and the question is only as to the steps or means of achieving this end. Here we have conduct which, although excited and directed by considerations of value, is still morally indifferent. Such is the condition of thingswherever one end is taken for granted by itself without any consideration of its relationship to other ends. It is then a technical rather than a moral affair. It is a question of taste and of skill—of personal preference and of practical wisdom, or of economy, expediency. There are many different roads to most results, and the selection of this path rather than that, on the assumption that either path actually leads to the end, is an intellectual, æsthetic, or executive, rather than an ethical matter. I may happen to prefer a marine view to that of the uplands—that is an æsthetic interest. I may wish to utilize the time of the walk for thinking, and may find the moor path less distracting; here is a matter of intellectual economy. Or I may conclude that I shall best get the exercise I want by going to the water fall. Here it is a question of "prudence," of expediency, or practical wisdom. Let any one of the ends, æsthetic, intellectual, hygienic, stand alone and it is a fit andproper consideration. The moral issue does not arise. Or the various ends may be regarded as means to a further unquestioned end—say a walk with the maximum of combined æsthetic interest and physical exercise.

(4) Criterion for Moral Factor.—But let the value of one proposed end be felt to be really incompatible with that of another, let it be felt to be so opposed as to appeal to a different kind of interest and choice, in other words, to different kinds of disposition and agency, and we have a moral situation. This is what occurs when one way of traveling means self-indulgence; another, kindliness or keeping an engagement. There is no longer one end, nor two ends so homogeneous that they may be reconciled by both being used as means to some more general end of undisputed worth. We have alternative ends so heterogeneous that choice has to be made; an end has to be developed out of conflict. The problem now becomes whatisreally valuable. It is thenatureof the valuable, of the desirable, that the individual has to pass upon.[106]

Suppose a person has unhesitatingly accepted an end, has acquiesced in some suggested purpose. Then, starting to realize it, he finds the affair not so simple. He is led to review the matter and to consider what really constitutes worth for him. The process of attainment calls for toil which is disagreeable, and imposes restraints and abandonments of accustomed enjoyments. An Indian boy, for example, thinks it desirable to be a good rider, a skilful shot, a sagacious scout. Then he "naturally," as we say, disposes of his time and energy so as to realize his purpose. But in trying to become a "brave," he finds that he has to submit to deprivation and hardship, to forego other enjoyments and undergo arduous toil. Hefinds that the end does not mean in actual realization what it meant in original contemplation—something that often happens, for, as Goldsmith said: "In the first place, we cook the dish to our own appetite; in the latter, nature cooks it for us."

This change in apparent worth raises a new question: Is the aim first set up of the value it seemed to be? Is it, after all, so important, so desirable? Are not other results, playing with other boys, convivial companionship, which are reached more easily and pleasantly, really more valuable? The labors and pains connected with the means employed to reach an end, have thrown another and incompatible end into consciousness. The individual no longer "naturally," but "morally," follows the selected end, whichever of the two it be, because it has been chosen after conscious valuation of competing aims.

Such competitions of values for the position of control of action are inevitable accompaniments of individual conduct, whether in civilized or in tribal life. A child, for example, finds that the fulfillment of an appetite of hunger is not only possible, but that it is desirable—that fulfillment brings, or is, satisfaction, not mere satiety. Later on, moved by the idea of this sort of value, he snatches at food. Then he is made aware of other sorts of values involved in the act performed—values incompatible with just the value at which he aimed. He brings down upon himself social disapproval and reproach. He is termed rude, unmannerly, greedy, selfish. He acted in accordance with an unhesitatingly accepted idea of value. But while reaching one result he accomplished also certain other results which he did not intend, results in the way of being thought ill of, results which are disagreeable:negative values. He is taught to raise the question of what, after all, in such cases is thereallydesirable or valuable. Before he is free to deliberate upon means, he has to form an estimate of the relative worth of variouspossible ends, and to be willing to forego one and select the other. The chapters on Hebrew and Greek moral development have shown this same process at work in the life of a people.

Summary and Definition.—If we sum up the three classes of instances thus far considered, we get the following defining traits of a moral situation, that is, of one which is an appropriate subject of determinations of right and wrong: Moral experience is (1) a matter ofconduct,behavior; that is, of activities which are called out byideas of the worth, the desirability of results. This evocation by anideadiscriminates it from the so-called behavior of a pump, where there is no recognition of results; and from conduct attributed to the lower animals, where there are probably feelings and even dim imagery, but hardly ideas of the comparative desirability or value of various ends. Moral experience is (2) that kind of conduct in which there are ends so discrepant, so incompatible, as to require selection of one and rejection of the other. This perception of, and selection from, incompatible alternatives, discriminates moral experience from those cases of conduct which are called out and directed by ideas of value, but which do not necessitate passing upon thereal worth, as we say, of the value selected. It is incompatibility of ends which necessitates consideration of the true worth of a given end; and such consideration it is which brings the experience into the moral sphere. Conduct as moral may thus be defined asactivity called forth and directed by ideas of value or worth, where the values concerned are so mutually incompatible as to require consideration and selection before an overt action is entered upon.

End Finally at Issue.—Many questions about ends are in reality questions about means: the artist considers whether he will paint a landscape or a figure; this or that landscape, and so on. The general character of theend is unchanged: it is to paint. But let this end persist and be felt as desirable, as valuable; let at the same time an alternative end presents itself as also desirable (say keeping an engagement), so that the individual does not find any way of adjusting and arranging them into a common scheme (like doing first one and then the other), and the person has a moral problem on his hands. Which shall he decide for, and why? The appeal is to himself; what doeshereally think the desirable end? What makes the supreme appeal to him? What sort of an agent, of a person, shall he be? This is the question finally at stake in any genuinely moral situation: What shall the agentbe? What sort of a character shall he assume? On its face, the question is what he shalldo, shall he act for this or that end. But the incompatibility of the ends forces the issue back into the question of the kinds of selfhood, of agency, involved in the respective ends. The distinctively moral situation is then one in which elements of value and control are bound up with the processes of deliberation and desire; and are bound up in a peculiar way:viz., they decide what kind of a character shall control further desires and deliberations. When ends are genuinely incompatible, no common denominator can be found except by deciding what sort of character is most highly prized and shall be given supremacy.

The Moral and Indifferent Situations.—This criterion throws lights upon our earlier discussion of morally indifferent acts. Persons perform the greater bulk of their activities without any conscious reference to considerations of right and wrong, as any one may verify for himself by recollecting the general course of his activity on any ordinary day from the time he arises in the morning to the time he goes to bed at night. His deliberations and wants are mostly concerned with the ends involved in his regular vocation and recreations. But at any time the question of his character as concerned with what he is doing may arisefor judgment. The person may later on realize that the type or kind of character which is to prevail in his further activity was involved in deeds which were performed without any such thought. Hethenjudges them morally, approving or disapproving. On the other hand, a course of action which at the time presented a moral crisis even, may afterwards come to be followed as a matter of course. There is then nofixedline between the morally indifferent and the morally significant. Every act ispotentialsubject-matter of moral judgment, for it strengthens or weakens some habit which influences whole classes of judgments.

LITERATUREThere are comparatively few distinct analyses of the moral situation, the topic generally being treated as a running part of the theory of the author, or in connection with an account of character or conduct (see references at end of ch. xiii.). See, however, Mezes,Ethics, Descriptive and Explanatory, ch. ii.; Martineau,Types of Ethical Theory, Vol. II., pp. 17-54; Spencer,Principles of Ethics, Vol. I.;Studies in Logical Theory, Stuart, essay on Valuation as a Logical Process, pp. 237-241, 257-258, 273-275, 289-293; Dewey,Logical Conditions of a Scientific Treatment of Morality; Mead,Philosophical Basis of Ethics, International Journal of Ethics, April, 1908; Fite,Introductory Study of Ethics, chs. ii., xviii., and xix.

There are comparatively few distinct analyses of the moral situation, the topic generally being treated as a running part of the theory of the author, or in connection with an account of character or conduct (see references at end of ch. xiii.). See, however, Mezes,Ethics, Descriptive and Explanatory, ch. ii.; Martineau,Types of Ethical Theory, Vol. II., pp. 17-54; Spencer,Principles of Ethics, Vol. I.;Studies in Logical Theory, Stuart, essay on Valuation as a Logical Process, pp. 237-241, 257-258, 273-275, 289-293; Dewey,Logical Conditions of a Scientific Treatment of Morality; Mead,Philosophical Basis of Ethics, International Journal of Ethics, April, 1908; Fite,Introductory Study of Ethics, chs. ii., xviii., and xix.

FOOTNOTES:[104]Aristotle illustrates by a man who throws his goods overboard in a storm at sea. He does not wish absolutely to lose his goods, but he prefers losing them to losing the ship or his own life: he wishes itunder the circumstancesand his act is so far voluntary.[105]Of course, this is also true of a large part of human activity. But these are also the cases in which we do not ascribe moral value; or at least we do not except when we want to make the agent conscious of some reason why.[106]While we have employed Spencer's example, it should be noted that incompatibility of ends is not the criterion of the distinctively moral situation which Spencer himself employs.

[104]Aristotle illustrates by a man who throws his goods overboard in a storm at sea. He does not wish absolutely to lose his goods, but he prefers losing them to losing the ship or his own life: he wishes itunder the circumstancesand his act is so far voluntary.

[105]Of course, this is also true of a large part of human activity. But these are also the cases in which we do not ascribe moral value; or at least we do not except when we want to make the agent conscious of some reason why.

[106]While we have employed Spencer's example, it should be noted that incompatibility of ends is not the criterion of the distinctively moral situation which Spencer himself employs.

We have identified in its framework and main outlines the sort of voluntary activity in which the problem of good and evil appears and in which the ideas of right and wrong are employed. This task, however, is only preliminary to theoretical analysis. For it throws no light upon just what we mean by good and bad; just what elements of complex voluntary behavior are termed right or wrong; or why they are so termed. It does not even indicate what must be discovered before such questions can be answered. It only sets forth the limits of the subject-matter within which such questions arise and in reference to which they must be answered. What are the distinctive problems which must be dealt with in the course of such a discussion?

Growth of Theory from Practical Problems.—Of one thing we may be sure. If inquiries are to have any substantial basis, if they are not to be wholly up in the air, the theorist must take his departure from the problems which men actually meet in their own conduct. He may define and refine these; he may divide and systematize; he may abstract the problems from their concrete contexts in individual lives; he may classify them when he has thus detached them; but if he gets away from them he is talking about something which his own brain has invented, not about moral realities. On the other hand, the perplexities and uncertainties of direct and personal behavior invite a more abstract and systematic impersonal treatmentthan that which they receive in the exigencies of their occurrence. The recognition of any end or authority going beyond what is embodied in existing customs, involves some appeal to thought, and moral theory makes this appeal more explicit and more complete. If a child asks why he should tell the truth, and is answered, "because you ought to and that is reason enough"; or, "because it will prove profitable for you to do so"; or, "because truth-telling is a condition of mutual communication and common aims," the answer implies a principle which requires only to be made explicit to be full-fledged theory. And when this principle is compared with those employed in other cases to see if they are mutually consistent; and if not, to find a still more fundamental reconciling principle, we have passed over the border into ethical system.

Types of Theoretical Problems.—The practical problems which a thoughtful and progressive individual must consider in his own conduct will, then, give the clue to the genuine problems of moral theory. The framework of one is an outline of the other. The man who does not satisfy himself with sheer conventional conformity to the customs, theethos, of his class will find such problems as the following forced upon his attention:—(1) He must consider themeaningof habits which have been formed more or less unreflectively—by imitation, suggestion, and inculcation from others—and he must consider the meaning of those customs about him to which he is invited to conform till they have become personal habits. This problem of discovering the meaning of these habits and customs is the problem of stating what, after all, isreallygood, or worth while in conduct. (2) The one whose morality is of the reflective sort will be faced by the problem of moral advance, of progress beyond the level which has been reached by this more or less unreflective taking on of the habits and ideas of those about him, progress up to the level of his own reflective insight. Otherwise put, he has to face the problem of what is to be the place and rôle in his own conduct of ideals and principles generated not by custom but by deliberation and insight. (3) The individual must consider more consciously the relation between what is currently regarded as good by the social groups in which he is placed and in which he has to act, and that regarded as good by himself. The moment he ceases to accept conformity to custom as an adequate sanction of behavior, he is met by discrepancy between his personally conceived goods and those reigning in the customs about him. Now while this detachment makes possible the birth of higher and more ideal types of morality, and hence of systematic effort for social reform and advance; it also makes possible (as we have seen on the historical side, p. 189) a more generalized and deliberate selfishness; a less instinctive and more intentional pursuit of what the individual judges to be goodfor himselfagainst what society exacts as good for itself. The same reflective attitude which generates the conscientious moral reformer may generate also a more deliberate and resolute anti-social egoism. In any case, the individual who has acquired the habit of moral reflection, is conscious of a new problem—the relation of public good to individual good. In short, the individual who is thoughtfully serious and who aims to bring his habit of reflection to bear on his conduct, will have occasion (1) to search for the elements of good and bad, of positive and negative, value in the situations that confront him; (2) to consider the methods and principles by which he shall reach conclusions, and (3) to consider the relations between himself, his own capacities and satisfactions, and the ends and demands of the social situations in which he is placed.

The Corresponding Problems of Theory.—Theory will then have similar problems to deal with. (1) What is the Good, the end in any voluntary act? (2) How is this good known? Is it directly perceived, and if so, how? Oris it worked out through inquiry and reflection? And if so, how? (3) When the good is known, how is itacknowledged; how does it acquire authority? What is the place oflaw, of control, in the moral life? Why is it that some ends are attractive of themselves, while others present themselves asduties, as involving subordination of what is naturally attractive? (4) What is the place of selfhood in the moral process? And this question assumes two forms: (a) What is the relation of the good of the self to the good of others? (b) What is the difference between the morally good and the morally bad in the self? What are virtues and vices as dispositions of the self? These abstract and formal questions will become more concrete if we consider them briefly in the order of their development in the history of the moral theory.

Problem of Knowledge of Good Comes First in Theory.—The clash and overlapping of customs once so local as to be isolated, brought to Athenian moral philosophers the problem of discovering the underlying and final good to which all the conflicting values of customs might be referred for judgment. The movement initiated by Socrates was precisely the effort to find out what is the real good, the true end, of all the various institutions, customs, and procedures current among men. The explanation of conflict among men's interests, and of lack of consistency and unity in any given person's behavior, of the division of classes in the state, of the diverse recommendations of different would-be moral teachers, was that they were ignorant of their own ends. Hence the fundamental precept is "Know thyself," one's own end, one's good and one's proper function. Different followers of Socrates gave very different accounts of knowledge, and hence proposed very different final aims. But they all agreed that the problem of knowing the good was the central problem, and that if this were settled, action in accord with good would follow of itself. Could it be imagined that man could knowhis own good and yet not seek it? Ignorance of good is evil and the source of evil; insight into the real good will clear up the confusion and partiality which makes men pursue false ends and thus straighten out and put in order conduct. Control would follow as a matter of course fromknowledgeof the end. Such control would be no matter of coercion or external restriction, but of subordination and organization of minor ends with reference to the final end.

Problem of Motive Force.[107]—The problem of attaining this knowledge was seen to be attended, however, by peculiar obstructions and difficulties, the growing recognition of which led to a shifting of the problem itself. The dilemma, in brief, was this: The man who is already good will have no difficulty in knowing the good both in general and in the specific clothing under which it presents itself in particular cases. But the one who does not yet know the good, does not knowhowto know it. His ignorance, moreover, puts positive obstacles in his way, for it leads him to delight in superficial and transitory ends. This delight increases the hold of these ends upon the agent; and thus it builds up anhabitualinterest in them which renders it impossible for the individual to get a glimpse of the final end, to say nothing of a clear and persisting view.Only if the individual is habituated, exercised, practiced in good ends so as to take delight in them, while he is still so immature as to be incapable of really knowing how and why they are good, will he be capable of knowing the good when he is mature.Pleasure in right ends and pain in wrong must operate as a motive force in order to give experience of the good, before knowledge can be attained and operate as the motor force.

Division of Problem.—But the exercise and training requisite to form the habits which make the individual rejoice in right activity before he knows how and why it is right, presuppose adults who already have knowledge of the good. They presuppose a social order capable not merely of giving theoretic instruction, but of habituating the young to right practices. But where shall such adults be found, and where is the social order so good that it is capable of right training of its own immature members? Hence the problem again shifts, breaking up into two parts. On the one hand, attention is fixed upon the irrational appetites, desires, and impulses, which hinder apprehension of the good; on the other, it is directed to the political laws and institutions which are capable of training the members of the State into a right manner of living. For the most part, these two problems went their own way independently of each other, a fact which resulted in the momentous breach between the inner and "spiritual," and the outer and "physical" aspects of behavior.

Problem of Control of Affections and Desires.—If it is the lively movements of natural appetites and desires which make the individual apprehend false goods as true ones, and which present obstacles to knowledge of the true good, the serious problem is evidently to check and so far as possible to abolish the power of desire to move the mind. Since it is anger, fear, hope, despair, sexual desire which make men regard particular things instead of the final end as good, the great thing is wholly to free attention and judgment from the influence of such passions. It may be impossible to prevent the passions; they are natural perturbations. But man can at least prevent his judgment of what is good or bad from being modified by them. The Stoic moral philosophers most emphasized the misleading influence of desire and passion, and set up the ideal of apathy (lack of passion) and "ataraxy" (absence of being stirred up). The other moral schools, the Sceptics and Epicureans, also made independence of mind from influence of passion the immediate and working end; the Sceptics because they emphasized the condition of mental detachment and non-committal, which is the state appropriate to doubt and uncertainty; the Epicureans because the pleasures of the mind are the only ones not at the mercy of external circumstances. Mental pleasures are equable, and hence are the only ones which do not bring reactions of depression, exhaustion, and subsequent pain. The problem of moral theory is now in effect, if not in name, that ofcontrol, of authority and subordination, of checking and restraining desire and passion.

Problem of Control of Private Interests by Law.—Such views could at the best, however, affect only a comparatively small number, the philosophers. For the great masses of men in the Roman Empire, the problem existed on the other line: by what laws and what administration of laws to direct the outward acts of men into right courses, courses at least sufficiently right so as to maintain outward peace and unity through the vast empire. In the Greek city-state, with its small number of free citizens all directly participating in public affairs, it was possible to conceive an ideal of a common good which should bind all together. But in an Empire covering many languages, religions, local customs, varied and isolated occupations, a single system of administration and law exercised from a single central source could alone maintain the requisite harmony. The problems of legislations, codification, and administration were congenial to the Latin mind, and were forced by the actual circumstances. From the external side, then, as well as from the internal, the problem of control became dominant over that of value and the good.

Problem of Unification.—It was the province of the moral philosophers, of the theologians, of the church to attempt a fusion of these elements of inner and outer control. It was their aim to connect, to synthesize these factors into one commanding and comprehensive view of life. But the characteristic of their method was to suppose that the combination could be brought about, whether intellectually or practically, only upon a supernatural basis, and by supernatural resources. From the side of the natural constitution of both man and the State, the various elements of behavior are so hopelessly at war with one another that there is no health in them nor help from them. The appetites and desires are directed only upon carnal goods and form the dominant element in the person. Even when reason gets glimpses of the good, the good seen is narrow in scope and temporal in duration; and even then reason is powerless as an adequate motive. "We perceive the better and we follow the worse." Moreover, it is useless to seek aid from the habituation, the education, the discipline and restraint of human institutions. They themselves are corrupt. The product of man's lower nature cannot be capable of enlightening and improving that nature; at most it can only restrain outer action by appealing to fear. Only a divine revelation can make known man's true end; and only divine assistance, embodied in the ordinances and sacraments of the supernaturally founded and directed church, can bring this knowledge home to erring individuals so as to make it effectual. In theory the conception of the end, the good, was supreme; but man's true good is supernatural and hence can be achieved only by supernatural assistance and in the next world. In practice, therefore, the important thing for man in his present condition is implicit reliance upon and obedience to the requirements of the church. This represents on earth the divine sovereign, ultimate source of all moral law. In effect, the moral law became a net-work of ordinances, prescriptions, commands, rewards, penalties, penances, and remissions. The jural point of view was completely enthroned.[108]There was no problem; there was a final, because a supernatural solution.

The Problems of Individuality and Citizenship.—With the Renaissance began the revolt against the jural view of life. A sense of the joys and delights which attend the free and varied exercise of human capacities in this world was reborn. The first results were a demand for natural satisfaction; the next a profound reawakening of the antique civic and political consciousness. The first in its reaction against the Middle Ages was more individualistic than the Greek ideal, to which it was in some respects allied. The Greek had emphasized the notion of value, but had conceived this as generic, as the fulfillment of the essential nature of man as man. But with the moderns, satisfaction, the good, meant something direct, specific, personal; something the individual as an individual could lay hold of and possess. It was an individual right; it was final and inalienable. Nothing had a right to intervene or deprive the individual of it.

This extreme individualistic tendency was contemporaneous with a transfer of interest from the supernatural church-state over to the commercial, social, and political bodies with which the modern man found himself identified. The rise of the free cities, and more especially the development of national states, with the growth of commerce and exchange, opened to the individual a natural social whole. With this his connections were direct, in this he gained new outlets and joys, and yet it imposed upon him definite responsibilities and exacted of him specific burdens. If the individual had gained a new sense of himself as an individual, he also found himself enmeshed in national states of a power constantly increasing in range and intensity. The problem of the moral theorists was to reconcile these two tendencies, the individualistic and that of political centralization. For a time, the individual felt the social organization in which he was set to be, with whatever incidental inconveniences, upon the whole an outlet and reënforcement of prized personal powers. Hence in observing its conditions, he was securing the conditions of his own peace and tranquillity or even of his own freedom and achievement. But the balance was easily upset, and the problem of the relation of the individual and the social, the private and the public, was soon forced into prominence; a problem which in one form or other has been the central problem of modern ethical theory.

Individualistic Problem.—Only for a short time, during the first flush of new achievement and of hopeful adventure, did extreme individualism and social interests remain naïvely combined. The individualistic tendency found a convenient intellectual tool in a psychology which resolved the individual into an association or series of particular states of feeling and sensations; and the good into a like collection of pleasures also regarded as particular mental states. This psychological atomism made individuals as separate and disconnected as the sensations which constituted their selves were isolated and mutually exclusive. Social arrangements and institutions were, in theory, justifiable only as they could be shown to augment the sum of pleasurable states of feeling of individuals. And as, quite independent of any such precarious theory, the demand for reform of institutions became more and more imperative, the situation was packed by Rousseau into a formula that man was naturally both free and good, and that institutional life had enslaved and thereby depraved him. At the same time, there grew up an enthusiastic and optimistic faith in "Nature," in her kindly intentions for the happiness of humanity, and in her potency to draw it to perfection when artificial restrictions were once out of the way. Individuals, separate in themselves andin their respective goods, were thereby brought into a complete coincidence and harmony of interests. Nature's laws were such that if the individual obeyed them in seeking his own good he could not fail to further the happiness of others. While there developed in France (with original initiative from England) this view of the internal isolation and external harmony of men, a counterpart movement took place in Germany.

The Rationalistic Problem.—German thought inherited through both Roman law and the natural theology and ethics of the church, the conception that man's rational nature makes him sociable. Stoicism, with its materialistic idealism, had taught that all true laws are natural, while all laws of nature are diffusions and potencies of reason. As they bind things together in the world, so they bind men together in societies. Moral theory is "Natural Law" conceived in this sense. From the laws of reason, regarded as the laws of man's generic and hence sociable nature, all the principles of jurisprudence and of individual morals may be deduced. But man has also a sensuous nature, an appetitive nature which is purely private and exclusive. Since reason is higher than sense, the authority of the State is magnified. The juristic point of view was reinstated, but with the important change that the law was that of a social order which is the realization of man's own rational being.[109]If the laws of the State were criticized, the reply was that however unworthy the civic regulations and however desirable their emendation, still the State is the expression of the idea of reason, that is of man in his true generic nature. Hence to attempt to overthrow the government is to attack the fundamental and objective conditions of moral or rational life. Without the State, the particularistic, private side of man's naturewould have free sway to express itself. Man's true moral nature is within. We are then left, from both the English-French and the German sides, with the problem of the relation of the individual and the social; of the relation of the inner and outer, of the psychological structure of the person and the social conditions and results of his behavior.

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