DUTY, like charity, begins at home; and we need to take the motes out of our own eyes before we can see clearly how to help our fellows. To keep physically well, pure, and prudent, following worthy purposes and smothering unruly desires, is our first business; and there would be much less to do for one another if every one did his duty by himself.
But even with our best endeavors we need a helping hand now and then, and, indeed, are continuously dependent upon the work and kindness of others for all that makes life tolerable, or even possible. And the other side to this truth is that we are never free from the obligation of doing our duty squarely by those whose welfare is in some degree dependent upon us. No man can, if he would, live to himself alone; life is necessarily and essentially social. Personal and social duties are so inextricably interwoven that it is impossible except by an artificial abstraction to separate them. The cultivation of one's own health, for example, is a boon to the community; and to care for the community's health is to safeguard one's own. Every advance in personal purity, culture, or self-control increases the individual's value and diminishes his menace to his fellows; while every step in social amelioration makes life freer and more comfortable for him. So close- knit is society today that an indifference to sanitation in Asia or a religious persecution in Russia may produce disastrous results to some innocent and utterly indifferent individual in Massachusetts or California. On the other hand, there is no vice so solitary and so can widespread social results. [Footnote: Cf. George Eliot in Adam Bede: "There is no sort of wrong deed of which a man can bear the punishment alone. Men's lives are as thoroughly blended as the air they breathe; evil spreads as necessarily as disease."] Society has a vital interest in the personal life of its members, and every member, however self- contained he may be, has a vital interest in the general standards of morality. For purposes of analysis, however, it is convenient to make the distinction between the two aspects of morality, the governance of intra-human and of inter-human relations; the ordering of the single life and the ordering of the community life. Of the two the latter is even more imperative than the former, the arbitration of clashes between individuals even more difficult than the governing of the impulses within a single heart. We turn, therefore, to consider the problems involved in the general conception of social morality, which we may define as the direction of the action of each toward the greatest attainable welfare of all. Why should we be altruistic? That altruism (action directed toward others' welfare) is best for the community as a whole is obvious. In order to maintain his life in the face of the many obstacles that thwart and dangers that threaten him, man must present a solid front to the universe. All clashes of interest, friction, and civil strife, all withholding of help, means a weakening of his united forces, an invitation to disaster. And even where life becomes relatively secure and individualism possible, the greatest good for the greatest number is attainable only by continual cooperation and mutual sacrifice. So vital is it to each member of the community that selfishness and cruelty in others be repressed, that society cannot afford to leave at least the grosser forms of egoism unpunished. Men must enforce upon one another that mutual regard which individuals are constantly tempted to ignore, but without which no man's life can find its adequate fulfillment or security. No man, then, can be called moral, can be said to have found a comprehensive solution of life, however self-controlled and pure he may be, if he is cruel, or even lacking in consideration for others. This is the most glaring defect in both Epicureanism and asceticism; both are fundamentally selfish. For the proper adjustment of life to its needs we must turn rather to Christianity, or to Buddhism, with their ideals of service; to the patriotic ideals of the noblest Greeks; to Kant, with his "So act as to treat humanity, whether in their own person or in that of any other, as an end, never as a means only"; or to the British utilitarians with their "Every one to count for one, and only one." The question, however, persistently recurs, Why should the INDIVIDUAL be altruistic? What does HE get out of it? To this we may reply:
(1) The life of service is, in normal cases, a happier life in itself than the life that is preoccupied with self. It is richer, fuller in potentialities of joy; it is freer from regrets and the eventual emptiness of the self-centered life. [Footnote: Cf. Mill, Utilitarianism, chap. 2: "When people who are tolerably fortunate in their outward lot do not find in life sufficient enjoyment to make it valuable to them, the cause generally is, caring for nobody but themselves."] It is saner, less likely to be veered off on some tangent of morbid and ultimately disastrous indulgence
(2) The altruistic life earns the gratitude and love of others, while the selfish life remains isolated, unloved, without their stimulus and help. Ingratitude there is, of course, and the returning of evil for good; on the other hand, the selfish man may hope for undeserved forgiveness and even love from his fellows. But in the long run it pays to be good to others; bread cast upon the waters does return after many days; normally unkindness provokes dislike, contempt, open hostility, retaliation, while kindness finds a natural and proper reward in return favors, esteem, and affection. No man can tell when he will be in need of sympathy or of aid; it is folly so to live as to forfeit our fellows' good will. And finally, selfishness carried beyond a certain point brings the penalty not only of the unfavorable opinion and private retaliations of others, but of the publicly enforced law. "In normal cases," we have said. And we must add that there are cases though they are less common than we are apt to suppose in which the good of the individual is hopelessly at variance with that of the community. If our fellows could be counted on for a fair reciprocity of self-denial and service, we should not begrudge these necessary sacrifices. The sting lies not so much in the loss of personal pleasures as in the lack of appreciation and return; to do our part when others are not doing theirs takes, indeed, a touch of saintliness. Socrates drinking the hemlock, Jesus dying in agony on the cross, Regulus returning to be tortured at Carthage, were deliberately sacrificing their personal welfare for the good of other men. And in numberless ways a host of heroic men and women have practiced and are daily practicing unrewarded self-denial in the name of love and service, self-denial which by no means always brings a joy commensurate with the pain. These are the abnormal cases; but the abnormal is, after all, not so very uncommon. And for these men and women we must grieve, while we honor and admire them and hold them up for imitation. Society must insist on just such sacrifices when they are necessary for the good of the whole, and must so train its youth that they will be willing to make them when needful.
What is the exact meaning of selfishness and unselfishness?
Selfishness is the pursuance of one's own good at the expense of others. A mistaken idea, which it is necessary to guard against, is that selfishness must be conscious, deliberate. It is not uncommon for a person accused of selfishness to say, or think, "This is an unjust accusation; I have not had a selfish thought!" But unconscious selfishness is by far the commoner sort; millions of essentially good- hearted people are guilty of selfish acts through thoughtlessness and stagnant sympathy. Conscious cruelty is rare compared with moral insensibility. It cannot be too often repeated that selfishness is not a way of feeling about people, it is a way of acting toward them. To be wholly free from selfish conduct necessitates insight into the needs and feelings of others as well as a vague good will toward them. The girl who allows her mother to drudge that she may have immaculate clothes, the mother who keeps her son at home when he ought to be given the opportunity of a wider life, is conscious only of love; but she is really putting her own happiness before that of the loved one. The owner of the vilest tenement houses is sometimes a generous and benevolent-minded man, the luxuriously rich are often honest and glad to confer favors, the political boss is full of the milk of human kindness; but the superficial or adventitious altruism of such men should not blind us to their fundamental, though often entirely unrealized, selfishness. A complementary fallacy is that which denies the epithet "unselfish" to a man who enjoys helping others. Who has not heard the cynical remark, "There's nothing unselfish about So-and-So's benevolence that is his enjoyment in life!" Such a comment ignores the fact that the goal of moral progress lies precisely at the point where we shall all enjoy doing what it is our duty to do. Altruistic impulses are our own impulses, as well as egoistic ones; the distinction between them lies not in the pleasure they may give to their possessor, or the sacrifice they may demand, but in the objective results they tend to attain. Happy is the man whose DELIGHT is in the law of the Lord! Unselfish action is, in the broader sense, all action that is not selfish; in the narrower and positive sense, it is all action that tends to the welfare of others at the expense of the narrower interests of the individual.
Are altruistic impulses always right?
It would be an easy solution for our problems if we could say, "In every case follow the altruistic impulse." But this simplification is impossible; the ideal of service is not such an Open Sesame to our duty. And this for several reasons:
(1) There are frequently clashes between altruistic impulses. In fact, almost all moral errors have some unselfish impulse on their side which helps to justify them in the eyes of the sinner and his friends. The politician who gets the best jobs for his supporters, the legislator who puts through a special statute to favor his constituents, the jingo who helps push his country into war for its "honor" or "glory"-these and a host of other wrongdoers are conscious of a genuine altruistic glow. They ignore the fact that they are doing, on the whole, more harm than good to others, because the smaller group that is apparently benefited looms larger to the eye than the more widely distributed and less directly affected sufferers.
All of our most vexing moral problems are those in which benefit to some must be weighed against benefit to others. Shall a man who is needed by his family risk his life to save a ne'er-do-well? Shall we insist that people unhappily married shall endure their wretchedness and forego the possibility of a happier union in order that heedlessness and license may not be encouraged in the lives of others? Life is full of such two- sided problems; it is not enough that an act may bring good to some, it must be the act that brings most good to most.
(2) An apparently altruistic act, dictated by sympathy, and productive of happiness, may not be for the ultimate good of the very person made happy. To give everything they want to children is inevitably to "spoil" them, as we rightly say; to spoil their own happiness in the long run as well as their usefulness to others. To condone another's sin and save him the unpleasantness of rebuke or the inflicting of a penalty is often the worst thing that could be done to him. To give alms to a beggar may mean to assist his moral degeneration and in the long run increase his misery.
(3) Even when an act superficially egoistic conflicts with one that seems altruistic, the greatest good of the community often dictates the former. There is, as Trumbull used to put it, a "duty of refusing to do good." A man who can best serve the common good by concentrating his strength on that work where his particular ability or training makes him most effective, may be justified in refusing other calls upon his energies, however intrinsically worthy. An Edison would be doing wrong to spend his afternoons in social service, a Burbank has no right to diminish his resources by giving a public library. Emerson deserves our commendation for refusing to be inveigled into the various causes that would have drafted his time and strength. Even to the anti-slavery agitation he refused his services, saying, "I have quite other slaves to free than those Negroes, to wit, imprisoned thoughts far back in the brain of man, which have no watchman or lover or defender but me." This brings us to the question how far a man may legitimately live a self- contained life. Certainly there is a measure of truth in Goethe's saying, "No man can he isolates himself"; in Ibsen's "The most powerful man is he who is most alone"; and in Matthew Arnold's
"Alone the sun rises, and alone Spring the great streams."
A multiplicity of interests distracts the soul and often confuses our ideals. By keeping free from social burdens some men, like Kant, have accomplished tasks of unusual magnitude.
On the other hand, we can match Goethe's assertion with another of his own: "A talent forms itself in solitude, a character in the stream of the world." Isolation tends almost inevitably to narrowness, to an abnormal and cramped outlook, to willfulness or Pharisaism, and usually to loneliness and depression. The only pervasively happy life for man is the life of cooperation and loyalty. We may well "withdraw into the silence," take our daily communion with God in our closets, or our forty days in the wilderness, to win clearer vision and steadier purpose. But solitude should, in normal cases, be only an interlude of rest, or a quiet maturing for service. The ideal is perhaps expressed in Wordsworth's sonnet on Milton:
"Thy soul was like a star and dwelt apart. …. And yet thy heart The lowliest duties on herself did lay."
The organization of life implies a criticism of and control over altruistic as well as egoistic impulses. There is nothing inherent in the fact of a good being OTHERS' good to make it necessarily the greatest good in a given situation. The ultimate criterion must always be the greatest good of the greatest number; but an altruistic as well as an egoistic impulse may stand in the way of that end. Our altruistic inclinations are often perverted, non-representative, a matter of instinctive and irrational sympathy or shortsighted impulse. And so, while one of the great tasks of moral education is to make men unselfish, that alone is not enough; unselfishness must be directed by reason and tact, rendered far-sighted and intelligent.
What mental and moral obstacles hinder altruistic action?
Although an altruistic impulse is not necessarily a right impulse to follow, there are a great many altruistic duties which are clear and summoning; and it is a never ending disappointment to the man of social conscience to behold the apathy wherewith obvious social duties are regarded. It will be worthwhile to pause and note the chief mental and moral obstacles that prevent a more general devotion to social betterment.
(1) The most formidable obstacle, perhaps, is the selfishness of those who are themselves .well enough off. Our cities, and even, to some extent, our small towns, grow up in "quarters"; the rich living in one district and the poor in another. This permits the suffering of the latter to go unknown or only half-realized by the former. The well-to- do have many interests and many pleasant uses for their money; the call of the unfortunate-"Come over and help us!"- rings faint and far away in their ears. Or they may excuse their callousness by the assertion that the poor are used to their evil living conditions, do not mind them, and are as contented, on the whole, as the rich; complacently ignoring the fact that being used to conditions is not the same as enjoying or profiting by them, and that contentment by no means implies a useful or desirable life. It is true that the needy are often but dimly conscious of their needs; in that very fact lies a reason why the favored classes should rouse them out of their dullness, save them from the physical and moral degeneration into which they so unconsciously and helplessly drift. The indifference of the fortunate comes not so often from a deliberate hardening of the heart as from a lack of contact with the needy or imagination to picture their destitution. But blame must rest upon all comfortable citizens who do not bestir themselves to help in social betterment because it is too much trouble or requires a sacrifice they are not willing to make.
(2) Another serious obstacle lies in the distrust with which many people regard any duty which they have not been accustomed to regard as a duty. This may take the form of an overdeveloped loyalty, that bows before the sacredness of existing institutions and labels any reform as "unconstitutional," a departure from the ways that were good enough for our fathers. It may wear the guise of a lazy piety that would leave everything with God, accepting social ills as manifestations of his will, and interference as a sort of arrogant presumption! It may be a mere mental apathy, an inertia of habit, that sees no call for a better water supply or bothersome laws about the purity of milk. Or it may defend itself by pointing out the uncertainties that attend untried ways and warning against the danger of experimentation. To these warnings we may reply that our altruistic zeal must, indeed, be coupled with accurate thinking; unless we have based our proposals on wide observation and cautious inference we may find unexpected and baneful results in the place of our sanguine expectations. But we may point out that it is "nothing venture nothing have"; we cannot work out our social salvation without experimenting; and, after all, ways that do not work well can readily be discontinued. What is vital is to keep alive an intolerance of apathy and contentment, to realize that we are hardly more than on the threshold of a rational civilization, to recognize evils, cherish ideals, and maintain our determination in some way to actualize them.
(3) A further steady damper upon our altruistic zeal is the dread of raising the taxes. Humanitarian movements are well enough, but they cost so much! What is needful is to point out that poverty, unemployment, disease, and the other social ills are also costly; indeed, they cost the public in the long run far more than the expenditure necessary for their abolition or alleviation. It pays in dollars and cents, within a generation or two at least, to make and keep the social organism sound. A wise altruism is not merely a matter of philanthropy; it is also a matter of economy; a means of saving individuals from suffering, but at the same time a means of safeguarding the public treasury. If the community does not pay for the curing of these evils it will have to pay for their results. "It seems to me essentially fallacious to look upon such expenditures as indulgences to be allowed rather sparingly to such communities as are rich enough to afford them. They are literally a husbanding of resources, a safeguard against later unprofitable but compulsory expenditure, a repair in the social organism which, like the repair of a leaky roof, may avert disaster." [Footnote: E. T. Devine, Misery and its Causes, p. 272.] The public must be educated to see the wisdom of investing heavily in long-neglected social repairs and reconstruction, which in the end will far more than pay for itself in the lowering of expenses for police, courts, prisons, hospitals, asylums, and almshouses, in the lowered death-rate, immunity from costly disease, and increased working capacity of the people.
(4) Finally, a hopelessness of accomplishing anything often paralyzes our zeal. This sometimes takes the form of a more or less honest conviction that poverty, unemployment, and other maladjustments are simply the result of moral degeneration-of the laziness, extravagance, drinking, or other wrongdoing of the poor; their suffering is their own fault, and they must be left to endure it. Of course such factors often-though by no means always-enter in. One may well say, "Who are we of the upper classes to throw the first stone?" Under like conditions most of us would have become as discouraged or demoralized, yielded to the consolation of some vice, or balked at the monotonous grind of factory labor. But however that may be, in so far as social evils are due to these faults, the faults must be attacked, not accepted as inevitable and incurable. The pressure that pushes men into them must be eased, the ignorance and foolishness that foster them must be dissipated by education and moral training. And for all the social maladjustments that are NOT due to vice and sin, other remedies must be found. The road to social salvation is long and beset with many difficulties, but the goal is not hopeless of attainment; and every step toward the goal is so much gain. Because we cannot now see how to remedy all evils must not be a pretext for refusing to lend a hand to movements that are of proved value.
How can we reconcile egoism and altruism?
Although altruism is usually wise from the individual's own standpoint, it does not always seem so. The commonest moral clash is between the individual's apparent good and that of others; the cases in which one man's position, wealth, success precludes another's are everyday occurrences. Must this conflict be eternal? Is there any way of reconciling these opposing interests except by an unhappy and regrettable sacrifice? Must life be a perpetual compromise, a "social contract," a treaty to make reciprocal concessions, with every one's real interests at war with every one else's? Certainly the altruistic summons cannot be ignored; we cannot all follow our egoistic impulses; in the common disaster we should be individually involved. And, indeed, the altruistic impulses have become so deeply rooted in our natures that, turn away from them as we might, they would yet persist in the form of an undercurrent of dissatisfaction and remorse. The only possible solution of the deadlock lies in the killing-off of the selfish impulses.
This is not a fantastic dream. We see in the ideal mother, father, husband, wife, in the ardent patriot and religious devotee, this sloughing-off of the egoistic nature already accomplished. Love, and joy in service, are not alien to us; they are as instinctive as self- seeking; the hope of ultimate peace lies in the strengthening of these impulses till they so dominate us that we no longer care for the selfish and narrow aims. We must cultivate the masculine aspect of unselfishness, the loyalty of the Greeks, the impulse to stand by and fight for others; and we must cultivate its more feminine side, the caritas of I Corinthians XIII, the love that suffereth long and is kind, the sympathy and tenderness infused into a rough and rugged world by Christianity. In this highest developed life there will then be no dualism of motive; at the top of the ladder of moral progress individual and social goods coincide. It is joy to the righteous to do righteousness; it is the keenest delight in life for the lover of men to serve.
The unselfish impulse has thus a double value; it blesseth him that gives and him that takes. It is more blessed to give than to receive, when the giver has reached the moral level where giving is his greatest joy. The development of sympathy and the spirit of service in modern times gives great hope that the time will come when men will universally find a rich and satisfying life in ways which bring no harm but only good to others.
H. Spencer, Data of Ethics, chaps, XI-XIV. R. B. Perry, Moral Economy, chap, II, secs, IV, V.; chap, III, secs, V, VI. F. Paulsen, System of Ethics, book II, chap. I, sec. 6; chap, VI; book III, chap, X, sec. 1. Dewey and Tufts, Ethics, chap, XVIII, sec. e. W. K. Clifford, Right and Wrong, On the Scientific Basis of Morals, in Lectures and Essays, vol. II. R. M. McConnell, Duty of Altruism. B. Russell, Philosophical Essays, chap. I, sec. V. J. Royce, Problem of Christianity, vol. I, chap. III.
HAVING now outlined the eudfemonistic account of morality, we may note certain objections that are commonly raised to it, and certain is understandings that constantly recur.
Do men always act for pleasure or to avoid pain?
Many of the earlier theorists, not content with showing that the good consists ultimately in a quality of conscious states, asserted that all of men's actions are actually DIRECTED TOWARD the attainment of agreeable states of experience or avoidance of disagreeable states. There is no act but is aimed for pleasure of some sort or away from pain; men differ, then, only in their wisdom in selecting the more important pleasures and their skill in attaining what they aim for. This assertion, easily refuted, has seemed to some opponents of the eudemonistic account of morality so bound up with it as to involve its downfall.
The classic statement of this erroneous psychology, which has been the source of much satisfaction to anti-eudemonistic philosophers, is to be found in the fourth chapter of Mill's Utilitarianism. "There is in reality nothing desired except happiness. Whatever is desired otherwise than as a means to some end beyond itself, and ultimately to happiness, is desired as itself a part of happiness, and is not desired for itself until it has become so. Human nature is so constituted as to desire nothing which is not either a part of happiness or a means to happiness" A careful reading of Mill shows that he did not mean these statements without qualification. But since they, and similar sweeping assertions, [Footnote: Cf. Leslie Stephen, Science of Ethics, p. 44: "The love of happiness must express the sole possible motive of Judas Iscariot and of his Master; it must explain the conduct of Stylites on his pillar or Tiberius at Caprae or A Kempis in his cell or of Nelson in the cockpit of the Victory."] have been a stumbling-block to many, we must pause to note their inaccuracy, while insisting that they are no part of a sound utilitarian, or eudemonistic, theory. Far from the desire for happiness being the universal motive, it is one of the less common springs of conduct. Habit, inertia, instinct, ideals drive us this way and that; we do a thousand things daily without any thought of happiness, because our minds are so made that they naturally run off into such action. We desire concrete THINGS, without reference to their bearing on our happiness. We even go directly and consciously counter to our happiness at times, deliberately sacrifice it, perhaps for some foolish fancy. The idealist in politics expects to get no pleasure out of what his associates deem his pigheadedness; but he has seen a vision and he keeps true to it. Regulus did not go back to Carthage to be tortured to death for the pleasure of it, or to avoid the greater pain of an uneasy conscience; he went in spite of foreseen pain and the allurement of possible pleasure. When a man endures privations for the sake of posthumous fame, it is not that he expects to enjoy that fame when it comes, or expects others to enjoy it; he is simply so made that he cannot resist the sway of that ambition which will bring him no good. The pursuit of pleasure is a sophisticated impulse which appears in marked degree only in a few self-conscious and idle individuals. William James gave the deathblow to this pleasure-seeking psychology. "Important as is the influence of pleasures and pains upon our movements, they are far from being our only stimuli. With the manifestations of instinct and emotional expression, for example, they have absolutely nothing to do. Who smiles for the pleasure of smiling, or frowns for the pleasure of the frown? Who blushes to escape the discomfort of not blushing? Or who in anger, grief, or fear is actuated to the movements which he makes by the pleasures which they yield? In all these cases the movements are discharged fatally by the vis a tergo which the stimulus exerts upon a nervous system framed to respond in just that way. The IMPULSIVE QUALITY of mental states is an attribute behind which we cannot go." [Footnote: W. James, Psychology, vol. II, p. 550.] It is not true, then, that love of pleasure and fear of pain are the universal motives. It is not true that we inevitably act along the line of least hedonic resistance, that pain necessarily veers us off and pleasure irresistibly attracts. By force of will, by "suggestion" or training, we can go directly counter to the pull of pleasure. It is true that we should not have the instincts and habits and impulses that we do were they not in general useful for our existence or happiness. But the evolutionary process has been clumsy; we are not properly adjusted; we become the victims of ideas fixes; ideas and activities obsess us quite without relation to their hedonic value. So pleasure and pain are not usually the impelling force or conscious motive behind conduct. What they are is-the touchstone, the criterion, the justification.
We do not act in ways that bring the greatest happiness, but we ought to. We do not consciously seek happiness, and we ought not to. We ought to continue to care for THINGS and for IDEALS; but the things and ideals we care and work for ought to be such that through them man's welfare is advanced.
Are pleasures and pains incommensurable?
An objection commonly raised is that pleasures and pains of various sorts are incommensurable; that therefore no calculation of relative advantage is possible; and that the eudaemonistie criterion for action is thereby made impracticable and useless.
(1) To this we may reply that the estimation of the relative worth of different kinds of experience is, indeed, often very difficult. But on any theory the decision as to the right is equally complicated and puzzling. The fact that the criterion is difficult to use is no evidence that it is not the right criterion. Which set of consequences will be of most intrinsic worth, it is sometimes impossible to know. But one set is, nevertheless, of more intrinsic worth, and the act that secures them is the best act, even though we do not recognize it as such. There will continue to be, many differences of judgment as to which of alternative possible experiences is the more desirable. But that uncertainty does not alter the fundamental fact that some experiences ARE intrinsically more desirable than others and more deserving of pursuit.
"A debtor who cannot pay me offers to compound for his debt by making over one of sundry things he possesses- a diamond ornament, a silver vase, a picture, a carriage. Other questions being set aside, I assert it to be my pecuniary interest to choose the most valuable of these, but I cannot say which is the most valuable. Does the proposition that it is my pecuniary interest to choose the most valuable, therefore, become doubtful? Must I not choose as well as I can, and if I choose wrongly, must I give up my ground of choice? Must I infer that in matters of business I may not act on the principle that, other things equal, the more profitable transaction is to be preferred, because, in many cases, I cannot say which is the more profitable and have often chosen the less profitable? Because I believe that of many dangerous courses I ought to take the least dangerous, do I make 'the fundamental assumption' that courses can be arranged according to a scale of dangerousness, and must I abandon my belief if I cannot so arrange them?" [Footnote: H. Spencer, Data of Ethics, chap. IX.]
(2) If it is practically impossible to calculate the relative worth of consequences in many cases, it is yet easy enough to do so in the great majority of moral situations. In most cases the preponderance of value is clear. That selfishness and self-indulgence are not worth while; that abstinence from pleasure-giving drugs and intoxicating liquors is worth the sacrifice; that truth and honesty, the law-abiding spirit, the spirit of service, friendliness and courtesy, sanitary measures, incorruptible courts, and a thousand other things are worth the effort and cost of acquiring them, is indisputable. It is only in some peculiarly balanced situations that we find practical difficulty in deciding. If morality were limited to the cases where we can be sure on which side the greater good or lesser evil lies, we should not be shorn of much of our present code.
(3) It would, of course, be impracticable to stop and calculate at the moment when action is needed. But such continual recalculation is unnecessary. Our ancestors, after many experiments, have found solutions for all the familiar types of situation; the results of their thought are crystallized for us in the ideals that press upon us from without and the voice of conscience that calls to us within. Forces beyond the individual human mind have taken care of these things and slowly steered man, with all his passions and caprices, toward his own better welfare. It is only in moments when we long to understand and justify our ideals, or when some unusually baffling problem arises, that we need to calculate and weigh relative advantage and disadvantage. And that is what, in such situations, most people do.
Are some pleasures worthier than others?
Undiscriminating critics have often condemned the eudsemonistic criterion on the ground that any sort of pleasure is rated equally high on its scale so long as it is pleasure. "Pushpin as good as poetry!" seems to some the height of sarcasm. Socrates says in the Philebus, "Do we not say that the intemperate has pleasure, and that the temperate has pleasure in his very temperance, and that the fool is pleased when he is full of foolish fancies and hopes, and that the wise man has pleasure in his wisdom? And may not he be justly deemed a fool who says that these pairs of pleasures are respectively alike?"
Why, however, do we rate the pleasures of temperance and wisdom above those of intemperance and folly? Simply because of their respective EFFECTS. INTRINSICALLY they may be equally desirable, or the latter may even be keener pleasures? that depends upon the individual circumstances; but there is no question about their relative EXTRINSIC value. There is always "the devil to pay" for intemperance and folly; while temperance and wisdom lead to health, love, honor, achievement, and many another good. As to push- pin-or let us say baseball-VERSUS poetry, it is only prejudice that makes us say we rate the latter higher. Outdoor games are not only productive of a keener delight to most people, they are extrinsically good as well, conducing to health, quickness of wit, self-control, and other goods. They ARE, in their time and place, as good as poetry. The reason for the greater reverence we feel, or feel we ought to feel, for poetry lies in the fact that it takes much more mental cultivation to acquire the taste for it; the love of poetry is a sort of patrician distinction. It is also true that poetry opens up to its lover a much wider range of enjoyments; it opens his eyes to the beauty and significance and pathos in the world; it is immensely educative, and inspiring to the spiritual life. The love of broadening and inspiring things requires cultivation in most of us; so that we praise and honor such things and urge people toward them. Pushpin, or baseball, NEEDS no apotheosis. But if we ever develop into a race of anaemic bookworms, we shall have to glorify sport and learn to shrug our shoulders at the soft and easy enjoyments of poetry. Nothing is more obvious than the utilitarian nature of such habitual judgments and attitudes.
One of the Platonic illustrations, often brought up, is that of the happy oyster. [Footnote: Philebus, 22. "Is such a life eligible?" asks Socrates. Later (40), he agrees that "a man must be admitted to have real pleasure who is pleased with anything or anyhow," but asks if it is not true that some pleasures are "false." Protarchus hits the nail on the head by replying, "No one would call pleasures bad because they are 'false,' but BY RASON OF SOME OTHER GREAT EVIL TO WHICH THEY ARE LIABLE," i.e, because of their after-effects.] Who would wish, however miserable, to exchange places with it! Are there not other things to be considered besides happiness? "It is better to be a Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied." And why? In the first place, we suspect that the oyster's, or even the fool's, range of happiness is very limited. We should hesitate to forego such joys as we do have, even if sorrow attends them, at so great a sacrifice. In the second place, each of us has a deep-rooted love of his own personal memories and expectations; and except in cases of unusual depression of spirits few of us would wish to lose our identity and become some other person or thing even if we knew that other being to be happier. In the third place, a man knows HE could NOT be happier as an oyster; an oyster's joys (whatever they may be) would not satisfy him; he has other needs and desires. He must find happiness, if at all, in the satisfaction of his human cravings. The oyster's life, however satisfactory to the oyster, would leave him restless and bored. If you are a Socrates, you realize similarly that you could not FIND satisfaction in the fool's life. You know that although you have sorrows the fool wots not of, you also have a whole range of joys beyond his ken; and those joys are particularly precious to you. In the fourth place, the very words "oyster" and "fool" beg the question. "Fool" means by very definition a sort of person one would NOT choose to be; and the very visualization of an oyster is repellent. Were one to offer as the alternative a happy lion or eagle; or a happy, free- hearted savage such as Chateaubriand and Rousseau painted, one suspects that not a few suffering men and women would jump at the chance.
It is not really important to decide, however, what any one would choose. Our choices are biased and often foolish. The actual question is, Is the happiness of a fool, or of an oyster (if happiness it has) as worthy, as objectively desirable, as that of a wise man? And here again we have to say, not EXTRINSICALLY so desirable. The wise man is he who finds his happiness in activities that conduce to his ultimate welfare and that of others. The happiness of fool or oyster is transitory, blind, and fraught with unseen dangers; it is of no value to the community in which they live. But INTRINSICALLY, just qua happiness, it is-if it is-as good. What makes one form of happiness more worthy than another is simply, in the first place, its greater keenness or extent or freedom from pain, and in the second place its potentialities of future happiness or pain for self and others. When Mill wrote, therefore, in his classic treatise, that "some KINDS of pleasure are more desirable and valuable than others," he showed a-for him unusual-failure to analyze. Some kinds of PLEASURES are more desirable, for the reasons summarized above. But PLEASURE, in the abstract, pleasantness, agreeableness, intrinsic worth, whatever you choose to call it, is itself a quality; there can be more or less of it in a concrete experience, that is all. To speak of KINDS of pleasure is to mean KINDS OF EXPERIENCE which have the common attribute of pleasantness. In themselves all kinds of experience that are equally pleasant are equally worthy; there is no meaning to that adjective as applied to intrinsic immediate good. "Worthy" and "unworthy" apply to experience only when we begin to consider their consequences.
Is morality merely subjective and relative?
Different people find happiness in different ways; if morality is simply the means to happiness, is it not relative to their varying desires; is it not a purely subjective matter and without a fixed objective nature?
We must discriminate. Morality is not relative to our inclinations and desires, because those often do not rightly represent our own true welfare, still less the general welfare. Happiness is desirable whether our impulses are adjusted so as to aim for it or not. Nor is morality relative to our opinions; an act may be wrong though the whole world proclaim it right. It is a matter not of opinion but of fact whether an act is going to bring the greatest attainable welfare or not. However biased and shortsighted we may. be, the consequences of acts will be what they will be. In a very real sense, then, morality is objective; it is valid whether we recognize its validity and want it or not. It represents our needs more truly than our own wills, and thus has a greater authority, just as the rules of dietetics are not a matter of appetite or whim, but have a rational authority over our caprices. Morality is not, like imagination, something we can shape at will; it is imposed upon us from without, like sensation. Its development is predetermined by the structure of human nature and its environment; we do not invent it, we accept it. [Footnote: Cf. Cudworth (ca. 1688), Treatise, chap, n, sec. 3: "It is so far from being true that all moral good and evil, just and unjust, are mere arbitrary and factitious things, that are created wholly by will, that (if we would speak properly) we must needs say that nothing is morally good or evil, just or unjust, by mere will without nature, because everything is what it is by nature, and not by will." A good recent discussion bearing upon the question of the relativity of morality will be found in Santayana's Winds of Doctrine, pp. 138-154.] But although imposed upon our restive impulses, it is not imposed by any alien and arbitrary will. It is imposed by the same cosmos that set our consciousness into relation with a given kind of body in a given world. Submission to it is simply submission to the laws of our own natures. Lasting happiness can be found only in certain ways; we must make the best of it, but it is for our own good that we obey. Morality is relative to our organic needs and particular environment. It is a function of human nature, varying with its variations. A different race of beings on another planet might have to have a very radically different code. Ours is a distinctively human code, bearing the earmarks of our humanity and stamped with the particular nature of our earth-life.
To say this is to admit that morality varies with different temperaments and different needs. What is best for one person is not necessarily best for another; what is right for an early stage of civilization is not always right for a later. The patriarchal family was a source of strength in primitive society; today it would be a needless tyranny. Life in a tropical isle frees man from the necessity of many virtues which a more rigorous climate entails. The poet needs to live in a different way from the coal-heaver. Just so far as our individual and racial needs vary-our real needs, not our supposed needs and pathological desires (and always bearing in mind the needs of others)-just so far is what is right for one different from what is right for another. This is no condemnation of eudsemonistic morality. On the contrary, a clear recognition of this truth would happily relax the sometimes over-rigid conventions of society, its cut-and- dried- made-on-one-pattern code, and make it more elastic and suitable to individual needs.
However, we are not so different from one another as we are apt to think. The extenuation of sin on the plea that the "artistic temperament" demands this, or a "sensitive nature" needs that, is much overdone. Differences in temperament are superficial compared with the miles of underlying strata of plain human nature. "A man's a man for a' that," and must submit to the rules for human life. The man of "artistic temperament" does not know himself well enough. He feels superficial and transient cravings; he ignores his underlying needs, and the fundamental duties which, in common with all other men, he owes to his fellows.
The standard of morality is absolute and objective, then, for each individual, and approximately the same for all human beings. He is wise who seeks not to mould his life according to his longings, but who accepts the rules of the game and follows the paths blazed by the seers and doers before him. Only those individuals and those nations have achieved success that have been willing to learn and follow the ideals which life itself imposes, the eternal laws which religious men call the will of God.
For criticisms of the account of morality here defended: F. Paulsen, System of Ethics, book II, chap. II. J. Martineau, Types of Ethical Theory, book II, chaps, I, II. T. H. Green, Prolegomena to Ethics, book in, chap. I, first half, book IV, chap. III. Dewey and Tufts, Ethics, chap. XIV. J. S. Mackenzie, Manual of Ethics, 2d ed, chap. vi. H. Rashdall, Theory of Good and Evil, book I, chap, III; book II, chaps, I, II. W. Fite, Introductory Study of Ethics, part I. G. E. Moore, Ethics, chap. VII. In rebuttal of some of these arguments: J. S. Mill, Utilitarianism, chaps, II and IV. H. Spencer, Data of Ethics, chaps, IX, X. Leslie Stephen, Science of Ethics, chap. X.
AFTER this summary answer to the commoner objections to our account of morality, we should notice a few of the more persistently recurrent formulas that seem inconsistent with this explanation of its fundamental nature.
Is morality "categorical," beyond need of justification?
To Kant and his followers, as well as to many less philosophical minds, the justification of morality by its utility has seemed unworthy. Morality is much more ultimate and imperious. The pursuit of happiness is not binding; morality is. The way to attain happiness is dubious and variable; the commandments of morality are clear-cut and certain. Different people find happiness in different activities; the laws of morality are universal and changeless. Morality, therefore, is prior to the pursuit of happiness; its dictates are known by an independent faculty. There is in us all an unanalyzable and unavoidable "ought"; ours not to reason why; ours but to do-and die, if need be. Morality is not a means to employ IF we wish happiness; in that case its precepts would be but hypothetical, if you wish happiness, do so and so. No, its commands are categorical. The inescapable fact of "oughtness" is the bottom fact upon which our ethics must be built. To the truth in this manner of speech we must all respond. As we have seen, morality is not purely subjective and relative; it carries the authority not of opinion but of fact. The right, the best way, IS unconditionally best, whether we are wise enough to desire it or no. The greatest good IS the greatest good, however narrow or short- sighted our impulses. Kant expresses eloquently the absolute and inescapable nature of duty in its perennial opposition to our transitory and nickering desires.
(1) But Kant is unfair in his picturesque contrast between the perplexities attending the pursuit of happiness and the certainty attachable to morality. As a matter of observation, moral codes have varied quite as much as man's different ways of finding happiness. Cases of moral perplexity are as common as cases of uncertainty with regard to the road to happiness; there is no such universality and changelessness about morality as he assumes. If a certain code seems fixed and indubitable to us, it is in large degree because we have become accustomed to it and given it our allegiance; a wider acquaintance with other codes, contemporary or past, would shake our confidence. Some fundamental rules are unquestionable-rules against murder, rape, etc.; but just as unquestionable is the fact that these acts make against human happiness.
(2) Only a man with an Hebraic training and rigoristic temper could think of morality in this awestruck and unquestioning way. More Bohemian people feel no such "categorical ought" in their breasts. And if a man feels no such "categorical imperative," how can you prove to him it is there? Kant's theory is at bottom mere assertion; if because of your training and temperament you respond to it, and if you are content not to analyze and explain the existence of this imperious pressure upon your will, you are tremendously impressed. Otherwise the whole elaborate Kantian system probably seems to you an unreal brain-spun structure.
Kant, though a man of extraordinary mental powers, had but a narrow range of experience to base his theories upon, and lived too early to catch the genetic viewpoint. Hence there is a certain pedantic naivete in his constructions. No man with any modern psychological or historical training ought to be content to leave this extraordinary "categorical imperative" unexplained. It is quite possible to trace its origin and understand its function; there is nothing unique or mysterious about it. Why should we bow down to a command shot at us out of the air, a command irrelevant to our actual interests? Children have to do so, and the majority of the human race are still children, who may properly acquiesce in the rules of morality without clearly realizing why. But the reflective man should not be content to yield himself to the yoke unless he can see its necessity and value. The "ought," the knowledge of what is right, antedates the individual's experience of what is best, and so seems mysterious and a priori to him; but it does not antedate the racial experience; it is rather its fruit. The teleology of conscience is very simple, and its genesis and development purely natural.
(3) The "ought" seems more objective than "conscience," more impersonal. Just so does "beauty" seem more impersonal and objective than our pleasure in contemplating nature and art. It is a constant tendency of the mind to project its values out of itself; to create "universes of discourse" that seem more stable and real than its own fleeting states. All that exists psychologically is a sense of pleasure at looking at certain combinations of outer objects; but that pleasure is constantly evoked by that peculiar combination, both in our own mind and in others'. So we objectify that pleasure and call it the "beauty" of the object. Similarly, all that exists psychologically is a certain felt pressure, certain emotions and ideas and pushes whose teleology is not realized. But we objectify that constantly and pretty universally felt pressure and think of an impersonal, objective "ought." All the arts are expressible in "oughts"; and if there is a more authoritative and categorical nature to moral laws than there is, for example, to the aesthetic laws that art-study reveals, it is because aesthetics deals with only one aspect of human good and ethics with its totality. Indeed, every impulse is, in its initial push, categorical, offering no reasons, simply pressing upon us with its requirements. Hunger and thirst and sex-desire do not say to us, "If you desire to be happy, eat, drink, and gratify your passion"; they call to us with an imperious and immediate demand. The demand of the moral law is more insistent and more authoritative simply because it represents a far more widespread and lasting need.
(4) Kant's "categorical imperative" is purely formal and empty. We OUGHT, we OUGHT-but what? It leads, if to anything, to a mere emotional reinforcement of our preexisting moral conceptions, to that canonization of good will as the one and only good, which is Kant's own position, but which we have found inadequate and misleading. When we come to new situations it has no clue to offer. How do we actually decide in such cases? By imagining the consequences of acts and seeing their relative productiveness of happiness and pain. Or else by finding some already decided case under which we can put the new instance. We are tempted to an act that promises profit, but something checks us. Ought we to do this? Gradually it comes over us that this would be stealing; and stealing we have already decided, or the race has decided for us, is wrong.
We have to decide things in terms of our welfare, or of those already stereotyped decisions which represent the half-conscious strivings of past generations for human welfare. There is no other way; the conception of an imperious impersonal "ought" bearing ruthlessly down upon us gives no help whatsoever.
A later and English expression of the feeling that morality needs no justification may be found in Bradley's ETHICAL STUDIES. [Footnote: Pages 56-57.] "To take virtue as a mere means to an ulterior end is in direct antagonism to the voice of moral consciousness. That consciousness, when unwarped by selfishness and not blinded by sophistry, is convinced that to ask for the Why is simple immorality; to do good for its own sake is virtue, to do it for some ulterior end or object…is never virtue…Virtue not only does seem to be, but is, an end in itself. Against the base mechanical which meets us on all sides, with its 'What is the use' of goodness, or beauty, or truth, there is but one fitting answer from the friends of science, or art, or religion and virtue, 'We do not know and we do not care.'"
(1) But morality would then be a mere arbitrary tyranny; if it were of no use, the sacrifices it demands would be sheer cruelty. A moral law irrelevant to human interests would have no possible authority over us; it would not be a moral, i.e,. a right, law for us.
(2) And what criterion should we have to judge what is virtuous? "Virtue for virtue's sake" is equivalent to "the best way because it is the best way." But what makes it the best way? And how shall we decide what is the best way?
(3) We must be blind not to see the use of morality, even if we feel that usefulness degrades it. All moralists agree that virtue does actually lead to happiness. But is that connection a mere accident? Is it not likely that the usefulness of virtue has something to do with its origin and existence?
(4) A real practical value of the motto "Virtue for virtue's sake" lies in the implied rejection of virtue for INDIVIDUAL profit merely. The moralist rightly feels that such proverbs as "Honesty is the best policy," "Ill-gotten gains do not prosper," do not strike deep enough. Even if ill-gotten gain should prosper, it would be wrong. But it would be wrong simply because of the damage to others' welfare, not for any transcendental reason. The opponent of the eudaemonistic account of morality nearly always identifies it with a selfish pursuit, by each individual, of his own personal happiness. But that is, of course, a very narrow and unjustifiable interpretation of it.
(5) Another practical value of the motto lies in the implied contrast of virtue with expediency. Questions of expediency are questions of the best means to a given end; questions of virtue ask which ends are to be sought. Expediency asks, "How shall I do this?" Virtue asks, "Shall I do this or that?" The counsels of expediency are thus always relative to the value of the end, in itself unquestioned; "this is the thing to do IF such and such an end is right to seek." The counsels of virtue are absolute-"This is the best thing to do." It is rightly felt that in matters of right and wrong there is no "if" about it; you act not with relation to an end which may be chosen or rejected, on ulterior grounds. The only end to which virtue is the means is-the living of the best life. Virtue is the ultimate expediency. But it is well contrasted with all those secondary matters of debate for which we reserve the name "expediency."
(6) Finally, the motto is practically useful in advising us not to rely upon calculation in the concrete emergency, but to fall back upon an already adopted code, to love virtue as one does the flag, and follow it unquestioningly, as the soldier does his general. We must be willing to accept guidance and leadership. But every one knows that the flag is but a symbol; that the general's word is authoritative because it serves the best interests of the country. And our impulsive allegiance to virtue, and love of it, would be a mere silly daydream and empty sacrifice were it not for its loyal safeguarding of human interests.
Should we live "according to nature," and adjust ourselves to the evolutionary process?
According to the Stoic philosophy, the criterion for conduct was to live "according to nature." "What is meant by 'rationally'?" asks Epictetus, and answers, "Conformably to nature." "Convince me that you acted naturally, and I will convince you that everything which takes place according to nature takes place rightly." [Footnote: Book III, chap, I; book I, chap. XI.] And Marcus Aurelius writes, "Do not think any word or action beneath you which is in accordance with nature; and never be misled by the apprehension of censure or reproach. I will march on in the path of nature till my legs sink under me. Philosophy will put you upon nothing but what your nature wishes and calls for." [Footnote: Book V.] Of this preaching Bishop Butler says that it is "a manner of speaking, not loose and indeterminate, but clear and distinct, strictly just and true." [Footnote: Preface to Sermons.] In modern times this doctrine has taken the form of exhortation to take our place in the evolutionary process. It is thought by some that to grasp the trend of existing natural forces is to know the direction of duty. We have only to keep in the current, to espouse heartily the "struggle for existence" and rejoice in the "survival of the fittest," because it is nature's way. In a recent book by a Harvard professor we read, "Whatever the order of the universe is, that is the moral order…The laws of natural selection are merely God's regular methods of expressing his choice and approval. The naturally selected are the chosen of God…The whole life of [moral] people will consist in an intelligent effort to adjust themselves to the will thus expressed." [Footnote: T. N. Carver, The Religion Worth Having, pp. 84-89.] It is easy enough to point out, however, that nature man to follow. "In sober truth, nearly all the things which men are hanged or imprisoned for doing to one another, are nature's everyday performances. Nature impales men, breaks them as if on the wheel, casts them to be devoured by wild beasts, crushes them with stones like the first Christian martyr, starves them with hunger, freezes them with cold, poisons them by the quick or slow venom of her exhalations." [Footnote: J. S. Mill, Three Essays on Religion: "Nature," p. 28.] The evolutionary process is cruel and merciless; multitudes perish for every one that survives, and the survivor is not the most deserving, but the strongest or swiftest or cleverest. Why should we imitate such ruthless ways? Nature is to be not followed but improved upon. Not only morality, but most of man's activity, consists in making nature over to suit his needs. "If nature and man are both the works of a Being of perfect goodness, that Being intended nature as a scheme to be amended, not imitated, by man." [Footnote: Ibid, p. 41.]
(2) Not only is there no reason WHY we should "follow nature," but the result of so doing would be any thing but what we agree is moral. Hardly a sin is committed but was "natural" to the sinner. It is "natural" to lose our tempers; to be vain, selfish, greedy, lustful. Nothing could be practically more pernicious than the idea that an impulse is right because it is natural; that is, because it is common to most men. "Following nature" naturally means following our inclinations; nothing is more disastrous. Virtue necessitates self denial, effort, living by ideals, which are late and artificial products. It is actually true, in its metaphorical way, that we need to be born again, to be turned about, converted, saved from ourselves. The "natural" man is the "carnal" man; the "spiritual" man, while potential in us all, needs to be fostered and stimulated by every possible means if life is to be serene and full and beautiful. The difference between the "natural" man and the moral man is the difference between the untrained child, capricious, the victim of a thousand whims and longings, and the man of formed character whom we respect and trust. Morality is, of course, in a sense, natural too-everything that exists is natural; but in the sense in which the word has a specific meaning, it is flatly opposed to that making-over, that readjustment of our impulses, which is the very differentia of morality. There is, indeed, a eulogistic sense of the word "natural"; to Rousseau the "return to nature" meant the abandonment of needless artificiality and silly convention. But except in this sense, what is "natural" has no particular merit. The great achievements of man have consisted not in following natural, primitive instincts, but in controlling and disciplining those instincts.
If we were to imitate nature in making the survival of the fittest our aim, we should return to the barbaric ruthlessness of ancient Sparta or Rome, exposing infants, killing the feeble and insane, and becoming just such cold-blooded pursuers of efficiency as Nietzsche admires. That such pitiless competition is moral, or desirable, no one but a few cranks would on examination maintain. "Let us understand once for all," says Huxley," that the ethical progress of society depends not on imitating the cosmic process, still less in running away from it, but in combating it." [Footnote: Evolution and Ethics, title essay.]
(3) This cosmic defiance of Huxley's commands our approval; if morality interferes with the evolutionary process, let it interfere; the sooner an immoral process is stopped the better. But, after all, Huxley unnecessarily limits the meaning of the phrase "the cosmic process," applying it only to that stage which antedates the development of morality. That development, however, is itself natural selection, which in its earlier stages selects merely the strong and swift and clever, in its later stages selects also the moral races and individuals. So that to follow out the evolutionary process is, for man, after all, to follow morality as well as to cultivate speed and strength and wit.
There is, indeed, a danger to the race from the development of the tenderer side of morality, in the care for the feeble and degenerate which permits them to live and produce offspring, instead of being ruthlessly exterminated, as in ruder days. But this danger can, and will, be met by measures which, while permitting life and, so far as possible, happiness, to these unfortunates, will prevent them from having children. Except for this removable danger, the development of sympathy and tenderness by no means involves a lessening of virility, but is rather its necessary complement and check.
Is self-development or self-realization the ultimate end?
It is no justification of morality to say that it is "in harmony with nature." Is it an adequate justification to say that morality is what makes for self-development or self-realization? A number of classic and contemporary moralists, fighting shy of the acknowledgment of happiness as the ultimate end, have rested content with such expressions. Darwin wrote, "The term 'general good' may be defined as the rearing of the greatest number of individuals in full vigor and health, with all their faculties perfect, under the conditions to which they are subjected." [Footnote: Descent of Man, chap, iv.] Paulsen writes, "The value of virtue consists in its favorable effects upon the development of life…The value of life consists in the normal performance of all functions, or in the exercise of capacities and virtues…A perfect human life is an end in itself. The standard is what has been called the normal type, or the idea, of human life." [Footnote: System of Ethics, book II, chap. II.]
(1) Such a point of view gives opportunity for stimulating words. But it gives no guidance. Observation can teach us, slowly, what conduct makes for happiness; but what conduct makes for "self-development"? The fact is, the cultivation of any impulse will develop us in its direction and preclude our development in other directions; along which path shall we let ourselves develop? Every choice involves rejection; infinite possibilities diverge before us; which among the myriad impulses that call upon us shall we follow? While still young and plastic, we may develop ourselves into poets or philosophers or lawyers or businessmen. In which of these ways shall we "realize" ourselves? [Footnote: Cf. William James, Psychology, vol. I, p. 309: "I am often confronted by the necessity of standing by one of my empirical selves and relinquishing the rest. Not that I would not, if I could, be both handsome and fat and well dressed, and a great athlete, and make a million a year, be a wit, a bon-vivant, and a lady-killer, as well as a philosopher; a philanthropist, statesman, warrior, and African explorer, as well as a 'tone-poet' and saint. But the thing is simply impossible. The millionaire's work would run counter to the saint's; the bon vivant and the philanthropist would trip each other up; the philosopher and the lady-killer could not well keep house in the same tenement of clay. Such different characters may conceivably at the outset of life be alike possible to a man. But to make any one of them actual, the rest must more or less be suppressed."] It is evident that we need some deeper ground of choice. May it not even be better drastically to choke our natures, better to get a new nature than to realize the old? Surely there are perverted natures, which ought not to be developed. In the name of happiness we can decide on development or non-development, as the need may be. But the ideal of "self development" gives us no criterion. It is too sweeping, too indiscriminate.
(2) Again, we may ask WHY we should develop ourselves. This ideal is in need of justification to the has a eulogistic connotation in our ears; but to rely upon that is to beg the question. Strictly, it means only the actualizing of potentiality, which may be potentiality for evil as well as for good. Concretely, if developing our natures led to pain and sorrow we should do well to resist such development. The plausibility of the formula lies in the fact that the development of one's self along any line is normally pleasant and normally conduces to ultimate happiness. The idea of it attracts us, and it is well that it should; it is intrinsically and extrinsically good. But it is the fact of possessing that intrinsic and extrinsic goodness that makes it a legitimate ideal. In sum, it is good to develop one's powers only because and in so far as such development makes for happiness or is itself an aspect of happiness. For happiness is the only sort of thing that is in itself intrinsically and obviously desirable, without need of proof.
(3) Practically, this ideal-tends to selfishness; it does not point to the fact that the best development of self lies in service. The ideal is capable of this interpretation, but its emphasis is in the wrong direction. It is essentially a pagan conception, and practically inferior to the Christian ideal of service. Service cannot be the ultimate ideal, any more than the Chinese in the story could support themselves by taking in one another's washing; and it needs to be justified, like self-development, by the happiness it brings. But for a working conception it is far better. Self-realization has never been the aim of the saints and heroes. Imagine a patriot dying for his country's freedom, or a mother giving years of sacrificing toil for her child, on the ground of self-development! The patriot may feel that through his sacrifice and that of his comrades his countrymen will be freer or more united or rid of some curse i.e., ultimately, happier. The mother thinks consciously of the happiness of the child she serves. But except for the young man or properly be for the time self-centered, self-development makes but a sorry ideal. We may admire a Goethe who cares primarily for the development and perfection of his own powers-if he is handsome and clever and of a winning personality. But the men we really love and reverence are those who forget themselves and prefer to go, if necessary, with their artistic sense undeveloped or their scientific sense untrained, so they may bring help and peace to their fellows. [Footnote: Cf. a recent story writer, Nalbro Hartley, in Ainslee's (a mountain-white is speaking): "I reckon the best way to get on in this world is to learn just enough to make you all always want to know more but to be so busy usin' what you-all has learned that there ain't no time to learn the rest!"] Goethe, with all his genius, encyclopedic knowledge, and universality of experience, his wit and energy and power of expression, stands on a lower moral level than Buddha, St. Francis, Christ.
(4) Finally, the theory, if taken strictly, is immoral. To set up self- realization as the criterion is to say that the self-realizing act is to be chosen EVEN IF IT SHOULD PRODUCE LESS THAN THE GREATEST ATTAINABLE TOTAL GOOD. That such cases do not occur, no one can prove; in fact, observation tends to the belief that they do. This criterion is, then, not only practically but theoretically selfish. Perfection of character should be our aim, yes. But perfection of character is not to be found in a mere indiscriminate cultivation of whatever faculties we may have. It means the superposition of a severe discipline upon our faculties, a purification of the will, directed by more ultimate considerations. Is the source of duty the will of God? "Obedience to the will of God" describes the highest morality, as does the phrase "perfection of character." But is it, any more than that, the ULTIMATE JUSTIFICATION of morality? Is the will of God the SOURCE of morality? An adequate discussion of this question would involve a philosophy of religion, but a few considerations may be useful, and it is hoped, not misleading.
(1) How can we know what is the will of God except by considering what makes for human welfare? Our Bible is but one of a number of holy books which are held to be a revelation of God's will. Even if we grant the superior authority of the Hebrew- Christian Bible, can we rely on its teachings implicitly? How do we know that it is a revelation of God except by our experience of the beneficence of its teachings? As a matter of fact, there is wide disagreement, among those who accept the Bible as authoritative, over its real teachings. A text is available for every variety of belief. Christians usually emphasize those texts that make for what they hold true, and slur over others. "Look not on the wine when it is red" is preached in every Sunday School, while "Take a little wine for thy stomach's sake" is seldom quoted save by brewers. The Bible, the work of a hundred hands during a span of a thousand years, represents a great variety of views. It is certainly an inspired book if there ever was one; so much inspiration could not have come from it if none had gone into it. But to extract a satisfactory ethical code from it is possible only by a process of judicious selection and ingenious inference. The Mosaic code is held by Christians to be now abrogated; the recorded teachings of Christ are fragmentary and touch only a few fundamental matters. How, for example, shall we ascertain from the Bible the will of God with respect to the trust problem, or currency reform, or penal legislation? Times have changed, our problems are no longer those of the ancient Jews; a hundred delicate questions arise to which no answers can be will of God to be clearly and unquestionably known, why should we obey it? Because he is stronger, and can reward or punish? If that is the reason, the freehearted man would defy Him. Might does not make right. If God were to command us to sin, it would not be right to obey Him. On the contrary, we should sympathize with Mill in his outburst: "Whatever power such a being may have over me, there is one thing which he shall not do: he shall not compel me to worship him. I will call no being good, who is not what I mean when I apply that epithet to my fellow creatures; and if such a being can sentence me to hell for not so calling him, to hell I will go." [Footnote: An Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy, chap. VI.] It is clear that God is to be obeyed only because He is good and his will right. Not the existence of a will, but its goodness makes it authoritative. But how do we know that it is good unless we have some deeper criterion to judge it by? How do we know that God is not an arbitrary tyrant? The answer must be that we judge the Christian teachings to be a revelation of God because we know on other grounds what we mean by "right" and "good," and see that these teachings fit that conception. If the teachings were coarse and low, no prodigies or miracles would suffice to attest them as God-given; it would be superstition to obey them. Experience alone can be judge; the experience of the beneficence of the Christian ideal. The Way of Life that Christ taught verifies itself when tried; that it is the supreme ideal for man is proved by the transfiguration of life it effects. Christ and the Bible deserve our allegiance because they are worthy of it; from them we can learn the secrets of man's true welfare. Morality is, indeed, older than religion. It develops to a certain point, and in some cases very highly, without the concept of God. It has an and needs no supernatural prop. Religion is not the root of morality, but its flower and consummation. The finest ideals, the loftiest heights of morality, merge into religion; but even these spiritual ideals have their ultimate root in the common soil of human welfare, and are rational ideals because they minister to human need.
For the "categorical" theory of morality, see Kant's Theory of Ethics, trans. Abbott; F. H. Bradley, Ethical Studies; F. Paulsen, System of Ethics, book II, chap, V, secs. 3 and 4; Dewey and Tufts, Ethics, chap, XVI, sec. 2; H. Spencer, Data of Ethics, chap, III, sees. 12, 13. W. Fite, Introductory Study of Ethics, chap. X. H. Rashdall, Theory of Good and Evil, book I, chap. V. For the "according to nature" theory, see Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius, passim; Rousseau, Discourse on Science and Art, etc.; J. S. Mill, "Nature" in Three Essays on Religion; T.H. Huxley, Evolution and Ethics. T. N. Carver, The Religion Worth Having. For the "self-realization" theory, see T. H. Green, Prolegomena to Ethics; F. Paulsen, op. cit, esp. book II, chap, II, secs. 5-8; H. W. Wright, Self-Realization; J. S. Mackenzie, Manual of Ethics, 2d ed, chaps, VI and VII. W. Fite, op. cit, chap. XI. For theological ethics, see any of the older theological books. A brief comment may be found in H. Spencer's Data of Ethics, chap, IV, sec. 18.