A Handbook of Ethical Theory Part 19

(3) Justify social acts which certainly appear to be self-sacrificing, and which the moral judgments of men generally do not hesitate to approve.

CHAPTER XXVII

THE ETHICS OF EVOLUTION

131. THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE t.i.tLE.--The t.i.tle, "The Ethics of Evolution," seems to a.s.sume that the evolutionist, frankly accepting himself as such, must be prepared to join some school of the moralists different from other schools, and basing itself upon evolutionary doctrine.

That the ethical views of individuals and of communities of men may undergo a process of evolution or development is palpable. The ethical notions of the child are not those of the man, nor are the moral ideas of primitive races identical with those of races more advanced intellectually and morally.

But it is one thing to maintain that morals may be in evolution in individuals and in communities, and quite another to hold that the acceptance of the doctrine of evolution, broadly taken, forces upon one some new norm by which human actions may be judged. It was possible for as ardent an evolutionist as Huxley to hold that evolution and ethics are not merely independent, but are actually at war with one another, the compet.i.tive struggle for existence characteristic of the one giving place in the other to a new principle in which the rights of the weak and the helpless attain express recognition. [Footnote: HUXLEY, _Evolution and Ethics_, New York, 1894. See, especially, the _Prolegomena_.] And Sidgwick, that clearest of thinkers, maintains [Footnote: _The Methods of Ethics_, Book I, chapter vi, Sec 2.] that we have no reason to a.s.sume that it is our duty as moral beings simply to accelerate the pace in the direction already marked out by evolution.

It should be remembered that the word evolution may be used equivocally.

It is not evident that all evolution is in the direction of a life, brute or human, that we commonly recognize as higher. There is retrogression, as well as progress, where such retrogression is favored by environment.

We may call this, if we please, _devolution_. Were the conditions of his life very unfavorable, man could not live as he now lives; and, indeed, were they sufficiently unfavorable--for example, if the earth cooled off to a certain point--he could not live at all, but would have to give place to a lowlier creature better fitted to the conditions. Must the man who foresees this end approaching strive to hasten its arrival, or should he oppose it? In a decadent society, to come nearer to the problems which concern us in ethics, must a man strive to realize the social will expressed in progressive decadence? Should he hasten the decline of the community?

That those who study man as a moral being, like those who study man in any of his other aspects, will be more or less influenced in their outlook by the broadening of the horizon which results from a study of what the students of the evolutionary process have to tell us, may be conceded. But when we admit this, we do not necessarily have to look for a new norm by which to judge conduct. We seem, rather, forced to ask ourselves how this broadening of the horizon affects the norms which have heretofore appealed to men as reasonable. To be sure, any evolutionist has, in the capacity of a moralist, the right to suggest a new norm. But, in that case, he must, like any other moralist, convince us that it is a reasonable one.

132. EVOLUTION AND THE SCHOOLS OF THE MORALISTS.--Those who have suggested the norms discussed above, no one would think of as greatly influenced in their ethical teaching by the doctrine of evolution. Locke, Price, Butler and Sidgwick; Aristippus and Epicurus; Paley and Hobbes; Bentham and Mill; Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius; Janet, Green, and the rest, no one would be inclined to cla.s.s simply as evolutionary moralists.

Some of them never thought of evolution at all. How would it affect their standards of right and wrong were evolution expressly taken into account?

Would the standards have to be abandoned? Or would the men, as broader men, merely have to revise some of their moral judgments?

(1) It might be supposed that the acceptance of evolutionary doctrine would bring into being a grave problem for the intuitionist, at least. If the body and mind of man are products of evolution, must we not admit as much of man's moral intuitions? Then why not admit that these may be replaced some day by other moral intuitions to be evolved in an unknown future?

He who reasons thus should bear in mind that Sidgwick, who by no means repudiated the doctrine of evolution, was an intuitionist, and placed his ultimate moral intuitions on a par with such mathematical intuitions as that two and two make four. If all intuitions are a product of evolution, Sidgwick might claim that the moral intuitions he accepts fare no worse than those elementary mathematical truths which we accept without question and without reflection. And he might maintain that an appeal to evolution need cast no greater doubt upon ultimate moral truth than upon mathematical. If intuitionism in all its forms is to be rejected, it seems as though it must be done upon some other ground than an appeal to evolution.

(2) As to the egoist. It is not easy to see how the appeal to evolution need disconcert him. Should he be so foolish as to maintain that egoism is always, in fact, necessary and unavoidable on the part of every living creature, he might easily be refuted by a reference to the actual life of the brutes, where altruism can be shown to play no insignificant role.

But if he simply maintains that the only _reasonable_ principle for a man to adopt is egoism, he may continue to do so. He makes the self and its satisfactions his end. How can it concern him to learn how the self came to be what it is, or what it will be in the distant future? He panders to the present self; he may a.s.sume that it will be reasonable to pander at the appropriate time to the self that is to be, whatever its nature.

(3) The utilitarian remains such whether he makes the greatest good of the greatest number to consist in pleasure or in some other end, such as self-preservation. Some utilitarians, who have been inclined to emphasize the good of man, rather than to extend even to the brutes the goods to be distributed, may be influenced to extend the sphere of duties, if they will listen to the evolutionist, who cannot well leave out of view humbler creatures. [Footnote: "Thus we shall not go wrong in attributing to the higher animals in their simple social life, not only the elementary feelings, the loves and hates, sympathies and jealousies which underlie all forms of society, but also in a rudimentary stage the intelligence which enables those feelings to direct the operations of the animal so as best to gratify them." HOBHOUSE, _Ethics in Evolution_, chapter i, Sec 4.]

He may broaden his sympathies. But this need not compel him to abandon his fundamental doctrine.

(4) A very similar conclusion may be drawn, when we consider the influence of an acceptance of the doctrine of evolution upon those who would turn to man's nature, to perfection, or to self-realization, as furnis.h.i.+ng the norm of human conduct.

A Marcus Aurelius could, with little reference to evolution, accept man's nature, or Nature in the wider sense, as marking out for man the round of his duties. A modern Darwinian might fall back upon much the same standard, while clearly conscious of the fact that man's nature is not something unchangeable, and while inclined to view Nature in general with different eyes from those of the Roman Stoic. No sensible evolutionist would maintain that a creature of a given species should act in defiance of all the instincts of creatures of that type, merely on the ground that species may be involved in a process of progressive development.

Nor need the perfectionist abandon his perfectionism in view of any such consideration. He who measures perfection by the degree of activity exercised in action, may admit that the coming man will be more perfect than it is possible for any man to be now; but that need not prevent him from holding that it is man's present duty to aim at the only perfection possible to him, he being what he is. Similar reasoning will apply to any other conception of perfection likely to be adopted, consciously or unconsciously, by any adherent of the school in question.

As for the self-realizationist, a very little reflection seems sufficient to reveal that the maxim that it is man's duty to become all that it is in him to become is in no wise refuted by the claim that man may, in the indefinitely distant future, become much more than many people have supposed or now suppose.

(5) There remains the doctrine of the Rational Social Will as furnis.h.i.+ng the norm of conduct. I have tried to show that this doctrine must rest upon broad views of man and of man's environment. It is the very essence of the rational will to take broad views, to consider the past, the present, and the future. Surely the adherent of this school may let the evolutionist work in peace, may thank him for any helpful suggestions he has to offer, and may develop his own doctrine with little cause for uneasiness at the thought that information given him may refute his fundamental principle.

However, it is not out of place for him to point out, if revolutionary measures of any sort are suggested by this or that evolutionist, that ethics is a discipline which is concerned with what men have to do, here and now. It must take into consideration what is advisable and feasible.

Utopian schemes which break violently with the actual order of things and the normal development of human societies may be suggested by evolutionists, as they have been suggested by men who were not evolutionists at all. They are not to be taken much more seriously in the one case than in the other.

133. THE ETHICS OF INDIVIDUAL EVOLUTIONISTS.--Such considerations seem to make it evident that the acceptance of the doctrine of evolution should have no other influence upon us as moralists than that of making us take broad views of man and of his environment. It still remains to find a norm of conduct, and evolutionists, like other men, may develop ethical systems which are not identical. It is worth while here to touch very briefly upon the suggestions of one or two individual evolutionists.

Those who speak of the ethics of evolution are very apt to have such in mind.

Thus, Darwin, whose study of the lower animals led him to believe that the social instincts have been developed for the general good rather than for the general happiness of the species, defines the "good" 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 have been subjected." The "greatest happiness principle" he regards as an important secondary guide to conduct, while making social instinct and sympathy primary guides. [Footnote: _The Descent of Man_, chapter iv, concluding remarks. ]

Spencer maintains that the evolution of conduct becomes the highest possible when the conduct "simultaneously achieves the greatest totality of life in self, in offspring, and in fellow-men." "The conduct called good," he writes, "rises to the conduct conceived as best, when it fulfills all three cla.s.ses of ends at the same time." But life he does not regard as necessarily a good. He judges it to be good or bad "according as it has or has not a surplus of agreeable feeling." Hence, "conduct is good or bad according as its total effects are pleasurable or painful." [Footnote: _The Data of Ethics,_ chapter in, Sec Sec 8 and 10.

To be sure, Spencer criticises the utilitarians, and thinks little of the Benthamic calculus of pleasures. He believes that we should subst.i.tute for it something more scientific, a study of the processes of life. In his earlier writings he appears to be largely in accord with the intuitionists in judging of conduct, regarding intuitions as having their origin in the experiences of the race. Nor does he ever seem inclined to break with intuitionism completely. But, as we have seen above (Sec 108), there appears to be nothing to prevent a utilitarian from being an intuitionist of some sort, as well.

Stephen, in his clear and beautifully written work on morals, also accepts the general happiness as the ultimate end of reasonable conduct; and he, too, criticizes the current utilitarianism. He writes: "This, as it seems to me, represents the real difference between the utilitarian and the evolutionist criterion. The one lays down as a criterion the happiness, the other the health of society." [Footnote: _The Science of Ethics_, London, 1882, chapter ix, 12.] By which, of course, he does not mean merely physical health, but such a condition of vigor and efficiency as carries with it a promise of continued existence and well- being in the future.

It is not necessary to multiply instances. It can readily be seen that all three of the writers cited are utilitarians, and the last two are what have been characterized as hedonistic utilitarians. That they suggest this or that means of best attaining to the desired goal does not put them outside of a school which embraces men of many shades of opinion.

CHAPTER XXVIII

PESSIMISM

134. THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE PESSIMIST.--With philosophy in general this volume has little to do; but as pessimism is not the doctrine of normal men generally, but is apt to be identified in our minds with the teachings of certain of its leading exponents, it may be well to give, in briefest outline, the type of reasonings upon which the pessimist may take his stand.

Schopenhauer held that the one World-Will, which manifests itself in all nature, inorganic and organic, and is identical with the will of which each man is conscious in himself, is a "will to live." When the World- Will becomes conscious, as it does in man, the will to live is consciously a.s.serted. But the will to live is essentially blind and unreasoning, or it would not do anything so stupid as to will life of any sort. He writes:

"Only a blind will, no seeing will, could place itself in the position in which we behold ourselves. A seeing will would rather have soon made the calculation that the business did not cover the cost; for such a mighty effort and struggle, with the straining of all the powers, under constant care, anxiety and want, and with the inevitable destruction of every individual life, finds no compensation in the ephemeral existence itself, which is so obtained, and which pa.s.ses into nothing in our hands."

[Footnote: _The World as Will and Idea_, translated by HALDANE and KEMP, London, 1896. _On the Vanity and Suffering of Life_. Volume III, p. 390.]

The basis of all will, says Schopenhauer, is need, deficiency, and, hence, pain. He dwells at length upon the misery of life, and the desirability of a release from life. The refuge of suicide at once suggests itself, but is rejected by Schopenhauer on the ground that the destruction of the individual cannot prevent the One Will from manifesting itself in other individuals. Curiously enough he appears to approve of suicide by starvation, as indicating a renunciation of the will to live. But his general recommendation is asceticism, renunciation of the striving for pleasure, the voluntary acceptance of pain. Through this the Will is to be taught to apprehend its own nature, and, thus, to deny itself. How a general asceticism on our part will rob the one universal Will, revealed in the mineral, vegetable and animal worlds, of its nature, and still its strivings, the great pessimist does not indicate.

At this point, von Hartmann, who may fairly be called Schopenhauer's pupil, takes up the tale. He suggests that it is conceivable that a universal negation of the will may be obtained, if the preponderating part of the actual World-Will should come to be contained in the conscious minds that resolve to will no more. This he thinks may neutralize the whole, and put an end to existence, which is unavoidably an evil, and implies a preponderance of pain. [Footnote: _Philosophy of the Unconscious_, "Metaphysic of the Unconscious," chapter xiv.]

135. COMMENT ON THE ETHICS OF PESSIMISM.--On the metaphysics of the pessimists I shall make no comment save that there appears to be here sufficient vagueness to satisfy the most poetical of minds. But the following points in the ethics of pessimism should be noted:

(1) Pleasure and pain are made the measure of the desirability or undesirability of existence.

(2) It is a.s.sumed that pleasure and pain are measurable; and that they may be quant.i.tatively balanced against one another in such a way that this or that mixture of them may be declared by an enlightened man to be, on the whole, desirable or the reverse.

(3) It is claimed that the balance must necessarily incline to the side of pain, and hence, that life is not worth living.

(4) It follows from all this that it is our duty to aim, not necessarily directly, but in some manner, at least, at the destruction of life everywhere.

(5) I beg the reader to observe that the above doctrine rests upon a.s.sumptions which seem to be made without due consideration. Thus:

(a) It is by no means to be a.s.sumed without question that pleasure and pain alone are the measure of the desirable. They are not the only things actually desired; and, if we a.s.sert that they alone are desirable, we fall back upon a dubious intuition.

(6) The quant.i.tative relations of pleasures and pains are legitimate subjects of dispute, as we have seen in earlier chapters in this volume.

When is one pleasure twice as great as another? How can we know that three pleasures counterbalance a pain? Is it by the mere fact that we _will_ as we do, in a given instance? Then how prove that we will as we do, because of the equivalence of the pleasure to the pain?

(c) Who shall decide for us whether life is--not desired, it is admittedly that, as a rule,--but, also, _desirable_?