A Handbook of Ethical Theory Part 22

THE MORAL CONCEPTS

146. GOOD AND BAD; RIGHT AND WRONG.--As a rule, men reflect little touching the moral terms which are on their lips every day. It is well worth while to take some of them up and to turn them over for examination.

We may use the terms "good" and "bad," "right" and "wrong," in a very broad sense. A "good" trick may be a contemptible action; the "right" way to crack a bank-safe may be the means to the successful commission of a crime. Evidently, the words, thus used, are not employed in a moral sense.

When we pa.s.s judgments from the moral point of view, we concern ourselves with men and with their actions, and measure them by the standard of the social will. Men and actions are "good," when they can meet the test.

Actions are "right" or "wrong," when they are in accordance with the dictates of the moral law, or are at variance with them. That an act may be both right and wrong, when viewed from different standpoints, even on moral ground, we have seen in Chapter x.x.x. A man may mean to do right, and may, through ignorance or error, be guilty of an act that we condemn.

To the intelligent, confusions are here unnecessary. But the history of ethics is full of confusions in just this field.

147. DUTY AND OBLIGATION.--Verbal usage sometimes justifies the use of one of these words, and sometimes that of the other. We say: I did my duty; we do not say: I did my obligation. But this is a mere matter of verbal expression, and we are really concerned with two names for the same thing.

(1) There has been much dispute as to whether the sense of duty or moral obligation can or cannot be a.n.a.lyzed. It has been declared una.n.a.lyzable and unique. Some think this a point of much importance which imparts a peculiar sacredness to the sense of duty.

There appears no reason why this position should be taken. No one has been able to a.n.a.lyze into its ultimate sensational elements the peculiar feeling one has when one is tickled. But this does not make the feeling sacred or awe-inspiring. The authority of the sense of duty must be looked for in another direction--and authority it has.

(2) I have spoken of the "sense" of duty. We all recognize that, when we are faced with a duty, a feeling is normally present. But the whole argument of this volume has maintained that man is not to be treated only as the subject of emotions. He is a rational being. In some persons feeling is very prominent; in others it is less so. It is quite conceivable that, in a given case, a man capable of reflection should recognize that he is confronted with a duty, and yet that he should feel no impulse to perform it. Did no one ever feel any such impulse, the whole system of duties, the whole rational order of society itself, would dissolve and disappear.

Fortunately, the normal man does feel an impulse to perform duties recognized as such. And in the case of those exceptional persons who do not, society strives to supply surrogates, extraordinary impulses based upon a system of rewards and punishments. This is a mere supplement, and could never keep alive a society from which the sense of duty had disappeared.

Duty _is_ sacred. It is the very foundation of every rational society. It does not greatly concern ethics whether the impulse, which makes itself felt in men who want to do their duty, can or cannot be a.n.a.lyzed. But it is all-important that they should feel the impulse.

(3) Can a man do more than his duty? Is it the duty of everyone to be, not merely a good, average, honest, faithful, law-abiding citizen, but to go far beyond this and be conspicuously a saint?

It should be remembered that we are concerned with the connotation properly to be given to a word in common use.

A certain amount of goodness the social will appears to demand of men rather peremptorily. Its demands seem to vary somewhat with the exigencies of the times--for example, in peace and in war. It does not make the same demands of all men. From those to whom much has been given-- wealth, education, social or political influence,--much is required.

From certain persons it appears to be glad to get anything. If they keep out of the police-court, it is agreeably surprised.

I have no desire to dissuade anyone from the arduous pursuit of sainthood; but I submit that the word "duty," as sanctioned by usage, implies but a limited demand, and takes cognizance of character and environment. He who comes up to this moderate standard is not condemned; but he is free to go farther and to become as great a saint as he pleases. In which case, we admire him. Those who, in the past, have spoken of "counsels of perfection," have drawn upon a profound knowledge of human nature and of human societies.

148. REWARD AND PUNISHMENT.--We saw in the last chapter (Sec 144) that it is something of a criticism upon man and upon societies of men that extraordinary rewards have to be given and that punishments must be inflicted.

More attention has been paid to punishments than to rewards, and the question touching the proper aim of punishment in a civilized state has received much discussion. The study of the history of the infliction of punishment is suggestive, but it does not shed a clear light. The social will has not always been a rational social will, and some of its decisions may be placed among the curiosities of literature. Still, they may serve the purpose of the traditional "terrible example."

Should we, in punis.h.i.+ng, aim at the prevention of crime? Are punishments to be "deterrent"? Under this head we must consider, not merely the criminal himself, but also those who are in more or less danger of becoming criminals, though they have, as yet, committed no known crime.

Should the aim of punishment be the reformation of the criminal?

Should we punish merely that "justice" be done? He who steals and eats fruit is visited with punishment, in the course of nature, if the fruit is unripe. But he suffers equally if he eats his own fruit, under like conditions. This seems a blind punishment. Should we visit pain upon him for the theft, merely because it is a theft, and without looking abroad for any other reason?

Light appears to be thrown upon these problems when we reflect that punishment is an instrument, employed by the Rational Social Will, in pursuance of its ends.

(1) It is desirable that men should be deterred from committing crime. If this cannot be done save by the infliction of punishment, then let men be punished. But be it remembered that punishment is a regrettable necessity, and that the occasions for the infliction of penalties may greatly be diminished by the amelioration of the organism of society.

There is the born criminal, as there is the born inmate of an asylum for the insane. But there is also the manufactured criminal; the product of the slum, the victim of ignorance, the prey of the walking-delegate, the sufferer from over-work and undernourishment, the inhabitant of the filthy and overcrowded tenement, the man robbed of his self-respect, who has no share in the sweetness and light of civilization. A society that first manufactures criminals and then expends great sums in punis.h.i.+ng them is, in so far, not rational.

(2) It is desirable that the criminal should be reformed and returned to society as a normal man. But this is not the one and only aim of the social will. The whole flock should not be sacrificed to the one black sheep, as some sentimental persons appear to believe. There is room here for the exercise of judgment and of some cool calculation.

(3) As for the demand that a given pain shall be inflicted for a given wrong done, irrespective of any gain to anybody, and irrespective of consequences,--it appears to carry one back to ancient and primitive law.

Undoubtedly many punishments have been inflicted in the past to satisfy the sense of resentment. [Footnote: It may be objected that we are not concerned here with resentment but with the satisfaction of "justice."

Men's notions of the "justice" of punishments have been touched upon in chapter ii, Sec 4. Plato suggests, in his Laws, that the slave who steals a bunch of grapes should receive a blow for every grape in the bunch. This has an agreeably mathematical flavor of exact.i.tude. But what shall be done to the man who steals half of a ham or a third of a watermelon?]

Undoubtedly the same is true of the present. Can anything be said in favor of this impulse? It plays no small part in the life of humanity.

We feel that a bad man _ought_ to be punished. We harbor a certain resentment against him. The resentment of the individual for personal injuries we recognize to be wrong. It is not impartial, and it is apt to be excessive and unreasoning. Public order demands that it be refused expression.

But is the--we must admit, somewhat more disinterested--resentment of the community a rational thing? Have men, collectively, no whims, no prejudices? When a trial is deferred, and public indignation has cooled off, how do the chances of the prisoner compare with those he enjoyed just after the commission of the crime? And yet something may be said for public resentment. It has a certain driving-power. It may be questioned whether either our desire to deter men from crime, or our benevolent interest in the criminal, would be quite sufficient to enforce law, if all sense of resentment against the law-breaker were lacking. Its usefulness as an instrument of the social will appears to give it a certain justification. But it also suggests that even public resentment should not be given free rein.

Before leaving the subject of reward and punishment, it may be well to say a word touching our use of the terms _credit_ and _discredit_, _merit_ and _demerit_.

We do not give a man credit for an action, we do not think of him as meritorious, merely because he has done right. Who thinks of praising the young mother for feeding and was.h.i.+ng her first-born? Who shakes the hand of the Sunday-school teacher and congratulates him upon having stolen nothing for a week? But the waif from the gutter who wanders through a department-store and resolutely takes nothing, emerging exhausted with the struggle, we slap upon the back and call a little man.

Our notions of credit and merit are bound up with our notions of extraordinary rewards. The creditable action, the meritorious man, have a certain claim upon us, if only the claim of special recognition. Any man who makes a notable step forward deserves credit, whatever his actual position upon the moral scale. He who only "marks time" upon a relatively high level may be a good man, but we do not give him credit for the act normally to be expected of him. The recognition of merit is a part of the machinery of moralization.

149. VIRTUES AND VICES.--One swallow, said Aristotle, does not make a spring, nor does one happy day make a happy life. Elsewhere he draws our attention to the fact that one good action does not const.i.tute a virtue.

We may define the virtues as those relatively permanent qualities of character which it is desirable, from the moral point of view, that a man should have. The vices are the corresponding defects. I shall not attempt to draw up a list of the virtues. For a variety of lists, exhibiting curious and interesting diversities, I refer the reader back to Chapter III, Sec Sec 9-11.

The Rational Social Will aims to build up a social order which shall do justice to the fundamental impulses and desires of man, a social and rational creature. The stones which it must build into its edifice are human beings. If the human beings are mere lumps of soft clay, incapable of holding their shape or of bearing any weight, the walls cannot rise.

And a human being may be satisfactory in one respect, and far from satisfactory in another. No one of us is wholly ignorant of the qualities desirable in our building-material. Custom, law and public opinion are there to indicate what qualities have, in fact, proved, on the whole, not detrimental. Our intuitions help us in forming a judgment. Rational reflection is of service.

But one thing is very evident. Nowhere is it made clearer than in the study of the virtues and vices, that the moralist cannot consider the phenomena, with which he occupies himself, in a state of isolation.

Is courage a virtue? Is, then, the man who is willing to take the risk of breaking a bank, or holding up a stage-coach, in so far virtuous? Is perseverance a virtue? Is, then, the woman, who holds out to the bitter end in her desire to have the last word, in so far virtuous? Is justice a virtue? Then why not be virtuous in demanding the pound of flesh, if it is the law--as it once was?

Certain qualities of character have been recognized as, _on the whole_, and _generally_, serviceable to the social will. But a man is not a quality of character, and qualities of character are sometimes gathered into strange bundles. It is of men that the state is composed; of thinking, feeling men. We cannot isolate qualities of character, and a.s.sess their value in their isolation.

150. CONSCIENCE.--We are all forced to recognize that conscience has its dual aspect. It is characterized by _feeling_; and the feeling is seldom blind, or, at least, wholly blind; conscience implies a _judgment_ that something is right or wrong.

(1) The feeling is, to be sure, very often in the foreground. Those who say, "My conscience tells me that this is wrong," often mean little more than, "I feel that it is wrong."

But the word "feeling" is an ambiguous one. It is used to cover all sorts of intuitive judgments as well as mere emotions. The man who takes the time to reflect upon his feeling of the rightness or wrongness of an action can often discover some, perhaps rather vague, reason for his feeling proper.

(2) In other words, he may come upon an intuitive judgment. And the thoughtful man who talks about his conscience is rarely satisfied with a blind intuition; he wants to be sure he is right, and he thinks the whole matter over.

(3) The feeling and the judgment are not necessarily in accord. The feeling may lag behind an enlightened judgment. On the other hand, the feeling of repugnance to acting in certain ways may be a justifiable protest against a bit of intellectual sophistry.

(4) So much ought to be admitted by everyone who holds that conscience may be blunted or may be enlightened. Consciences vary indefinitely. Some we set down as hopelessly below the average; others we reverence as refined and enlightened. The social worker makes it his aim to "awaken"

conscience, to cultivate it, to bring it up to a high standard. No practical moralist regards the conscience of the individual as something which must simply be left to itself and treated as sacred, no matter what its character.

(5) The above sufficiently explains some of the puzzles which confront the man who reverences conscience and yet studies the consciences of his fellow-men. He finds that the individual conscience is not an infallible guide-post pointing to right action; that it is not a perfect time- keeper, in complete accord with the watches of other men.

"It's a turrible thing to have killed the wrong man," said the conscience-stricken illicit distiller in his mountain fastness. "I never seen good come o' goodness yet; him as strikes first is my fancy," said the dying pirate in "Treasure Island." Augustine, pa.s.sing over much worse offences, exhausts himself in agonies of remorse over a boyish prank.

[Footnote: See chapter xx, Sec 78.] Seneca draws up a list of the most horrifying crimes, and decides that ingrat.i.tude exceeds them all in enormity. [Footnote: _On Benefits_, i, 10.]

(6) It appears to be quite evident that consciences ought to be standardized, and that the standard should be made a high one. The true standard is the one set by the Rational Social Will. It is as much a duty to have a good conscience as it is to obey the conscience one has.