A Handbook of Ethical Theory Part 25

Read Slatin's fascinating book, "Fire and Sword in the Soudan,"--it is better than any novel,--and ask yourself what becomes of the social will or of rationality of any sort under the rule of a Mahdi. Is it not the duty of the nations to combine and to relieve suffering humanity?

(7) There are theorists who maintain that, in the nature of things, the soil belongs to n.o.body. We find, in the actual state of things, it usually belongs to somebody, unless it is so poor that it is not worth owning at all. But it may belong to somebody who can make little more use of it than an infant can of a gold watch. A handful of Indians, wandering over a great tract of country in which they chase game in the intervals of time during which they chase and scalp one another, may have an immemorial, although unrecorded, t.i.tle to the land.

Shall they be permitted to keep back settlers from more or less civilized and densely populated countries? Settlers eager to cultivate the land and to make it support many, where before it supported few, and supported those few miserably?

And shall the natural resources of great regions of the earth be permitted to lie fallow merely because the actual inhabitants are too ignorant and too indolent to want to produce anything and to trade? He who finds his happiness in idleness, bananas, and black wives who can be beaten with impunity, has little interest in international traffic, with such blessings as it is supposed to bring.

The world is filling up. The losses due to war and pestilence, said no less an authority than Darwin, are soon made up. There is something terrifying in what the very modern science of geography has to tell us about the rapidity with which the remaining part of the earth's surface, available for the nourishment of man, is being exhausted. What problems will face the Rational Social Will in the none too distant future?

162. THE OTHER SIDE OF THE s.h.i.+ELD.--We have seen that something can be said for the philosopher. The Rational Social Will does not appear to give carte blanche to the man who wishes to remain ignorant, idle, cut off from the family of the nations, the possessor of great tracts of land which he will not develop, the cruel oppressor of such as he finds within his power. It tends to deal with him, wherever it finds him, as an enlightened nation treats the idle, the vicious and the irresponsible within its own borders.

Undoubtedly civilization has made some advance in the course of the centuries. When the world is at peace, the stranger is not normally an outlaw. I have sojourned in the cities of many of the nations of Europe and have made excursions into Africa and Asia. Nowhere have I been compelled to ask for the protection of an American consul. It has been recognized that I had rights, although an American. And the ability to sign my name has procured me a supply of money.

Notwithstanding all this, it is depressing to read of the dealings of the nations with each other, and with backward peoples--who have been well defined as peoples who possess gold-mines, but no efficient navy. Is it not generally taken for granted that it is the duty of more powerful and more enlightened nations to take the backward nations in hand, to exploit their resources, and, incidentally, to exploit _them_?

Not that international law has not counted for something. To be sure Hegel reduced it to the level of "a good intention," [Footnote: _The Philosophy of Right_, Sec Sec 330-333.] but it has counted for something.

Descartes and Spinoza could, with impunity, be heretics in little Holland. Switzerland has for centuries been the refuge of the oppressed.

But we cannot forget that our highest authority, Captain Mahan, declared, in 1889, that certain rights of neutrals were "forever secured,"

[Footnote: _The Influence of Sea Power upon History_, Boston, 1908, chapter ii, p. 84.] and he has since stood revealed as a false prophet, a mere man making a guess. International law is a capital thing--when it is not put under a strain, and when no nation is too powerful.

The depressing thing is that rapacity and oppression become glorified, when the cloak of patriotism is thrown over their shoulders. I drew my ill.u.s.trations in the last section from wild Indians and from African savages. But there are nations in all stages of their development. How "backward" must a nation be to give us the right to rule over it by force? No people were more ingenious than the ancient Romans in finding plausible reasons for the wars which it pleased them to wage. This has never been a lost art. Men's enemies are, like the absent, always in the wrong; and those are apt to become enemies, in whose defeat some substantial advantage is to be looked for.

163. THE SOLUTION.--The very t.i.tle seems a presumption. Who may dogmatize in matters so involved? I make no pretentions to giving a clear vision of "yonder s.h.i.+ning light," but I venture to hint at the general direction in which one is to seek the little wicket gate.

The only ethical solution of our problem appears to lie in the frank recognition of the fact that the groups of men, called nations, may be as brutal egoists as are individual persons, and in the earnest attempt to avoid the baleful influence of such egoism.

Man _is_ his brother's keeper. But that does not give him the right to keep his brother in chains, nor to use him for selfish ends. This is as true of nations as it is of individuals, of families, of religious orders, or of unions, whether of employers or of employees.

It is certainly true of nations. It is only as having a place in, and as being an instrument of, the great organism of humanity aimed at by the Rational Social Will, that the individual, the family, the tribe, the nation, have any ethical justification for being at all. Sometimes it is very profitable for the individual, or for some group of human beings, to disallow this obligation to be moral. We treat the individual as a robber; why not admit that there are robber nations?

I feel like reiterating that it is a great thing to be young; to live in that Golden Age in which one still believes what one sees in print, and still is moved by the honeyed words of statesmen. When one is old, and has enjoyed some breadth of culture, one has read the newspapers of many lands, and has met a certain number of statesmen, usually with a start of surprise.

It is borne in upon one--a matter touched upon in the last chapter--that it appears to be generally accepted that the state and its representatives may adopt a peculiar variety of ethics. Certainly statesmen feel justified in doing for their country what they, as gentlemen, would never dream of doing for themselves. They talk of justice, when they would scoff at such justice within the borders of their own states; they talk of humanity, and they have in mind the economic advantage of their own peoples; they speak of protection and Christianization, when they mean economic exploitation or strategic superiority. As for truth, the less said about that subject the better.

I know of only one way in which the determination of a nation to aid in the general realization of the Rational Social Will can be tested. Does it, in dealing with other nations, civilized or backward, propose what is palpably to its own advantage, or is it evidently disinterested? It is thus that we judge a man, when we wish to fix his ethical status; it is thus that the Rational Social Will judges a nation. The language in which the proposals are made is a matter of no moment. It may fairly be called professional slang, and can quickly be acquired, even by men of mediocre intelligence, in any diplomatic circle.

164. THE NECESSITY FOR CAUTION.--Shall a man, then, eschew patriotism, and become a citizen of the world, as though he were a Stoic philosopher?

By no means. As well eschew the family or the neighborhood. But let him not, in his patriotism, forget that he is a man. Here, as everywhere, he is called upon to exercise judgment. This is a burden which he can never throw off. He must pay the penalty of being a rational human being. As an instrument of the Rational Social Will the state must be kept up. It is his duty to see that it is done. His cat has an easier task; she may sleep her life away in peace.

We hear much of the brotherhood of man and of artificial barriers. The barriers are not all artificial, and they cannot be swept away with a gesture.

Races and peoples are formed upon the model of their own immemorial past.

They have their inst.i.tutions, their traditions, their loyalties, their standards of living. What is tolerable to one man is wholly intolerable to another. To compel men to live together in intimacy, when centuries of training have made them antipathetic, is sheer cruelty.

Men may be brothers, but there are big brothers and little brothers. I do not refer to physical bulk. I refer to the development of intelligence, to the degree and kind of culture, which has been attained. There are little brothers still at the stage of development at which it is natural for human beings to drool. Shall we have them sit up to the table and serve them with the complete dinner, enlivening it with intellectual conversation?

Between incontinently doing this, and relegating the little brothers to a nursery where they will be treated with cruelty and starved in our interests, some persons seem to think there is no middle course. In their enthusiasm for humanity, they forget that the brotherhood of man may be made as ridiculous as the eight-hour day. Between eight hours of the creative work of a Milton and eight hours of the dawdling done by a lazy housemaid, there is no relation save that both may be measured by a clock.

These enthusiasts forget much. Men are not alike; they do not want to be alike; they do not want to live together in close intimacy, when they have little in common; they reverence different things; as a rule, they would rather be somewhat unhappy after their own fas.h.i.+on, than be happy under compulsion, after the fas.h.i.+on of someone else.

We have, thus, on the one hand, the enthusiasts who would at once sound the trump and announce the millenium, feeding the lion and the sucking calf out of the same dish and on the same meat. We have, on the other, those who are eager to take on their shoulders the white man's burden--to enclose in a coop, as if they were chickens, the greater part of the human race, allaying the discontent of the imprisoned by pointing out to them that, although their freedom of movement is limited, they are growing fat, and that they should show their grat.i.tude by laying eggs.

Surely, there must be some middle course. Patience and caution are virtues. Surely, it is possible to accept the existing organism of society, to love one's country, and yet to strive to respect the freedom of others. It is not easy for a true patriot to do this, but it seems to be what the Rational Social Will demands of him.

The moralist who reads history carefully is not wholly discouraged. He may look forward to some time, in the more or less distant future, when there may be a union of the nations in the interests of all men; when the gross egoism of the hypertrophied patriot may be curbed; when the mellifluous language of the statesman may mean more than did the pious letter which Nero wrote to the Roman Senate, after he had murdered his mother.

CHAPTER x.x.xVI

ETHICS AND OTHER DISCIPLINES

165. SCIENCES THAT CONCERN THE MORALIST.--There are certain sciences that the Moralist must lay under contribution very directly, and yet he seems to be able to make little return to those who cultivate them, at least in their professional capacity.

He must ask aid from the biologist, the psychologist, the anthropologist.

They help him to a comprehension of what man is; and, hence, of what it is desirable that man should strive to do. But these men seldom come to the moralist for advice. They appear to be able to work without his help.

There are, however, other sciences in which the moralist feels that he has more of a right to meddle, however independent they may regard themselves.

Take, for example, politics or economics, or the very modern and rudimentary science of eugenics. The man who cultivates political science may know much more than do most moralists about states and their forms of organization; about legislative, executive and judicial functions; about the probable effects of the centralization or decentralization of authority; about what may be expected, in a given case, from a restriction or extension of the franchise; about the creation and maintenance of a military establishment and the building up of an efficient civil service. The economist may be a monster of learning and a master in ingenuity on all problems touching the creation and distribution of wealth.

But the political scientist and the economist, however able, share our common humanity. A man's outlook is more or less apt to be bounded by the limits of the science of his predilection. The several sciences, broader or more specialized, rest, in the minds of most men, upon foundations which are taken for granted. It is too much to expect that every sermon should begin as far back as the Garden of Eden. "Practical" politics and economics do not, as a rule, go so far back.

The transition from practical politics and economics to ethical problems may be made at any time. No man was shrewder than Machiavelli, and the moral sense of mankind has rebelled against him and made him a byword. A state, desirous of maintaining itself, may palpably violate in its inst.i.tutions, inherited from the past, a social will grown more rational, more conscious of its rights and more articulate. Then the appeal is made to right and justice in other than the traditional forms. It may, in a given instance, be wrong to create wealth; existing forms of its distribution may be iniquitous. The ultimate arbiter in all such matters must be the Ethical Man.

Human society is indefinitely complex. Many specialists must occupy themselves with its problems. A technical question in this field may always be carried over to moral ground. He who undertakes to make this transition without having made a fairly thorough study of ethics appears to be working in the dark. His a.s.sumptions have been questioned, or have been abandoned. Who shall furnish him with a new basis for his special science?

Ethics is a basal science. It justifies, or it refuses to justify, those specialists who concern themselves with men in societies. It is a very old science and has interested men vastly. I have spoken above of eugenics as a new science. Only in its modern form is it new. Plato cultivated it intemperately when he wrote his "Republic"--but he saw that his "Republic" would not do, and he wrote his "Laws." He stood condemned by Ethics.

Usually men who occupy themselves seriously, and in a broad way, with man in society, have adopted, consciously or unconsciously, some ethical doctrine. But this is often done without due consideration, and without a sufficient knowledge of what has been said by the great thinkers of the past. It is for this reason that I have treated at such length in this volume of the schools of the moralists.

166. ETHICS AND PHILOSOPHY.--It should be observed that in developing the Ethics of the Rational Social Will, or the Ethics of Reason--the doctrine advocated in this volume--I have not depended upon a particular philosophy.

I see no reason why a Realist or an Idealist, a Monist or a Dualist, one who holds to an immediate perception of an external world or one who regards our acquaintance with it as a matter of inference, should refuse to go with me so far. Nor do I see any reason why a believer in G.o.d, one who bows at the shrine of Mind-Stuff, or one who refuses to commit himself at all upon such matters, should enter a demurrer. The Parallelist and the Interactionist, however widely they differ touching the relation of mind and body, may here fall upon one another's necks and shed tears of brotherly affection.

That it is proper for the philosopher to interest himself in ethics, I have maintained. [Footnote: See chapter vi, Sec 18.] He is supposed to be a critical and reflective man, and to take broad views of human affairs.

Such views are needed when one comes to the study of ethics.

I am forced to admit that some philosophers, when they have written on ethical subjects, have said certain things to which the critical moralist cannot readily a.s.sent. He who maintains that certain human intuitions-- which it may even appear impossible to reconcile with each other--are inexplicably and infallibly authoritative, seems to leave us without so much as the hope of ever attaining to ultimate rationality. [Footnote: See chapter xxiii.]

And there are philosophers who would persuade us that, unless we accept all the religious or theological doctrines which have appeared to them acceptable, we rob man of every incentive for being moral at all. If G.o.d is not going to repay him with interest for the pains which he gives himself, does he not play the part of a dupe in being good? We have seen that this was palpably the position of Paley. [Footnote: Chapter xxiv, Sec 96.] If G.o.d will not reconcile, ultimately, benevolence and self- interest, proclaimed Reid, man "is reduced to this miserable dilemma, whether it is best to be a fool or a knave." [Footnote: _Essays on the Active Powers of Man_, Essay III, Part III, chapter viii. It would be absurd to believe that either Paley or Reid lived down to the level of his doctrine. Both were very decent men, and capable of disinterestedness.] Some of the utterances of Kant and of Green seem to point in the same direction, but both have made it abundantly plain that they, personally, and whatever their intellectual perplexities, were moved by something much higher than egoism. [Footnote: See chapters xxiv, Sec 97; xxvi, 3; and xxix.]

I mean to say very little about philosophy in this volume. I wish to keep to ethics, a science old enough and strong enough to stand upon its own feet. But it would be wrong not to underline one or two points in this connection, if only to obviate misunderstanding:

(1) There is nothing wrong in a man's wis.h.i.+ng to earn the heaven in which he believes. It is not wrong for him to wish to be happy on earth and in the body. But if the desire for his own happiness, either here or hereafter, is the _only_ motive that can move him, he is not a good man. Prudence may be a virtue, generally speaking; but it is no subst.i.tute for benevolence. The man who is _only_ prudent is no fit member of any society of rational beings anywhere.

(2) Men are often better than their words would indicate. Paley talks as if he were a cad; Reid flounders; Kant, n.o.ble as are many of his utterances, sometimes gives forth an uncertain sound. Yet no one of these men was personally selfish.