A Handbook of Ethical Theory Part 27

One truth has been seen, but has not another been treated with some injustice? Is it not inevitable that reflective men, who cherish beliefs, should endeavor to give a more or less clear and reasoned account of them? What degree of success is to be looked for, and what emphasis should be laid upon such attempts, are questions which will probably divide men for a long time to come.

(2) Hence, I do not advocate Pragmatism at all, but I agree with it in so far, at least, as to recognize that belief is a phenomenon which concerns the will. That it is so is a commonplace of psychology; and it was recognized dimly long before the psychologist, as such, came into being.

That it is so is rather readily overlooked where the evidence for certain beliefs is undeniable and overpowering. I seem forced to believe that I am now writing. I do not seem forced in a similar manner to accept a particular metaphysical doctrine or a given system of theological dogma.

Intelligent men appear to be able to discuss such matters with each other and to agree to disagree. If they are tolerant, they can do this good- temperedly. It is worth while to keep several points clearly in mind:

(a) Beliefs are not a matter of indifference. Some evidently lead to palpable and speedy disaster. If I elect to believe that I can fly, and leave my window-sill as lightly as does the sparrow I now see there, it is time for my friends to provide me with an attendant.

Other beliefs are not of this character. And that they will lead to ultimate disaster of any sort to myself or to others seems highly disputable.

(b) What may be called scientific evidence may be adduced for different beliefs with varying degrees of cogency. Hegel tries to distinguish between the authority of the state and that of the church by attributing to the former something like infallibility. He maintains that religion "believes," but that the state "knows." [Footnote: The Philosophy of Right, Sec 270.]

We have had abundant reason to see that the state does not _know_, but _believes_, and that it is very often mistaken in its beliefs.

Nevertheless, it does its best to keep order, to be as rational as it can, and to look a little way ahead. I think it ought to be admitted that it concerns itself with matters more _terre-a-terre_ than does the church; and that it ought not to be taken as a general truth that the state should take its orders from the church. It has to do with matters which, like our daily bread, must be a.s.sured, if certain other matters are to be considered at all. In so far Hegel was right. There are those who forget this, and talk as if metaphysical systems and religious beliefs should be forced upon men in spite of themselves, either by sheer force of windpower or with the aid of the police.

To this it may be added that beliefs range from an unshakable and unthinking conviction to that degree of acquiescence which can scarcely be distinguished from mere loyalty. It remains to be proved that the latter may not come under the head of belief, and is something to be condemned. [Footnote: More than thirty years ago, while I was the guest of Henry Sidgwick at Cambridge, England, I asked him how it was that he, the President of the British Society for Psychical Research, had never, in his presidential addresses, expressed a belief in the phenomena investigated. He answered that if the word "belief" were taken broadly enough to express a willingness to look into things, he might be said to believe. No more candid soul ever breathed.]

(c) Beliefs, being phenomena which concern the will, are at the mercy of many influences. Is there any scientific evidence open to the parallelist in psychology which is not also open to the interactionist? Is the conviction that one's country is in the right a mere matter of scientific evidence? Are the enlightened adherents of a given sect wholly ignorant of the tenets and of the arguments of another?

I maintain that tradition and loyalty have their claims. They are not the only claims that can be made, but they are worthy of serious consideration. Man is man, whether he is dealing with things secular or with things religious.

To see that such claims are recognized everywhere we have only to open our eyes. It is absurd to believe that all the adherents of a political party are influenced only by the logical arguments published in the newspapers. A newspaper that lived on logic alone would starve to death.

It is ridiculous to believe that all the members of a church are induced to become such only by the arguments of the theologians, many of which arguments the ma.s.s of the members are not in a position to comprehend at all.

And learned men are men, too. The philosopher who really kept himself free from all prepossessions would, if he did much serious reading, probably epitomize in his own person a large part of the history of philosophy, falling out of one system and into another, like an acrobat.

But he is usually caught young and influenced by some teacher, or he is carried away by some book or by the spirit of the times. As he is not an abnormal creature, he acts like other men, becoming an adherent of a school, or, if he is ambitious, starting one.

(d) We have seen that the individual has duties toward the state. We have also seen that the state has duties toward the individual. The state should not make it practically impossible for him to be a loyal citizen.

A somewhat similar duty appears to be inc.u.mbent upon the church.

A church that forces upon all of its members, as a condition of members.h.i.+p, intricate and abstract systems of metaphysics; a church that does not teach good-will toward men, but makes walls of separation out of slight differences of opinion; a church that lags behind the moral sense of the community in which it finds itself; a church that starves the religious life; these, and such as these, must expect to lose adherents.

It is not that men reject them; it is that they reject men.

Those who read history have no reason to think that men, except here and there and under exceptional circ.u.mstances, will cease to regard religious duties as duties. I have not ventured to offer any detailed solution of the problem of loyalty to the church. But neither have I ventured to offer any detailed solution of the problem of loyalty to the state. In the one case, as in the other, I suggest as guides tradition, intuition and reflective reasoning. I can only counsel good sense and some degree of patience. It may be said: You do not solve the difficulty for the individual. I admit it. Such difficulties every thinking man must meet and solve for himself.

169. THE LAST WORD.--Those persons, whether students, or teachers, who dislike this final chapter, may omit it, without detriment to the rest of the book. The doctrine of the Rational Social Will is not founded upon this chapter. The latter is a mere appendix.

I regret that, in a work in which I have wished to avoid disputation, I have felt compelled to touch upon religious duties at all. But they have played, and still play, so significant a role in the history of mankind, that the omission could scarcely have been made. You are free to take them or leave them; but you are not free to take or leave the Rational Social Will as the Moral Arbiter of the Destinies of Man.

NOTES

1. CHAPTERS I TO III.--The notes in a book of any sort are rarely read, except by a few specialists, and by them not seldom with a view to refuting the author. I shall make the following as brief as I may. But I do wish to give some of my readers--all will not be equally learned--an opportunity to get acquainted with a few books better than this one. This first note is not addressed to the learned, and some will find it superfluous.

I intend to mention here a handful of books which any cultivated man may read with profit, and re-read with profit, if he has already read them.

They can be collected gradually at a relatively slight expense, and it is a pleasure to have them in one's library. The list may easily be bettered, and may be indefinitely lengthened. I mention only books for those who are accustomed to do their reading in English.

It is hardly necessary to say that I do not advise all this reading in connection with the first three chapters of this book. But, as those chapters are concerned with the accepted content of morals as recognized by individuals and communities, I have a good excuse for bringing the list in here. Many other good books, not in the list, are referred to later in the volume, in other chapters.

It is very convenient to have within one's reach some such book as Sidgwick's _History of Ethics_. The only fault to find with Sidgwick is that he has made his book too short, and has not given enough references. But he is admirably fair and sympathetic, as well as clear and interesting.

He, who would dip more deeply into the Greek moralists, can read the accounts of the ancient egoists, Aristippus and Epicurus, in the _Lives of the Philosophers_ by that entertaining old gossip, Diogenes Laertius. The translation in Bohn's edition will serve the purpose.

As for the greatest of the Greeks--a keen pleasure, intellectual and aesthetic, awaits the man who turns to Plato's _Republic_ and his _Laws_. Jowett's great translation is in every public library. And we must read Aristotle's _Nichomachean Ethics_ and his _Politics_.

Here little attention is given to artistic form; but the preternatural acuteness of the man is overpowering. If we would understand some of the reasons which induced Plato and Aristotle to write of the state as they did, we can turn to chapter xiv of Grote's _Aristotle_.

With certain later cla.s.sical moralists most of us are more or less familiar. Seneca, in his work _On Benefits_, gives a good picture of the moral emotions and judgments of an enlightened man of his time. He was a great favorite with Christian writers later. Cicero's work, _De Officiis--On Duties_--it is best known under the Latin t.i.tle, is very clear and very clever. It is, in its last half, full of "cases of conscience." I venture to suggest to the teacher of undergraduates who find ethics a dry subject, that he give them a handful of Cicero's "cases" to quarrel over. Doing just this has brought about something resembling civil war in certain cla.s.ses of my undergraduates. It has done them good, and it has vastly entertained me. But each teacher must follow his own methods. We can none of us dictate.

How many of us have drawn inspiration from the n.o.ble reflections contained in the _Thoughts_ of Marcus Aurelius and in the _Discourses_ of Epictetus, those great Stoics! The unadorned translations of George Long will serve to introduce us to these.

To get a good idea of how the moral world revealed itself to a Father of the Church in the fifth century, we have only to turn to that most fascinating of autobiographies, the _Confessions_ of St. Augustine.

His _City of G.o.d_ is too long, though interesting. Augustine's thought influenced the world for centuries. Then we may take a long jump and come down to St. Thomas, the great Scholastic of the thirteenth century. To get acquainted with him, we may turn to the English versions by Rickaby, _Aquinas Ethicus_. Those of us who are smugly satisfied at belonging to the twentieth century must remind ourselves that there were great men in the thirteenth, and that many among our contemporaries are still listening to them. We Protestant teachers of philosophy are sometimes in danger of forgetting this. A strictly fresh century and a strictly fresh egg cannot claim to be precisely on a par.

I do not think that I shall add the modern moralists to this list. There are a great many of them, and many of them are very good. But they are discussed at length in Part VII, which deals with the schools of the moralists. Citations and references are there given. I think, however, that I ought to add here that I should regard an ethical collection incomplete that did not include at least one of the comprehensive works on morals lately offered us by certain sociologists. Westermarck's wonderful book--a mine of information--on _The Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas_, or the admirable book by Hobhouse, _Morals in Evolution_, will serve to fill the gap.

Information regarding editions of all the books I have mentioned can be had in most public libraries, or from any good publisher and book-seller.

As for the reading to accompany these Chapters, I-III, I suggest looking over the chapters by Westermarck and Hobhouse, indicated in foot-notes.

He who would realize how men have differed in their moral outlook on life might read the lives of Aristippus, Epicurus and Zeno, in Diogenes Laertius; or follow the account, in Sidgwick's _History of Ethics_, of Aristotle's teaching, as compared with the ethics of the Church.

2. Chapters IV to VII.--These chapters on ethics as science and on ethical method do not appear to me to call for extensive notes. Several foot-notes are given which might be followed up. I think it would be a very good thing for the student to read chapters i and vi in Sidgwick's admirable work, The _Methods of Ethics_.

3. Chapters VIII to X.--To undertake to give any adequate list of references on the chapters which treat of man's nature and of his material and social environment would take us quite too far afield. I merely suggest looking up the articles on "Anthropology" and "Sociology"

in the _Encyclopedia Britannica._ References are given there. And one should not overlook Darwin's great book on _The Descent of Man_.

It will never be rendered superfluous, although the men of our day criticize it in detail. A recent work of value is "Heredity and Environment in the Development of Men," by Professor Edwin Grant Conklin, 1918.

4. Chapters XI to XVI.--Here my notes must be somewhat more detailed, for we are on quite debatable ground. At any rate, there is much dispute, between men of unquestionable ability, on the one side and on the other.

I may be pardoned for thinking that the general argument of these chapters is reasonable and sound.

In commenting upon Chapter XI, I suggest that the reader look up what Hobhouse has to say on impulse, desire and will, in his volume, _Morals in Evolution_; also that he consult the same topics in James'

_Psychology_. McDougall's _Social Psychology_ might be read with much profit.

Some admirable writers have a repugnance to using the word "volition" in speaking of the brutes. I cannot help thinking that this is a dispute touching the proper use of a word, rather than that any important distinction in _kind_ is marked. Some human volitions stand out very clearly as such. There are free ideas present, there is the tension of desires, there is deliberation, and there is clearly conscious choice, or the final release of tension. But how many of the decisions--I see no objection to the word,--which we make during the course of a day, are of this character! It would be difficult to set a lower limit to volition.

Muirhead, who writes, in his _Elements of Ethics_, clearly and well of desires, emphasizing the presence of "tensions," follows the Neo- Hegelian tradition in speaking of will. He describes it as the act by which the attention is concentrated upon one object of desire, and he calls the act of choice the _identifying of oneself_ with one object or line of action.

Naturally, it is not easy to think of the bee or the ant or the spider, perhaps not even of the cat or dog, as "identifying itself" with some object of desire. I suggest that the reader, after a perusal of Muirhead, reflect upon what Hobhouse has to say of the lower animals; or that he look up Miss Washburn's book on _The Animal Mind_, (second edition, 1918), where a really serious study of the brute is undertaken.

On Chapter XII, I find no comment necessary. As to Chapter XIII, I recommend to the reader a reading or re-reading of the fascinating pages in which James treats of instinct in his _Psychology_. And let him look up the same subject in McDougall's _Social Psychology_. At the same time, I enter a note of warning against reading even such good writers uncritically. There is no little dispute in this field. Dr. H. R.

Marshall's volume _Mind and Conduct_ gives an unusually thoughtful account of instinct (N. Y., 1919).

Comment on Chapter XIV is not imperatively necessary. But I must speak with detail of Chapter XV, for the best of men quarrel when they come upon this ground:

Sec 49. The psychologist takes into his mouth no word more ambiguous than "feeling." It may be used to indicate any mental content whatever--John Stuart Mill could speak of consciousness as composed of a string of feelings. Herbert Spencer divided conscious processes into "feelings" and "relations between feelings." James obliterates the distinction, and finds it possible to speak of "a feeling of _and_, a feeling of _if_, a feeling of _but_," etc. (_Psychology_ I, p. 154, ff.).