Problems of Conduct: An Introductory Survey of Ethics Part 3

(2) We may make special mention of the love of power over others, which has been one of the deep roots of the perpetual internecine struggles of man. There is a need of leaders.h.i.+p in every group; and this need is felt more and more keenly as the groups increase in size. At first the authority of the elders suffices, or of strong men who push to the fore at times of crisis, as in the case of the so called judges, the military dictators, as we might better call them, of early Israel.

But as Israel, grown in numbers, and feeling the need of greater unity and readiness, clamored for a king, so generally, at a certain stage of culture, permanent chiefs of some sort become necessary. Now the chief, enjoying his sense of power, usually imposed his will upon the people; his individuality, at least, had more or less free play. And thus, through the changing decrees of successive rulers, all sorts of varying standards became realized, and the rigidity of early custom was steadily loosened.

(3) In the hunting stage of primitive life, and even in the pastoral stage, there was little private property, and hence little opportunity for the development of the acquisitive instinct. But with the transition to an agricultural life, and still more with the growth of commerce and the arts, private acc.u.mulation became possible.

Individual initiative began to pay; the smarter and more ingenious could outstrip their fellows by breaking through the crust of custom, while those who were hidebound by a conventional conscience were at a disadvantage. To a large extent this lawlessness or innovation in conduct came into conflict with the individual's conscience. But the question "Why not?" would at once arise; if possible, a man would justify his act to himself. And to some degree those new ways of acting would swing conscience over to their side.

(4) In earliest times each tribe lived, very, much to itself and developed its own morals, under the stress of similar forces, but without much influence from the experience of other groups. It was thus exceedingly difficult for it to conceive of any other ways of doing things; the ancestral customs were accepted as inevitable, like the sun and the rain. Inter-tribal conflicts first gave, perhaps, a vantage point for mutual criticism. A clan that by some custom had an obvious advantage over its neighbors would naturally be imitated as soon as men became quick-witted enough to understand its superiority.

The taking of prisoners, the exchange of hostages or envoys, friendly missions and journeys, would give insight into one another's life.

With the development of commerce, this mutual criticism of morals would be greatly accelerated. So the authority of local conventions and standards would be discredited, custom would become more fluid, and individual judgment find freer play. Especially would the more observant, the more traveled, the more reflective, tend to vary from the ideals of their neighbors.

(5) In various other ways, apart from the mutual influence of divergent group-customs, the progress of civilization tends to produce variations in ideals. The increase of knowledge, the development of science and philosophy, bring floods of new ideas to burst the old dams; deepening insight reveals the irrationality of old ideas to the leaders of thought. The progress of the arts gives new interests and valuations.

The spiritual seers and prophets see visions of a better order and proclaim new gospels. The development of cla.s.ses and castes allows to the aristocracy more leisure to think and criticize; the inst.i.tution of slavery, in particular, produced a cla.s.s of slave-owners with ample time to dissect their inherited conceptions.

(6) Finally, where, under favoring conditions, the danger of war in which man has for the most part lived became less acute, custom generally grew laxer. It is the imperious necessity of selfpreservation that has been the greatest conservative force; warlike states have demanded strict allegiance and looked with suspicion upon deviations from the group ideals. But peoples that, whether from a fortunate geographical situation or because of their marked superiority in numbers and power over their neighbors have escaped this need of perpetual self-defense could afford to relax their vigilance for conformity. And the very notable increase in individual variations in conduct and ideal during the past century has been largely owing to the era of comparative peace. We seem to be reaching the age when the advantage is to lie not with the nation that has the most rigid customs, but with the nation that shows the most individual initiative and progress.

Conservatism vs. radicalism

We have become forever emanc.i.p.ated from the tyranny of custom morality under which the majority of men have lived. Legislation is, to be sure, continually on the increase, shutting men out from the ever-new ways they discover to prey upon their fellows. But nevertheless, the freedom with which men may now live their own lives according to their own ideas is almost a new phenomenon upon the earth. When we compare the free range that our individuality has with the tyranny of public opinion even so recently as the lifetime of our Puritan grandparents, when we see the new experiments in personal life and social legislation which are being tried on every hand, when we read a few of the thousands of books and magazines and newspapers that are pouring a continual flood of new ideas into the world, we must realize the immense change from the stereotyped customs of nearly all past epochs.

In each of our forty eight States different codes are showing their relative advantages; here woman's suffrage is on trial, there the initiative and referendum, there the recall. Almost every sort of possible marriage law, it would seem, is being tried somewhere. It is a time of moral confusion, of the unsettling of old conceptions and a groping, stumbling progress toward the new.

In such a situation it is no wonder that we have two types of thought, two sets of forces, at work. On the one hand we have the conservatives, the "stand-patters," the maintainers of the existing order; on the other hand are the progressives, the radicals, the reformers of the existing order. For the former the moral standards of their particular age and country tend to have an absolute and unconditional worth, which must not be criticized or questioned. The necessity of allegiance to morality has been so deeply stamped upon their minds that it has become a loyalty to the particular brand of morality they have grown up in, however flagrantly inadequate or tyrannous it may be. For the latter a commendable impatience with the imperfect is apt to foster a blindness to the value that almost always lies in ancient customs and a lack of regard for the need of stability and common agreement on some plane.

These iconoclasts, vociferous in condemnation, are often most empty handed, giving us nothing wiser or more advantageous wherewith to replace the conventions they discard. So it is difficult to say whether humanity is more in danger from the red-handed radicalism which destroys the precious fruit of long experience, or from the obstinate obstructionists who by the dead weight of their apathy or the positive pull-back of their antagonism delay the remedying of existing evils.

The ideal lies in keeping morality plastic while giving its approved forms our hearty allegiance. Widely different ideals are theoretically conceivable; but we live in a specific time and place and must defer to the code of our fellows; it is along these lines, and by gradual steps, that progress must be made. We must be on the alert for new suggestions, but slow to tear down till we can build better. The greatest of prophets, keenly as he saw the flaws in existing standards, proclaimed that he came not to destroy but to fulfill. It is evident enough to the impartial observer that our present chaos and mutual antagonism of conflicting view-points is not ideal; we need to work out of this disorder into some sane and stable order; when we can find the best way of life we must discard these manifold variations, most of which are foolish and ill-advised. The undesirability of this contemporary disagreement, which in some matters amounts to almost a complete moral anarchy, is enough to explain the pull back of the conservatives. And it is precisely the purpose of such a volume as this to help in the crystallizing of definite and universally accepted moral principles for personal and social life. But, on the other hand, this temporary chaos is more pregnant with promise than the older blind acquiescence in full light of criticism and experiment to bear upon the laws and customs of the past.

"New occasions teach new duties, Time makes ancient good uncouth."

We should reverence the great seers and lawmakers of the past; but their true disciples are not those who slavishly accept their dicta, they are rather those who think for themselves, as they did, and contribute, as they did, toward the slow progress of man.

What are the dangers of conventional morality?

The reasons why we cannot be content with our fathers' conservatism in morals, and our fathers' custom-bound conscience, may be summarized as follows:

(1) Conventional morality is almost necessarily too general; it is not elastic enough to fit the infinite variations in specific cases, not detailed enough to fit all needs. It therefore often causes needless and cruel repression; the most sensitive and aspiring spirits have often revolted from the morality of their times because of its harshness. It is well for the marriage-tie to be binding; divorce has generally been deemed unchristian. But if this judgment is rigidly enforced, special cases arise, very piteous, very pathetic, crying out for a more discriminating rule. Our forebears, with their grave realization of the dangers of frivolousness, forbade by law and a stern public opinion many innocent and wholesome diversions. Such injustices are inevitable where custom has unchecked sway. The general aim and result may be very salutary, but the application is too sweeping, and brings suffering to many unfortunate individuals, or to the community as a whole, by its indiscrimination.

(2) But even in its general result custom may be harmful. Morals have developed blindly, as we have seen, through all sorts of irrational influences, swayed this way by cla.s.s interest, by rulers or priests, veered that way by superst.i.tion, pa.s.sion, and stupidity. Morality has not understood itself; and the natural forces which have developed it into its enormous usefulness have not always weeded out the baneful elements. The persecution of heretics was sheer mistake, but it was acceded to by practically the entire Church in the Middle Ages, and practiced with utter conscientiousness. The hostility of the Puritans to music and art was pure folly, though it seemed to them their grim duty.

(3) New situations are continually arising, new sins appearing.

Conventional morality, while sometimes over-severe against old and well-recognized sins, lags far behind in its branding of the newer forms. The evils arising from the modern congestion of population, the unscrupulousness of modern business, the selfishness of politicians, the servility of newspapers to the "interests" and to advertisers, for example, find too little reprobation in our established moral codes.

"Business is business" has been said by respectable church-members.

A successful American boss, when asked if he was not in politics for his pocketbook, said, "Of course! Aren't you?" with no sense of shame.

Probably he was very "moral" along the old lines, an excellent father, a kind husband, an agreeable neighbor; but his conventional code, shared by most of his contemporaries, did not include the reprobation of the practice of politics for private gain. In the upper cla.s.ses are many people who are "good" by the old standards, but who are unhelpful and trivial-minded, mere parasites devoted to sport or society, with never a qualm of conscience for their selfishness. The old standards need the constant infusion of new blood; our consciences need to be adjusted to our new relations and deeper insight. [Footnote: Cf. Rosa, Sin and Society, p. 14: "One might suppose that an exasperated public would sternly castigate these modern sins. But the fact is, the very qualities that lull the conscience of the sinner blind the eyes of the onlookers. People are sentimental; and bastinado wrongdoing not according to its harmfulness, but according to the infamy that has come to attach to it. Undiscerning, they chastise with scorpions the old authentic sins, but spare the new. They do not see that blackmail is piracy, that embezzlement is theft, that speculation is gambling that deleterious adulteration is murder. The cloven hoof hides in patent leather; and today, as in Hosea's time, the people 'are destroyed for lack of knowledge.'"]

(4) Custom-morality tends to literalism, a mere formal observance of law or custom without the true spirit of service, without any inward sweetness or power. Christ's condemnation of the Pharisees will occur to every one; the parable of the Pharisee and publican, and that of the widow's mite, among others, are cla.s.sic ill.u.s.trations of a cut-and dried formalism in morality. Such a legalism Paul found could not save him. And forever the prophets and spiritual leaders of men have had to burst the bonds of tradition to awaken a real love of and devotion to the good. The letter killeth, and a punctilious observance of rules may choke out the aspirations of the soul.

(5) Finally, conflicts between customs inevitably arise. Which shall a man obey? The moral perplexity thus caused gives a great deal of its poignancy to the tragedy of life. When one accepted ideal pulls us one way, and another standard, to which we have given allegiance, calls us the other, when we cry out with Desdemona, "I do perceive here a divided duty," the only solution lies in the development of insight and a recognition of the transition-nature of much of our accepted code. If for no other reason, to avoid these conflicts of ideals we must comprehend the ultimate aims of morality and take existing standards with a sort of tentative allegiance. It should be clear, then, that the individualizing of conscience, which has been going on observably in recent times, is, in spite of its dangers, a necessary and desirable process. Dewey and Tufts, ETHICS, chaps, V. IX. W. Bagehot, PHYSICS AND POLITICS, chaps. II, VI. F. Paulsen, SYSTEM OF ETHICS, part II, chap. V, sec. 6. S. E. Mezes, ETHICS, chap, VII, pp. 164-83.

J. H. Coffin, THE SOCIALIZED CONSCIENCE, pp. 12-23.

CHAPTER VI

CAN WE BASE MORALITY UPON CONSCIENCE?

What is the meaning of "moral intuitionism"?

With the growth of individualism in morals, the relaxing of the constraint of publicly accepted standards, there is, of course, a dangerous drift toward self-indulgence and moral nihilism. It becomes all the more necessary that conscience be strong and sensitive, that inner restraints take the place of outer. In the lack of a mature moral insight, which is one of the latest of mental developments, and indeed, where it exists, to reinforce its pale affirmations with greater impulsive power, a stern sense of duty is a veritable rock of salvation. Many a people have perished, many a brilliant hope of civilization been lost, because of its lack. So we cannot wonder when moralists put it forward as the foundation- stone of all morality and seek to build their systems upon it. To a man who has been bred to obey the inner voice, it seems the very source and basis of the right; it is so inescapable, so authoritative, that it cannot be deemed derived, or evolved by a mechanical process of selection. It figures as something ultimate and una.n.a.lyzable, if not frankly supernatural; that it is a mere instrument in the attainment of an ulterior end, to be used or rejected according to its observed usefulness is an abhorrent thought.

There has thus arisen a school of philosophers who base their justification of morality entirely upon the deliverances of conscience.

Their theories vary in detail and have received sundry names; we will group them here for convenience under the general caption "moral intuitionism." As a rule they steer clear of the historic point of view; they refuse to believe that conscience has a natural history.

Nor are they usually keen at psychological a.n.a.lysis; the numberless variations in form which conscience a.s.sumes in different individuals are, for their purposes, better ignored. Instead of a.n.a.lyzing the moral sense into its components and describing the mental stuff of which it is composed, instead of tracing its genesis and studying the forces that have produced it, they wax eloquent over its importance and universality. As preachers they are admirable. But the foundation they provide for morality is slippery. It amounts to saying, "We ought to do right because we know we ought!" When we ask how we can be sure, in view of the general fallibility of human conviction, that we are not mistaken in our a.s.surance, and following a false light, they can but reiterate in altered phraseology that we know because we know.

To these intuitionists, and to the popular mind very often, the approval or disapproval of conscience is immediate, intuitive, and unerring. Its authority is absolute and not to be questioned. We have this faculty within us that tells us as surely what is right and what wrong as our color-sense tells us what is red and what green. Some people may, to be sure, be color-blind, or have defective consciences; but the great ma.s.s of unsophisticated people possess this innate guide and commandment, a quite sufficient warrant for all our distinctions of good and evil. Honest men do not really differ in their moral judgments. They may misunderstand one another's concepts and engage in verbal disputes; but at bottom their moral sense approves and disapproves the same acts. Our moral differences come mainly from the deluding effects of pa.s.sion and the sophisticated ingenuities of the intellect. We should "return to nature," go by ourselves alone, and listen to the inner voice. If we sincerely listen and obey we shall always do right. [Footnote: "But truth and right, founded in the eternal and, is what every man can judge of, when laid before him.

'T is necessarily one and the same to every man's understanding, just as light is the same, to every man's eyes." (S. Clarke, Discourse upon Natural Religion, 1706.)]

We cannot but recognize a certain amount of practical truth in this picture. But it is over-simplified, and it is fundamentally unsatisfactory to the intellect. We shall now pa.s.s in review its most obvious inadequacies.

Do the deliverances of different people's consciences agree?

Nothing is more notorious to an unbiased observer than the conscientious differences between men. Even among members of a single community, with closely similar inheritance and environment, we find marked divergence in moral judgment. And when we compare widely different times and places we are apt to wonder if there is any common ground. It is only a very smug provincialism that can attribute the alien standards of other races and nations to a disregard of the light.

Mohammedans and Buddhists have believed as firmly in, and fought as pa.s.sionately for, their moral convictions as Christians have for theirs. When we survey the vast amount of material ama.s.sed by anthropologists, we find that, as has been often said, there is hardly a vice that has not somewhere been deemed a virtue, and hardly a virtue but has been branded as a vice. History is full of the pathos of havoc wrought by conscientious men, of foolish and ruinous acts which they have braced themselves to do for conscience' sake. One has but to think of the earnest and prayerful inquisitors and persecutors in the mediaeval Church, of the Puritans destroying the stained-gla.s.s windows and paintings of the Madonna, of the caliph who destroyed the great Alexandrian library, bereaving the world at one blow of that priceless culture-inheritance. Written biography, fiction which truly represents life, and individual memory are full of conscience have sundered those who truly loved and wrought irremediable pain and loss. Lately the newspapers told us of the heroic suicide of General Nogi and his wife, who felt it their duty not to survive their emperor. To a Catholic Christian this imperious dictate of the j.a.panese conscience would be a deadly sin. And so it goes. There is no need to multiply instances of what can be observed on every hand. Conscience reflects the traditions and influences amid which a man grows up.

But if the deliverances of different men's consciences conflict, how shall we know which to trust? If any particular command of the inner voice may be morally wrong, how can we trust it at all? There are obviously morbid and perverted consciences; but if conscience itself is the ultimate authority, and is not to be justified and criticized by some deeper test, what right have we to call any of its manifestations morbid or perverted? Is it not a species of egotism to hold one's own moral discernment as superior to another's; and if so, do we not need some criterion by which to judge between them? Surely the diversity of its judgments makes conscience an impossible foundation for morality; we should have as many codes as consciences and fall into a hopeless confusion. If conscience everywhere agreed in its dictates, could we base morality upon it? Even, however, if conscience led us all in the same direction, would that prove its authority? Perhaps we should all be following a will o' the wisp, and foolishly sacrificing our desires to an idol of the tribe, a universal superst.i.tion. Must it not show its credentials before it can legitimately command our allegiance?

It is but one specific type of impulse among many; why should it be given the reins, the control over all? Do we say, because conscience makes for our best welfare? The answer would, in general, be true; but we should then be putting as our test and ultimate authority the attainment of our welfare, which would be to abandon the point of view we are discussing. Conscience claims authority. But that might conceivably be mere impudence and tyranny. Moreover, there are those who feel no call to follow conscience; how could we prove to them that they ought? Is it not the height of irrationality to bow down before an unexplained and mysterious impulse and allow it to sway our conduct without knowing why? If the "ought" is really shot out of the blue at us, if there is no justification, no imperious demand for morality but the existence of this inner push, why might we not raise our heads, refuse to be dominated by it, and live the life of free men, following the happy breezes of our desires? That is precisely what many have done, men who have reached maturity enough of mind to see the emptiness of following an ingrained impulse simply because it exists, but not a full enough maturity to see beyond to the real justification and significance of conscience.

A further realization of the inadequacy of the intuitive theory comes when we observe that conscience is by no means always clear in its dictates. It often leaves us in the lurch. Developed in us as it has been by circ.u.mstance and suggestion, it helps us usually only in certain recognized types of situation. When new cases arise, it is hopelessly at sea. As a practical working principle, conscientiousness is not only apt to be a perverted and provincial guide, it is insufficient for the solving of fresh and difficult problems. The science casnistry has been developed in great detail to supply this lack, to apply the well-recognized deliverances of a certain accepted type of conscience to the various possibilities of situation. These systems, however, reflect the idiosyncrasies of their makers, and have never won wide approbation. Morality must remain largely experimental, individual. Conscience will play a very useful role in spurring us to our recognized duty in the commoner situations, but for all the more delicate decisions we need a more ultimate touchstone. We must grasp the underlying principles of right conduct, and weigh the relative goods attainable by each possible act. A well-balanced and normal conscience will save us the recurrent reasoning out of typical perplexities, but it must be supplemented by an insight into the ends to be aimed for and kept rather strictly in its place.

What is the plausibility of moral intuitionism?

It is never wholly satisfactory merely to refute a theory; we must see its plausibility and understand its appeal if we are to be sure of doing it justice. In the case of the intuition-theory it is easy to discern the reasons that have kept it alive? though it has never been at all widespread among thinking men? in spite of the obvious objections that can be raised to it.

(1) Perhaps the original source of the doctrine was a certain sort of religious faith; it follows easily as a corollary to the belief in G.o.d. If G.o.d commands us to do right, it is felt, He must have given us some way to know what is right. The inner voice of conscience may be just such a G.o.d-given guide; therefore it is such a guide; therefore it is infallible. A natural piece of a priori reasoning, on a par with the Christian Scientist's syllogism: G.o.d is good; a good G.o.d would not permit evil to exist; therefore there is no evil. Unfortunately a priori reasoning has to yield to actual experience. Since we see that conscience is not infallible and evil does exist, there must be some fallacy in the arguments.

(2) Another source of the doctrine's strength lies in its simplicity.

It is a great mental relief to drop the tangle of confusing considerations, to stop trying to reason out one's course of action, and follow a supposedly reliable guide. The intuition-theory goes naturally with a moral conservatism which dreads the chaos and uncertainty that follow upon the doubt of established moral habits.

It is so much more comfortable to feel that one has already the one divine and ultimate code, that one has always done right because one has steadily obeyed the inner light! It is rea.s.suring to divide the world into the sheep and the goats? if one can believe one's self a sheep. But what O dismay! what if one were after all a goat! A great deal of mental anguish has been caused by the pseudo-simplicity of this dichotomy. There is no such clean-cut and clearly visible line between right and wrong; there is instead a bewildering maze of goods.

Hardly any choice but involves a sacrifice, hardly any ideal but has its disadvantages. One learns with experience to be wary of these simple theories, these closet theories which collapse when they are brought out into the light of day.

(3) We must, however, be just. The fact of the reliability of conscience, and the wisdom of following its guidance, holds over a wide range of human experience and the experience which is most apparent upon the surface. For all ordinary cases we of Christendom agree without hesitation that murder is wrong, and lying, and stealing.

It seems a waste of time to try to justify our instinctive verdict, and the attempt would only be bewildering to most men. It is only when brought face to face with some alien code that we see the need of digging below intuition. A missionary to the South Seas may be confronted with men to whom the killing of other tribesmen and the acc.u.mulation of skulls is a glorious and honorable feat, or to whom skillful lying is an enviable and proud accomplishment. But most of us live among neighbors whose conscience is comfortably like our own, and only occasionally become seriously perplexed. In the great ma.s.s of everyday occasions we do know our duty intuitively, and we do agree with one another. We recognize a duty at sight without realizing its teleology. It is not, indeed, an innate faculty; it was acquired during our formative years; it is not infallible. But the forces which have gone to the making of it are similar in all our lives, and the products are more alike than unlike.

(4) Finally, it is true that to obey conscience is, in a sense, to do right, to be moral, no matter how distorted conscience may be.

Conscientiousness is in itself a virtue. To this point we shall later return. We need only say here that conscientiousness is not enough.

Life is not so simple a matter as that. We need judgment, sanity, insight, as well as a strong sense of duty. We need to correct and train conscience, to adjust it to our real needs, to recognize that it is a means, not an end.

Our discussion, though rapid, should show that we cannot start with the "ought" of our conscience, or moral sense, and erect our moral theory upon that. Conscience itself needs to be explained. Its commands need to be justified by reference to some more ultimate criterion.

It needs to be pruned of its fanaticism, developed where it is weak, and kept in line with our growing insight into what is best in conduct.

Ruskin once summed the matter up by saying, "Obey thy conscience! But first be sure it is not the conscience of an a.s.s!" Conscience may be a very dangerous guide. And even where it is normal and useful it must not be invested with any absolute and irrational authority.