Fundamentals of ethics; an introduction to moral philosophy

Front matter

SEP 18 1930 i"

FUNDAMENTALS OF ETHICS

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

Preface

The title is a fair description of the nature and purpose of the book. The choice of subject matter and the arrangement of topics are the results of many years’ experience in teaching undergraduates in American colleges, and represent what seems to the author to be the minimum of an introductory course in Ethics—what may properly be described as the fundamentals of the subject.

An introductory course in ethics in the American college has come to have a double object and to fulfill a double function. Its primary purpose is doubtless practical. It has a unique place among the social sciences, in that it constitutes the one subject in which students are systematically trained in the understanding and evaluation of human conduct or behavior in both its individual and social aspects. For this reason it has rightly come to include more and more the moral problems connected with the economic and institutional life of man. On the other hand, ethics is for many students their introductory course in philosophy—for some their only course. Historically, ethics has always been a part of philosophy and is ordinarily taught by philosophers. It scarcely fulfills its function if it does not awake the student’s mind to those more profound problems of human life called metaphysical, and does not stimulate him to philosophical thinking and study. It has long seemed to the writer that a course in ethics should serve both these ends, and an attempt to do so has been made in the present work.

The division of the book into three parts follows naturally from this conception of the course. Part I, entitled Moral Theory, aims to present to the student the results of reflective thinking in morals and to make him acquainted with the

vii vill PREFACE fundamental ethical concepts and theories that have emerged. The method sometimes followed—of beginning with what are called facts rather than theory; in other words, with the psychology and sociology of the moral life—has its merits; but it has the defect of putting off too long the discussion of moral problems themselves, in which the beginner has a natural interest, and often dissipates that interest before the vital problems are reached. I am convinced that the method here followed is pedagogically the sounder, and I have never found any difficulty in securing the student’s interest in ethical theory. It should be made sufficiently clear to him that only in this way can he approach intelligently the practical problems of the moral life. Chapter II is specifically designed to achieve this result.

Part II, by far the longer portion of the book, is entitled Moral Practice. The object here is to make the student vitally aware of the moral problems of the modern world. Emphasis is put upon the ideas of rights, duties and justice, the object being to provide the student with clear working conceptions with which he may approach the vexed questions of our present economic and social life. The conception of human values is made central and laws and institutions are viewed as embodiments of these values. In the treatment of the ethical institutions of society, the teacher is always faced with the problem of choosing between a sketchy treatment of all our institutions or a more thorough handling of selected ones. Experience has taught me that the latter is the better method. I have, accordingly emphasized the basal institutions of Property and the Family. This limitation has made possible a more extended and detailed examination of special problems. |

Part IIL is entitled Moral Philosophy. Of all the questions raised by philosophy, those connected with morals are, I think, the most natural to the ordinary man. It is easy to live—even to live an intellectual life of sorts—without ever

PREFACE ix asking the kind of questions that arise out of the physical sciences. But once the student has been faced with the problem of obligation and of the good, even the most ordinary mind finds itself alive to philosophical problems. Moral philosophy, as T. H. Green recognized in his Prolegomena to Ethics, for a time fell into dispute, but with the renewed interest in philosophy generally, this side of ethics is coming into the foreground again. I have found that it is the part of ethics which arouses most interest in my students. The modern student is critical—and often even sceptical— in morals. He demands that these more fundamental problems shall not be ignored.

The idea of Value is central throughout the work—from the introductory chapter to the closing discussion of the relation of morals and religion. This procedure has a double justification. Ethics has come to be recognized as part of a general theory of value, and the more recent text-books very properly emphasize this aspect. On the other hand, it is generally agreed—by all schools of philosophy—that the central problem in modern thought is the place of values (including our moral values) in the world as revealed by the natural and physical sciences. I have confined myself here to the simplest notions and so arranged the material that this phase of the treatment may be emphasized or not, as the teacher chooses.

In the choice of what have seemed to me to be the fundamentals of ethics, it has been necessary to reduce to a minimum the psychological and sociological aspects that have bulked so large in some recent text-books. These aspects of the subject have not been ignored, but I have found it more useful to emphasize the relations of ethics to economics and law. In every case where psychology or anthropology have thrown light on the facts of the moral life these contributions have been utilized. In addition, carefully selected books of reference make it possible for the os PREFACE student to read more widely along these lines. In general, I have found these aspects of ethics admirably adapted for assignments in outside work. The student is usually interested in following out the clues given-in the discussions of the text, and investigations of this nature, being largely of a factual character, are usually entirely within his competence. .

The list of references for further reading, to be found at the end of each chapter, have been selected with considerable care. They include references to other text-books and to books of a more or less popular character, but also to contributions of the more permanent and substantial sort. I have given a rather large number for two reasons. Frequently a student cannot secure a particular book in the library and it is desirable that sufficient alternative should be available. In the second place, a large number of references makes it possible for the teacher to advise those which fit in with his own purposes. The few books starred in each list represent something of a minimum of reading. All are books suited to the ordinary student, but many of those not starred are of the same grade of difficulty.

W.M.U.

Table Of Contents

PART I. MORAL THEORY I. The Nature and Scope of Ethics II. Reflective Thinking in Morals . . . 29 TL BOrmausrih att cE tiCS. OS ol ear a ih IV. Happiness as Ultimate Value . .. 73 V; The Ethics of .Evolution: .°. 2.000%. .20/95 VI. The Ethics of Self-Realization . . . 116 VII. The Nature of Self-Realization . . . 135

Part II. Moral Practice

VIII. The System of Human Values . . . 159

IX. The Nature of Human Rights and Their Place in Ethical Philosophy . 184

X. Justice: Ethical and Legal . . . . 209 ale ine Nature of Duty ei. 5 i aes 8 230 XII. The Economic Life: Property . . . 260

ALI, The Sex Life: The Family »« . . . 287 XIV. Character Values: The Virtues. . . 326

PART III. MORAL PHILOSOPHY ..... . . 351 Ww

XV. The Postulates of Morality . . . . 353 XVI. The Problem of Moral Knowledge . . 362 XVII, The Freedom of the Will. . . . 304 ~——

XVIII. Moral Progress as a Belief and as a HACE mre gers ee toners renee ee

XIX. Morality and Religion Se Me eUMat Say Os iy Aa an Sree teh sO Re By Mina Mice <i bilia, anc eMty pte ag Ae S

FUNDAMENTALS OF ETHICS

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Chapter I The Object Of Ethics As A Study

On entering upon the study of any subject it is only natural that one should ask: What is its use? What is its value? This is an entirely proper question. There is also no better way of getting a preliminary notion or definition of a subject. Few things in this world are done without some purpose; it is only human that the student should ask: What is the good of the study to which he devotes his time.

What is the good of mathematics? It teaches us how to calculate and measure. Why do we study physics, biology, economics? Every one of these “‘sciences”’ or fields of knowledge is related directly to certain well-recognized fields of human action—to the making of machines of some kind, to the care and cure of living organisms, as in medicine, or to the organization and direction of human activities of exchange, banking, etc.; and it is in the first instance because of relations of utility of this kind that the student makes choice of his respective studies. It is true that there is what we call pure science, knowledge for its own sake—and it is a well-recognized fact not only that such knowledge is of intrinsic worth, but also that it is largely in the pursuit of it that the practical applications of science have been discovered. Nevertheless, it is the practical in knowledge that first attracts our interest, and in this respect ethics is no exception to the general rule.

Why then do we study ethics? The simplest answer is: It tells us how to act rightly; what actions are right or wrong, good or bad. We frequently find ethics defined as the science which deals with conduct in so far as this is considered right or wrong, good or bad.

Now it needs no argument to show*that if there is a study that tells us how to act rightly, it is a very important one. If there is a “science,” or field of human knowledge, that can tell us what actions are right or wrong, what are good or bad, it must take an important place in our scheme of human knowledge and in any system of education. In the first place, it is clear, on the slightest reflection, that the most important thing to know in this world and in this life, is what is good and what is bad. We all recognize that there are right and wrong ways of doing things. There is, for instance, a right way and a wrong way of building a bridge, a right way and a wrong way of performing a surgical operation, right ways and wrong ways of doing business, of carrying on economic operations. What is good and what is bad in these cases is relatively simple. A good bridge is one that is safe for travel. A good operation is one that saves a human life or restores an organ to its normal functioning. Good business practice is that which shows a profit. There are right and wrong ways of doing all these things and it is important that engineer, surgeon, and merchant should learn these ways. But all these things have to do with the means or instruments of life, and it is also important to know what are the right ends. It is possible for a man to know all about means to accomplish ends but have very little sense for the ends of life themselves. It is possible for a man to be very keen in business, or his technical field, but be very stupid about the values of life. In other words there are also right and wrong ways of doing things in the larger relations of life, in the business of living itself, and it is with these that ethics is concerned.

The obligation of being intelligent is almost the first law of our modern life and the place of all places where it

THE OBJECT OF ETHICS AS A STUDY 5 is in chief demand is in the world of human and moral relations.

The importance of knowing what is good and what is bad in human behavior or action would scarcely be denied by any one. If there is a “‘science” that can tell us this it is clearly a very important field of human knowledge and a very practical field of study. There are those, it must be admitted, who do not share this opinion.

There are some who deny the importance of ethics because they think that men already know without any special knowledge, what is good or bad, right or wrong. The “healthy human understanding” tells us_ clearly enough what we ought to do. The difficulty is not lack of knowledge but lack of good will. To such it is merely necessary to point to the genuine moral confusion of our time. In the kaleidoscopic changes of the modern world men are often honestly at sea as to what zs right and wrong. Again, it is often denied that there is actually any such field of knowledge as a science of morals. Men quote the famous words, ‘‘there’s nothing good or bad but thinking makes it so”, meaning thereby that moral distinctions are matters of personal feeling or of group opinion, and lack entirely that objectivity that belongs to knowledge. This subjectivism or scepticism, as it is often called, would, indeed, if justified, make impossible any “science” of ethics. Whether ethics zs a science is a question that must be examined, as must indeed the whole problem of moral scepticism; here we need only say that practically there is little doubt that there is moral knowledge of some sort, that truth may be discovered in the field of morals and that it may be organized and imparted to others. To doubt this seems to be one of those gratuitous cases of scepticism, of doubt for doubt’s sake, which, while a useful device in philosophical study, is a “silly theory” in practical life.

DEFINITION OF ETHICS

The definition of ethics arises then strictly out of its use or value as a study. The simplest definition is in a sense the best. Ethics is the science that deals with conduct in so far as it is considered right or wrong, good or bad.

The meaning of these terms, right and wrong, good and bad we understand in a sense immediately—just as we understand the terms, hot and cold, true and false. I do not mean, of course, that we necessarily know immediately what things are good and bad, what actions are right and wrong, but that the ideas or notions themselves are immediately understandable. Just what things are hot and cold we learn only by experience. What is true or false we learn only by certain methods of verification or testing. But the meaning of the terms is in a sense given to us immediately. The same seems to be true of the terms good and bad, right and wrong. But this does not mean that we can not make the meanings of these terms clearer to ourselves by definition. Definition does not create meanings, but makes the meanings more definite. Let us start out then by trying to distinguish between these three kinds of terms. We may say that terms like hot and cold have to do with the qualities of things; true and false with the reasons or causes, of things; good and bad with the values of things. Ethics then is the study which deals with the values of things.

Just what this distinction means may be made clear by considering two types of questions which we are always asking from childhood up. We wish to know the “how” of a thing and the ‘“‘why” of a thing, the “cause” of a thing and the “good” of a thing.

The child wonders how it is the fire burns, why the wheels of a watch go round, why his stomach hurts. This “wonder” or curiosity is the beginning of all investigation

DEFINITION OF ETHICS 7 and ends in what we call knowledge or science. Newton, we are told, asked why the apple falls to the ground and discovered as his answer the “law” of gravitation. Scientists asked why it is that two rays of light, coming from objects at different distances, take the same time, and the complete answer to that question led to the formulation of the theory of relativity by Einstein, which involved not only a reinterpretation of gravitation, but a reconstruction of our notions of space and time themselves. When science is developed, it consists of a body of answers to certain general questions of this sort. Science is thus systematized explaining.

But just as the child, and all of us, are constantly asking the why of things, so we are constantly asking the wherefore. What is the good of this? The child, for instance, wants to know what is the good of brushing his teeth, of learning arithmetic or grammar. What’s the good of poetry? These questions, and others like them, we continue to ask all our life. And our wondering here is the beginning of an investigation which ends also in a certain body of knowledge and understanding which we may describe as systematized valuing. The child may ask: what’s the good of going to school, or of going to church and he may see no good in either. But he may come to see good in both, to see what we call reasons for doing these things; and the value of the particular act becomes part of a larger scheme of life and life’s values—of systematized valuing. He may come to see good in poetry and that involves seeing the relation of what we call esthetic values to other values of life, such as the practical and the scientific.

But the mind may go even further than this in its thought about the values of things and actions. Even the child asks: What’s the good of being good?—and in that question is involved the ultimate problem of ethics. For he is asking why there should be any distinction between good and bad at all. An answer to that question would take him to the very heart of ethical theory. Or he may, when he is a little older, ask: what’s the good of it all anyway?—He is then wondering whether there is any ultimate meaning or value to life at all and the world in which he finds himself. He is thus led from ethics into still more ultimate questions aS we call philosophical or metaphysical.

ETHICS AS A NORMATIVE SCIENCE

Ethics is then, in the last anaylsis, just the science of systematized valuing; or, otherwise expressed, the valuing activity of man made systematic.

This second definition raises certain fundamental problems which must at least be touched upon in this introductory chapter. It will be well to state them first before taking them up in detail. The first of these is expressed in the question: Is this systematized valuing which we have described, properly termed science? If so, how is it related to that process of systematized explaining to which we ordinarily attach the name of “‘science’’? In the second place we must seek to form some clear notion, in a preliminary way at least, of what value is, of what it is that makes an object good or bad, what it is that makes things and acts have or not have value. Finally we shall do well to ask whether ethics is coextensive with the field of systematized valuing, as we have suggested, or only one of a number of such sciences.

The distinction we have just made between the explaining and the valuing side of man’s nature and intelligence is an important one. If not an absolute distinction—as surely it is not—it is a relative difference of such significance that to confuse the two is to confuse many issues, both in science and in philosophy. The two types of questions—what is the cause of a thing, and what is the good of a thing—are, in the first instance at least, so different that the answer to one question is of a different type from the answer to the other.

For one thing, to answer the first of these questions does

DESCRIPTIVE AND NORMATIVE SCIENCES 9 not in the least answer the second. Thus, to tell how a human custom, or any form of conduct, came into being does not necessarily tell the good or bad of it. The causes which first led to the wearing of clothes, or any other human practice, do not at all correspond with the reasons for wearing them now. In general, it may be said that explaining or understanding a thing by carrying it back to its causes and origins is quite different from explaining or understanding it by seeing its purpose or end, or in other words, its value.

DESCRIPTIVE AND NORMATIVE SCIENCES

The distinction we have attempted to make here has been constantly recognized in the history of philosophic thought, and special names have been given to these two types of thinking and of knowledge. A distinction of long standing is that between descriptive and normative sciences.

By descriptive science is understood that type of knowledge which we have characterized as systematized explaining. The idea underlying this designation is that the object of knowledge in this field is ultimately to know what a thing really is. But we can know the “what” of a thing only by discovering its relations to other things, and one of the most important of these relations is that of cause and effect. It is for this reason that science has sometimes been described as the discovery of the causes of things.

By normative science, on the other hand, is understood something quite different. It is, as we have said, systematized valuing. By discovering the values of things, more especially the relative values of things, we also discover what ought to be as well as what merely zs. For if we find out that one thing is better than another, we also discover that in general that thing ought to be rather than the other. The forms of conduct or behavior which have this character of oughiness are then called standards or norms. Thus to define ethics as the science of relative values is really at the same time to define it as a normative science, and to define it as a normative science is to define it as a science of values.

The distinction here made is sometimes confused by the fact that the term norm is also used in the merely descriptive or natural sciences. But when so used it has a quite different meaning. In a merely descriptive science a norm is simply the usual or average—in form, in size, or function. Thus in biology we speak of the members of a species varying about a norm. In psychology we speak of norms of reaction to stimuli, etc.,. and in mental testing we speak of what is normal for a child of such and such an age. Fluctuations from the normal, in this sense, constantly occur, and when within moderate limits are still considered normal; but when they exceed such limits they gradually pass into the abnormal. Abnormal psychology is a study of the variation from the average, in thought, feeling, and volition, of such a degree and character as to involve non-adaptation or mal-adjustment of the individual.

This is, of course, a proper use of the term norm in such sciences as biology and psychology but it is not the proper use in fields like those of ethics or law. In the former case the norm is still merely a descripton of what is. There is no ought in it except in the sense that one might say that what usually is ought to be. Some people do indeed imply this in their use of the term norm, but without real justification. They identify the ‘natural’ with the normal, as for instance when they think of the natural'and normal expression of the sex instinct as the same thing. Such use suffers, however, from a serious ambiguity in the term natural. What is natural on one stage of development may be unnatural and abnormal on another. But the confusion of thought goes much deeper than this. The variations from the norm, in the merely descriptive sense, are as much a part of nature as the norm itself, the abnormal is as much a part of nature as the normal.

DESCRIPTIVE AND NORMATIVE SCIENCES 11

It seems clear then that a norm of conduct or behavior, as used in ethics, is something quite different from a norm in a descriptive science such as biology or psychology. This difference is sometimes expressed in the following way. A norm, in the ethical sense, is defined-as any principle which controls action through thought or emotion. Now a norm is a principle that controls action. It also controls it through thought and emotion. No principle can be grasped except through thought and no thought passes into action except through’ feeling. But this does not go to the heart of the matter. That which makes a principle a norm is that it controls action through consciousness of value and through the sense of obligation or “ought” that arises from this consciousness of value. ,

With this it is clear also that a norm is something very much more than a description. In a sense it is a description also—of the morally good and the humanly valuable. As such, it purports to give us a true account of matter of fact—of what zs right and what zs wrong. But a norm or standard is more than a mere description of the matter of fact of the moral life; it is at the same time a delineation of an ideal. A standard is a standard precisely because it is an ideal that is meant to be realized or carried out in conduct. A norm is a norm just because it tells us what ought to be rather than merely that which always actually is.

It is sometimes said that the descriptive sciences deal with facts, the normative sciences with values. This is at best a very crude way of speaking. Are not values facts? Is not a norm as much a part of the objective world as a law? Most certainly. The law of gravitation is as much a part of reality as the stones and planets which the law “controls”. A norm is as much a part of reality as the acts, the appreciations and the judgments it determines. The significant point is that both “law” and “‘norm”’ are facts in a somewhat different sense from the stones and stars or from the acts and the emotions which they control. Just what this difference is —and the implications of the differenhce—are problems of philosophy and will demand our consideration in a later connection (Chapter XV). Here the important point is to recognize that to establish a norm is to establish a truth also, or a form of knowledge. If I come to learn that one act is better than another, that men have rights to certain things and ought to have them, that is knowledge (and not mere opinion) just as much as learning the laws of. nature is knowledge.

IS ETHICS REALLY SCIENCE?

Is then knowledge of the preceding kind really science? It is often denied that ethics is a science at all and a good deal of breath has been wasted in arguing the question. As is often the case in such disputes, the question is largely, although not wholly, verbal; it depends to a large extent on our definition of science.

Few would deny that ethics contains knowledge, or that it is knowledge of a systematized kind. If science be defined as systematized knowledge, then there is no question that ethics is a science. But science is sometimes defined in ways that would exclude ethics. It is sometimes limited to explaining or giving the causes of things and sometimes confined to some particular method such as that of verification by experiment. But it is important to note that if we define it in the first way we exclude such important sciences as mathematics and logic which do not deal with causes at all, but with entirely different kinds of relations. Indeed both these sciences are often classified as normative. If, on the other hand, we confine science to such knowledge as admits of verification by experiment, we must again exclude other vast fields of systematized knowledge such as we find in the economic and social sciences. In general it may be said that the narrower views of science, so characteristic of the latter

ETHICS AND THE DESCRIPTIVE SCIENCES 13 part of the nineteenth century, are passing out and science is recovering its old meaning of systematized knowledge. In this broader meaning of the term ethics may certainly be called a science.

ETHICS AND THE DESCRIPTIVE SCIENCES

The distinction between the normative and the descriptive, between what is and what ought to be—between fact and value—is clear enough. We must now try to determine their relations and the relations between the two types of knowledge or science. The relation is not easy to define clearly and satisfactorily. Perhaps we may get at it indirectly at first by seeing what descriptive sciences ethics calls on most for help, with which it is most closely related.

Physics and chemistry are most important sciences. It is only by the knowledge which we get from them that we can control a large part of our environment and physical things may be made useful to man. But we should hardly call on them to any extent to enable us either to understand or evaluate human conduct. It is true that man’s behavior is to a degree dependent upon chemical processes in the human body. If it is possible to show that the failure to function properly of a gland in the body has resulted in a weakening of what we call the moral sense, it is of the utmost importance to know that fact and a knowledge of the chemistry of gland secretions may enable us to effect a change. But no such knowledge can tell us the slightest thing about the nature or meaning of the moral sense thus conditioned, or of the good or bad of the moral conduct to which the moral sense refers.