The new morality

Front matter

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Series Editor, ROY WOOD SELLARS, Ph.D. Professor of Philosophy in the University of Michigan

THE NEW MORALITY By Durant Drake

Preface

By "the new morality” I mean the morality which, basing itself solidly upon observation of the results of conduct, con¬ sciously aims to secure the maximum of attainable happi¬ ness for mankind. It goes back, to be sure, to Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle; but it has never been espoused by more than a very small minority. What was the "old morality” in the days of Socrates was, in its concrete precepts, very dif¬ ferent from the prevalent morality of today; but it was like the traditional, respectable morality of today in being dog¬ matic, formalistic, haphazard, and blind. The dominant moral codes throughout human history have been based upon authority, not upon a study of the natural consequences of acts; and though they have often embodied profound intui¬ tions and served many useful purposes, they have had no clear realization of what makes morality really worthy of our allegiance. At last, however, a scientific, experimental attitude toward morals is becoming diffused among the more educated classes, and we seem to be at the dawn of an age which will judge conduct by its observable results.

The conservatives, who can conceive of no other moral standards than those which they have followed, are naturally alarmed.

Youth is questioning the validity of our entire system of ethics. . . . Our ethics and their old sanctions are already in dissolution. . . . What the younger generation and their children may be called upon to do may be to make

PREFACE the most rapid, far-reaching, and consciously intelligent readjustment of ethical ideas to altered social structure that the race has ever been called upon to make. . . . They have inherited, perhaps, the biggest mess and biggest problem that was ever bequeathed by one gen¬ eration to another.1

Such statements as these are to be heard on every side. And they are hardly exaggerated. We are at one of those turn¬ ing-points in human history at which stability and compla¬ cent assurance are giving way to criticism and change. The same questioning and contriving spirit that has developed with amazing speed our material civilization is being turned upon morals.

It is high time. We have made vast progress in develop¬ ing material devices for man’s comfort and security, but we lag in our adjustment of conduct to our complex social situa¬ tions. We have, indeed, been making rather a bad mess of things, with our divisive sectarianisms and nationalisms, our stubborn dogmatisms, our commercialized vices, our menacing trinity of privilege, profiteering, and propaganda, our ghastly war that murdered directly or indirectly forty million people and set back civilization by a generation. The most cursory observation shows that there is an enormous amount of injustice and misery in the world which could be eradicated by the adoption of more intelligent habits of behaviour.

Such a reorientation of our morals will not turn us into saints. Selfishness and blind passion will be eternal enemies of the good life. But to see clearly what are the major sins of our day is to take the first step towards curing them. The

1 James Truslow Adams, in The Atlantic Monthly, vol. 138, pp. 577-583; November, 1926.

[vi]

PREFACE world is suffering not so much from waywardness as from lack of a dear vision of what is right and wrong. The con¬ science of our excellent forefathers is not adequate for today; we must develop a conscience with respect to the new situa¬ tions in which our developing civilization has involved us. Business men, virtuous in their family life, and of sincere piety, have not known how to be moral towards their employees, their rivals or their public; as a people we do not know clearly how to be moral in our politics or our inter¬ national relations. There is much that is admirable in gen¬ erally accepted moral codes. But we need a new moral thoughtfulness; we must create a better technique for secur¬ ing the common good.

Since the War I have been in practically every European country, including Russia; and I have learned much by watching the development of morals in these other lands. The discussion which follows is phrased for the most part in terms of American situations, since the greater number of its readers will presumably be Americans. But most of the problems discussed are, or presently will be, world-wide problems. And the European or Asiatic reader will find here not only a frank criticism of contemporary American morals, but a discussion which bears almost equally upon present or impending situations in his own fatherland.

Many of the problems here discussed are treated at greater length, or from a different angle, in some of my earlier books: Problems of Conduct (Revised ed., 1920), Shall We Stand by the Church ? (1920), America Paces the Future (1922) . The discussion here, because of its brevity, and the wide field which it surveys, necessarily omits a consideration of many arguments which may seem to the reader important. Each of the situations to which a few pages are given would

[vii]

PREFACE require a volume for adequate treatment. But the average reader would not read those volumes. Or at least, he must first be made to feel the gravity of the problems and the irra¬ tionality of much current behaviour. This little book is meant to be a stimulus to further thinking and observation, rather than a final judgment upon any issue; it will have served its purpose if it leads readers here and there to ques¬ tion their previous opinions — opinions absorbed probably from parents, neighbours, newspapers, parsons, or heaven knows whom, to make the attempt to base their moral judgments upon a study of the results of conduct, and, as the fundamental thing, to develop a passionate interest in helping to win a wider, securer, and more lasting happiness for men.

[ viii ]

Part One The Old Morality And The New

CHAPTER PAGE

I. Supernatural Morality . 3

The Animal Origin of Morality . 3

The Supposed Supernatural Origin of Morality . 4

The Inadequacy of Supernatural Morality . . 6

Quasi-Supernaturalistic Moralists . 10

II. Moral Skepticism . 13

The Revolt Against Authority . 13

Are Right and Wrong Purely Conventional Terms? 15 The Folly of Moral Skepticism . 18

III. Natural Morality . 23

What Morality Is . 23

Some Other Definitions of Morality .... 2 6 Some Objections to Happiness as the End . . 31

IV. The Irksomeness of Duty . 36

Why is Duty Irksome? . 36

The Apotheosis of Duty . 38

Why Not Be Selfish? . 42

V. From Puritanism to Freud . 47

The Attitude of Puritanism . 47

The Expose of Puritanism . 51

Is Suppression of Desires Always Bad? ... 55

[ ix ]

CONTENTS

Part Two Some Questionable Aspects Of Current Morality

CHAPTER PAGE

VI. Self-Indulgence and Luxury . 63

The Pursuit of Personal Happiness .... 63

When Is Self-indulgence Wrong? .... 67

Is Luxury Morally Justifiable? . 70

VII. Lawlessness and Crime . 75

Under What Circumstances Is It Right to Break a

Is It Ever Right to Use Violence to Attain an End? 78

Is There a Crime-wave? . 85

How Can We Diminish Lawlessness? ... 88

VIII. Intoxication and Bootlegging . 93

The Case For Prohibition . 94

The Case Against Prohibition . 98

What Is Our Present Duty? . 105

IX. Marital Failures . 112

Is Divorce an Evil or a Cure? . 112

What Should the State Do About Divorce? . . 116

What Should We Do to Improve Marriage? . . 122

X. Irresponsible Parenthood . 127

Should We Insist Upon Education for Parenthood? 127 Have All Married People a Right to be Parents? 129 How Can We Control Birth-Control? . . . 133

May Women Let Careers Interfere with Mother¬ hood? . 139

XI. Corrupt Politics . 146

What Is "Corruption” in Politics? .... 146

Are We Drifting Into a "Plutocracy?” . . . 151

What Can Be Done to "Purify” Politics? . . 155

XII. Selfish Business . 163

When May Business Be Called Selfish? . . . 163

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

What Harm Is Being Done to Employees? . . 168 What Harm Is Being Done to the Public? . . 172

XIII. Privilege . 180

Is Our Present Distribution of Wealth and Income

Tolerable? . 180

What Can Be Said For Existing Inequalities? . 184

How Far Are Our Present Inequalities Due to Privilege? 190

XIV. Suppression of Opinion . 197

Why Is the Right of Free Speech Important? . 197

Are There Necessary Exceptions to the Right of

Free Speech? . 202

Are We Subject to Suppression of Opinion? . 208

XV. Poisoned Journalism . . 214

Have We a Free Press? . 214

How Is the Public Injured? . 221

What Can Be Done About It? . 226

XVI. Demoralizing Art and Literature . . . . 232

How Much Influence Does Art Have Upon

Morality? . 232

What Are the Moral Dangers of Art? . . . 238 Should Art Be Subject to Censorship? . . . 242 Can Art Be Used Positively For Moral Ends? . 248

XVII. Dogmatism and Indoctrination .... 252

Dogmatism and Its Cure . 252

What About Missions? . 256

What About Our Sectarianism? . 259

What Is the Task of the Church? .... 260

XVIII. Race Prejudice . 267

Is Race Prejudice Inevitable? . 267

The Negro Problem in America . 269

The Japanese- American Problem . 275

The Immigration Problem . . . . . 278

[xi]

CHAPTER PAGE

XIX. War . 284

What Are the Results of Modern War? . . . 284

Would Anything Justify War Under Present Con¬ ditions? . 291

How Can War Be Abolished? . 297

XX. Isolationism . 303

Is International Organization Necessary? . . 303

What Are the Objections to World-authority? . 306

Should We Join the Existing League? . . . 313

Part Three Morality And The Luture

XXI. Conservatism and Radicalism . 321

Conservatism vs. Radicalism . 321

Why Are Most People So Conservative? . . . 323

Which Is the Greater Danger For America To-day? 328

XXII. Moral Progress . 336

Optimism vs. Pessimism with Regard to Progress 336

The Dark Side of the Picture . 339

The Bright Side of the Picture . 342

XXIII. Moral Reform . 347

Help From Eugenics . 347

Help From Euthenics . 352

Help From Education . 354

[xii]

Part One The Old Morality And The New

These opening chapters contrast the old, authoritarian morality with the new morality based upon observation of the results of conduct.

Chapter I

Why should we be moral? What is the good of moral¬ ity? No questions that could be asked touch us more closely. And while few have been given more confused and conflicting replies, few are really capable of simpler and more certain answer.

The Animal Origin of Morality

The first point to note is the discovery by genetic psychol¬ ogy that human morality has its roots far back in the lives of our pre-human ancestors. It is the product, as are our instincts and bodily organs, of millions of years of natural selection. And since this stern process results, in general, in the survival of the fittest structures, and types of behaviour, we may be pretty sure, a priori, that morality, like our various bodily organs, has survived, persisted, developed because of its usefulness.

Consider our animal cousins. The squirrel, storing nuts for the winter, exhibits industriousness and prudence; if these virtues have not been sufficiently developed in him, he will die. And as for the ant, the sluggard may indeed do well to go to her for a moral lesson; the patience and perseverance, the industriousness and co-operative spirit, of these tiny creatures have increased and multiplied their tribe, have produced for them safety and plenty. Courage is highly developed in many animal species; so is maternal tenderness and self-sacrificing devotion. The individual may thus die the sooner — even the humble hen will risk her life to save her chickens ; but the family, the flock, the species will have the better chance of survival, and thus will preserve in future generations those traits that had survival-value for the group.

Man is a highly differentiated animal; and not all his virtues are to be found paralleled in the lives of the other animals. But we do find in them many traits which, when found in men, we call virtues. They are the result of the drive of congenital instincts and the pressure of circum¬ stances. A changing, and in large measure hostile, environ¬ ment requires adaptability on the part of living organisms, with extinction as the alternative. Morality, considered his¬ torically, has been such a re-direction of native impulses as has made for the preservation and welfare of the individual or of the group. But animals, and most men, are capable of little reflection, and never ask why they find themselves impelled to make these efforts and these sacrifices. They follow the gradually altering laws of their being; morality is, in its early stages, as natural and unconscious a develop¬ ment as any other sort of animal behaviour.

The Supposed Supernatural Origin of Morality

When man reaches the reflective stage of his develop¬ ment, he begins to ask himself whence come these prompt¬ ings and inhibitions that cross his natural desires. And this is the explanation he usually gives: Finding himself confronted by various forces of nature which menace or favour him, he naturally thinks of these forces as alive, like himself. He fears them, he implores them not to hurt him, he is grateful when they help him. Gradually, under the leadership of the more imaginative and poetic, he comes to personify them clearly, to connect them with his group, to tell tales about them, to worship them. They are his gods. It is their voice in his heart that bids him do this or that, their will that stands between him and his reckless instinc¬ tive impulses. If he disobeys the tribal morals, he cowers in fear of their wrath.

Thus, although morality is far older than religion, men came very widely, in early times, to think of themselves as subject to these beings, bound to act in accordance with their commands. Polytheism gave way to monotheism; the con¬ crete physical gods of primitive life were sublimated into the one spiritual God, and all duties were merged in the one duty of obedience to Him. By theological exposition and ecclesiastical edict, morality was stamped as, in its origin and sanctions, the expression of His will. Thus a contem¬ porary churchman writes, "God does not require actions because they are right, but they are right because He requires them, just as others are evil because He forbids them.”

Take the Ten Commandments. To put the moral pre¬ cepts considered of greatest importance into a group of ten, counted on the ten fingers (and thus easily remembered, before the age of writing) , was once a natural and common practice. One such decalogue, cherished by that patriotic little Semitic tribe, the Hebrews, and supposed to have been handed by their national god, Jahweh, to their mythical hero, Moses, has been taken over by Christianity and is still taught in thousands of churches as the literal commands of God to man.

Almost every people has similarly attributed its accepted moral code to its gods. But we of Christendom are heirs of the Jewish faith. Our God is the God that spoke through the Jewish priests and prophets; our moral codes are still, in their main outlines, the Jewish codes, and are still regarded by most of us as the expression of the will of this God, whom we take now to be the only real God. The other peoples are heathen, their gods are false gods, their moral codes, so far as they differ from ours, are immoral, mere superstition, prejudice, or conceit. Of course those peoples — except as our missionaries may have converted them to our views — look upon our God and our moral codes as we look upon theirs. So for centuries men have fought for their several religions and their differing conceptions of virtue; few have realized that these conflicts, so tragic and so futile, are arbitrable by reason.

Moral problems, however, are often very complicated, and their solution by reason and experience very difficult. How much simpler to accept a supposedly supernatural code, to lean upon authority! To hold that God commands just this and that behaviour is a source of great mental peace to many; it saves them from the arduous attitude of moral thoughtfulness, it gives, within the community of those who accept the same tradition, a like-mindedness which makes decisions easier and co-operation more feasible. Altogether, it is no wonder that the supernaturalistic conception of morality still so widely persists.

The Inadequacy of Supernatural Morality

As men’s horizon widens, the time inevitably comes when they begin to ask: How, after all, do we know that such and such is God’s will for man? The study of comparative religion quickly shows that our particular theological and moral conceptions have grown up in as haphazard a manner as those of rival traditions. If we are candid, we must con¬ fess that the evidence that Jahweh handed tablets of stone to a man named Moses on Mount Sinai is no better than the evidence that Zeus and Apollo gave such commands to men as the Iliad and Odyssey record. Whatever be the ulti¬ mate truth behind the God-ideas of primitive peoples, it is quite clear that the actual stories of contacts with gods and the receiving of commands from them are legend, or myth, not historic fact. The exhortations of our Christian Bible, for example, represent actually the moral convictions of those particular men whose sermons and poems and letters have been preserved for us in that great anthology of Jewish and early Christian writings. Those men thought they knew God’s will. But so have thousands of equally earnest people in all ages.

Suppose, however, we knew that the Greek and Egyptian and Hindoo and Mohammedan accounts of the Divine will for man are untrue, and the Jewish-Christian account true. Why should we obey God? If He were to command us to be cruel or dishonest or mean, would it be our duty to obey? Surely the free-hearted man who really loved his fellows would refuse obedience to such commands. To obey would be slavery, natural enough in a monarchical or feudal era, but unworthy of a democratic age.

Now of course no Christian believes that what God com¬ mands is ever cruel or in any way immoral. However little we may think we know about God, we agree, at least, that He is good. But to say that He is good means nothing unless we have some criterion by which we can judge whether or not He is good. And in fact, it is clear that justice and mercy and kindness and courage are virtues anyway, whether or no any God commands them. No command from heaven can make them any more surely virtues than they would be in a godless world. And no prohibition by God could make them sins.

In short, morality is not something imposed upon man from without, it is an expression of his own needs. If man had been much less moral than he has been, he would have perished from the face of the earth. Religion may do much for morality, as we shall see in Chapter XVII. But the virtues derive their claims upon us from the particular char¬ acteristics of our being and of the situation in which we live.

No voice from without, even of a Creator and Ruler of the universe, could alter the duties that inhere in the very nature and conditions of human life now that it exists; such a command could not make right other than right, or wrong other than wrong. If God is a conscious Being, aware of and interested in our fortunes, he does no doubt wish us to do right; but the rightness or wrongness of an act is independent of his desire, and just as real if there be no such Being interested in it.1

But we must say more than this. The ascription of morality to supernatural sources is not only irrelevant, it is dangerous. For a supposedly supernatural morality is above criticism and resists improvement. The fact that the God pictured in the Old Testament incites his Chosen People to invade and take possession of the land of a neighbouring people, and takes their side in their battles, has made the con¬ demnation of war far more difficult for the Christian world

1 Durant Drake, Problems of Religion, p. 321.

than, for example, for the Buddhists. The picture of the terrible fate that awaits unbelievers,2 together with such texts as "Constrain them to come in,” and "Gather up the tares in bundles and bum them,” 3 served for generations to justify the persecution and martyrdom of the more promising and daring liberal thinkers. The text "A witch shall not live” 4 made it possible to torment and put to death many a harmless old soul. Such verses as "I suffer not a woman to teach . . . but to be in silence,” 6 have had great influence in perpetuating the subjection of women. In our day Bible texts and ecclesiastical pronouncements claiming divine authority serve to impede the free discussion of such impor¬ tant matters as divorce and birth control.

In short, authoritarian morality is blindfolded morality. Not being founded upon a study of the consequences of con¬ duct, it is not open to correction by the sight of disastrous results. It may be exploited by fanatics and schemers, as when it was made to sanction the Crusades, and later the Inquisition. In our day it is interfering with education (as in the anti-evolution bills) and preventing multitudes from learning important facts about human life.

Nothing can save men from such irrationalities and cruelties but a clear recognition of the fact that morality is made for man, not man for morality. Men have suffered innumerable deprivations and been the victims of untold

2 To quote one passage out of many: The unbeliever "shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever; and they have no rest day nor night.” (Rev. 14:10-11.)

suffering because they have not seen that it lay within their power to shake off their loyality to irrational commandments and adapt their conduct to their actual interests and needs.

Quasi-Supernaturalistic Moralists

Relatively few educated people in our day retain a clearly defined supernaturalistic attitude towards morality. But that attitude still lurks implicitly in most pulpit utterances and church teaching. In various vague or emasculated forms it has, until quite lately, pervaded the writings of most of our moralists.

Take Carlyle, for example, one of the most influential moralists of the Nineteenth Century. He thundered inces¬ santly about the necessity of obedience, of duty, as if there were no question as to what our duty is. He scornfully rejected the idea that morality is conduct that makes for human happiness. He simply accepted current Christian ethics, colouring them unconsciously with his own violent predilections. Like the Jewish prophets, he was sure that the Lord spoke through him. He wrote a sarcastic essay on humanitarian prison-reform,8 in which, with a tone of high moral authority, he scathingly condemned the whole move¬ ment and asserted that the only right attitude toward crim¬ inals was that of exacting revenge for their crimes. He wrote an essay entitled The Nigger Question / in which he emphatically asserted that the permanent subjection of negroes to white men is ordained by God.

Our American moralist of greatest distinction, Emerson, was a man of gentler disposition. But, in love as he was with virtuous behaviour, Emerson showed no clear realization

7 In Vol. VII of his Critical Essays.

of what makes some behaviour virtuous and deserving of our adoption. All his utterances are simply obiter dicta. We may agree, or we may disagree; but there is no arguing about it. We have here the lingering echo of supernaturalistic morality, caught up and expressed by a sensitive and gifted personality. No reasons for moral preference are given, save to follow our own intuitions — which, as experi¬ ence shows, may be good or may be very bad.

Among contemporaries we may point to Maeterlinck, who has written of "the great useless virtues,” virtues which are not justifiable by our intelligence, yet, for some mystic reason, demand our allegiance.8 Or we may point to Felix Adler, who writes of the "supersensible and supereminent origin” of the moral law, "a law not to be explained in terms of sensible experience, so that it might be thoroughly grasped by the understanding, or its use fully seen,” but whose authority is "as of a hand laid upon us.” 9 Among the duties thus laid upon us, according to Dr. Adler, is the duty of never getting a divorce, no matter what a dire mistake a marriage may have been.10

Such writers as these are witnesses to the momentum of the supernaturalistic tradition. Morality is for them some¬ thing mystical and absolute; it has lost its definitely theo¬ logical sanction, but has not yet been firmly founded on experience of the consequences of conduct. Conscience is an unintelligible inner drive, which they reverence and obey but cannot explain. Inspiring preachers they may be, whose intuitions may, by good fortune, be sound; but they have no power to enlighten our understanding or to solve disputed problems. They are transitional products, half-way between

8 Maurice Maeterlinck, The Measure of the Hours: Our Anxious Morality.

9 Felix Adler, The Religion of Duty, pp. 93-97.

10 Felix Adler, Marriage and Divorce.

the simple and clear — if irrational — conception of morality as obedience to the commandments of a Supernatural Being, and the simple, clear, and rational conception of morality as that sort of conduct which makes for the happiness of sentient creatures.

Chapter II

The Revolt Against Authority Most people, accepting their ideas as they do from their fellows, have been far too conventionally minded to be skeptical of the value or obligatoriness of morality. So shocking a notion would not occur to them. But as the human race gets more and more sophisticated, such daring thoughts are bound to arise with increasing frequency. And perhaps the most serious harm done, in the long run, by the teaching of morality as supernaturally imposed lies in the skeptical reaction which such teaching is sure sooner or later to provoke. In our day the illusions of authoritarianism have been thoroughly punctured. And young people who have never been taught the rational basis of morality are in danger of drifting into a sort of moral anarchy.

We need not become pessimistic, however. This sort of thing has happened before in human history. It happened in notable degree in Athens after the Persian wars, and again in Italy in the Fourteenth Century. Readers of Aristophanes can tell us how aghast the older people of his day were at the radicalism of the young; Socrates, founder of scientific ethics, was put to death for turning youth from the good old ways. The young humanists of the Renaissance were anath¬ ema to the church-going people, who were still living in Dante’s world. But what do we see, looking backward from our vantage-point in the Twentieth Century? These two periods marked the two swiftest and most important develop¬ ments of the human mind that history records. In both cases the old morality dissolved. But it recrystallized in humaner and more rational forms. ... By contrast, look at the stretches of human history when youth did not doubt and question and experiment — the thousand years of medieval stagnation, the arrested civilizations of Egypt, of India, of China, of Peru. Which picture is the more pleasing?

Both of these two great fruitful periods in human history coincided with a swing from authoritarian to naturalistic ethics. Socrates and Plato founded morality firmly upon the rock of reason and experience; and if their ideas had become general, the actual development of humane civilization might have been anticipated by more than a thousand years. But the Athenian freemen were never more than a handful in the midst of an alien population. Wars, the exigencies of prac¬ tical life, and the emotional tide of Christianity, quickly obliterated this faint flicker of reason; and thus the first hope of man’s redemption through intelligence was lost. As for the Renaissance, it weakened the authority of the medieval moral ideals, and broadened men’s minds with new and alluring vistas of what life had once been and might again be. But it had no clear conception of the principles that must underlie a rational ethics and so left men flounder¬ ing in a confused and capricious individualism. The world ever since has been wavering between the secure loyalties of supernaturalistic ethics and the dangerous freedom of moral skepticism.

But we must not be discouraged; such great movements of the human spirit take many generations to accomplish their work. We are only in our own day reaping the fruits of the Reformation, freeing religion from ecclesiastical authority and dogma. The seeds of religious liberty were sown by the Reformers, but they were not themselves clearly conscious of the implications of their revolt. So the humanists of the quattrocento, rebelling against the cramping and distorted moral code of the Middle Ages, sowed seeds which are only now taking effective root on a world-wide scale. Religion is beginning to cease from antagonizing reason in the name of Authority, and rational morals in the name of supposedly eternal but really very local and provincial moral codes. Intelligence is increasingly free from domination by emo¬ tionalized prejudice; we are turning the key and emerging from the prison of authoritarianism.