The elements of ethics

Preface

The present work is designed as an introductory treatise upon the fundamental problems of theoretical ethics, and therefore to obtain standing ground from which to consider the practical questions that are affected by general principles. The book may seem rather an elaborate treatise for an introduction, but so great are the complications of ethical problems, so manifold are their interests, and so various have been opinions regarding them, that a writer to-day must choose between the perfunctory task of producing a mere syllabus of words and the more important duty of saying enough to satisfy the wants of those who desire more than platitudes, and who wish some insight into the complexities of the case. The analysis of various questions has been made as complete as reasonable limits would allow, with the special purpose of trying to throw some light on the perplexities of ethical theories, and to present the author's conclusions regarding them. This purpose has involved a very exhaustive application of the analytic method, which may try the patience of those who desire synthetic and comprehensive results. But the writer is convinced that we shall never get out of the wilderness of scholastic controversy and see-sawing with traditional theories until the analytic method is first carefully applied and our exact whereabouts determined. We may then give a synthetic survey of the field without embroiling ourselves in the hocus-pocus of endless and futile discussions about words that may have a thousand meanings.

A long chapter has been given on the origin and development of ethical problems, which is nothing more than a brief history of the principal ethical theories and opinions of the past, beginning with the period immediately preceding Socrates. It

VI PREFACE

has been given as a preliminary step to the right understanding of present questioDs and their complexity. Present ethical reflection is the accumulated heritage of the past, and only the historical method can at the same time show us the richness of that bequest and the multiplicity of its elements. It is hoped, therefore, that the chapter will be a timely contribution for the use of teachers who appreciate the value of that method and wish such a survey as introductory to present-day discussion.

I make no apologies for the elaborate treatment of the freedom ■ of the will, though the tendencies to determinism by general writers, and the indifference of many to both sides, might be an excuse for ignoring it altogether. But the importance of the question to ethics is so great that no one can neglect it except such as coquet with determinism without analyzing their conceptions, and yet endeavor to perform the contradictory task of constructing a system of ethics. The amount of intellectual confusion on this subject by both sides of the discussion is simply amazing. All are, perhaps, agreed that the question is one regarding the possibility of alternative choice, but many of the arguments pro and con are wholly irrelevant to it, while few writers adequately reckon with the equivocations of the terms " determinism," " cause," and " freedom." This lengthy chapter, therefore, is an attempt to fully analyze the whole problem, to present a solution of it, to conciliate controversy, to fix the meaning and interest of freedom for ethics, and to obtain a position regarding it where discussion is not a logomachy and a sheer waste of time.

Other subjects receive the same kind of analysis, and must speak for themselves. I shall simply call attention to the analysis of conscience, the treatment of reason and desire, and of the relations between impulse, instinct, and reason, as attempts to secure a way out of much confusion in different writers. Of my success I am probably not a judge.

One thing, perhaps, will annoy some readers and critics, especially if they have mastered elementary principles. This is the fact of much real or apparent repetition. This, however, has

PREFACE vn

been deliberate. The writer's experience with beginners has been that he must repeat certain fundamental conceptions over^ and over again at different places and at different points of view in order that the key to ethical problems may not be buried under a mass of matter in which it would not be easily discovered. Students must have emphasis and variation or they lose the point at issue. This is the reason that condensation has been forced to give way to the necessities of pedagogical purpose.

I am under great obligations to Dr. Norman Wilde for reading the proofs and for occasional suggestions as the book passed through the press. My other debts of gratitude are distributed rather equally over too many writers on ethics to make any specific acknowledgments for their share in the result.

JAMES H. HYSLOP.

Columbia College, December 4, 1894.

Contents

CHAPTEE I.

Introduction, » . 1

CHAPTEE II.

Chapter I. Inteoduction

I. DEFINITION. — 1st. The term " Ethics " is derived from the Greek word r/0o5 P which denotes "custom," "manners," " morals," and finds its equivalent in the Latin " mores,'.' from which the English " moral " is derived. The term r/603 again is a modified form of i'603, which denotes "habit," "usage," or the practice of social life. The difference between the two terms was probably very slight. However this may be they expressed everything that the body politic of Graeco-Roman life would denote by social obligation and practice. This was, then, originally the comprehensive content of investigation whenever this branch of philosophy was considered. In the process of time the term was somewhat narrowed, until it came to denote almost exclusively that branch of study which occupied itself with the nature, disposition and actions of the individual, and hence turned the interests of social life over to Politics.

2d. Logically, Ethics must be defined as both a science and an art. In so far as it is a name for the observation, classification and explanation of certain phenomena, it ' is a science ; in so far as it attempts to regulate and to influence human action by instruction, admonition or advice, it is an art. Hence we may define it as the science of the phenomena of human character and conduct, and the art of directing the human ivill toward the ideal order of life. This twofold nature of the subject is the basis of the division into theoretical and practical Ethics, and illustrates many of the complexities of the subject. Considered merely as a science, also, it treats of two distinct classes of phenomena, namely, those of the will and those of the world, in so far as they represent virtue and the good, or a desirable order of things and events affecting the welfare of man. The distinction between these will be considered in its place. For the present, and for the sake of brevity, we may consider it as embodied in the terms character and conduct, which may represent the mental condition on the one hand, and the external actions on the other, which make up the complex idea of morality. The phenomena of human character are the tastes, disposition, desires and aversions, affections, motives, and all mental conditions related to the fixed or changeable nature of the will. The phenomena of conduct are man's volitions and actions, comprehending all forms of behavior affecting his own and the welfare of others. Both together constitute the subject matter of Ethics, and they are always supplemented by a more or less direct reference to the nature and influence of the physical universe upon man as a moral agent. All such facts and forces have to be reckoned with in the regulation of conduct, and hence cannot escape the notice of Ethics.

3d. There are several current definitions of the subject which should receive a passing notice, and this for the large amount of light they help to throw upon the nature and comprehensiveness of Ethics. They are largely affected by the intellectual and social conditions under which they were first formed, or by the peculiar views of the philosophers who proposed them, as perhaps must always be the case. But they present an interesting analysis of the whole subject, so that we can regard each separate aspect of ethical problems as they were conceived at different times and by different persons. Some of these various definitions are substantially the following : " The science of right and wrong," " the science of duty," " the science of the good, or the summum bonum" " the science of man's moral nature," " the science of conduct," " the science of the conditions of morality," " the science of moral principles," " the science of social obligation," et cetera.

These various conceptions of the subject do not differ essentially from the definition we have adopted, unless it be in respect of scope and clearness. All of them include at least a part of the field covered by our own, but some are narrower, and some represent a different point of view. For instance, Ethics, as " the science of man's moral nature," is the conception common to English thought during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when the discussion of moral questions was almost wholly psychological, and when men were concerned with the problem whether a man's individual conscience was the product of his experience or % natural endowment. Ethics has a profound interest in this question, but it is not the whole nor the most important part of its field. Again, Ethics, as " the science of conduct," may not take sufficient account of the fact that a matter of important interest to students and practical men alike is the relation of motives and character to conduct. In reality we are quite as much concerned with all those elements in the man that make him an object of admiration, of praise, and of approval, as we are in his actions, and hence we cannot help thinking that Ethics is quite as much a study of character as it is of conduct. A similar limitation must be imposed upon the conception of Ethics as " the science of the summum bonum" which denotes the highest or the ultimate end of man's conduct. It is this undoubtedly, but it is also more at the same time. It is the science of all the conditions leading to this end, and in fact is much more concerned with the person seeking such an end than with the result obtained by any other agency. This is the , reason that we think of morality as representing, first, qualities of character and will, and, second, as the actions preserving and promoting social order. By supplementing the defects, therefore, of each traditional definition by the excellences of the other, we obtain a complete account of the complex subject with which we have to deal. Hence, we have chosen to represent it as occupied equally with persons and with things ; with persons as the agents in realizing an ideal order of social action, and with things and conduct as conditions and elements in such an order. For this reason we regard Ethics as the science of moral personality and of moral good, or end, one representing the subject's and the other the object's character.

II. CHARACTERISTICS OF ETHICS.— The formal definition of Ethics does not manifest all of its distinctive characteristics. It merely draws a general boundary line between Ethics and other sciences. But there are several features of it which still more clearly mark its nature and help us to understand its meaning.

1st. Ethics is a Science of Values. — It is, therefore, occupied with what we choose to call the good as contrasted with the merely true. Not that it can ignore, or leave unnoticed the field of truth, but that the mere truth about the general phenomena of nature and man is not its chief object. The truth with which it is mainly concerned is that about the good. The good is the object of desire, truth is the object of the intellect. In contrast with fine art also its object is this good as opposed to mere beauty. But it may take up both truth and beauty as goods, and in that way establish a close relation between itself and other forms of activity. It will not be interested in them, however, for their own sake, but as means to the development and perfection of man. And again it does not look at facts and events with their causes merely as such. It seeks to compare them and to distinguish their relative worth to man and his aims or his destiny. Hence Lotze delighted to say that its field was the world of worths as contrasted with the world of facts and laws of the physical sciences. It does not matter what form we give this world of values : it may be pleasure, happiness, welfare, perfection, obedience to the moral law for its own sake, love of God, or any other end. It nevertheless represents a function quite distinct from the so-called static and dynamic sciences. They take facts as they are and try to determine their laws and their causes. They consider them as effects to be explained by antecedent facts. They, do not care for their worth to mankind. But ethics must reduce them to a scale of values, and assuming that man is able to modify the forces of nature, must indicate

INTRODUCTION O

those particular facts and objects which have the greater value to man. Honesty, veracity, chastity, politeness, friendship, justice, and all the virtues represent the sense of value which we impose upon certain courses of conduct as compared with their opposites, and this without regard to the mode of explaining such phenomena. Hence, besides looking at facts as events in the world, Ethics looks at their worth with a view either to adjusting them in the future to man's development, or to his own adjustment to them. Ethics thus acts as a judge over the world's order rather than as a mere observer of it.

2d. Ethics is the Science of the Ideal as Contrasted with the Actual. — This characteristic or function is closely allied to the previous one. The sense of worth or value is a condition both of perceiving and realizing the ideal. By the ideal we mean a better state of being or existence than we feel has actually been realized. Thus, we think that a better condition of justice, a greater degree of equality, a higher development of civic virtue might exist than actually does exist. We may see about us a bad, or even the worst possible world where vice and sin reign supreme, and yet conceive and long for a purer and more perfect order. This is conceiving the ideal. Now we must first be able to realize the sense of value before we shall be conscious of an ideal. But in distinguishing values we may not go beyond the actual order of the world. We may only decide the scale of preference between events as they occur. But to idealize a world is to set up a possible state of existence, perhaps wholly in contrast with the present, which it is sought to realize by individual or social effort. The physical sciences do nothing of the kind. They explain facts, and do not form ideals or endeavor to move the will in the direction of them. The chief function of Ethics is to do this, to determine what is an ideal existence, and to promote its realization.

Another way of presenting the same distinction is that Ethics treats of what ought to be, not what is. This is only another statement for the idea that actual existence can never be made an object of duty unless it can be idealized. Then so far as events are not produced by our own wills we can be only spectators of them. We cannot say that they ought to be realized in any other sense than that they would be desirable. But so far as what is represents, only actual or past events, it is merely a subject for explanation, and we cannot say that it ought to be anything else : for to say that a thing ought to be implies, so far as it is ethical at all, that it is still to be realized. Hence when Ethics deals with what ought to be, it is conceiving an ideal event or world which it aims to realize by urging the obligation and the possibility of doing so. No other science does this. They content themselves within the limits of actual facts, and lay down no laws, while Ethics, starting with the world of facts goes on to assert the existence of ideal possibilities and to maintain the obligation to realize them. Hume remarked this distinction between the physical and the moral sciences, and it is one of great significance. It determines a difference both of method and of matter between them, giving the moral sciences a complexity of function which belongs to no other.

3d. Ethics is a Legislative or a Normative Science. — Not only does Ethics distinguish between values, and form ideals, but it imposes an obligation to respect them. This obligation is the sense of duty, or Kant's "catagorical imperative." This function of it follows directly upon the other two. There is no use to feel the worth of a certain order or to idealize it, if we cannot feel that it ought to be realized. The fact that there are certain ends, such as perfection, goodness, happiness, or honesty, temperance, purity, and the like, which we can and do feel we ought to aim at, attests the existence of a phenomenon of great importance to moral science. Under that conception we study what ought to be, and then lay down its pursuit as a binding law upon our natures. Just as Logic, therefore, prescribes rules for correct thinking, Ethics prescribes rules for correct conduct. It legislates for the will, while other sciences explain for the intellect. It is this characteristic of it which marks the transition to Ethics as an art, and which distinguishes its method and its object so radically from the natural sciences. In fact, the distinction once common between " natural " and " moral " science was partly founded upon this peculiar characteristic of Ethics. It means that, besides knowing how man does act, we require to indicate how he ought to act, and what end he ought to pursue. It, therefore, seeks to develop and to formulate either the respect for virtue or the constraint that serves to regulate the human will and to determine the choice of ends and actions most consistent with man's highest welfare. It is a normative science, therefore, because it endeavors to ascertain the norms, rules or maxims which formulate the right and w T rong modes of conduct, and which are the indispensable conditions to the rationality of actions as causes are indispensable to the rationality of events.

Ill RELATION OF ETHICS TO SPECIAL SCIENCES.— -It is essential to a complete definition of Ethics that we consider at least briefly its relations to certain special sciences. We have compared it with the natural sciences in general and distinguished it as a normative science, and thus contrasted its functions with those of the purely causal sciences. But it sustains a peculiar relation either of connection, resemblance, or contrast, to several special sciences — a relation which helps to define its meaning and content more clearly. These particular sciences are Psychology, Logic, iEsthetics, Politics and Metaphysics. Others might be included, but they are not so important for our present purposes, and hence may be omitted.

1st. Relation to Psychology. — Psychology and Ethics are closely related, but may also be sharply distinguished. Thus Psychology is the science of the phenomena of consciousness, and Ethics is also a science of a certain portion of those phenomena with their relation to, or issue in, conduct. But both the extent of the field and the object, as well as the method of the two sciences, are different. Psychology endeavors to show how any or all of our mental phenomena come to happen. It does not say whether they are true or right. It investigates only their laws and causes. Hence, its proper functions are observation, classification and explanation of mental events, including cognition, memory, association, reasoning, emotion, choice, volition, and subordinate phenomena. But Ethics does not investigate certain divisions of these at all, and does not investigate any of them in the same way, or with the same purpose as psychology ; it wholly excludes cognition, memory, association and reasoning from its domain, and even when it includes the phenomena of emotion and will in its sphere, it does so without any reference to explaining them, but with a view to estimating their value and relation to moral development. In brief, Psychology is explanatory, Ethics is legislative. Ethics undoubtedly is conditioned by Psychology — that is, it assumes the laws of mind and will utilize them for its own object, but it will not investigate or determine them, its chief function being to deal on the one hand with those ideals of the intellect which determine the difference between good and bad, right and wrong, and on the other with the problems of volition and obligation as determining whether a man can and ought to aim at the moral development of himself and others. It is thus very sharply distinguished from Psychology, while in a measure depending upon it and occupied in part with the same phenomena.

2d. Relation to Logic. — Logic is also occupied with mental phenomena, but with a more restricted field of them than Psychology, and with an object different alike from Psychology and Ethics. Logic is occupied only with the phenomena of thought and inference or reasoning. It thus excludes all direct concern with the primary faculties and phenomena of intelligence, and also those of emotion and volition. But even when it considers those of reasoning, it makes no attempt to explain them. It shows those which are valid, and those that are not valid. In other words, it is the science of the formal laws of thought, or the laws of correct thinking. Its function has thus a close connection with that of Ethics, only it is occupied with reasoning, while Ethics is occupied with volition or conduct. Logic deals with the ideals of the intellect, and so establishes the laws by which we do and must reason if we think correctly. Ethics deals with the ideals of the will, and so establishes the laws by which we do or ought to act, if we act rightly. Logic employs the understanding ; Ethics employs the conscience — one the logical, the other the moral reason. Furthermore, Logic seems to impose certain obligations, and in this respect resembles Ethics. But the obligations are not to obey the laws of thought, for we. must obey them whether we will or not. Its obligations or duties, however, are to see that, when we do think, the special contents of thought conform to those laws. The obligations of Ethics, on the other hand, assume that we can disobey conscience, that we are free to do or not to do, as we please. The laws of Logic are the necessary laws of reason ; those of Ethics are the moral laws of the will. In the former case the " laws " are statements of the uniformity of actual phenomena, in the latter the " laws " are injunctions to realize ideal phenomena. Both of them, however, discuss the laws of correct action — one the correct action of thought, the other of volition. Both determine what is valid, but Logic determines what is valid in reasoning, Ethics what is valid in conduct.

3d. Relation to Aesthetics. — The relation between Aesthetics and Ethics is also a close one. Aesthetics is the science of the laws of beauty, and defines the sphere of the fine arts. Its psychological field is the emotions, and these are the phenomena that connect the subject with Ethics. Aesthetics estimates values, but they are the values of art objects, of those objects which appeal to the sense of beauty. It is not a science of personal worth, or of conduct, not even of what is called moral beauty, which is an expression borrowed by analogy from art to indicate the satisfaction we feel in the presence of moral perfections. But its sole object is impersonal worth in terms of beauty as opposed to utility, which is rather the object of economics. Ethics, on the other hand, is occupied with personal worth as expressed in perfection of will and conduct. Virtue as opposed to both beauty and utility is its object. Both sciences, however, depend upon the same emotions and idealizing instincts, and are so closely connected in this respect that cultivation of the one affects results of the other, though one cannot be a substitute for iO ELEMENTS OF ETHICS

the other in its effects on the character. Aesthetics aid moralization, but is not its equivalent. Ethics purines art, but will not produce it.

4th. Relation to Politics. — The relation between Ethics and Politics is closer than in any other case. Both sciences have to deal with human action and institutions, and thus seem to be occupied with the same field. But the distinction between them is clear in spite of this fact. Ethics in its broadest sense comprehends Politics, because whatever Politics adopts must first be granted in the court of Ethics. But in its narrower sense it is co-ordinate with it. These facts make Ethics in its more comprehensive import co-extensive with Sociology ; in its restricted import a co-ordinate species with Politics. The definition 01 each will make the relation clear. Politics is generally defined as the science of government. This comprehends all the institutions and laws that are instrumental in the regulation of men's conduct toward each other. But for the sake of an effective comparison with Ethics it should be defined as the science of the regulation and restriction of human conduct by law. It thus seeks to determine how certain courses of action may be artificially induced or prevented. It aims by law to establish social order, or a condition of things which the unorganized wills of men would not spontaneously produce. It is, therefore, the science of the artificial limitations of human liberty in the protection of rights and the regulation of external conduct. On the other hand, Ethics is the science of what a man can and ought to do, whether government exists or not. It determines the justice and validity of all political principles, but it does not investigate the means of putting them into force. It is, therefore, concerned with the phenomena of free action, or the voluntary choice of the good. Hence, in contrast with Politics, it may be defined as the science of the extension of human liberty, or of those conditions under which morality is realized without a resort to civil law. For this reason it is strictly the science of the conditions under which morality becomes internal as well as external. Politics stops short with the attainment of external good, an order

INTRODUCTION in which free morality is possible, though it does not and cannot effect this morality. Ethics aims with this to attain internal good or virtue, and consequently is concerned with the " good will" as well as with good conduct externally considered. But it deals with morality only as it is a product of free will, while Politics subordinates freedom to the attainment of social order.

The general position of Ethics in relation to the sciences which pertain to man is apparent from the following tabular view which begins with Anthropology as the most comprehensive term for the knowledge of man. Sociology appears in it as the general science of all customs, habits, institutions and conduct affecting his development, in so far as they are moral and social products of the will :

Anthropology

Physiology Psychology

Aesthetics Sociology

Structural.

Functional.

Empirical.

Metaphysical, f Painting. ! Sculpture.

Music. [ Architecture, r History.

I Politics.

Economics.

Ethics.

Aesthetics also deals with products of the will, but the object is not immediately moral. Its subdivisions represent those products which appeal to taste or the sense of beauty, not to conscience as the actions or disposition with which Ethics deals. The distinction then between Aesthetics and Sociology, though both deal with products of will, is that the former concerns material products affecting the artistic part of our nature, and the latter all actions and institutions affecting human welfare social and moral. Economics also represents products of will, but these are the material products necessary to subsistance, or at least having an exchangeable value determined by the cost of production. Hence it is the science of wealth. It treats of utility values, as Aesthetics treats of the artistic, and Ethics of the moral values. The actions involved, however, like those of Politics, are subject to the jurisdiction and authority of Ethics, though in respect to object matter the several sciences can be classed as co-ordinate with each other.

5th. Relation to Metaphysics. — The connection between Ethiics and Metaphysics is not so close as between Ethics and Politics. The reason for this is that they are not co-ordinate sciences. Metaphysics is the science of the nature of reality as contrasted with the laws of phenomena. It thus, in a measure at least, conditions the complete results of all sciences, and so of Ethics among them. But these sciences simply assume the ultimate principles of Metaphysics without so much as defining, investigating or validating them. In Ethics we take for granted that there is some reality besides the mere phenomena whose laws and yalue we study, but we do not investigate its nature by ethical methods. But if the possibility of Ethics, as a science, of other than purely natural phenomena, or necessarily determined events, is raised, we must go to Metaphysics to decide the matter, and in this respect Ethics is closely dependent upon Methaphysics. But for the facts and for the value of moral phenomena, Ethics is wholly independent of metaphysical inquiry, and can go about determining the laws and duties of moral life, and the validity of moral principles, without first solving any of the metaphysical problems of reality. But when certain controversies are raised, such as the freedom of the will, the nature of consciousness, the relation of materialism to moral theories, the solution of them must be deferred to Metaphysics. This shows that the two sciences may insensibly run into each other, although for practical purposes they may be kept distinct.